“And Susan knew your brother and Everest. That’s the connection. All four of them knew each other,” Jake finished.
“But who was spying on me for Everest? If he’s behind all of this, then how did he know about my investigation, and that I was at Dauby’s crime scene? It couldn’t be Susan.” I shook my head. “There’s something missing. We’re missing something.” Tears popped, frustration boiling in my stomach. Why couldn’t I figure this out?
John leaned forward, his hand going to my shoulder. “Did you know there’s all kinds of bees?”
I tried to smile, to nod to him. “Yeah, John, there’s uhm…there’s honey bees and bumble bees and wood—”
Then it hit me, the thing in Susan’s picture that bugged me. I gasped and grabbed Jake’s hand.
“Oh no,” I gasped. “Michelle.”
Jake turned to me, his face a mask of worry. “What about Michelle?”
“She has a wood bee, a wood bee on her wrist.” I tried to wrangle my thoughts. “A wooden bee, Jake. It’s a bracelet. I saw it the other day.”
Jake rubbed his face with his hand. “I don’t understand, Riley.”
“Remember when I went to see Everest, to ask him about the symbol?”
“Yeah, you showed him Randy’s letter.”
“There was a girl, an assistant working for him and she had the same thing, a carved bee pendant on a chain. That girl, it must be Susan. She’s changed from her pictures, she’s more earthy…wears slouchy jeans and those t-shirts. She has a nose ring now and dyed black hair, but it’s her, I know it is.”
“And you saw Michelle with this same pendant?” Jake swerved around a huge puddle, the water spewing up and over the side of the car, mixing with the rain sloshing across the windshield.
“Yes, when…after you got hit in the head. Michelle came to my room, and I saw her wrist. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but now. But what’s she got to do with Everest? I’ve never seen him around her, have you?”
We splashed through a deep puddle, rattling in the squad car over the ruined road.
“Hold on,” Jake said and looked at John through the rearview mirror. “You said the mountain man was after Riley? That you came to the station to warn her. Does that mean that Everest is here, in La Foudre?”
“Right outside the station.” John said. “The gun in his hand was black, black like the tree that broke the jail.”
Jake yanked the car off the road. We fishtailed and careened over the grass and broken branches. We came to rest to the side of Mr. Sudsy.
“Everest is here? And he has a gun?”
John nodded. “He meets with the girls, the bee and the lightning bug, at the gas station. They give him information.”
Jake started in his seat, his face going pale. “The girl, the lightning bug…is that—”
“Michelle? She’s been meeting with Everest?”
John nodded agitated. “In my space, they stand in my space!”
“I don’t understand.”
“I do,” Jake said and started up the engine, his jaw set. “John lives behind the gas station near the dumpsters. He must have seen Michelle and Susan meet with Everest.”
John started laughing, his cackles ending in a coughing fit. “He’ll go and get her…he’ll go and get the lightning bug.”
I stared at John, horrified. “How do you know?”
John tapped his head. “It’s what I would do. It’s a good way…”
“What?” I looked at him with wide eyes. “Why?”
“To stop Jake.”
We pulled back out to the road, and headed east towards the other end of town. The wind was choppier as we drove into it. It rocked us until I thought I might vomit.
“Do you think Everest will do that? You think he’ll go after Michelle?”
Jake nodded, his face a mask of anger, and grabbed the radio from his dash. “Dan, where are you?”
“Do you think he’s closer than us?”
Jake nodded. “The gas station’s only a few minutes from Citrine’s.”
“Dan, come in!” Jake shouted.
A crackled response sent Jake’s teeth grinding. “Dan, if you can hear me, get to Citrine’s. Get there, now.”
30
Jake
Jake tore down the road towards the Lightning Bug, his pulse racing as he pushed the car beyond its limits. Engine whining, he wrestled out of a skid.
Riley sat with eyes wide, her expression frightened. Thunder roared over them, lightning ahead, on the bayou, lit up the sky with white hot streamers that seemed to slam down every few seconds.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” she breathed through her chattering teeth. “I – I should have seen this—”
“No one saw this, Riley,” he cut across her.
