by Cindy Dees
The connection went dead in her ear.
She quickly did a map check and found out the drive to Morgan City would take her a solid hour and a half. She dialed Bass’s phone number, but he didn’t pick up. She left a hasty message. “Lonnie called and he’s going to kill Gary. I’m on my way to Morgan City.” She rattled off the phone number Lonnie had called her from, too.
And then she raced out of the house. Sure enough, the alarm system allowed her to open the house door from the inside without any problem. She punched in the numeric code to get into the parking garage and tossed her things in the back of the van. Unlocking Esther, she took the two garage door openers off the visor, left the keys on the seat, and headed out.
This was not how she’d expected to leave Bass’s house. But somehow, it felt inevitable. Bass had been right about one thing, at least. She hadn’t been able to run away from Lonnie forever. He’d finally caught up with her. And it was time to pay the piper.
Chapter 13
Bass got out of the classified briefing a little after 9:00 p.m. They had a team in trouble in a nasty corner of the world, and they’d spent the past hour scrambling to arrange a safe house and build an exit strategy for a SEAL team trapped in hostile territory. Finally, all was well and the team was secure, but it had been tense there for a while. He stepped out of the metal, anti-surveillance cage around the briefing room, and his phone exploded with texts, vibrating madly in his pocket.
It rang just then—the police department phone number flashed on his screen—and he picked it up. “Detective LeBlanc.”
“Hey. It’s Jarred Strickland. We just got that file you requested unsealed.”
Oh. That. “I already know her real name.”
“No, Bass. The other file.”
“What other file?”
“You requested all information about the death of Shelly Baker and Susan Baker Grange.”
He’d forgotten about firing off that request. “Oh. Right. They’re unsolved murders that might have something to do with the Hubbard kidnapping.”
“Turns out they’re not murders.”
Bass stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Come again?”
“They’re not dead. They’re in the WitSec program.”
“Who did they testify against? Lonnie Grange?”
“Give the boy a gold star,” his boss replied.
Oh, man. Carrie was going to be ecstatic when she found out she hadn’t killed her best friend and her friend’s mother. “Thanks for letting me know. I gotta go talk to someone.”
He disconnected the call, hurrying toward the exit. As he went, he checked the sender of all the messages. Strickland must have been frantic to get that information to him—
Except the person sending him message after message was Santiago Perez, one of the SEALs keeping an eye on his house. Quickly, he punched up the texts. The guy was losing his mind because Carrie had driven out of the property in her van a little before 8:00 p.m. and Santiago had no orders on whether or not to follow her.
And then Bass spotted the phone message from Carrie. Furious and panicked, he pulled it up and listened in horror as she told him hastily that she was going to meet Lonnie Grange by herself to save Gary.
He sprinted to the ready room and pulled the card out of his wallet that had the identification code for the tracking system he’d installed in her van. Thank God he’d done that!
A map popped up on the screen with a blinking dot that was Carrie’s van. She was headed out of New Orleans on Highway 90. Only major thing out that way besides swamp and alligators was Morgan City. Lonnie Grange had made a mistake hiding out in Bass’s old stomping grounds. He knew every inch of that part of the state.
Bass called Carrie and listened in dismay as her phone sent him to voice mail. Why didn’t she answer? Was she in Grange’s custody already?
Stone cold terror roared through him, making him shiver with fear. He took off running for the building’s armory, forming a mental inventory of weapons, ammo and gear he would need to operate in a swamp. He’d grown up in the low country and knew its many dangers all too well.
“What’s up, Bass?” his boss, Commander Cole Perriman, asked from the doorway moments after he barged into the supply room.
“Carrie’s gone to meet with her uncle’s kidnapper in a misguided attempt to get him back.”
Perriman groaned, then said briskly, “How many men do you need?”
Bass stopped stuffing ammo clips into a utility belt long enough to look up. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’s your woman, right?”
“No. Yes. No. It’s complicated.”
