The Grace Painter (The Grace Series Book 1)

by Mark Romang

  Hurricane Vera’s expanding eye swirled directly over the Louisiana coastline. And like a houseguest who didn’t know when to leave, showed no signs of breaking up. The town of Houma had nearly been wiped out. A storm surge three-stories tall washed away bridges, roads, houses, and businesses.

  Rafter looked up into the sky. Vera’s leading edge approached the Atchafalaya Basin, where a cauldron of apocalyptic thunderstorms already savaged the swamp, dumping record amounts of rain and hail.

  He had never witnessed such a deluge. The violent downpour raised the Basin’s shallow, brackish water at least three feet, turning it into frothy whitewater.

  The raging water buffeted the fourteen-foot johnboat wildly about. Rafter struggled to steer the overmatched vessel away from storm debris and trees. They were only halfway into their journey, and he was having serious doubts as to whether they were going to make it alive to their destination. “This is crazy, Annie. We’re going to die out here.”

  “I don’t care. We’re not turning back,” Annie declared fiercely.

  “Hey, take it easy. I just wanted you to know the risk we’re taking.”

  “People who don’t take risks have to watch life from the sidelines. I’m not a benchwarmer, Rafter,” Annie countered as she frantically bailed water from the boat with a Styrofoam bait bucket.

  He couldn’t quite put a finger on what made Annie Crawford tick. For sure, she possessed a lion’s share of guts and glory. But something much deeper and esoteric pushed her to the razor’s edge. Whether determined or demented, she boldly walked a tightrope of abandon without ever looking down to consider the consequences.

  He guessed it had something to do with the Boudreauxs. It seemed she hadn’t yet separated her emotions from the principals of the case. And he couldn’t really blame her for that. Her partner had been killed, and she’d been beaten to a bloody pulp; reason enough to want to extract revenge.

  Rafter’s shoulders shivered involuntarily. Despite wearing a slicker, the rain found ways to penetrate his waterproof coat. His feet suffered the most. They were immersed in rainwater that had collected in the boat since they left the house.

  Initially, they made an attempt to drive into Copeland to allow Annie to make a call to her boss, but floodwater over the roads forced them to turn back. Now they bucked long odds with nothing but a leaking johnboat and a faltering Mercury outboard motor.

  Rafter prayed the sputtering motor only ran low on fuel. Mechanical failure would doom their plans. The wet gloom made fixing a malfunction next to impossible. He could barely see his surroundings. A flickering propane lantern lit their way, its ambient light reflecting off the glowing eyes of nutria and partially submerged alligators. Many landmarks he typically navigated by had simply vanished, and now he wasn’t sure he held course to reach the Boudreauxs’ fishing shack.

  All at once the Mercury motor convulsed and grew silent. Annie stopped bailing and looked back at him. Samson, who stood calmly in the bow, turned to look too. Rafter couldn’t see their faces because of the murk, but knew their disapproving eyes glared at him.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Annie yelled back at him.

  “I think it’s out of gas,” Rafter said, clinging desperately to his flagging optimism. The word gas had barely escaped his mouth when a bolt of lightning torched the western sky. Awestruck, Rafter looked up into the electrically charged air. And just before the brilliant luminescence faded he spotted what he feared more than anything: the tail of a funnel cloud about to touch down.

  Chapter 13

  Gabby Witherspoon sensed the blackness closing in on her. The closet seemed darker than any cave she’d ever been in. She could see nothing, not even the moth-eaten clothes that tickled her face like spider webs.

  She wanted to cry out, but couldn’t. Her throat felt prickly and raw and her piercing wails came out as muffled sobs now.

  Like most children, Gabby loved to pretend. She pretended now, pretended she was far away from this scary place with its bad people and safely at home with her mommy and daddy, and Margaret, her calico kitty cat.

  Gabby couldn’t understand why her happy world had turned upside down. These strangers were mean, and they didn’t like her at all. As far as she could tell, she wasn’t being sassy or wiggly like she sometimes could be. But for some reason she couldn’t figure out, the giant man had locked her up in this tiny closet.

