by Sam Cheever
The water shone under the silvery light of the moon, its usual muddy brown color obscured by darkness. It seemed harmless and beautiful, until a long, dark shape shot away from the opposite shore and something screamed.
I shivered, turning to put some distance between me and the water. A deep voice cut the following silence. Carter, calling to his dog.
I briefly wondered what Fortune would do if Carter brought the dog inside. Sighing, I knew I needed to return to my partners in crime. There might be more to the extraction than we’d anticipated.
I’d only gone a few steps, though, before I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and jerked to a startled halt.
Clack, clack, clack.
The world suddenly disappeared behind a tall, dark silk suit. I looked up and up into the stone-like expression and glittering gaze of our unwanted bodyguard.
Unfortunately, something about Mannie’s unyielding stance told me he was thinking about giving up on guarding our bodies, and joining the other side in extinguishing them.
“Um…hey, Mannie.” My hand creeped around my hip, heading for the whip sticking up from my pocket.
He continued to glare at me for a moment, his hand inside his suit coat, no doubt resting on his gun. Then he jerked his head toward Carter’s house through the trees. “What are the three Musketeers up to?”
My fingers tightened around the whip but I was loathe to pull it out. I didn’t think it would give me much of an advantage over the gun Mannie was caressing. I shrugged, my gaze sliding around the heavily wooded spot looking for a way out. “They…um…Gertie and Ida Belle are just helping Fortune with something. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
The sleeve of his dark silk suit tightened as, presumably, the muscles under it bunched. I skimmed my gaze toward the bulge under his coat, expecting him to pull the gun and shoot me ’tween the eyes with it at any moment. “You ditched me,” he growled.
I opened my mouth to respond but the hard glimmer in his eyes stopped me. In that moment I realized his honor had been assaulted by our ditchery. My next words had to be very carefully chosen or I was going to become a lump of girl-shaped Swiss cheese. “I know. I’m sorry about that. But that house back there belongs to Deputy LeBlanc. We didn’t think you’d want to be involved. We were keeping you safe.”
He blinked at me, his glare in a holding pattern while he considered just how full of horsepucky I was.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get a chance to decide. A crash sounded behind him, followed by a squeal and a gruff shout.
A low, dark shape chuffed toward us through the dark, the sound of Tiny’s breath an ominous warning in the night.
I made a small noise and started to turn, intending to run. But Mannie heard the charging canine and turned, his hand coming out of his suit. He was holding his gun and I suddenly realized he was gonna shoot the dog. In that moment I realized, though it probably meant I was going to be torn limb from limb, I couldn’t let Mannie shoot the dog.
In a panic, I shouted, “No!” and flung myself on Mannie’s back. It was like hitting a brick wall. He barely shifted under my weight and, when I hit the slick surface of his suit I slid downward, crashing painfully into the arch of a cypress tree root.
Mannie gave a shout and his arm went up, the gun ejaculating its bullet harmlessly into the sky. Bits of Spanish Moss rained down on us as Mannie toppled backward, a massive canine on his chest.
Mannie’s gun bounced past me and landed several feet away, beneath a drape of moss.
My legs were trapped under the huge thug and pain radiated through my ribs as the root dug into me. But the low rumble of Tiny’s growl had us both stilling.
Footsteps pounded toward us. “Tiny!” Carter’s voice was suddenly mere feet away. When Carter pushed through the moss and found us, he skidded to a stop. Behind him, Fortune couldn’t rein in her full-out sprint fast enough and she slammed into his back, nearly taking him down.
Her eyes widened when she spotted the tangled trio on the ground.
Carter looked at Mannie and then at me. “What are you two doing back here? Who fired the shot?”
My eyes went wide and I swallowed, unsure weather I should point a shaky finger at the thug draped over my legs, or if that would cause more trouble than it would save me. But I didn’t want to go to jail just to avoid pinning Mannie with the discharge of his probably illegal firearm behind a Sheriff’s Deputy’s house.