Perriman grinned. “Always is when a woman’s involved.” He strode into the room and commenced picking up gear off the metal shelves. “I’m going with you. Let’s grab a sniper and spotter—Trina Zarkos and Ford Alambeaux are in the building. She’s a top-notch shooter, and he’s been spotting for her for a while.”
“We got a tracker in town?” Bass asked as he stripped off his civilian shirt and pulled on a high-tech sea-land shirt knit with metal microfibers that acted as armor against bug bites and minor snake bites. It was ideal for swamp ops.
“You’re the best tracker I’ve got. But Mick McCarty’s downstairs.”
Bass nodded. “Let’s grab him.” The Aussie transplant was a desert tracking specialist, but the guy had eagle eyes and was a hell of a tracker in any environment, in addition to being tough as nails.
He hated having to wait for the other SEALs to gather, and he occupied himself pulling gear for all of them while he fidgeted. But within about ten minutes, the five of them had piled into a big SUV with all their gear and headed out. Perriman drove, and he put a siren on the roof of the SUV, flying down Highway 90 after Carrie.
Bass tried Carrie’s phone again. Still no answer. He was going to kill her when he caught up with her.
And then his fear got the best of him and he just wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go.
Cripes. His emotions were all over the damned place. Thank God Perriman had chosen to drive.
Bass briefed the team with everything he knew about Lonnie Grange and Gary Hubbard’s kidnapping. Tony Sicarrio had confessed that Hubbard was being held in a swamp shack somewhere, but he had no idea the exact location. Apparently, Tony met Lonnie Grange at a gas station every few days to deliver food and supplies to his boss.
But no matter how hard he’d pushed Tony, the guy swore he had no idea exactly where Gary was being held. He did confirm, though, that Lonnie was trying to get Gary to tell him where his niece, Kathy, could be found.
Apparently, Gary hadn’t confessed that Carrie was actually his niece. Bass had to give the old guy credit for holding out this long. It was noble of Gary to protect her life with his own. Not everyone had the grit to suffer for someone else.
Sicarrio had mentioned there was “creepy as crap” swamp all around the spot where he met Lonnie. Which suited Bass just fine. He’d grown up in those creepy swamps.
Bass turned to Trina Zarkos in the backseat. She was tracking Carrie’s GPS signal on a computer tablet. For the hundredth time, he asked her, “Where’s Carrie now? Tell me you haven’t lost her.”
“I haven’t lost her. She stopped at a gas station in Morgan City long enough to fill up her vehicle. Maybe to make a phone call or two. She’s heading west from there as we speak. Looks like she’s heading into your neck of the woods, Bass.”
Trina leaned forward from the backseat to hand him the tablet. “I’ve got topographical maps pulled up and overlaid on the road map along with the blip from your girl’s tracking device. You’re the local boy. Any guess as to where she’s headed?”
Bass studied the computer screen, translating roads and waterways into the familiar territory of his youth in his mind’s eye. “I know a shortcut that’ll get us in
to the area she’s driving toward in ten or fifteen minutes less than going all the way into Morgan City.”
To Perriman, he said, “Continue straight for about ten more minutes. I’ll call the turn.”
Gary Hubbard’s life might hang in the balance tonight, but more importantly, so did Carrie’s. If something happened to her, Bass wasn’t sure he would ever be the same again.
They drove a bit further, and then Bass started watching the road carefully. “Slow down, Frosty,” he muttered.
Perriman eased off the accelerator.
“About a tenth of a mile more,” Bass told him.
The commander turned off the highway where Bass indicated. They weren’t able to careen along at godawful speeds, but this road cut the corner and pointed them directly at Carrie’s current position.
Perriman turned on the high beam lights, illuminating a narrow asphalt road pitted with potholes and crumbling in the harsh climate. They banged along, punishing the SUV’s suspension and their bodies. Bass and the others braced a hand against the ceiling as Perriman pressed on grimly.
