by B J Bourg
The television screen suddenly went black.
“Enough of that shit.” Amy tossed the remote she’d been holding onto a shelf in the corner. “I don’t need some news reporter reminding me of what an idiot I was for trusting that asshole.”
“Yeah, and I want to see Baby Grace,” my mom said, grabbing me by the arm. “Take me to her.”
I nodded and led the way. As I walked, I realized there was a bounce in my step. I’m a father again, I thought, grinning. I love the sound of that!
Book Eleven:
BUT NOT FOREWARNED
CHAPTER 1
Friday, March 1
Mechant Loup, Louisiana
Jennifer Duval cursed when she rounded the last turn in the road on her approach to the Mechant Loup Bridge. There were flashing lights in the darkness up ahead, and she was not in the mood for delays. At first, she thought it was a crash, but then she heard the distant thumping of music and immediately realized what was going on.
“Damn parade,” she muttered aloud to herself, easing to a stop behind an old rusted-out pickup truck with at least eight occupants hanging from the truck bed, all of them displaying thick clusters of Mardi Gras beads around their necks. Glancing beyond the vehicle, she saw a long line of taillights that extended as far as she could see. She punched the steering wheel. “Whose bright idea was it to build a damn town in a place where there was only one way in and one way out?”
She thought about turning around and heading back home to La Mort, but her brother had sounded desperate when he’d called and asked her to visit. “I need to talk to you—and it’s important,” he’d said on the phone last night. “Can you come down this weekend?”
“I don’t know, Carl. I’ve got a heavy caseload.”
“Please, Sis. I really need your help. I don’t know what to do or who to trust.”
“Why don’t you just tell me over the phone?”
There had been a long pause on the other end, and she’d had to ask if he was still there.
“I…someone might be listening. They have those scanners that can—”
“Who in the hell would care what you and I have to say to each other?”
“Please…just come down this weekend. Tomorrow would be best, as early as possible.”
Jennifer had let out a long sigh and told him she would see what she could do. She had planned on letting him know she would be too busy, but then he’d texted her earlier today, nearly begging.
Now, here she sat in traffic on a Friday night approaching this godforsaken town, when she could’ve been out drinking with her friends. It was growing warm in her vehicle, so she slipped off her high heel shoes and hiked the front of her skirt up a little. She cursed herself for not stopping home to change into something more comfortable before heading to her brother’s house. She didn’t normally wear a skirt or a dress to work, but she had been called to testify in an armed robbery case she’d worked last year, and she had to look professional on the witness stand.
The truck in front of her moved a few feet, so she also pulled forward. She then glanced at her purse—more precisely, the neck of the bottle that protruded from the middle zipper—and licked her lips. She needed a drink something awful. Every time she thought of Mechant Loup, she thought of Clint Wolf and how he had broken her heart years ago. The last time she was here, she had learned that Clint’s wife, Susan Wilson—who was the chief of police around these parts—was pregnant with Clint’s child.
She tapped the steering wheel while maintaining eye contact with the bottle of Crown Royal. Susan would’ve had the baby by now—a baby that Jennifer should’ve been carrying. She’d had first dibs on Clint, but he’d broken things off because they were partners back in La Mort, and he’d said he couldn’t date a co-worker. He’d then married Michele and they had Abigail, but when his wife and child had died, he had moved away to this hole-in-the-wall swamp town, where he apparently hadn’t wasted any time jumping into bed with a co-worker.
Jennifer leaned over and grabbed the bottle, twisting off the cap. She took a long swig of the warm liquid and smacked her lips as the warmth flooded over her. “Clint Wolf,” she said, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling, “you’re a hypocrite. You turn me down and break my heart, but then go ahead and marry a bitch you were working with—”
Something clanked loudly against the hood of Jennifer’s cruiser and startled her. She jerked her eyes downward in time to see a purple bead skid to a stop near the windshield wipers. A young girl with blonde hair and large brown eyes smiled widely from the back of the pickup, but her smile quickly disappeared when one of the women beside her began scolding her.
“You could’ve scratched that car,” the woman was saying. “Don’t you dare throw another bead out of this truck—”
“It’s okay,” Jennifer called out after buzzing her window down and leaning her head out of the car. “It didn’t hurt anything.”
The woman appeared relieved, but no less angry. “I am so sorry! She thinks she’s on a float.”
“Seriously, it’s no problem.” Jennifer opened her door and leaned forward to retrieve the bead. She put it over her head and smiled at the little girl. “Thank you so much for this pretty bead! I’ll keep it forever.”
This made the girl’s face light up even more. She rocked back and forth with glee, but stopped and screeched when the truck lurched forward. “We’re moving!” she screamed in delight.
Jennifer jerked her door closed and sighed in relief, happy to be moving again. After making sure the little girl wasn’t looking in her direction, she removed the bead and tossed it out the window.