Fortunately I didn’t have to decide.
A water buffalo with bad lungs huffed toward us through the woods. At least that’s what it sounded like. Turned out it was Gertie, emerging into sight with Ida Belle right behind her. She shoved a drape of moss away from her face and looked down at me. “There you are, Felicity. We’ve been looking all over for you. Did you get lost?”
Carter turned his frown on the two older women. “What’s going on here?”
Ida Belle took over as Gertie bent double, hands on knees, panting loudly. “We were taking a walk and Felicity stopped to tie her shoe. When we turned around she was gone. She must have taken a wrong turn.”
Carter’s jaw tightened. “You expect me to believe you three were taking a leisurely stroll through the woods along the bayou behind my house in the dark?”
Ida Belle shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t really matter if you believe it. It is the truth.”
Behind Carter, Fortune grinned, her hand covering her lips as she shoved her smile back. “Um, Carter, don’t you think you should get hold of the dog. We don’t want him to hurt anybody.”
Carter eyed Mannie. “I’m not sure about that. What about you? What are you doing here? Where’s your firearm?”
Mannie’s eyes looked like golf balls. There was so much white showing in them as he stared down about a thousand shiny white canine teeth that they all but glowed in the dark. “I’ll tell you anything you want. Just get this thing off me.”
Carter reached down and grasped the dog’s collar, snapping the leash I hadn’t noticed he was carrying onto it. “Down, boy.” He pulled the big Rottweiler back and then stepped forward, placing a foot on Mannie’s arm. “Where’s the gun?”
Mannie jerked his head toward the spot where I’d seen the gun disappear. “Over there.”
“Fortune, will you collect the gun for me, please?”
“Sure.”
She widened her eyes at me as she walked past. A minute later she came up with it draped over her finger by the trigger guard.
Carter eyed her and the professional way she held it and she shrugged. “I once read a book on preserving fingerprints at a crime scene.”
“Mm-hm.” Carter took the gun and pointed it at Mannie. “Stand up slowly.”
I groaned with relief when Mannie’s weight left my legs. Gertie hurried over and helped me stand. “You okay?”
I felt the large tender spot over my ribs and nodded. “I’m gonna have a bruise the size of my head but I’m fine.”
Carter quickly patted Mannie down and came up with a small revolver that he’d had strapped to his leg. “This is a lot of firepower for a walk along the bayou. Why were you skulking around behind my house?”
Mannie clamped his lips shut, glaring at Fortune.
She stared back, saying nothing.
I almost felt bad for the big guy, but then again, we’d left him safe and sound in Gertie’s house. It had been his idea to come looking for us.
Carter reached back and felt his pocket as if looking for his cuffs and then frowned, obviously remembering he’d been on a date.
Unfortunately he hadn’t needed cuffs on his date with Fortune.
I grinned as I caught her looking at me and she shared my smile, apparently sharing my train of thought.
“Here.” Gertie shoved her hand into her purse and dug around for a minute, coming out with a pair of handcuffs.
Carter didn’t even ask her why she had handcuffs in her purse, he just shook his head and clapped them over Mannie’s wrists. He j
erked the gun toward his house. “Let’s go. And don’t try anything funny. If you try to run I’m letting go of this leash. “
“I’ll catch a ride home with them,” Fortune said, glancing toward us.
Carter slid her a look filled with regret and nodded, his sexy mouth tightening. “See you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was clutched in the comforting arms of Morpheus when the geriatric 007s stormed my room and invaded a truly spectacular dream having to do with the intrepid Cal Amity and a large tub of Cool Whip. There may or may not have been strawberries. I would never know because Gertie jerked the curtains open and Ida Belle breathed on my face until I cranked my eyes open.
It was an ugly business…getting my eyes open…I think somebody might have glued them shut while I was sleeping and they cranked upward on a slant, my eyeballs trying to retreat from the early morning Louisiana sunshine.
“Are you awake?” Ida Belle asked.
