by Rebecca York
The feeling of relief evaporated like water on a scalding griddle as Jarvis got right to the point. “Where were you last night?” he demanded.
“Why do you want to know?” Andre asked.
“Because Henri Dauphin is dead,” Jarvis said, his voice flat.
Morgan stepped up beside Andre and put a hand on his arm. “If you’re here, I suppose you suspect Andre. He was here all night,” she said in a firm voice. “With me.”
All eyes shot to her. From the way the crowd was looking at her, it was pretty clear that they knew Morgan Kirkland and Andre Gascon had just climbed out of bed. The question was—how long had they been there?
Apparently, Jarvis’ had already considered that line of inquiry. “All night?” he asked, tipping his head to one side, looking her up and down, taking in her tousled hair, rumbled clothing and sleepy face.
She kept her face turned toward the sheriff, and Andre waited to see if she was going to back down on the lie.
“Yes. All night,” she answered,
“So, you’re doing more out here than just cataloguing the books in the library?”
“My personal relationship with Mr. Gascon is none of your damn business,” she said.
“It is when it’s tangled up with a murder investigation.”
“You’re saying Henri Dauphin was murdered,” she asked carefully.
Carl Brevard answered. “Yeah. I was there. I couldn’t see nothin’, but I heard a big cat growl. Heard Henri scream. Heard the claws tearing at him.”
“But you didn’t see anything?” she clarified, her voice cool and collected, and if he had ever doubted her abilities as a detective, Andre could see now that she was a thorough professional in her job.
“I didn’t see nothin’,” he admitted. “Henri, he got up to take a leak. I was in the tent.”
“What were you doing camping in the bayou?” she demanded.
He looked down as he scuffed his foot against the Oriental rug, leaving a track of mud which Janet eyed with distaste. “After we dropped the car off, we was plannin’ to do some fishing.”
“You mean alligator poaching, don’t you?” Dwight Rivers muttered, voicing what Andre had been thinking.
“And you didn’t bother telling anyone you’d be gone,” Morgan clarified. Which means you’ve had people running around looking for you since you left here.”
Rick looked defiant. “I don’t have to tell no one my business, Anyways, that’s not the point. The point is that the big cat killed Henri.”
Everyone else knew where this was going. But Morgan, who had been here less than a week, asked the obvious question. “And what does that have to do with Mr. Gascon? Are you accusing him of having a pet jaguar in the bayou?”
Andre felt his heart block his windpipe as he waited to hear how the man would answer.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “We found a leather jacket near the campsite. A jacket people in town have seen Mr. Gascon wear.” He turned to Andre. “I’m going to have to take you in.”
Even as he felt panic threaten to swallow him up, Andre struggled to keep his voice even. “Was the jacket worn at the elbows?” he managed to ask.
“What about it?” Jarvis said, not exactly answering the question.
“That jacket was in my SUV. I was taking it to a church sale. But with everything that’s been going on out here, I didn’t get a chance to drop it off.”
“So you say,” Jarvis answered. His voice turned hard as brass. “We’ll straighten this out down at the police station.”
“No!” Unable to control a spurt of panic, Andre backed away. Maybe he intended to run. Maybe not. All he knew was that he couldn’t take a chance on spending the night in a jail cell. He had to stay out here—at Belle Vista, where he was safe.
He realized instantly that he had made the wrong move. All at once, a gun materialized in the sheriff’s hand. “Hold it right there,” he said with the finality of the guy who holds the winning hand. “You’re coming with me.”
Andre went stark still. In a moment of panic, he had made a terrible mistake. Now he was a dead man. Or as good as dead.
As if from a long way off, he heard Morgan speaking. “You can’t do this.”
“I’m afraid he can,” Rivers said.
The sheriff pulled Andre’s hands behind his back. As if it were happening in a dream, he felt cold metal clanking around his wrists. He could hear the sheriff reciting his rights. When he was asked if he understood, he answered with a mechanical “yes.” He understood all right. This was the end of his life as he knew it.
His gaze shot to Morgan. There were so many things he needed to say. But he couldn’t tell her any of them in front of this crowd.
“I’ll get you out,” she said.
All he could do was nod wordlessly, because whatever happened, it was too late now for him—for them.
As Jarvis hustled him toward the door, he saw Carl and Rick Brevard looking on in satisfaction. But Dwight Rivers didn’t seem quite so gleeful. Maybe Rivers really was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he wasn’t the man holding the power.
Jarvis kept the gun in his hand as he hustled the prisoner to the police cruiser in the driveway. Opening the back door, he helped him inside, then slammed the door.
Andre looked wildly around. A metal grill separated the back seat from the front. And the door panel held no handle. The only way out of here was if Jarvis let him out. And that wasn’t going to happen until they arrived at the police station in St. Germaine.
And probably a crowd would have gathered—courtesy of Carl and Rick.
From a long way off, he heard Morgan’s voice. “Sheriff,” she called.
Jarvis turned to her.
“Mr. Gascon’s lawyer will be in touch with you.”
“You know where to find me.”
