Bill had just recently begun to leave his airboats at The Mansion. Bill and Harry had worked out a deal where Harry got a spiff from the bayou tours Bill ran out of the resort. Business was booming for Bayou Bill's Airboat Tours, and from what I'd heard over seventy-five percent of his business came from Mystic Isle—I guessed it was easier for him to leave the boats here and just load 'em up right on the bank.
Their agreement was coming in handy for me just then.
I broke into a run in the direction of the airboats, which carried me across the bank and away from Mr. Hollywood.
He broke into a run at the same time. But our paths wouldn't intersect. I was moving too fast and was closer to the boats, and I got there way before he did.
I slowed down to flip the battery switch then circled around and climbed up onto the pilot's seat. The key was under the seat cushion just where old Bill left it.
I turned on the engine, revved it, and pushed the rudder stick. The boat began to glide toward the water then splashed in.
I put my foot down on the throttle, picking up speed. Granddaddy Joe had taught me to run an airboat back when I was nine years old. He'd take me out to Pontchartrain just north of NOLA where his friend Toby ran an airboat tour company. Joe and Toby and I would take one of the airboats out to the swamps and fish.
It didn't figure that a Hollywood director would have the chops to hijack an airboat and chase me out on the pond.
I revved up to only about ten or so miles per hour, in no big hurry. My plan was to just cruise around out on the pond until help came. I had called for help, after all. Eventually someone was bound to come.
Or maybe not.
When I backed off the throttle, the sound of a second high-revving motor made me put my foot back down and veer out into more open water.
It was Roger of course. Why didn't he just give up and go on the lamb like other respectable criminals? What was I going to have to do to get rid of him? Feed him to the gators?
The channel from Mystic Isle Pond that led onto the lake was about a mile and a half long. The park service kept it clear and navigable, but at night only a crazy person would throttle it up all the way. The shallow draft on these boats might have been great in a few inches of water and in some cases even on land, but if you couldn't see where you were going, there were a lot of ways one of these could get stuck.
Taking it easy was the smart thing, even if there was a crazy man coming from behind at double my speed.
How Roger managed to get the airboat started and out in the water, I couldn't even begin to guess. Because the way the thing was zigzagging and fishtailing all over the place, he couldn't even keep the rudder steady. He'd veer one way, over correct, get the thing up on one side, somehow manage to get it back flat on the water again. Then he'd swing it just as far the opposite direction. He was making rooster tails.
It was like something you'd see on TV. But any minute I expected him to do one of two things, run smack into a mangrove tree or flip the boat. Either way, he'd be off my back.
Since Roger had decided to come after me, my plan just to circle around out on the pond had obviously changed. Now my thoughts were to lead him along the channel to the lake where I could ditch him and make my way back to Mystic Isle Pond.
But Roger "Mr. Hollywood" Goodwin hadn't read the script. He opened the airboat up all the way, which meant I had to do the same or get run over.
I pushed my foot down a bit more until the drone of the motor and propeller sounded like a million angry wasps. We must have been doing upwards of thirty or thirty-five miles per hour then. The moon on the water blurred to a streak of ghostly white. The slight chill in the air turned cold against my face. The flume of spray from beneath my vessel kicked up.
I kept looking behind me to see what Goodwin was doing. By the looks of the spray, he was actually going much faster than I was, but he was so out of control, the gap between us hadn't closed.
I cleared the channel. The roar of my engine and propeller beating the air scattered hundreds of birds from the trees into the night sky.
And then I was on the lake, the open water before me. The urge to smash my foot all the way down and get the hell away from that crazy man was strong. But at high speed if I missed seeing a tree branch sticking out of the inky water, it would be a disaster. I did pick up speed, but only a little.
Roger Goodwin went pedal to the metal. His airboat burst out of the channel onto the lake at an alarming speed. He was getting the hang of the rudder stick and had quit zigzagging. I was suddenly worried that if he got too good too fast at steering the boat, I might not be able to lose him.
