by Rebecca Deel
“Will that give us enough time to check the swamp?”
“Bayou, Elf, and it’s a start at least. If whoever took Christine isn’t from around here, they’ll take the most direct route to the water, if that’s where they headed.”
She frowned. “Will you be able to tell?”
“Maybe. Depends on whether or not the area’s been disturbed by wildlife.”
Lily swallowed hard and wished again she’d brought a bigger weapon.
CHAPTER SIX
Remy guided the SUV along the dirt roads toward the bayou where they had found Christine’s vehicle. He rounded the curve, slowed. Looked like Lily was right. Mouton had the Escalade towed, but the area wasn’t cordoned off. The good sheriff must still be convinced Christine was on an extended shopping spree after a fight with her husband. He wouldn’t know a real crime if it rose up and bit him on the leg.
Deciding there was no reason to hide his vehicle since the area was free of crime scene tape, he parked at the side of the lot. If Mouton did wise up and check around, at least Remy wouldn’t have messed up any possible tracks that might be left after the sheriff had stomped around the area. And, yeah, he would have stomped any clues while he was at it. Still, the detective in Remy wouldn’t let him destroy potential evidence.
He met Lily at the front of the SUV. “Watch where you step. This isn’t a city park.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that. Wild animals don’t lurk in the trees and bushes at Centennial Park.” She scanned the trees ahead of them, gaze wary. “Just tell me there aren’t any squirrels around here.”
Remy came to a dead stop right at the edge of the tree line. He stared at the pint-sized woman beside him. “You can’t be afraid of a squirrel.”
“Why not?” She shuddered. “They’re rats with bushy tails. Horrible little creatures.”
Seriously? Lily’s target scores were higher than his and he didn’t know anyone tougher than this woman who could take down a man twice her size. He just couldn’t get his mind around the squirrel phobia. “Huh.”
“Isn’t there something you’re afraid of, Doucet?”
“Spiders.”
Now it was her turn to stare at him. “We see all kinds of spiders during Fortress ops.”
“Yeah, and I manfully swallow my screams when I see one, too.”
Soft laughter. “I’m not the only one full of surprises.”
“Come on. Walk behind me. Some of the undergrowth may be dense.” Remy chose the easiest path, careful to avoid areas that looked too spongy. He followed the trail of broken branches toward the water’s edge. Something dark moved into his path.
Remy held up his hand. “Cross traffic,” he murmured, gaze fixed on the cottonmouth slithering across the nearly invisible trail at his feet.
Lily peered around at the snake. “What is it?”
“Cottonmouth. Deadly.”
“Nice. Got any more creatures I should be aware of?”
“Besides squirrels?”
That earned him a punch on the arm. He grinned. “There are seven types of poisonous snakes in Louisiana. Some, like this one, love the water. Most don’t. We also have bears, bobcats, and many cousins of Lucifer.”
“Fabulous,” she muttered. “Should have brought an RPG instead of a rifle and a couple handguns.”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
“Awesome. You can be lunch for the wildlife while I run.”
“Not nice, Lily.” Remy motioned her forward. More evidence of someone or something coming through this area. He didn’t discount the possibility a bear had lumbered through here, though he hadn’t seen scat to mark a bear’s passage.
Pushing through thick underbrush, he paused.
“See something?” Lily shifted to his side. “What is that?” She pointed to the patch of bare dirt leading to the water’s edge.
“Alligator slide.”
“Um, do alligator’s hang around their slides?”
He glanced at his companion. “Worried?”
“I’d be stupid not to be.”
“What don’t you see?”
“A lizard on steroids.”
He smiled, then motioned at the tracks in the dirt. “Nothing that indicates a person dragged someone through here.”
“Wouldn’t the alligator have messed up any tracks?”
“It’s possible, but I didn’t see any tracks on the way here, either.”
“You any good at tracking?”
“Fair. I look like an amateur compared to Ethan Blackhawk, though.”
Lily frowned. “I don’t know him.”
“Otter Creek’s police chief. Army Ranger. He’s Josh Cahill’s brother-in-law.”
“Ah. Cahill and his Delta unit are something else.”
“Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t mind having those boys back me up any day.” He walked to the water’s edge.
“Should you be doing that? What if that alligator comes back?”
“Shoot it,” Remy said absently as he scanned both sides of the slide.
“I don’t happen to have a grenade handy, either.”
Another smile. Who knew G.I. Jane had a snarky sense of humor? She must have hidden it on the other ops they’d worked together. He liked this side of her and couldn’t wait to discover more surprises. Remy had a feeling Lily would never bore him, a problem which he encountered over and over in the dating scene. Most people thought he was a serial dater, but it didn’t take long to figure out a relationship was going nowhere if the dinner or coffee conversation just about put him to sleep.
He noticed something pink in the water, snagged on tree roots. Christine’s signature color. His smile faded. Remy picked his way to a fallen log close to where the material was floating. He examined the log. Didn’t want any nasty surprises to reach out and bite him. Satisfied he wouldn’t be risking life and limb, he traversed the log, crouched and worked the pink material loose.
Part of it had picked up the mud of the bayou. The upper part, which still showed its pink color, had CEW monogrammed on a corner. He returned to his partner on solid ground. “The scarf belongs to Christine.”
Lily examined the filmy material. She glanced at him. “Notice anything weird about the scarf?”
Remy frowned. “Like what?”
“If we’re supposed to believe the abductor killed her and tossed her in the water, where’s the blood?”
“Wouldn’t be any if he strangled her.”
“Fair point. So if he strangled her with his hands or the scarf and tossed her in the swamp, how did her scarf end up speared on a tree branch out of the water? If it snagged the branch on her dive into the water, wouldn’t it be torn? Doesn’t seem like he’d bother to take off the scarf before she sank.”