Her excitement about moving soon turned to dismay when she saw a marked patrol car blocking the road. The patrol officer was directing cars to either turn around or park in a nearby parking lot, where they could exit their vehicles and cross the bridge on foot. When the truck in front of her reached the officer, he and the driver exchanged pleasantries and then the truck pulled into the lot, which Jennifer realized was a car dealership.
After sneaking a quick spray from a bottle of mouth freshener and tossing her cell phone into the cubbyhole near the gearshift, she pulled ahead and stopped when her car was beside the officer. She turned on her interior lights and flashed a friendly smile. The officer was a dozen feet away, but she could see that he was a young cop—couldn’t be more than thirty—and he had short-cropped brown hair. His complexion was light, but his eyes matched his hair.
“You can either turn around or park in that lot,” he said in a professional and authoritative voice, pointing toward the dealership. “There’s no going over the bridge until after the parade passes.”
Using one hand to discreetly pull her skirt higher on her bare legs, she continued smiling and stuck out the other hand, hoping he would walk over. He did.
“Hey, Officer”—she squinted to read the nametag in the flashing lights from his car—“Baylor Rice. I’m a detective from the La Mort Sheriff’s Office. I need to get to the east side of town.”
Baylor nodded curtly and took her hand. “I’m sorry, but there’s no getting through town at the moment.”
Jennifer noticed his eyes shift briefly to her exposed legs and a ray of hope shined through. She opened her mouth to begin sweet-talking him, but he interrupted her.
“Wait, what’d you say your name was again?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Detective Jennifer Duval—from the La Mort Police Department. I actually helped out with a case down here last year.”
Officer Rice relaxed and returned the smile. “Yeah, I remember hearing about you.”
Jennifer suppressed a desire to groan outwardly, as she wondered if Clint had told him anything about her. She was sure Clint was still angry about the text message she’d sent Susan last year when she was down working a case. She frowned, shot a quick glance toward her purse, where the bottle of Crown Royal rested just out of sight under the flap. She’d had a few too many drinks when she’d sent th
e text message, and she was afraid she’d permanently destroyed any chances she might’ve still had to get with Clint.
“Well, I hope it was all good,” she said, plucking at the front of her white blouse and cursing herself for not unsnapping the top three buttons. “Look, I was really hoping I could get across the bridge. I need to get to my brother’s house.”
Baylor hesitated and stared across the bridge. It looked like he might cave. “Do you have lights on that thing?” Baylor finally asked, nodding toward the front of her cruiser.
“Yeah, I’ve got grill lights and wigwags.”
“Give me a second.” Baylor stepped away and spoke briefly into his radio. When he returned to her car, he waved his hand forward. “Turn them bad boys on and go right on through.”
Jennifer hesitated, studying the flashing lights of the other emergency vehicles and the large crowd on the south side of the bridge. “How do I get through town to get to the east side?”
Baylor leaned into her window, and explained that she could take the first left after the bridge and drive straight to the back of town. “Take a right where the road ends and turn left when you reach the bridge,” he instructed. “We keep this route open in case we have to get to the other side for an emergency, but Melvin Saltzman said I could let you through. Just run your lights and they’ll wave you along.”
CHAPTER 2
Jennifer thanked Baylor, flipped on her lights, and then proceeded over the bridge. The thick crowd parted only wide enough for her unmarked cruiser to fit between them, and not an inch more. She drove at a snail’s pace, worried she might run over some poor kid. Every now and then, someone bumped into her side mirror and she’d smash the brakes. The last thing she needed was to run over someone and have her blood drawn. While she hadn’t emptied the bottle of Crown Royal, she had been nipping on it since getting off of work at five, and she was definitely over the legal limit.
“Detective Duval!”
Jennifer’s head jerked around and her heart skipped a beat when she heard a familiar voice calling from the street. She stopped on the empty side street and strained to look past the sea of bodies that swayed to and fro, moving in unison to the beat of the Mardi Gras Mambo. The music was so loud she couldn’t be positive who was calling for her. Was it Clint? Did he have a change of heart? If only she could convince him to still be friends, just maybe they might rekindle—
She frowned when she saw Officer Melvin Saltzman pushing his way through the parade goers. His face was beaming, so she tried not to look disappointed.
“Hey, what’re you doing in town?” Melvin asked when he reached the passenger window. “I thought we’d never see you again, considering…”
He let his voice trail off and she knew he was referencing the confrontation between her and Susan.
“My…my brother needs my help with something. It’s kind of an emergency, but I won’t be here long. As soon as I’m done helping him, I’ll be heading back to the big city.”
“Well, it’s good seeing you again, Jen.” He turned and pointed toward the direction in which she was traveling. “If you head straight down this street, you can take a right and make it to the bridge without running into the parade route.”
“I appreciate it.”
Once Melvin had walked away, she continued down the dark and empty street, but her eyes scanned the backs of those in the crowd, wondering if she might catch a glimpse of Clint. She knew it was wrong to be angry at Susan for marrying Clint. After all, it was Clint who had broken her heart, but she couldn’t help but hate the competition.