I groaned in response.
Gertie’s wrinkled face suddenly appeared next to Ida Belle’s. Looking up at them, I thought I was looking at a pair of deflated soccer balls with poodle hair. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon,” Gertie assured me.
“Five AM,” Ida Belle clarified. She threw the covers back and slapped me on the thigh. “Get up. Fortune’s on her way down the Bayou with the airboat now.”
“Are you kidding me?” My jaw cracked on a massive yawn. “It’s the middle of the flippin’ night.” I tried to tug my covers back up and roll over but the glass of water from the nightstand suddenly appeared above my head. I cracked an eyelid at Gertie, who stared down at me with lifted brows.
“Don’t make me do it, Felicity.”
I sat up, sighing in resignation. “Why are we getting up so early?”
“You wanted to visit Number Two right?”
When I nodded, Ida Belle went on. “Then we need to go early, before the heat increases the stench even more than it already stinks and before Carter gets out and about. The last thing we want after last night’s debacle is for him to see us snooping around on Number Two.”
Since her reasoning made a horrible kind of sense, I forced my weary legs over the side of the bed and straightened, groaning as my mid-section screamed at me.
Gertie’s hand appeared in front of my face with two white pills in it. The hand still holding my water glass appeared next to it. “See you downstairs in five.”
I took the aspirin and water from her and downed them. Then quickly took care of business and pulled on shorts and a tank top.
I was trudging down the stairs toward the scent of coffee when a brighter thought hit me. I was going to get to ride in an airboat.
That, at least, put a smile on my face.
A half hour later, the corners of my smile were tapping against my ears as a stinging Bayou wind ripped my cheeks backward on my face. With bugs and god knew what else constantly smacking me in the face, I didn’t want to smile anymore, but I didn’t seem to have control over my cheek flesh.
Ida Belle was driving the airboat. I was pretty sure she’d broken the sound barrier and the bottom of the boat no longer touched water. I was sitting on the bottom of the boat with Gertie, the two of us wrapped around each other like lovers in the closing scene of an end of the world movie. She wasn’t very big but I was glad for her added weight anyway. I was fairly certain that, without her weighing me down, I would have already been sucked out of the boat, sailing all the way back to Sinful.
The way she was holding onto me I assumed she was thinking the same thing.
The roar of the wind suddenly lessoned and my cheeks crashed back onto my face with a moist slapping sound. The boat slammed back down onto the water. Gertie blinked and loosened her hold around my middle, which made the bruise over my ribs very happy. I scrubbed at my eyes, thinking I might have enough sand in them to start my own sandbox in the park. “Well. That was fun.”
Gertie groaned a response that I took for agreement.
I glanced back at Ida Belle and Fortune. Ida Belle wore a pair of goggles and a long scarf around her neck that had been over the lower part of her face when we left Gertie’s. It was currently hanging limply down her front, the edges splayed like they’d been spray starched. With her curly locks standing up around her face, she looked like Snoopy the Red Baron’s poodle cousin.
Fortune sat behind Ida Belle, her white-blonde locks resembling the spokes on the enormous fan behind her. She sat rigid, her face covered in a white frost of saltwater. As I watched, she slowly loosened her grip on the chair arms, her fingers all but creaking as she gradually straightened them.
“Why did we stop?” Not that I was complaining, but I didn’t smell turd yet so I didn’t think we were close to Number Two.
Ida Belle jerked her chin toward the front of the boat. “We’ve got company.”
I shoved to my feet and looked over the bow. A sleek black boat danced on the rippling water at the mouth of the lake, a quarter mile ahead of us. Its bow was facing our way and, standing at the front, holding a pair of binoculars in front of his eyes, was one of the guys we’d seen at Hebert Swamp City Airboats. His slicked back white hair glowed like silver under the sizzling Louisiana sun. “Crap,” I muttered.
Gertie straightened beside me, squinting toward the other boat. “Is that Number Two?”