The lawman walked around to the front seat and slid behind the wheel, and Andre felt his vision go black as they drove away. Morgan might think she had a way to get him out. But he was sure it wouldn’t be in time.
###
Morgan watched the Brevard brothers swagger to their vehicle and leave. Had they stolen the jacket and planted the evidence? Or had it been Jarvis himself?
Dwight Rivers lingered. “Sorry,” he said.
“About what?” Morgan snapped.
“Jarvis has been looking for an excuse to arrest him.”
“On trumped-up charges.”
“I hope so.”
She might have stayed to talk about it; instead she charged into the house. Janet was standing in the hall, looking sick and frightened.
“It will be all right,” Morgan called to her as she dashed down the hall to the office.
Snatching up the phone, she called Decorah Security, aware of Janet watching anxiously from the doorway.
Zane Marshall answered.
“Zane, thank God!”
“Morgan, what’s wrong?” he asked as soon as he heard the panic in her voice.
“My client, Andre Gascon, has been arrested. We need a lawyer down here.”
“My first choice would be Dan Cassidy. But I’ll have to check his schedule.”
“Get him to clear it. This is an emergency. Andre will be in a completely hostile environment.” She went on to describe what had happened, and Zane promised to get Dan down to Louisiana as soon as humanly possible. She was about to hang up when Jonah Raider came on the line.
“I’ve researched the maps you faxed.”
Morgan wanted to shout that she wasn’t interested in the damn maps right now. But she knew she’d just sit here brooding. “He found something interesting?” she asked.
“As we guessed, they’re part of a geological survey. If they’re accurate, the Belle Vista property is sitting on a huge reservoir of oil. Enough oil to make someone very rich, Jonah says.”
Morgan whistled through her teeth. Oil. And Andre had said someone was trying to get him off his land. Could that be the reason why?
“Last July.”
“About six months before Andre had started having problems with the town,” she mused. “Who commissioned the survey?”
“I haven’t found that out yet.”
“I have to know if it was Andre—or someone else.”
“I’ll tell you as soon as we know. And legal help will be there ASAP.”
That was good to know. But it didn’t calm her fears as she hung up the phone.
“What survey? What are you talking about?” Janet asked.
Could she trust the housekeeper? Morgan wasn’t absolutely sure. Watching the woman carefully, she said, “Apparently, there’s a large deposit of oil on the Belle Vista property.”
Janet looked startled.
“Do you think that’s why someone in town wants Andre out of here?”
“Andre can’t leave,” Janet whispered. “He . . . he can’t spend the night away from here.”
“Right. The curse!” Morgan swore. All roads led back to the curse. “You think the curse got him arrested?”
“Yes,” Janet answered.
“We’ll break it,” Morgan snapped.
Janet looked at her with such undisguised hope in her eyes that Morgan had to turn away.
###
In the back of the police car, Andre silently stared at the scenery passing outside the window. This was the familiar landscape of his life, but he saw it only in a blur of green and brown. Then a heron took flight from the bank of a shallow pond and flapped across the marsh, soaring away from the speeding car.
Andre watched it disappear into a clump of marsh grass. It was free. He was in the back of a police car, speeding toward his doom. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Or was there?
Despite what the town thought of him, he’d never broken the law. Strange as it seemed, he’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. But now he began making desperate plans.
His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would break through the wall of his chest. All he knew was that he couldn’t let them lock him up. And he could think of only one alternative. A risky alternative.
In the next few minutes, he could end up dead. And if he did, maybe that was for the best.
Resolve firmed his jaw. No, not the best. If he died—then whoever had framed him for the murders in the swamp would win. And he couldn’t bear that thought. He had to take a chance on getting away.
He scanned the flat marshes on either side of the road. He knew this patch of Louisiana as well as he knew the contours of his own body. He knew where there was dry land. Knew where a man might suddenly break through the surface of what seemed like solid ground into thick muck. Knew where trails led into the bayou.
The car slowed as the sheriff came to the highway leading into town. Andre tensed. It was now or never.
He glanced at the bristled hairs on the back of the sheriff’s neck, thinking that was part of why he’d called the guy Old Razorback. Putting that stray thought out of his mind, Andre made a strangled exclamation and fell sideways, drumming his feet against the seat in front of him as he went down so that the sheriff wouldn’t miss the performance.
Jarvis hit the brake, then glanced around. “What’s wrong?”
Andre answered with a gurgling sound in his throat. “Can’t breathe . . .. need . . .” He stopped talking as though his breath had suddenly been cut off—while he thrashed around on the seat.
Alarm colored the sheriff’s voice. “Gascon?”
Andre moaned. The grillwork obscured his line of sight, but he could feel the man’s gaze on him, evaluating the situation.
He lay on the seat, eyes slitted, pretending to gasp for breath, wondering on the level of gullibility he could count on from a small-town sheriff. Hopefully, the handcuffs gave him that extra edge. Or maybe this wouldn’t work at all. Maybe Jarvis would simply keep driving into town and tell the nice folks in St. Germaine that they’d gotten rid of a nasty problem, because it looked like the prisoner had died in the back of the patrol car. What a pity.
