by BJ Bourg
I slowed a little and turned the bright lights on. “Can you see inside the cab?”
“No,” Susan said. “Why? Do you not think it’s them?”
“I want to see if they’re all inside. If not, one of them might be holding Chloe somewhere else.”
Susan was quiet as we took the first curve into town and raced toward the northern end. She finally put a hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry, Clint.”
It was all she said and I knew she thought Chloe was dead. I gritted my teeth and thought about ramming their truck.
“Look!” Susan said, pointing about a mile ahead of the truck. “They got the bridge up!”
She was right. The lights on the side of the lift span burned bright in the sky and the gates were down. A dim glow burned from the windows of the bridge cabin. I smiled my approval. Melvin and Amy had figured out how to work the bridge. This was it—the Parker brothers were trapped! I eased off the accelerator in anticipation of them stopping.
“Are you loaded?” I asked Susan.
“I am, but I’ve only got half a mag left—sixteen at the most.” Susan hoisted the rifle in her hands. “But that’s plenty, right? There’re only three of them.”
I looked up at the bridge cabin. It was on the northern side of the bridge, but it wasn’t too far. I’d seen Melvin shoot a rifle and I knew how good he was. He and Amy would have a decent vantage point from up there. I told Susan to radio them and tell them to prepare to pin down the Parker brothers if they got out shooting. Susan nodded and made the transmission.
I suddenly realized the truck was steadily pulling away from us. They weren’t slowing down! It even seemed to pick up speed as it whisked by Cig’s Gas Station and approached the ramp to the bridge.
“What in hell’s name are they doing?” I asked, stealing a glance at Susan. She stared wide-eyed out the windshield and just shook her head.
I slowed our vehicle and waited for the splash of red taillights on the pickup. It had to come at any moment, because they were running out of roadway.
“Clint, I don’t think they’re…” Susan’s voice trailed off as the truck crashed right through the safety gates, sending splintered wood and lights flying skyward. The brake lights never came on as the pickup raced forward and plunged over the edge, disappearing from our view.
CHAPTER 27
“Holy shit!” Melvin called over the radio. “Did y’all see that?”
I drove up the ramp, through the safety gate debris, and stopped a few feet from where we’d last seen the truck. Susan and I both jumped out and ran to the edge of the deck and peered over. Other than the lapping of waves against the bank and a gurgling sound from the throat of the bayou, everything was quiet.
I heard boot heels clanking against metal and looked across to see Melvin and Amy hurrying down the catwalk from the cabin, two beams of light bobbing up and down as they ran. When they hit the landing to the stairs, they sprinted to the edge of the opposite deck and aimed their lights into the water below.
“Do y’all see anything?” I hollered, straining to penetrate the darkness below.
After a brief moment, Melvin yelled back that he couldn’t see anything. It was difficult to understand him because of the distance and him being out of breath.
“I can’t believe they did that!” Amy called. She was in better shape than Melvin and wasn’t as winded. She aimed her light at where we thought the truck would be, but Bayou Tail had swallowed it up.
Susan had retrieved a spotlight and she lit up the northern bank, but there was no sign of life. I couldn’t see the southern bank because it was somewhere under us, so I asked Amy and Melvin if they could see anything. They couldn’t.
“Susan, come with me.” I turned and ran toward Seth’s unit, calling over my shoulder, “Keep those lights on the water. If anything moves, shoot it!”
Susan and I backed off the bridge in the truck and proceeded to Grace Street. After driving a couple of blocks, we turned north on a cross street and then left on Bayou Tail Lane. I hugged the grassy shoulder, heading toward the underside of the bridge, and Susan used the spotlight to scan the banks of the bayou.
I stopped directly under the bridge and angled the truck so the headlights lit up the water. We jumped out and I drew my pistol as I rounded the front of the vehicle. Susan had the spotlight in one hand and she was cradling the AR-15 in the crook of her other arm.
We moved out of the glow from the headlights and scanned the surface of Bayou Tail.
“I don’t see a thing,” Susan whispered from beside me. “It’s like nothing happened down here.”
She was right. The water had grown still—deathly still. Had the Parker brothers perished in the crash? A sinking feeling fell over me. If they were gone, I might never find out what they did to Chloe. The bayou was at least two hundred feet wide and the water depth under the bridge was over twenty-five feet. That was far beyond most people’s swimming capabilities—even if the water were clear. Here, the water was black and foreboding. Even if they did escape from the truck, they wouldn’t know which way was up or down. We’d definitely need a boat and some experienced divers to search for their bodies.
I kicked at the ground. Before Chloe had disappeared, I’d prepared myself for a confrontation with the Parkers. I’d thought carefully about what I would do when I came face to face with them. Had planned what I would say. Those plans had changed when Chloe went missing. I needed them to tell me where she was and what had happened to her, which would require some smooth talking. But that was before they attacked my office.
Susan pulled out her phone and checked the time. “It’s been about seven minutes since they disappeared,” she said. “I think they’re gone.”
I sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I needed them to tell me where to find Chloe.”
“What if they had nothing to do with her disappearance?”
I asked what she meant.
“What if she simply left the area?”
“For what reason?”
“What if she needed a change of scenery? Or just made a run for it? Some girls get spooked when relationships get too serious.”
“Our relationship wasn’t too serious.”
“Right, because moving in isn’t a major commitment.”
“It’s not like we were talking marriage or anything.”
Susan grunted and didn’t say another word for a while, but her suggestion continued burning in my brain long after she’d spoken it. I found myself hoping she was right, but suspecting she wasn’t. Stepping out on me was one thing—scaring her parents was something different.
Susan and I stood there silently looking out over the water. She stabbed the light at every little ripple of water, the faintest snap of a twig, or slightest rustle of grass, but there was no sign of the brothers. What if they’d escaped before we could get to the edge of the deck? I’d had survival training and time was of the essence if one wanted to escape a vehicle alive. If they’d had similar training, they would’ve been out of that truck in an instant and could’ve been heading downstream before we made it to the top of the bridge and out of the unit. I posed the question to Susan.
She mulled on it for a while and then said, “Anything’s possible, Clint. Anything.”
I started to walk west along the bank in case they had made it out and were headed in that direction, but I stopped when I heard sirens in the distance to the north. Melvin must’ve gotten word to the sheriff’s office that we needed help.
The large pillars that held up the bridge began to vibrate slightly, followed shortly afterward by squealing pulleys and rattling chain. I looked up to see the lift span slowly coming down. The earth shook when it finally settled into place.
“Melvin’s getting good at driving bridges,” Susan said, but neither of us laughed.
CHAPTER 28
8:30 a.m., Friday, October 30
Mechant Loup Bridge
<
br /> Sheriff Turner stood beside me under the Mechant Loup Bridge on the southern bank of Bayou Tail and we watched as his divers prepared to launch themselves off of Melvin’s boat. They were closer to the northern bank and we used binoculars to watch their movements.
Although I tried not to show it, I was tired. My officers and I had spent a restless night along Bayou Tail Lane watching for any signs of the Parkers. Amy and Melvin had taken first watch while Susan and I returned to the scene of the shooting and helped Sheriff Turner’s detectives sift through the rubble at the police department. At my request, the sheriff had agreed to have his detectives take lead on the investigation into the gun battle at my office.
Within minutes of speaking with Detectives Doug Cagle and Mallory Tuttle, it became painfully obvious that we didn’t have a case against the Parker brothers, because not one of us could identify the men who attacked us. I had immediately named them as the shooters when first speaking with them, but when Mallory asked which Parker brother was at which firing position, I had to acknowledge I hadn’t seen any of them. I didn’t like it one bit, but that was the way it went.
After the fire department had put out the fire, Mallory and Doug had asked me to pinpoint the locations of each body to help with the identification process. Once we were done at the fire scene, Susan and I had returned to the crash site and watched the bayou for signs of life while Amy and Melvin napped in the back of his truck. We had switched places two hours later, and each pulled two shifts before Sheriff Turner’s dive team had arrived at daybreak.
I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open, so the first thing I did was walk to Cig’s for a cup of coffee. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, because each time I dozed off I kept seeing Abigail’s face. Once, when I’d jerked awake, it caused Susan—who was snoozing at the far end of the truck bed—to stir from her sleep, and she’d asked if everything was okay. Not wanting to interrupt her any more, I focused on remaining awake.
Standing there with the sheriff, I’d just taken my last sip of coffee and wanted another one. There had been no signs of life on the water or either bank during the night, so we all knew it was a recovery mission. Whoever was down there was already dead and there was nothing anyone could do for them. I, on the other hand, was alive and in dire need of coffee, so I was going get another—
“Do you think those bastards are still down there?” Sheriff Turner’s voice startled me.
“I…I don’t know, Sheriff. I really don’t know.”
“Mallory tells me you think they’re the same pieces of shit who murdered your family.”
I wanted to say I did, but ever since Mallory pressed me on what I’d seen, I’d begun to question my theory. After all, the district attorney’s office in the city had dropped the charges against them due to lack of evidence, and who was I to argue with them? I had to admit to myself it was possible someone else was responsible for the attack on our office, and the murder of the bar tender, and Chloe’s disappearance.
“Damn it!” I shook my head to clear it. This all had to be the work of the Parker brothers. I couldn’t think of anyone else who had the motive or the stones to take on an entire police department. “It has to be them, Sheriff.”
I found myself starting to hope their bodies were down there. It would be all the proof we needed that they attacked us, and it would bring closure to the investigation. If they weren’t down there, they might just get away with murder again—and I couldn’t let that happen.
Either way, I still didn’t know what had happened to Chloe, and it made me sick to my stomach. Here’s hoping Susan was right, I thought, and Chloe had made a run for it.