I glanced at Ida Belle and she was shaking her head. “I swear I’m gonna drug you and drag you to the eye doctor myself.”
Gertie gave her friend a disgusted look. “I can see just fine. The sun’s just in my eyes.”
Four heads swiveled to the large, yellow ball hanging in the sky behind Gertie. Fortune grinned. “I think we’ve found the problem. Gertie’s eyes appear to be on the back of her head.”
I snorted out a laugh, earning myself a glare from my ballast partner.
A distant rumble had us jerking back to the problem at hand. The sleek black boat was moving forward, tearing toward us across the muddy expanse of water, spitting tan-colored water out behind it.
“Ida Belle!” Fortune warned.
Ida Belle threw the fantail of her scarf over her shoulder. “On it. You two better sit down.”
The airboat lurched forward, flinging Gertie and me to the bottom of the boat before we had time to bend our legs and sit. I grappled for something I could find to hold onto as my cheeks once again tried to grasp my hairline. The boat took to the air as Ida Belle headed straight for the other boat. It appeared we were engaged in another terrifying game of International chicken. I wrapped my arms around the base of Ida Belle’s seat and closed my eyes, wondering whether a prayer was in order. Something scrabbled against my leg and my eyes snapped open. I looked down to find Gertie trying to crawl her way over to me. Her white hair streamed straight back from her face and she looked like the victim of a facelift gone terribly wrong. Her eyes were slits in the air-flattened wings that had once been her cheeks.
I forced my fingers open and tried to reach for her. The wind smacked my hand back and into my own chin, snapping my head up. Claws dug into my calf and I yelped. I reached for Gertie’s hand, which was digging into my flesh in a desperate grip.
A large, black shape slashed past, dousing us in spray.
The boat zigged sideways and Gertie flew out of my range, sliding toward the edge with wide eyes. Reacting on instinct, I released the seat frame and lunged for her. I got two handfuls of flowered cotton but Gertie kept going. Her feet slapped against the muddy water as her arms threatened to come right out of her shirt.
The boat zagged the other way and Gertie flew toward me, landing in a pile of soggy cotton.
My ribs screamed in pain as she hit me, but I wrapped my arms around my ballast partner and held on, praying the boat race would end soon.
Something pinged off the bow of the boat, mere inches from Gertie and me. I barely registered the reality that somebody was firing at us before two more bullets whizzed past. Water geysered up around us as the
bullets went wide and long.
“Hang on!” Ida Belle yelled. She shoved the throttle forward and the boat leapt into the air, slamming back down on the water a quarter mile away and surging forward at an even faster rate of speed than before. Grunting with the effort, I bent in the middle and jammed my feet through the seat frame, holding on as well as I could while still clutching Gertie.
We sailed down the Bayou for a few moments without being accosted and then, just as the air turned putrid, Ida Belle eased it down.
“Where’d they go?”
My ears roared from the assault of motor and wind, Fortune’s voice coming to me from the end of a long tunnel.
“Another boat. It might be Carter.”
Gertie started trying to extricate herself from me so I let her go. “If Carter’s on the Bayou, we need to get to the island and hide the boat before he sees us,” she told Ida Belle.
“On it.”
###
My memory of Number Two’s stench was faulty. I must have purged it from my memory banks in self-defense because it was much worse than I’d remembered. Clapping a hand over my nose, I breathed through my mouth as we covered the boat in moss and climbed out onto the shore.
“How do you think those guys found us?” I asked my companions.
Gertie shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they heard Bubba lived on the island and were just checking it out themselves.”
I thought about that possibility for a minute. It made a certain twisted kind of sense. “Somebody must have told them then.”
Ida Belle and Fortune shared a look. “That did look like one of Walter’s rental boats,” Ida Belle admitted.
Fortune nodded. “We’ll talk to Walter when we get back. Maybe he knows where they’re staying and what they’re up to.”
“You mean aside from trying to kill us?” Gertie grumbled.