Andre felt every cell in his body sizzle as Jarvis pulled to the side of the road. When he jumped out, Andre slowly released the breath he’d been holding.
It was a struggle to lie there, limp and still as Jarvis flung the back door open.
When the sheriff leaned into the back seat, Andre jackknifed his legs, striking the lawman square in the stomach. Jarvis flew backwards, coming down on his butt on the muddy shoulder.
Andre sprang out of the cruiser, ducking low as he jumped into the ditch. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he almost lost his balance. But he righted himself, scrambled up the sides of the ditch and started running.
Behind him, he could hear scuffling noises. And worse, he saw a pickup truck pulling to a stop.
Merde! The Brevard brothers were in back of the patrol car.
Andre didn’t wait to find out what was happening behind him. But he could hear feet pounding on the blacktop.
“Stop or I’ll shoot.”###
Andre kept running. Into the tangle of bayou country that he had known all his life. He swerved to the right to avoid a patch of marshy ground where the mud would slow him down.
Just as he changed directions, the unmistakable whistle of a bullet went flying over his head.
“Stop, damn you,” Jarvis shouted. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
Another voice drowned out the sheriff. “Stop, you bastard.” That was one of the Brevards. Andre didn’t know which one, and he didn’t care.
He had no choice about what he was doing. No choice at all. He kept going, almost falling as he crossed a patch of slick ground, then righting himself as he made for the safety of the low branches of a small holly tree.
The first bullet had been a warning. The next one was meant to bring down the fugitive. It whistled past his shoulder and plowed into a nearby tree trunk. But Andre kept going, running awkwardly with his hands behind his back, knowing that no man would dare follow him into the snake and alligator infested swamp.
He stumbled, then got his balance and kept going, splashing through a trough of water and almost losing his balance. The vegetation closed around him, and he breathed out a sigh. He was safe—for the moment.
Safe from being locked in a cell. Because there was no way he could let the sheriff lock him in a cell. But[RG6] he might as well have declared his guilt, as far as the sheriff was concerned. And his hands were still cuffed. What the hell was he going to do about that, out in the wilderness where a man needed a fighting chance against the dangers lurking on all sides?
Chapter Thirteen
Morgan went back to her room and put on a clean shirt, thinking that she could go into town and make it clear that she was supporting Andre—even if that wouldn’t do her much good until Dan Cassidy arrived.
She had just reached the front hall, when the sound of cars roaring up the driveway made her whole body go rigid. The sheriff and the angry men had left ten minutes ago. Now what was happening?
Quickly she threw open the front door.
She goggled when she saw the police car was back, then allowed herself to feel a spurt of hope. Maybe Sheriff Jarvis was finally admitting that he’d made mistake, and he was bringing Andre home.
When she saw the pickup truck with the Brevards trailing along behind him, she was more confused than ever. Her heart was pounding as she ran down the steps and looked into the back seat of the cruiser. It was empty.
As she came down the curving staircase and stared at the place where Andre had been sitting, a feeling of sick panic rose in her throat.
“What happened?” she gasped out. “Where’s Andre?”
“The bastard escaped.” Jarvis answered.
“Oh, God. How?”
“Assaulting a police officer,” Jarvis snapped.
She stared at him. “You mean—you?”
“Who the hell else?” he snapped.
>
She shook her head in denial. Andre was too logical, too disciplined for that. “He couldn’t have.”
The Brevards joined the sheriff in the driveway. “Maybe you don’t think so, but we saw it. He kicked Sheriff Jarvis in the stomach. Then went tear-assing into the swamp. It that don’t prove he’s guilty, nothin’ does.”
“He’s not,” she whispered, trying to figure out what had happened. All she knew was that Andre must have been desperate. Or getting arrested had driven him over the edge. Had the sheriff threatened him? She stared at the man. His face was red, his trooper pants were streaked with mud, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes, but she couldn’t be sure what any of that proved.
As she stood there wondering what to do, the man brushed past her and climbed one of the curving staircases, then yanked open the front door without bothering to knock. Janet dashed into the front hall.
“What are you doing back here?” she gasped out.
“Looking for a fugitive.”
“Who?”
“Gascon. Your employer has escaped.”
Janet’s eyes shot to Morgan for confirmation. She nodded even as Jarvis clumped across the front hall and started up the stairs.
The Brevards charged up the exterior steps and toward the door. Janet blocked their way. “You trash, hold it right there. You have no call to come in here,” she shouted and slammed the door in their faces.
Morgan could hear them cursing on the front landing as she and Janet trailed the sheriff to the second floor of the house. He began striding down the hall, opening doors as though he was the master of the plantation.
“You can’t do that! You don’t have a search warrant,” Morgan called after him.
His pace didn’t slacken. “I don’t need a search warrant. Like I said, I’m in hot pursuit of a fugitive from justice.”
That might be technically true. But the police cruiser had driven out of sight. Did Jarvis really think Andre had mucked his way through the swamp and back here faster than a car and truck could drive?