  She hated the dark. At home her daddy checked under her bed and in her closet every night at bedtime, making sure scary monsters didn’t hide under the mattresses. Then he turned on her night light and prayed with her. Only then could she go to sleep by herself. But her daddy wasn’t here now. So she prayed by herself. Only she kept her eyes open.

  “God, I want to go home to mommy and daddy. I don’t like it here. It’s too dark in this closet, and I think there’s a scary monster in here.”

  Gabby noticed a bright light seeping underneath the closet door. Attracted to the glow, she stretched out on the musty floor and slipped her tiny fingers through the slim opening underneath the door. At least her fingers could escape the darkness. Her mind clutched at the thought so intently she failed at first to hear her name called out.

  “Gabby?”

  Something brushed gently against her hair. Gabby immediately jerked back, afraid a ghost had touched her. She looked up and saw a man standing over her. He smiled and held out his hands. Gabby returned his smile. Her fear melted away. She didn’t think this man would hurt her. He looked too nice to be mean. And for some reason the darkness went away. The man had brought a beautiful light with him.

  Gabby grabbed his hand. A warm tingling sensation instantly moved up her arm and into her midsection. She giggled. It felt like something tickled her from the inside. Her laughter abruptly stopped when her fingers slipped through the hole in his hand.

  Fascinated by the odd imperfection, she grabbed the man’s other hand and examined it closely. This hand had a hole in the palm as well. “Mister, how come you have holes in your hands?”

  “Religious leaders arrested me a long time ago. Similar to you, Gabby, they took me away from my friends and family and held me prisoner. Eventually they even nailed me to a tree. The holes are where the nails punctured my palms.”

  “I bet that hurt a lot,” Gabby said. “Why did they do that?”

  The man picked her up and held her. He carefully wiped away a tear caught in her eyelashes. “Sin blackened their hearts, Gabby. They didn’t understand my ministry, and they perceived me as a threat.”

  Gabby liked this man very much. He was like her daddy. Her daddy was kind and gentle and very smart. She wished she could see him now. “Am I going to see my mommy and daddy again, mister?”

  “Yes, Gabby. You will, very soon. But until then you must be very brave. Just remember that I’m always right by your side. I’ll never leave you. Even if you don’t see me or hear me, I’m still with you. The only catch is that you have to believe.”

  Gabby nodded bravely as she studied the kindly man’s bearded face. “I know who you are,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Sure I do. I learned about you in Sunday school. You’re Jesus.”

  Chapter 14

  New Orleans

  Mario Brinkman rolled over and squinted at his alarm clock. A blurry 3 and two zeroes stared back at him. For the fifth night in a row he couldn’t sleep. The sandman has definitely lost my address, Brinkman thought.

  Since childhood he never required much sleep, and had suffered through insomnia before, but never for a bout this long.

  Brinkman rubbed his eyes. They felt as if they’d been worked over by a belt sander.

  The DEA group supervisor shoved aside his tangled blankets and swung his legs onto the floor. When he stood up a dull ache in his left thigh greeted him like it did most every morning. He massaged the tender flesh for a moment. He still carried around grenade shrapnel, a souvenir from his stint in the Army Rangers.

  Brinkman pulled o
n a pair of athletic shorts. Might as well get a jump on the morning and get my work-out in, he thought. He shuffled down a short hallway and stopped at his second bedroom. His weightlifting equipment sat inside. His hand dallied on the doorknob. Thanks to sleep-deprivation he felt lazy and old, sluggish like an engine losing compression.

  Brinkman changed his mind and headed into the living room. He slumped into the office chair at his paper-strewn desk. He turned on his PC and waited for it to warm up. Like many people, he took work home with him. When things got really hectic, he sometimes finished case reports at home and corresponded with fellow agents and select informants via his personal computer.

  While he waited, Brinkman picked up a framed photograph sitting prominently on his desk. A bittersweet smile broke across his whiskery chin as he looked at his daughter. A ravishing tomboy, Eve had her mother’s winsome smile and flowing raven hair. But despite a loving home and dedicated parents, Eve strayed down a dark path that eventually took her life.

  It happened so swiftly and right under their noses. He should have recognized the warning signs. They were everywhere.