A thousand thoughts clanged in his head.
Citrine complaining about Michelle, the sneaking out, the change in her appearance. He gritted his teeth, railing against himself. Michelle had been in trouble and no one noticed.
“Look, it’s Dan’s cruiser,” Riley called and pointed out the window.
The parked cruiser sat at an odd angle to the house, the lights going, door ajar.
Jake scanned the front of the house, no other cars. Maybe…
“Oh no…” Riley’s choked sobs pulled his gaze to the bank of the bayou, to where the canopy boat bobbed in the water.
Dan and Citrine wrestled on the grass.
Susan Lockhart stood over them, hands to her face sobbing.
The rain poured down on them, flying sideways.
Jake skid to a stop and flew out the door, hand going to his gun as he ran up to them.
“Let me go,” Citrine screamed, and coughed rain water as she lay on the ground. “He has my baby.”
Dan leaned over Citrine, his hand over her shoulder, blood oozing from between his fingers. It diluted in the rain and ran down the side of Citrine’s neck.
He looked up when Jake ran over, his face still white with fear, but registering relief. “Jake, he took her. He took Michelle.”
“What happened?” Jake tried to sort out the scene. “How does he even know about this place?”
“I told him about it.” Susan spoke up, her lips blue with cold, the wind whipping her hair across her face, catching it against the stud in her nose. “I – It’s my fault.”
“She’s been picking up Michelle,” Citrine coughed and reached for Susan.
The girl backed up, her face a mask of sorrow.
“She’s supposed to be a tutor.”
“What were you doing with Michelle?” Jake demanded.
“She was into volunteering, and then Everest found out that she lived here. That she could tell him about Riley…” Susan’s eyes squeezed shut. “I didn’t know he would do this—”
“He had a gun. He had a gun and just started firing,” Citrine cut across her and reached out to Jake with both hands, her face a mask of terror. “He said he’s going to kill her. He’s going to give her to the swamp.”
Jake bent down, scooped up Citrine, carried her through to the living room, and deposited her on the couch. The door slammed open behind them.
Riley ran to push it shut, her face strained as she fought the wind.
“Help her,” he shouted at Susan, who rushed over to the door.
They got it shut and gathered around his back.
On the couch, Citrine shook, shivering so badly her entire body wracked with the convulsion of her shock.
Jake scanned the room; saw the bullet holes in the mantel, the broken mirror.
“He had a gun,” Jake repeated. He shook his head, mind spinning. The guy opened fire in the living room.
Citrine spoke through her tears. “Through the door, he ran in and fired at Dan.”
Jake’s eyes went to Dan, to the wound on his leg. A jagged tear in his uniform leg grew more crimson by the second. “You OK?”
Dan nodded, his hand going to his leg. He held his gun in his other hand. �
��Didn’t have time to draw on him.” He winced as Riley helped him to a chair. “Sorry, Jake.”
“What is this guy doing? Did he go crazy?” He looked at Susan, who took a step back.
“He’s been doing peyote, mixing it with street drugs,” Susan cried. “It started as a remedy, for a fever he got in Honduras, but it got out of control. He has fits of rage, paranoia…he can’t hold it together anymore. Not since Randy…”
Her eyes went to Riley’s still form.
“He killed Randy?” Riley asked. “Everest killed my brother?”
“He killed Dauby too, I’m…” she reached for Jake and he backed away. “I’m sorry I hit you with the pipe. I was just doing what he told me to do, to get revenge on Grossman Chemicals. To make them pay for killing my dad.” Susan looked from Riley to Jake, her expression pleading. “It was just supposed to be a fire. To show the safety equipment was not working. We didn’t know about the magnesium. We didn’t know it would explode—” Her desperate sobs cut off the rest.
“Randy tried to help you,” Jake said suddenly understanding. “That’s how you know him.”
Riley stared, her face full of sorrow. “It’s the kind of thing he would do, try to right a wrong.” She went to the kitchen and returned with towels.
