by Jana DeLeon
“Get back to the CB,” Luc told her as he hurried for his truck. “Call me if you hear anything else, but do not respond. The perp can’t hear Helena, but he would be able to hear you reply.”
Crap! She hadn’t even thought about that aspect, but Luc was right. She had no idea if Helena was within hearing range of the killer. If Maryse responded, she could make matters much worse.
She ran back down the bank, tromping through the mud and water barefoot, and climbed back into her boat. The CB was silent, and the worst part was, she had no idea whether that was good or bad. Praying for good, she sat in front of the CB and crossed her fingers.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As Colt and Jadyn lowered the last coffin on the ground in front of the crypt, he studied James. The man was clearly on the edge. His hands shook. His skin was pale. Colt had no faith that James would keep his promise and let them live. Even if he did, how long would it take someone to find them? And if the crypt was airtight, how long could they survive once closed inside?
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” James said, looking genuinely distressed, “but it’s time to bring this to an end. You won’t be in the crypt more than a couple of days.”
“I have a better idea,” Colt said. “Why don’t you turn state’s evidence on the supplier and the buyer? I can’t make any promises, but if they’re running enough product, you could end up walking away from it all.”
James’s eyes widened. “Don’t you remember what they did to Duke? I don’t think you have any idea what kind of people you’re dealing with.”
“Then maybe I should tell him,” a man’s voice boomed behind James.
James spun around and they all stared as a man walked out from behind the azalea hedge, flanked by two more men holding semiautomatic weapons.
All the blood rushed from James’s face. “Marcelo,” he whispered.
One of the men with a gun motioned to James to drop his weapon. He released the pistol as if it were on fire and it hit the hard ground with a thud.
“So you know who I am?” the man in the middle said. “That’s good. An appropriate amount of fear makes every business transaction easier for me.”
He smiled at James. “Coroner, huh? When I heard the guns would be delivered in coffins, my first thought was the funeral director. I suppose he’s lucky I decided to sit here and wait for you to come, right?”
“How did you know…?” James’s voice shook.
“It wasn’t all that hard. Duke couldn’t tell me where my weapons were, but he did know where to find the supplier, so I paid them a visit. They were angry, of course, that the payment had not arrived as scheduled, and were quite surprised to hear what had befallen all my money.”
“I was going to make it right,” James pleaded. “That’s why I was looking for the guns. A new delivery guy is on the way. He was going to bring them all to you.”
Marcelo shook his head. “The suppliers were not very nice people. They showed no sympathy for my lost money and insisted I pay again. Such arrogance, and after I’d taken great pains to meet their odd demands of plastic bags and wasted hours to separate the money as instructed. I wasn’t pleased.”
“You killed them,” Colt said.
Marcelo smiled. “Of course, although not at first. I needed to know where my weapons were, after all.”
“Clearly they gave you the answer you wanted,” Colt said. “Why didn’t you take the guns and leave?”
“And let the man who’d made a mess of everything get away with it all? Our coroner friend cost me time and could have cost me my reputation. In this business, reputation is your ticket to keep breathing. I don’t take that ticket lightly. My customer was willing to wait another day, but he would be very unhappy if all loose ends weren’t handled.”
Marcelo pulled a .45 from his jacket. “No sense attracting attention with the semiautomatics. They sound as impressive as they look.” He looked back and forth among Jadyn, Colt, and James. “Where to start. Such a dilemma.”
Colt felt all the heat leave his body. He knew his options but none of them had even a remote chance of success…not against the firepower in front of him. Rushing Marcelo or making a run for it would both end in certain death, but then so would standing there. Mind made up, he prepared to spring. Maybe he would buy Jadyn enough time to get away.
But before he could launch, Marcelo leveled his gun at Jadyn. “I think if the woman dies first, it will distress both of you more.”
“No!” Colt yelled and jumped in front of Jadyn just as Marcelo fired. The bullet caught him square in the chest, sending him backward into Jadyn and knocking them both to the ground.
His chest felt as if it was split in half, his breath completely gone. He blinked, struggling with consciousness, as he heard gunfire again, but different from Marcelo’s .45.
Jadyn yelled at him, practically pulling him to his feet. His vision was blurred so he couldn’t make out what was happening, but he didn’t slow down to work it out. Instead, he stumbled behind Jadyn as she ran around the crypt.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked as they leaned against the backside of the crypt, bullets ricocheting off the marble walls echoing throughout the swamp.
“Someone else started shooting,” Jadyn said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Someone in the trees.”
Colt tried to take a deep breath, but he hadn’t gotten in even half the air he needed before his chest screamed in pain. His focus started to return, and he assessed their options.
Unfortunately, they weren’t much better than before.
###
Jadyn cringed as another shower of bullets flew past the edge of the crypt. They couldn’t stay here, but would they be able to elude the shooters in the trees?
“They’re shooting at me!” Helena yelled from the swamp. “How do you work this thing? It’s empty.”