Once she crossed the bridge, she headed south for a ways and then turned down a long shell drive that led to her brother’s old house. It had been a restoration project—a labor of love—and he had put a lot of time, effort, and money into the damn thing.
“Why didn’t you just buy a new house like a normal person?” she’d asked one day last year when they were on the phone.
“New houses don’t have demons,” was his simple answer. “I want my walls to talk, and I want them to tell me all the dirty secrets they’d been keeping over the years.”
After promising to have him committed to a mental institution if he didn’t stop talking crazy, she had ended the call. Thanks to her demanding job, she’d only come to visit a few times after that and, while she was down, she’d spent most of her time hanging out with Carl’s wife and kids, because Carl had been too busy working on the house.
As Jennifer navigated the S curve around the giant oak tree in the front yard, she could hear Coco barking from behind the white picket fence that wrapped around the right side of the house. She smiled and—her heart filled with envy—sang aloud the lyrics from a song by Florida Georgia Line, “…a white picket fence house on this dirt.”
She briefly wondered why she couldn’t find a good man with whom to settle down, but then quickly dismissed the thought. Clint was already taken and since he was her soul mate, she would probably end up dying a cold and lonely death.
“Well, that’s different,” she muttered as she shut off the engine and took another pull from her whisky. A narrow out-building that had once stood proudly at the northern end of the property was now missing its front door and most of the roof. Bare and weathered planks littered the space around the shed, as though the project had been interrupted in mid-demolition and Carl had never gotten back to it.
After twisting the cap back onto the bottle, she tossed it in her purse and exited her vehicle. There was a strange smell to the air, but she couldn’t place it. Coco was going crazy now. Although she couldn’t see Lex’s German shepherd, Jennifer could hear her nephew’s canine tearing at the inside of the fence with her claws. The fence was only five feet in height and Carl had mentioned once that—when determined enough—Coco was able to escape by jumping up and catching the top of the fence with her front paws while pushing off with her rear paws.
“The neighbor down the road actually called the cops one time and threatened to shoot her,” Carl had complained. “What an asshole!”
“Hey, Coco,” Jennifer hollered, wondering why someone hadn’t come out to greet her yet, “you’d better not escape and go running around the neighborhood. You’re not a cat—you’ve only got one life.”
Jennifer eased her door shut and was about to walk away from the car to make her way toward the side door to the house when she froze, keys in hand, wondering why all the lights were off. The place was usually lit up like a Christmas tree because her sister-in-law, Annie, was scared of the dark and often mentioned wishing she were living back in the bright lights of the city.
Jennifer grunted at the memory of their last conversation. She’d offered to trade places with Annie, but hadn’t told her it was so she could be closer to Clint. She’d quit mentioning Clint’s name to Annie when her sister-in-law began questioning why she hadn’t gotten over Clint after all those years. She was too embarrassed to say the reason out loud—that he was the only man who ever truly made her feel safe. She’d felt it when they were partners and even more so when they had shared the same bed for that brief period. Hell, it was the deepest and most secure sleep she’d ever had since she was a young girl.
The white double-car garage door at the end of the drive was closed, which was not uncommon. She was sure Carl’s white truck and Annie’s gray SUV were sleeping inside—
What the hell was that?
Jennifer whirled around when she heard what sounded like shoes scrunching against shells at the back of her car, but she was too late. Suddenly, and without warning, a bright light flashed inside her brain and then everything went black.
CHAPTER 3
Two hours later…
I slowed my Tahoe as the procession turned onto Washington Avenue and headed east toward the police department. I was behind the Attakapas High School marching band and had been treated to some great musical numbers since we’d started rolling three hours ago. The band members were lively and played their instruments with gusto
, sounding more like a college competition band. Nearly every person watching the parade broke out in dance as the band marched along the route, and I could feel the energy in the air. Had I not been sitting in my Tahoe, I might’ve been tempted to start dancing myself. It wouldn’t have been a pretty sight, but the atmosphere was electric and I found myself hypnotized by the beating drums. At least it took the sting off of working the parade. “Show me a cop who claims to like working parades,” I’d told me wife recently, “and I’ll show you a liar.”
All of my windows were down and a cool breeze blew through the cabin, rustling my brown hair. The meteorologist from New Orleans had called for cloudy skies, high sixties, and a bit of a breeze, and she had nailed it. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.
“Detective Clint!” hollered a voice from my left. “Where’s the car you owe me?”
Most people called me Detective Wolf, but Ty Richardson preferred my first name. I smiled and just shook my head. Ty had battled mental illness for most of his life, but he’d been winning that battle for the past few years. I threw my SUV in park and jumped out to shake his hand, then quickly returned to my seat.
Achilles, my solid black German shepherd, hadn’t even turned to look at me. Instead, he sat proudly on the passenger seat beside me with his eyes half closed as he stared out at what I’m sure he thought were crazy people screaming and fighting for cheap plastic beads, doubloons, stuffed animals, and other exotic throws flying off of the float in front of the band. If I knew my dog like I thought I knew him, he wasn’t impressed.