In the moonlight I could see him coming toward me, closing the distance between us now that he had control over the boat. He must have had it floored. I could even hear its roar over the sound of mine.
If I could get back up the channel even a couple of minutes before Roger, I could ditch the airboat on shore and run for help at The Mansion. Another if was that if the bellman who'd answered my call for help had any brains at all, maybe people were out looking for me already.
I swung around in a wide circle to head back up the channel.
Roger didn't like my move. He countered with a wide turn to come straight at me across the water.
Fast.
If he T-boned me, I'd get the worst end of the deal. Even if I opened the boat up all the way, he'd still hit me.
The white spray of water behind him translated to a tsunami in my frightened brain. He was moving so fast I'd begun to bounce a little. A collision at that speed and the boat would splinter around me. I'd be hurt bad, maybe even killed—we both might be.
Fear fluttered inside me on nervous butterfly wings, sending adrenaline through my system, and I reacted instinctively—or maybe not instinctively because I heard Granddaddy's voice. "Say, Mellie gal, you remember how we used to go night fishing?"
I found myself nodding and saying out loud. "Light up the night."
"Oh yeah. Light up the night." Granddaddy sang it in my head.
I reached to flip on the high beam fog lights and fought the urge to go faster. Instead I eased my foot off the throttle, and the boat slowed, sending a blaze of light out over the water directly at the other boat.
I could see Roger like it was daylight. He threw up one arm in front of his face, blinded.
Then, like it was happening in slo-mo, Roger yanked the rudder stick—hard. His boat jerked and careened away from its bullet path, tipping onto one side. It went airborne and sort of hung there for a few beats. Roger was launched over the water, arms outspread, legs kicking just as the boat flipped completely over.
He crashed down into the water thirty or so feet from the disabled boat.
I lifted my foot even more, and the boat quieted enough that I could hear Roger yelling. My light beams found him thrashing around in the water.
"Help. Help me."
Yeah, I thought, right.
I circled the boat slowly around him, not sure pulling him out of the drink would be such a good idea.
His head went under, and the sound of his gurgling cries told me he was swallowing lake water, but he came back up.
My intention was to just circle and keep an eye on him until someone else came to help me get him out of the water.
But then I notice a big ol' gator slide from the bank into the lake, then another, then a third. I must have been sending them telepathic messages back when I wished him to be their dinner.
Aw, man, I'm gonna hafta save the despicable scum.
I slowed to a crawl and maneuvered up to him, climbed down from the pilot's perch, grabbed the boathook, snagged Roger's Al Capone jacket, and dragged him over to the boat.
He wasn't much help getting on board, and by the time he lay facedown on the flat front end of the airboat, he seemed barely able to move. I wasn't taking any chances.
Over Roger's weak objections, I hog-tied him with a length of rope from the safety kit. By the time I was done, I
'd used just about all my energy but managed to climb up onto the pilot's seat and head up the channel toward the pond. My hand was unsteady on the rudder stick. I was cold and shaking. My teeth rattled.
My head said—Stop the boat and curl up on the bench seat. But my gut said—Finish what you started. I kept going, but it was hard.
I rounded a bend and for an instant was blinded by the sweep of a searchlight. A sheriff's boat. The bellman had sent help after all. He'd been a little slow on the draw, but I still owed him dinner and a free tattoo if he wanted one.
Quincy's voice sounded mechanical on the speaker. "Stop the boat, chère. We'll take it from here."
But when the sheriff's boat pulled up beside me, it wasn't Quincy who stepped onto the airboat and snatched me off the pilot's seat into his strong, reassuring embrace.
"Oh, Jack." I burst into tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jack sat on one side of me, still wearing the pirate garb, and Cat on the other, my twin in the red and yellow leotard undersuit, on the edge of the four-poster bed in my junior suite.
I'd just finished telling Quincy everything I could remember about what had happened from the time Roger Goodwin told me about the alien caterpillar until the moment I literally saw the light as the sheriff's boat came to my rescue.