Marcelo and his remaining henchmen didn’t have a clue where the other shooter was, but when the stray bullet had caught one of Marcelo’s bodyguards right in the throat, Jadyn hadn’t even hesitated a second to haul Colt up from the ground and run for cover, no doubt in her mind from where the other shot had derived. Colt’s backup weapon had been in the backpack with the CB.
“How many are left?” Colt asked.
“I think just two. Marcelo took out James while we were getting away.”
“You have your spare, right?”
“Yeah, but only the magazine that’s loaded—six rounds.”
“Then that will have to do.”
“You think we should run for it?
He shook his head and pointed up.
“You want to get on top of the crypt?”
“We can’t outrun bullets and they’ve got a lot. There’s two of them, so they can easily flank us. The cypress limbs hang low over the roof and will provide decent cover, and they won’t be expecting an attack from above.”
“But when you shoot the first one, the other will know where we are.”
Colt nodded. “But without moving some distance away from the crypt, he won’t have a clear shot at us.”
“So this entire plan hinges on you picking off the first guy with one shot and the second as he’s running away?”
“Yeah.”
“You first. It will be easier on your ribs,” she said and bent over, bracing her arms on her knees.
He hesitated a moment, but common sense won out and he stepped on her back, then pulled himself up onto the crypt. As Jadyn jumped up and grabbed the ledge, he turned around and latched onto her wrists, pulling her as she scrambled up the side.
He winced as he pulled her over the edge and she knew the pain had to be excruciating. They crawled across the roof, staying under the canopy of branches and moss, until they could see over the front of the crypt.
Marcelo’s guard lay about twenty feet away from the crypt, a pool of blood circling his neck. James was splayed five feet in front of him, more bullet holes than s
he could count riddling his body, but there was no sign of Marcelo or the other guard.
“Where are they?” Colt whispered.
Shaking her head, she scanned the cemetery for any sign of movement. About the time she was beginning to worry that they had been made, Helena ran out of the trees and straight for the crypt, the two men not far behind.
“Save me!” Helena screamed as she ran, hands in the air, straight toward the crypt, then disappeared beneath them. Marcelo and his guard skidded to a halt in front of the crypt.
“He had to come this way,” the guard said.
“Well, I don’t see him,” Marcelo said, clearly disgusted, “and the other two aren’t behind the crypt. They must have made a run for it.”
“Help! The door closed behind me,” Helena yelled. “I’m locked in here with dead people.”
Jadyn’s anxiety took another leap. If Helena had gone solid and trapped herself in the crypt, she couldn’t be any help to them. Their only hope was if Colt made both shots count.
He leveled her pistol at the guard and she frowned. Her heart wished it was Marcelo he targeted first, but the guard’s weapon was a far bigger threat than Marcelo’s .45. He took a shallow breath then released it slowly, squeezing the trigger when all the oxygen was out of his lungs.
The shot caught the guard right in the forehead and he dropped like a stone. Colt aimed for the second shot and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed, giving Marcelo time to grab the guard’s gun and disappear into the trees.
“Shit!” Colt said as he cleared the jam and fired two shots at Marcelo as he disappeared into the trees.
“How long until he figures where we are?”
“He already has.” Colt pointed to the right where a shadow slipped behind a tree. “If he thinks anything like me, he’ll slow down long enough to climb that tree and then he’ll have a clear shot.”
“Then get him first.”
Colt shifted so he could see into the swamp to the right. “Get ready. As soon as I say, jump off the crypt behind us and haul ass for the gate. I’ll be right behind you.”
Jadyn nodded and crouched under the branches, ready to spring over the edge of the crypt as soon as Colt gave the signal.
“I see the branches moving,” Colt said. “Get ready. Come on, you bastard. Show yourself.”
A bullet ripped past Jadyn’s head and she flattened herself on the crypt. A second later, Colt fired off two shots in rapid succession. “Got him! Run!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jadyn sprang for the edge of the crypt, rolled onto her belly, then flipped over the side and dropped to the ground. Before sprinting into the trees, she glanced back long enough to see Colt sliding over the edge of the crypt.
The brush tore at her bare arms and the muscles in her legs burned as she sped through the cemetery. Her sense of direction was usually dead-on, but she couldn’t be certain she was headed in the right direction. About fifty yards into the cemetery, Colt caught up with her and motioned for her to veer right.
His breathing was so labored and he was practically dragging his right side, but he pushed on as if ignoring it would make it go away. Jadyn slowed her pace a bit and prayed that he had enough in him to make it to the truck. It seemed like forever, but only minutes later, they dashed through the gate and toward Colt’s truck.
Then Marcelo stepped out from behind it, his pistol leveled at them.
Blood ran down his shirt from the bullet wound on his shoulder, and scratches and cuts covered the rest of his bare skin, but he’d had the advantage of running without injured ribs, giving him the edge.
Jadyn’s heart plummeted into her feet. This was the end of the line. They were out of bullets, Helena was locked in the crypt, and they had no room to run. Colt looked at her and she could tell he knew it too.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“How romantic,” Marcelo said, his finger whitening on the trigger. “The two of you will make a couple of beautiful corpses.”