“But Everest,” Susan sobbed. “He lost it after the explosion…he’s crazy. He thinks nature talks to him and sent this hurricane to help him.”
“This murderer,” Citrine cried. “He has Michelle now, Jacob. He said he’ll trade her…” Citrine’s gaze shifted to Riley. “For Riley.”
“What?” Jake couldn’t believe this was happening. His looked at Riley, her face pale with fright, and shook his head. “No. There has to be another way.”
“Please, Jake, do something,” Citrine wailed.
Riley moved to Citrine and pressed a towel to her wound. She handed Dan another towel for his leg.
He turned to Susan. “Where’s he going? Do you know?”
She nodded, her lip trembling or shivering, he couldn’t tell which. “He has a shack. A place in the swamp where we met once before…before the plant explosion.”
Jake stood up and grabbed her by the arm. “Show me.”
“Please don’t make me go…” She struggled out of his grip, her face white with fright. “I can tell you…It’s that one with the red canoe floating out front. The shack with the crooked roof and blue shingles.”
Citrine coughed, her wound spewing more blood, and Riley shook her head, frustration on her face. “She needs a hospital, Jake.”
“There’s no way of catching him, Jake. He took off in an airboat.” Dan said through a grimace.
Riley looked up at him, her eyes full of anger. “Where would he get an airboat?”
Susan squeaked from behind him. “I – I brought an airboat. I tried to stop him, to warn Michelle, but he got here at the same time—”
A shudder tore over the house, rumbling crashes that shook the windows in their shutters and toppled the books from the shelves.
Jake looked out the window. A white table and chairs tumbled past. The lawn furniture from the garden. Erin was almost on them, tearing up the bayou on her way.
Citrine tried to pull herself up, her coughs bringing blood to her lips. “Please, Jacob. Don’t leave my baby out there with him.”
“There’s no way.” Dan shook his head. “They might already be—”
“No,” Citrine cut him off. “No, she’s not gone, she can’t be.”
Jake ran to the door, his hand closing around the handle.
Riley was at his side, her hand already gripped around his belt.
“Don’t waste your time trying to talk me into staying,” she said and her face took his breath away.
“Nobody stronger than Riley Drake,” he muttered and turned the knob.
31
Jake flung open the door and we ran hunched over towards the canopy boat moored to the jutting pylon. The wind pelted us with rain and dirt and debris from its rampage through the woods. Wet earth and decaying vegetation filled my nostrils.
I jumped onto the bobbing deck of the boat in front of Jake, my mind reeling at Susan’s words. Everest was behind the plant explosion and Dauby’s death? Shock and betrayal bubbled and sank, filling me with too much to take in at one time. I’d gone to Everest for help and he’d been sabotaging me the whole time.
I gripped the arms of the plastic chair that served as the boat’s passenger seat.
Jake started the boat.
The rain and wind and waves rocked us like we were on a rodeo bull’s back. I couldn’t wrap my brain around how we would survive the storm on this flimsy craft. I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing down the panic.
I know that You put this on my heart, Lord, this search for the truth, but I’m afraid. I don’t want to die in the dark…please protect Michelle, please go before us, help us find her. I need You…I need You to help us, Father.
Jake pulled us away from the bank of the grass, veered in an arc towards dense trees, deeper into the bayou. The pain and worry on his face broke my heart, and I reached out to him.
“I can’t lose someone else, Riley,” he said over the waves and wind. Shaking his head he looked over at me, his eyes desperate and angry at once. “Not Michelle.”
“We’ll get her back.” I hoped my voice sounded surer than I felt.
We barreled further into the swamp, the overhanging trees serving as a natural wind and rain break. I felt I could breathe despite the continued jolting of the boat. But it was dark, so dark, and I could feel the wind tunneling behind us, whooshing across the water and shaking the plants. Danger shrouded in darkness, ripping at our tiny craft.
Jake pulled me to my feet; spoke to me with urgent tones. “I need to keep the lights off, Riley. Surprise him.”