Trina grunted, “Looks like she has stopped moving.”
Bass glanced at the tablet Trina held up for him and swore. “She’s transferring into a boat.” He thought fast about who lived nearby. “I have a cousin who lives about three miles ahead of us. He’ll lend me his boat, no questions asked. We’ll turn right, and it’s not gonna look like any kind of road at all. There may be some water over the road before we get to Lou’s house.”
Perriman replied, “This vehicle will handle about three feet of water if it comes to it. Engine’s sealed for rough terrain.”
God bless his boss for thinking ahead. Personally, he’d been so panicked when he’d gotten Carrie’s message that he was lucky he’d remembered to bring ammo for his weapons.
They bumped along for another couple of minutes, and then Bass said, “Look for a mailbox mounted on a tree stump. That marks Lou’s driveway.”
Perriman turned on the searchlight mounted by his rearview mirror, and Bass leaned forward from the backseat to point at the right side of the narrow road while Perriman drove.
“There!” Bass called out.
Perriman hit the brakes and turned carefully onto what looked like a patch of shorter weeds among the taller weeds and brush. “You’re sure this is a road, Bass?”
“Positive. Lou is my mother’s cousin. We used to come here all the time.”
Ford commented dryly from the backseat, “No wonder I hear banjos in my head any time I hear you talk in that Cajun drawl of yours.”
Bass didn’t take his eyes off the nearly nonexistent driveway as he muttered in his thickest Cajun accent, “Don’ make me fillet yo’ face, boudreaux.”
Everybody chuckled as the road curved and a cabin on stilts came into view.
No lights burned in the windows of Louis’s house as Perriman stopped the SUV.
“Anybody home?” Perriman asked as Bass threw open his door.
“We’ll find out,” Bass replied as he jumped out of the SUV and ran up the stairs to the porch. He banged on the door and shouted, “‘Ey, Louis. It’s me, Bastien. You home?”
Nothing.
He banged again. The cabin was small, and he was making an ungodly racket. He would take that as a no, Louis was not home.
Bass raced down the steps and ducked under the house, making for the dock behind the cabin. A glint of aluminum caught his eye. Praise the Lord. Lou’s boat was here.
“C’mon!” he called to his teammates. “And bring the gear!”
Everyone piled out of the SUV, grabbed gear and came on the run as he felt around above the door to a small boathouse for the spare key Lou hid up on the ledge. His fingertips touched metal. Bingo.
He stepped into the low skiff and started throwing off mooring lines as the others piled into the boat and efficiently distributed the weight of themselves and the gear to keep the boat evenly loaded and its center of weight low in the water. Bass cranked up the powerful outboard motor, and it rumbled to life hungrily.
“Lemme drive,” he told Perriman. “I know these waters like the back of my hand, and I can run fast in them at night.”
Mick threw off the last line and stepped into the skiff, and Bass gunned the motor. The lightweight boat leaped away from the dock and accelerated like a bat out of hell. It should. Lou had been known to run drugs in from the Gulf of Mexico to dealers in the bayou in his younger days. He’d developed a taste for fast boats that didn’t look like much but were beasts in the water. And this one was no exception.
The front end of the skiff lifted up out of the water as the propeller dug in and flung the craft forward. In seconds, they were skimming along the still canal water at close to sixty miles per hour.
He headed in the general direction of the van’s last position, some five miles ahead of them. Bass was just starting to contemplate if he should slow down and transition to the much smaller, but silent, bass fishing motor, when Perriman called in his ear, “A boat’s approaching.”
Bass maneuvered quickly over to the edge of the canal, tucking the fishing boat under a bunch of overhanging branches and cut the big engine.
Everyone in the boat had to practically lie down flat to avoid getting an eye poked out. He deployed the trawling motor without turning it on and held on to the nearest stout branch, praying the passengers in the big, loud boat about to roar past them wouldn’t notice them.