  Brinkman still hadn’t forgiven himself for not helping Eve sooner. And the escalating guilt no doubt contributed to his insomnia. He buffered his guilt by tirelessly hunting down the same type of vermin that contributed to his daughter’s demise. One by one he’d get them all.

  Brinkman yawned and opened up his inbox. There were quite a few e-mails, 153 in all. He scanned the addresses and subjects. All of them appeared mundane until he came to one sent by one of his informants. His heart accelerated. Brinkman hadn’t heard from this guy in a long time.

  Inching closer to the screen, he selected the message with his mouse. The message appeared and he eagerly read the cryptic communication. A low whistle escaped his lips when he finished.

  Brinkman read the message again, but slower this time. He didn’t want to miss any hidden clues that may be lurking in the text. As he read the e-mail, doubt germinated in his mind. Some might mistake his skepticism for negativity. But skepticism often helped him sort through thoughts and questions.

  Is the information credible? Could his informant have purposefully fed him false information? Had his informant turned against him? This particular person had been granted amnesty for his cooperation. Indeed, he had everything to lose and nothing to gain by double-crossing him.

  Blaine Boudreaux would go to prison for a long time for submitting duplicitous information. Boudreaux had been covertly helping the DEA keep tabs on Carlos Zaplata’s heroin and cocaine enterprise for the past two years. Blaine’s father, Henri Boudreaux, acted as a middleman for Zaplata, funneling black tar heroin into the U.S. to a network of dealers operating in the Gulf States.

  A powerful and immensely wealthy man, Zaplata used intimidation and violence to corrupt scores of politicians, policemen, judges, and prosecutors in his native Mexico, making it extremely difficult for him to ever be indicted. Rumors swirled that he even had border patrol agents on his payroll. Small wonder he exported more heroin than anyone else in the world.

  Brinkman wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. He’d been working on unraveling Zaplata’s drug enterprise for years, achieving abysmal results at best. He’d been stonewalled at every turn, and his obsession with toppling the drug lord destroyed his twenty-two-year marriage. The hours he spent researching and all the undercover trips to Mexico strangled the passion he once had for his wife.

  Like a grizzled prospector searching for the elusive mother lode, he couldn’t bear giving up the quest, and the long hours finally took their toll on what had once been a vibrant marriage.

  But now, unexpectedly, a splendid opportunity awaited him. According to Blaine’s e-mail, Zaplata gunmen were coming to the U.S. to rescue their American connection. Brinkman had less than two days to spring the perfect trap.

  Hatred rippled through his body. He reserved a special kind of dislike for Carlos Zaplata. It was more than probable Zaplata’s heroin found its way into his daughter’s veins, hopelessly addicting her. He had evidence to prove it. But no one would do anything about it. His boss kept telling him the evidence was too flimsy to warrant an international arrest.

  Eve’s cravings for the deadly drug eventually led her to overdose. Police found her lifeless body sprawled out under a bridge abutment, her stiff fingers clutching a dirty needle, a needle still containing heroin.

  Brinkman printed the e-mail, and then closed his computer. He glanced at a clock on the wall. Only fifteen minutes had expired since he got up. He dearly wanted to call his boss and receive permission to get things rolling, but the early hour made him hesitate. He was already on thin ice with her. His imminent probation was the hot topic around the office.

  You better go ahead and call her. There isn’t much time, and there’s much to do. Brinkman snapped up his phone. After talking with his boss, contact would need to be made with the Coast Guard. Their assistance would be required to legally board Zaplata’s boat, which could easily escalate into a waterfront machine-gun battle. Bring it on, Carlos, Brinkman thought, as he dialed his superior’s home number. Your time is up. It’s your turn to die.

  Chapter 15

  Henri Boudreaux’s residence

  Newton Laskey swallowed hard as he waved his flashlight beam over the mangled Crown Victoria. Half-hidden in heavy brush, the ravaged Ford lay on its side in a twisted lump. Dents gouged every square inch of its skin. The hood and windshield were missing, tires sagged on bent wheels, and antifreeze dripped from a punctured radiator. The Crown Vic looked like it just lost a demolition derby.