Jadyn almost passed out when the shot came, and it took her a second before she realized she hadn’t been hit. She clutched Colt, looking for the wound, but he stared back as her, as shocked as she was. Then they both turned and saw Marcelo lying on the ground, a bullet hole through the center of his forehead.
“That’s two you owe me, Bertrand.” Luc LeJeune stepped out from behind the truck, holding a smoking gun, two other armed men beside him.
Colt broke out into a huge grin. “Two? I don’t think so. It was my bullet that took out that drug dealer at that shipyard in New Orleans.”
Luc shook his head. “Forensics couldn’t determine whose gun fired that shot. As the officer with jurisdiction, I’m taking credit.”
Jadyn felt her knees go weak and she staggered backward a couple of steps to lean against the fence. She’d thought she was dead. Thought both of them were dead. Instead, they were both standing there, and Colt was cracking jokes with Luc like they’d spent the afternoon watching football.
“Are you all right?” Luc asked.
Colt whirled around and hurried over to her. “Jadyn?”
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I think I’m just so relieved that I’m ready to collapse.”
Colt smiled. “That’s the adrenaline leaving your body.”
“Yeah, well, it could have waited until I got back to the hotel.”
All the men laughed.
“You’ll be a little achy,” Luc said, “and you’ll probably have a fantastic headache for a while.”
She stood up straight and smiled. “Compared to what could have happened, a fantastic headache sounds like a trip to Disneyland.”
Colt looked over at Luc. “Why are you here?”
“I thought that was obvious,” Luc said. “I’m saving your ass.”
Colt grinned. “I mean, how did you know?”
“Maryse heard a distress call on the CB about shooting in the cemetery,” Luc explained. “She had a bad feeling about it, so I checked with Shirley and found out you two were here.” He pointed at the two men beside him. “Steve and Ryan are on assignment in the area, so I asked them to back me, just in case.”
“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it. Who made the distress call?”
Luc shook his head. “Maryse didn’t recognize the voice.”
Jadyn held in a smile. Luc was a damned good liar.
“Maybe it was the other shooter?” Colt said.
Luc narrowed his eyes. “What other shooter?”
“Jadyn said a shot came from someone behind us in the trees. It took out one of Marcelo’s guys and that’s when we bolted. My vision was too blurred to see anything.”
Luc nodded and turned to Jadyn. “Did you see the other shooter?”
Jadyn froze for a moment, trying to come up with a clever way of answering the question as she wasn’t near as good a liar as Luc. “There was no person back there that I could see.”
Luc looked momentarily confused at her choice of words, then his eyes widened slightly, and she knew he’d caught on to what had happened. “It was probably a local,” he said. “Someone who wanted to help but doesn’t want to be involved. That sort of thing happens more than you’d think, especially in these bayou towns.”
“Well, I hope karma comes back on him in a big way,” Colt said.
Jadyn coughed. Oh, karma had come back on the shooter all right. Just not in the way Colt thought it would.
“So what’s the story here?” Luc asked.
Colt waved down the path to the crypt. “You’d have to see it to believe it.”
As they stepped into the clearing at the crypt, Steve whistled, taking in the three dead men and the pile of caskets. “This is some twisted shit.”
Luc bent over James’s body. “Is that the coroner?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Colt replied. “He was the middleman.”
Luc shook his head in disbelief. “Were they trafficking bodies?”
“No,” Colt s
aid. “Guns.”
“Damn.” Ryan looked a bit sad. “Seems like we’re always doing the ATF’s job for them.”
Luc scanned the clearing, then looked over at Jadyn, and she knew he was looking for Helena. She inclined her head toward the crypt just as Helena’s voice wafted to them.
“Help! I’m going to suffocate. It’s dark and I’m locked in here with dead people. I’m claustrophobic, for Christ’s sake. That’s why I was cremated and spread.”
Luc rubbed his chin and Jadyn could tell he was trying not to laugh. “So the guns are in the coffins and they were stored in the crypt. And the coroner was the middleman for all this carnage.”
Colt nodded. “Hard to believe. I’ve known the man my entire life.”
“Luc!” Helena sounded again. “Is that you? Get me out of here. I promise I’ll never try to see you naked again. I’ll even close my eyes when you walk into a room.”
Luc coughed. “The job always sucks worse when you know the perp,” he said and pulled out a sat phone. “The state police can secure the area, and I’ll call a buddy of mine with the ATF. We can wait here for the state. Jadyn, why don’t you get this man to the hospital?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“I’m fine,” Colt protested.
“Dude, I know broken ribs when I see them,” Luc said. “Everyone loves a hero. No one loves a martyr. Go get them wrapped before the shock wears off.”
Colt hesitated before answering and Jadyn could tell he was weighing the desire for painkillers against perceived responsibility. “You’re sure?”
“Positive,” Luc said. “Just leave the keys to the crypt and the gate with me. The cops are going to want both.”
“I love you, Luc!” Helena shouted. “You’re a God.”
As they started to leave, Jadyn stopped in front of Luc, hesitated for a second, then threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said.