The passing speedboat’s wake rocked them violently, and Bass hung on tight lest he get tossed overboard. The vessel’s running lights retreated rapidly and rounded a bend ahead.
He immediately pushed off, using the branches to propel Louis’s bass boat out into deeper water where the propellers wouldn’t foul in the weeds and muck near the bank.
They cruised forward at only a few miles per hour toward the bend ahead. They were running completely dark, now. Mick and Ford had removed the bulbs from the boat’s sockets for running lights, and while they’d been parked in the bushes, everybody had grabbed handfuls of grass and hacked off branches with their field knives. They used the plant matter to obscure the profile of the boat and cover up its shiny hull.
Looking like a floating beaver hut, they rounded the corner.
Perhaps a quarter mile ahead of them, a large, expensive powerboat was moored. As Bass peered ahead over the prow of his own vessel, he saw two figures climb aboard the boat. And one of them only topped five feet tall by a few inches.
His heart leaped in recognition and then immediately plummeted to the soggy floor of the boat. Carrie was getting into that monster boat with a killer. In no scenario he could possibly think of was that a good thing.
Perriman held up a closed fist, signaling Bass to stop the boat. He did, cutting the motor and letting Lou’s bass boat drift forward slowly. The silence was heavy and unnatural and made the skin on the back of his neck crawl. The bayou should be a deafening cacophony of insects and critters at this time of night.
The powerboat roared to life and everyone ducked, expecting the boat to come back toward them. But instead, it raced away from them, on down the canal. Where was it headed?
He cranked up the main engine and gave chase, but that speedboat was going to outdistance him easily. And without the GPS tracking unit in the van, he had no way to follow her. Bass swore violently.
“What about her cell phone?” Trina asked. “Does she still have it on her?”
“Only one way to find out,” Perriman replied. Bass listened in agony as his boss put in a call to SEAL ops to ask them to ping Carrie’s cell phone. Bass fed his boss the phone number.
“They’ve got a signal,” Perriman announced.
Bass sagged in relief.
“It’s intermittent, though. Lousy cell tower coverage out here.”
Bass could have told them that.
&nbs
p; Perriman fed a set of GPS coordinates to Trina, who showed the map to Bass. The speedboat was headed toward open water. There wasn’t much down that way but an abandoned oil refinery and some floating docks where ocean trawlers delivered their catch to shallow draft boats who hauled the catch inland.
“Why does Grange want Carrie instead of Hubbard?” Perriman speculated. “The old guy’s semi-famous. Could be worth a little ransom. But her? She’s a nobody.”
Bass ground his back molars together while Ford and Trina exchanged a loaded look. Ford muttered, “Spoken like a man who’s never been in love.”
“My love life has nothing to do with this,” Perriman snapped.
Trina popped back. “It’s your lack of a love life that’s under discussion. Carrie is the most important person in the world if Bass cares about her.”
All eyes turned on him, and Bass scowled, not liking being the center of his teammates’ attention.
“Grange and Carrie have some past history together. She called the cops on him a long time ago, and he went to prison as a result.”
That silenced everybody. He didn’t need to tell them that Grange would torture Carrie at best and kill her at worst.
The wind whipped past, spray slashing at his skin. They ran the canal at the boat’s top speed for about fifteen minutes before Trina yelled, “Ops says Carrie’s signal has stopped moving!”
“How far ahead is she?”
“About a mile!”
Bass cut the engine and shifted over to the bass motor. They glided forward silently for a couple of minutes, and then Trina murmured, “Her tracker’s on the move again. She’s moving away from the water slowly, like she’s on foot, apparently.”
They spied a ramshackle boathouse with a boardwalk leading from the structure to solid ground some hundred feet inland.
They had to assume someone was inside the boathouse until they cleared it. Hating to lose the time, Bass nonetheless steadied the bass boat against the outer wall of the building while Trina, Ford and Mick crept inside to clear it. In about sixty seconds, they declared it empty but for the speedboat Carrie had arrived in.