  The vehicle’s condition didn’t bode well for his special agents. His gut feeling pointed him in a direction he didn’t want to go.

  He could smell violence. The stench hung in the air, and not even torrential rain could wash it away. Murder has a distinctive smell to it. Someone had recently died here.

  “What do you think, Sheriff?” Laskey asked the Iberville Parish lawman standing at his side. “Do we have a crime scene or not?” Laskey shouted over the howling wind.

  “I’m not ruling it out, Mr. Laskey. But right now all we really have is a missing persons case,” Lester Tubbs said, recently reelected for his third term. “Keep in mind there have been numerous tornadoes touching down in Iberville Parish the past two hours. Maybe a twister knocked over the car.”

  “Then what do you call that?” Laskey demanded as he pointed his flashlight at several small holes in the Ford’s crumpled skin. “Sure looks like bullet holes to me. And explain to me how we haven’t found agents Crawford and Cooper? We’ve combed two-hundred-yards in every direction and haven’t found a trace of them.”

  “You’re insinuating foul play. But no bullet fragments have been found, Mr. Laskey.”

  “Has it occurred to you that someone may have dug them out?”

  “Tornadoes can do some awfully strange things,” insisted the portly Tubbs, his thickly accented voice knifing right through the hurricane’s bluster. “I’ve seen cattail driven six inches into an oak tree before.”

  Laskey shook his head. The sheriff’s melodious southern accent and halcyon demeanor gave him a certain charm. But despite his popularity, ethics violations and nepotism charges frequently swirled around Lester Tubbs, and Laskey wouldn’t be surprised if Henri Boudreaux bankrolled the sheriff’s recent election campaign.

  The FBI man gazed at the dark trailer dilapidating in the distance. A large Morton building stood behind the doublewide. The barn housed earth-moving equipment. “Correct me if I’m wrong, sheriff, but doesn’t Henri Boudreaux run an excavating company?” Laskey asked, speaking loudly into the sheriff’s upturned ear.

  “He does.”

  “It’s conceivable, then, that a backhoe or a skid steer loader could do serious damage to a stationary car? I saw both these machines when we were searching Henri’s barn.”

  “Yes, they could. You can tear down a house with a Bobcat,” Tubbs drawled.

  Laske
y smirked. “Then maybe you should consider that when you write your report.”

  “Hey, Newt, I got something here,” Otis Grant shouted. The FBI agent squatted on his haunches about twenty yards away. His flashlight pinpointed a tiny patch of mucky earth.

  Laskey and Tubbs walked over to the African-American. Grant stood up and handed his boss something he’d pulled from of the saturated loam. “Looks like a busted-up cell phone to me, Newt,” Grant said. “The back is missing.”

  “This is a Samsung like Annie uses,” Laskey said as he examined the smashed phone. He held the phone up and allowed the rain to wash away the mud. He noticed a foreign object trapped in its circuitry. He carefully extracted the small object and held it under his flashlight. The flashlight revealed a wood sliver approximately a half-inch long and a quarter-inch wide. The sliver was smooth on one side and jagged on the opposing side and had lettering burned into it. He held the wood fragment closer to his eyes. The three letters were: SLU.

  Bewildered, Laskey dropped the sliver into a plastic sandwich bag, sealed the bag, and then shoved it into his pants pocket. He would let the crackerjack experts at the FBI crime lab examine it and decipher its meaning. Cases routinely broke wide open on their watch. He’d seen it happen countless times.

  “Mr. Laskey, you may find this hard to believe, but I’m not opposed to the FBI taking jurisdiction over the investigation,” Lester Tubbs said. “My staff is overwhelmed right now with arresting looters and rescuing people from their flooded homes. We simply don’t have the manpower or resources to get the job done on a case this big.”

  Whether or not Tubbs was corrupt, Laskey duly appreciated his candor. “I gladly accept your offer, Sheriff. But we’ll still need your assistance on some matters,” Laskey croaked. His throat felt raw from shouting over the wind.

  “What do you need?” Tubbs asked.

  “A stack of search warrants. Sebastian Boudreaux has numerous cousins who might be willing to offer their homes as a sanctuary.”