Now it was Quincy's turn. "Well, old Roger is already singing like a canary down at the jail. He's given a complete confession of how he wanted to find the letter for himself so he could be some kind of Hollywood big shot again. So he made it a point to get up next to the victim, bought him some drinks, and got him to talk about where he thought that Jean Lafitte document was hid."
Still feeling the aftermath of what I'd gone through, I couldn't suppress a shudder. Cat patted my hand.
Quincy finished up. "Roger said Villars told him the letter was at the house but refused to share the actual page. So once he left Elroy that night, Roger went straight to Harry Villars' place and broke in to search it."
"What about Elroy? How did Roger kill Elroy if he'd left him at the bar?" I was confused. Who wouldn't be?
Quincy gave me an impatient look. "Roger didn't know Elroy had followed him until Elroy burst in. He's insisting Elroy was drunk and kept punching him. Roger just got tired of it and hit him with the TP stand. According to Roger, Elroy hit his head on the tub and didn't get up. But the ME's report says way more than that happened to poor old Elroy."
The thought of such vicious fury shook me. "And Roger almost got me too."
Jack took hold of my hand and kissed it.
Quincy nodded. "Roger took the page off Elroy's body and went under the house to look for the letter. It wasn't there, so he just threw the page to Belle's journal in the bushes and left. And that's it. We'll be draggin' the pond for the antique paper stand. And they tell me Goodwin's wanting to call a Hollywood agent instead of a lawyer. Something about wanting to get a book and movie deal out of this. Man,"—Quincy ran his fingers through hair that was already standing straight up—"what's this ol' world comin' to?"
Jack pulled the blanket up closer around my shoulders. "Does Roger have the letter?"
Quincy shook his head. "Not thinking he does. Roger said he didn't know Elroy was dead, and before the drunk woke up, he wanted to get the letter and get outta here. But when he went under the house—no letter. I don't think he has it."
"No. He was desperate to find it tonight. He doesn't have it." My voice sounded small and tired, even to me.
"Wonder where it is," Cat said. "What a mystery that is."
"Well, I'm gonna leave you to rest, Mel. You had a rough night. But maybe now you're gonna pay attention when I tell you to keep outta police matters."
Cat got up off the bed. "Yeah sure, sweet man. You keep saying that, but then when the case gets solved, you're happy." She waved a hand in the air. "You know it's true."
"Maybe so, maybe not. But I gotta keep sayin' dat." Quincy crooked a finger at Cat. "Come along, darlin'. I'm gonna have one of the boys take you across home. I'll be along directly."
Cat stood and rubbed her hand softly over the top of my head before taking hold of Quincy's hand. They walked out together and shut the door behind them.
Jack stood, leaving me feeling cold and alone. "I'm gonna start the shower. Let's get you warmed up."
He left me alone while I showered, my head against the wall as the steam enveloped me and washed away all the fear and negative emotions the night had brought.
When I came out of the bath, my head wrapped in a towel, my body in the fluffy hotel robe, Jack was sitting in the armchair, waiting. He'd taken off the dreadlocks wig, and I was having trouble dealing with the eye makeup and short hair combination. But for all I cared at the moment, he could have been made up as Ronald McDonald. I was so glad he was there with me.
"Will you stay?" I asked. "With me?"
"Whatever you want." He stood, and I was once again aware that he felt a little awkward, but that was the last thing I wanted.
I unwrapped the towel from my head, pulled back the bed covers, and slid in between them, still wearing the robe. Locking my gaze with Jack's, I patted the empty spot beside me.
Jack stripped down to his boxers and T-shirt, crawled in, and turned on his side, slipping one strong arm beneath and one over me so I was wrapped up in a Jack Stockton Snuggie. I scooted so close we could have used a twin-size bed.
"I want to explain about Sydney. And Mom."
I reached up and put my finger against his lips. "Please don't. Not yet. Not tonight. I just need you tonight, nothing else."