I gripped his strong shoulders with my hands, nodding bravely while whimpering inside at the thought of chasing after a madman in the shadowy black.
Strength, Father, I need Your strength, right now. Keep me from collapsing into a frightened mess.
We rounded a turn, snaking into a narrow waterway past Dauby’s burnt-out house, past anything I’d seen before. Shivering against the icy fingers that bore their way down my shirt collar and into my hair, I clutched onto Jake as he steered us around mangled trees flashing in the lightning. Thunder roared overhead, the force of it joining with the wind and rattling me to the bone.
“There!” Jake pointed and I followed his gaze to an airboat toppled on its side against the grassy bank.
With no building in sight, I shook my head, not understanding why Everest would stop there. Jake pushed me down into the plastic chair and stood in front of me, pulling his weapon from the holster at his belt. Slowly we approached the airboat, and I held my breath, squinting to see in what little light the storm clouds and trees let through.
Lit up in the lightning’s strobe-like flashes, I saw the whirling blades of the airboat engine. All around us flapping tall grass and broken gnarled branches clawed down from the trees. They snagged on our coats and hair, sending a shudder ripping up my spine.
Jake moved forward, sighting across his barrel as he dismounted the boat. My hand in his back pocket, I crept behind him. A far off screech made us freeze. The wail, so like a bird’s anguished cry, mixed with the howl of the wind skating across our faces. I shook my head. No way to tell if it was Michelle. No way to tell where it came from.
I took a step off the boat, my foot sinking to my knee in the dark muck. I gasped, struggled to pull it out and sank further. Jake turned back, pointed to the clumps of grass under his feet.
“Stay on these,” he mouthed.
I nodded, hopped with my free foot from the boat to a wad of knotted grass, and pulled my other leg free.
Pointing down the bayou towards a form slumped back in the trees I saw the outline of a small shack. The dirt and rain flew into my eyes, and I hunkered down, climbing through the muck and water behind Jake. I shivered uncontrol
lably from cold and fear.
Another sound, high pitched and pain-filled, a scream for sure, roared past us.
Jake’s movements turned urgent, pressing us forward at an angle to the tree line.
We chewed up the distance with aching slowness, our path blocked by downed trees and the wind buffeting at our bodies, trying to pummel us down into the sludge as we struggled to make our way through.
Closer now, the building’s form took on a more angular shape. The sunken roof lit up in a streak of white across the tree tops. The ozone smell, thick and electric, sizzled across my face, the strikes of lightning close. I trembled with fright of man and of nature, vulnerable to both in the cloying darkness.
I saw the red canoe as it floated and swirled in a slow circle past us. Turned on its side, it partially sank into the churning water as it drifted past. Inside, I saw a shoe, a black and white sneaker. I yanked frantically on Jake’s shirt, felt him turn, and pointed.
“Michelle’s shoe.”
Dangling in the water next to it, snagged on one of the inside slats, was the puffy green vest that Everest had on the day I met him.
“Michelle,” Jake cried and lunged in the direction of the shore, but the water, now more than fifteen feet away from us, sucked the small boat faster and faster.
We couldn’t move. We couldn’t make it to the boat in time. I searched the water back upstream, looking for her in the surging waves. Where were they? Did they go under that fast? Did an animal get them?
“Maybe they got to shore. Maybe she didn’t go in the water,” I tried, but Jake fell to his knees, his hands buried up to the wrists in the mud.
“She can’t survive out there,” Jake yelled, his eyes scanning the water’s surface with bleary-eyed terror. “You can’t swim in that.”
Overhead, the wind pushed over us like a beast barreling at us at full speed, the force of it picking up, the howl thunderous in my ears. Something ticked at my frazzled mind. Why leave the airboat for the canoe? Why do that? It was on its side, had they crashed?
“Jake,” I yelled and pulled at his shirt. “Jake, we have to get inside.”
Suddenly, the storm changed, ramped up somehow, the rain slicing at us sideways in ragged sheets.
Bayou Blue Page 26