Within minutes, one of the divers dropped into the bayou and floated beside the boat, waiting for his partner to join him. When they were both in the water, they gave a nod and slowly disappeared into the blackness below. Melvin and a water patrol deputy named Sean manned the ropes attached to each of the divers and stood hunched over, feeding just enough slack for their descent.
Melvin’s face was taut and his eyes narrow. I’d never seen him so serious. I wondered if he was thinking of his wife and toddler back home. After living through a night like last night, it could cause any officer to reevaluate his priorities and to question his reason for doing this job.
Things were a bit too quiet, so I thanked Sheriff Turner again for his assistance and apologized for the loss of his deputies. “They risked their lives to save ours,” I said. “They fought to the very end. I’m proud to say I knew them.”
“Seth was one of my best deputies.” Turner’s tone was somber. “Nate was new, but he had a ton of potential. Making the notification to their families was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” He removed his cowboy hat and rubbed beads of sweat from his forehead. “They sure don’t warn you about that kind of thing in sheriff school.”
I nodded my agreement. It was one of the worst parts of the job and something I’d never grow accustomed to.
“I have to get back to the office,” Turner said after a few minutes. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take Seth’s personal belongings from his truck and then leave it with you. You can use it as long as you want. Let me know if there’s anything else my department can do for you …anything at all.”
I thanked him and turned as Susan walked over from where she’d been talking on her cell phone. Phone crews had worked late into the morning repairing the cell tower north of town and they’d gotten things running in quick order—much quicker than after a hurricane, where they’d have to contend with high winds and widespread damage.
“Lindsey’s fine,” she said. “They patched her up and sent her home.”
“Think she’ll ever come back to work?” I asked. “She seemed pretty freaked out in there.”
Susan frowned. “Is there anything to come back to? Our office is completely destroyed.”
I just shrugged. She had been there when I’d run into one of Mechant Loup’s councilmen at the fire scene earlier in the morning. When I’d asked about using some offices in the new town hall building, he said he would have to run it by the other members. He was concerned that our presence there would put the entire council and their employees in danger. “If you find the Parker clan at the bottom of Bayou Tail, we’ll move y’all in today,” he had said. “If not…I just don’t know.”
I couldn’t say I blamed him. It seemed everyone who stood next to me was in danger. I didn’t like being the cause of so much pain and misery. First, it was my family. Now, it was everyone else in my life. Why couldn’t the Parker brothers have kept things between them and me? By going after Amy, Chloe, Dexter, and everyone else, they’d done nothing more than reinforce my desire to see them dead. They’d started a war…a war I planned on winning.
“Let’s have a seat over here,” Susan said, nudging my arm and waving me toward a shady spot under the bridge where large rocks cropped up out of the bank. I sat next to her and watched as she took stock of her ammunition. Soot was smudged on her forehead, and her uniform shirt was ripped in a couple of places. There was blood on the outside of her left hand and I wasn’t sure if it had spilled from her own body or someone else’s. After she’d finished counting rounds, she leaned the AR against one of the nearby rocks and folded her arms across her chest. “You think they’ll find anything?”
I followed her gaze. Melvin was still watching the water intently. A large wrecker had arrived and parked on the opposite side of the bayou.
“At this point, I sure hope they do. I’m ready for this to be over. Enough people have died over those assholes.” My thoughts returned to Chloe and I asked Susan if I could borrow her phone. I hadn’t seen mine since we’d crashed my Tahoe in the sally port. She handed it to me and I found myself just staring at it.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t even know my own girlfriend’s phone number.” Although I’d recently been given her dad’s number, I couldn’t remember his either, so I handed the phone back to Susan.
> It was cool under the bridge and would’ve been pleasant under different circumstances. The gentle breeze caressed my face. I wanted to lie down on the ground and fall asleep, but I knew I couldn’t. I was about to get up and walk to Cig’s for more coffee when Susan spoke.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she began slowly, and then stopped.
When she didn’t continue, I asked, “About?”
“I know I told you I didn’t want to know if my dad had done something terrible. I wanted to remember him like I knew him.”
I nodded.
“Well, I believe I want to know what you found out. I don’t think I can live in peace knowing Bill Hedd knows something about my dad that I don’t know.”
“It’s your choice, Sue. I’ll do whatever you want me to do…whatever makes you comfortable.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “Okay, tell me—and tell me fast, like ripping off a bandage.”
I didn’t hesitate. I told her everything Conner had told me and explained what happened with Bill and her attorney. “He didn’t want the world knowing his wife was a liar and a cheat, so he decided to drop the false charges against you.”
Before she had time to process what I’d told her, Melvin hollered from the boat. “We’ve got movement! They’re coming up!”
CHAPTER 29
Susan and I jumped to our feet and moved to the water’s edge, watching through binoculars with bated breath. White bubbles rose slowly to the surface and increased in volume and intensity. Before long, the divers broke the surface of the water. Melvin and Sean helped them onto the deck of the boat, where they removed their breathing apparatuses. One of the divers shook his head and said something to Melvin, who immediately pulled out the radio loaner from the sheriff. The radio on my belt scratched to life.