He reached for the duvet and pulled it up over both of us. We slept in each other's arms all night.
When I opened my eyes Tuesday morning, the sun slanting through the shutters let me know I'd slept in. Jack's eyes were open, and he was looking down at me. Sometime during the night he'd taken off his T-shirt, and his bare chest was part of what was keeping me warm.
"Good morning." Reluctantly I pulled away a little and reached out to stretch.
"Good morning, but not for long." He smiled, his teeth white against the morning growth of his beard.
I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "Oh, gosh. Is it really ten thirty? I'm keeping you from work."
I threw off the covers and started to sit up, but he pulled me back down.
"You wouldn't let me last night, but this morning I really want to talk to you about Sydney."
"Jack, it's okay."
"No. It's not. You didn't understand, and every time I tried to talk to you about it—"
"I shut you down. Jack, I'm sorry. I acted like a spoiled brat, and I promise I won't ever do it again. I don't understand why I was so insecure, but I'm not anymore."
I took in a deep breath to say more, but it was his turn to shush me, his finger against my lips.
"I don't have any feelings for Sydney, not anymore. Like the song says, she's just someone I used to know. I wanted to send her packing right away, but because of how things ended in New York, I had to wait until I could talk to Harry about it. Then there was the murder, and Harry had more than he could handle, and I couldn't bring myself to burden him with…"
"I get it," I said, remembering how Jack came to be the general manager at The Mansion at Mystic Isle.
He'd held the same title at some fancy Manhattan hotel but was unceremoniously let go without references when he'd been unfortunate enough to have been seduced by a beautiful blonde. The one night stand turned out to cost him his job when the blonde turned out to be the much younger wife of the hotel chain's CEO.
No wonder he hadn't wanted to risk something similar by mixing his personal problems with business without talking to the owner first. I remember what he'd told me the first time I asked him to send her home: "Mel, she's a paying guest."
"Glad she's gone," I said.
"Me too," he said.
"But what I'm wondering is how she's going to explain your initials on her body to her next boyfriend."
&nb
sp; He looked at me in surprise, the eyeliner from the night before making him look a little ghoulish, but a more handsome ghoul I'd never seen. "She had my initials tattooed on her body?"
I shrugged. "Left shoulder."
"Whoa," he said. "I never knew."
"Good info," I said. "Thanks for sharing."
"And about my mom," he said. "I really did talk to her in Florida, but for some reason it didn't stick. That's why I flew her out here, to make sure it took this time. It made me sick that she was so mean to you. But before I could talk to her about it, something had already changed her mind. She seems crazy about you now. Maybe she could finally see with her own eyes how much I love you."
I knew that wasn't the reason, but still, hearing him say those words sent a thrill from my head to my toes and back up, stopping at my heart which swelled with love for him. I said the words back, "And I hope she could see how much I love you, Jack."
He grinned and leaned down to drop a light kiss on my lips, his bare chest against my shoulder where the robe had fallen partially open.
We spent the rest of the morning lingering over Valentine's Andouille and Sweet Potato Frittata—yummy. Then we shared the awesome steam shower and lingered in there—that was pretty yummy too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
We went downstairs together. He went one way to his office in the business wing, and I went the other to the auxiliary wing and the House of Cards.
Cat was just wrapping up with a customer, an older man with a light brown beard and a black toupee. His red plaid shirt and green striped pants made me sorry I wasn't wearing my sunglasses. He looked pretty happy when he walked out, and I had to wonder if she'd told him it was in the cards that his color-blindness would soon be a thing of the past.
"Hey, girlfriend," she said when I stopped in her open doorway.
"Hey."
"How're things this morning? Settling down?"
"They are. Jack stayed with me last night."
She laughed and winked. "Well, that doesn't necessarily mean things settled down, if you get my drift."
Cat knew me and my addiction to Jack Stockton's kisses too well.
Mystic Mischief Page 18