He looked closer. Huh. The elf was right. One very nice hole where the branch poked through. He scanned the area around the tree again. Someone hung Christine’s scarf where it would be seen. Disgust roiled in his gut. If it had been left to Mouton, would the scarf ever have been found? Probably not. “This was planted for someone to find.”
“And that sparks an interesting question. If the kidnapper wanted us to know he’d taken her, why hasn’t he made a ransom demand yet?”
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?”
Lily turned his direction. “It would if James caused his wife’s disappearance. He said Christine became restless a couple months ago. What if she was having an affair and James found out about it?”
Remy’s breath caught in his throat. His first instinct was to deny she would have done any such thing. Had to admit, though, that was a possibility. After all, she had two-timed him when they dated in high school. Only difference was she’d married the other guy. And his friendship with James had broken irrevocably. “We need to check out that angle.”
That was not a conversation he wanted to have with Christine’s husband. Maybe he could tap Zane for a little help with Christine’s financial records. Unless something had changed drastically i
n the last twelve years, she didn’t carry cash. Whatever she spent money on should be on her credit card bill.
He sighed, retraced his steps to the log.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting evidence back where I found it.”
“What for?”
“The scarf doesn’t do us any good except to tell us someone wants us to think Christine’s dead. Just in case Mouton is overcome with a case of the guilts and decides he wants to do his job, I’m leaving the evidence where I found it. We don’t need this.”
“Won’t James want to see it?”
“I’ll let him know to press Mouton for a full search of the area. If we’re lucky, one of the deputies will spot it.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Won’t matter. We’ve seen it and James will know about it.” He placed the scarf back on the same branch, through the same hole. Back on dry ground, he motioned to Lily. “Let’s head back. I have some phone calls to make.”
In the driveway of the Doucet home, Aiden had returned and was waiting for them. Lily rubbed her hands together, anxious to work more with those tools. She climbed onto the running board and hopped to the ground before she realized the pack of dogs was racing her direction.
Oh, man. She hoped they didn’t eat her. The dogs she’d encountered on Nashville’s streets weren’t exactly the friendliest mutts around. These, however, resembled nothing more than overgrown puppies. Couldn’t be any worse than the dogs she walked at the shelter when she had time.
Before the dogs reached her, Remy gave an ear-splitting whistle and called the dogs to him. Huh. Guess he learned that skill from his father.
“I have a new alternator, Lily.” Aiden held the equipment aloft.
“Excellent.” She hurried to the step stool, climbed up, and held out her hand for the part. Lily positioned it, plugged in the electrical connections. She tightened the bolts, and positioned the serpentine belt. After making sure everything was back in place and tight, she connected the positive battery cable.
“Okay, Aiden. Crank her up.”
Remy’s father climbed behind the wheel, slid in his key and turned on the ignition. The engine fired.
Lily listened to the engine. Nice. She smiled.
“You are a genius, my dear.” Aiden turned off his engine, slammed the door, and beamed at her.
“Not in my wildest dreams. Where can I wash the grease off?”
“Utility room,” Remy said. “I’ll show you.” He nudged a few dogs out of the way and led her to the back of the house. Warily, Lily kept a close eye open for Lucifer. Surely he wouldn’t crawl right into the patio area, would he?
“Sun’s out. Lucifer’s napping.”
“You sure?”
He opened the back door. “Reasonably.”
That did not make her feel better. After another glance around, she hurried past him to the utility room’s sink. She scanned the shelves, grabbed the orange-scented hand scrub formulated to remove grease. A couple minutes later, she dried her hands on the towel Remy handed to her. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?”
“If Christine was involved with another man, would her friends know?”
“Possibly. There’s also a decent chance she didn’t tell anyone because small-town gossip spreads like wildfire in Oak Hill. If she was sneaking around, she wouldn’t want James to hear about it.”
“Can we find out without raising attention?”
“I’ll ask James who her friends are. We don’t have time to run into town today. First thing tomorrow, I’ll take my girlfriend for a tour of my hometown.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “Do I have to play the airhead girlfriend again?”
“You didn’t have to play that role with Mouton in the first place.”
“No? You didn’t see yourself and the good sheriff. I thought you boys were going to rip off your shirts and start beating on your chests like Tarzan.”
He flinched. “Did you have to put that image in my head? Old Beau without a shirt will give me nightmares now.”
She rolled her eyes. “What should I know about your family before they show up?”
“There are a lot of them.”
“That is not helpful, Doucet.”
“Don’t worry so much. My brothers are good men. They married smart, beautiful wives and have a lot of adorable kids. The adults will be rabidly curious about us, the kids not so much.”
Again, not much help. How did she talk to these adults, not to mention the adorable kids? The only kid she knew anything about was Nathan Winter and he was only a few months old. Conversation wasn’t one of his skills yet. She couldn’t exactly talk about their work. No one but Remy knew what she did for a living. She could just imagine the looks of horror from the wives if she talked about guns and grenades at the dinner table. On the plus side, the older kids might like it. “I don’t chat.”
“Good. We don’t, either. We have real conversations. Sweetness, it’s going to be fine. Trust me.”
Easier said than done. She hadn’t trusted anyone for a very long time.
In the end, though, her partner was right. The families were very curious about her, but not suspicious, which was novel for Lily. Emile was thrilled someone else could fix all things mechanical other than himself. “You’ll get lots of work around here, Lily. None of my brothers have the mechanical gift,” he said. She just smiled.
The wives asked questions about some of the ops she’d been on. A couple asked about her military career. All in all, though, she was accepted as belonging to Remy. His brothers teased him about finally finding someone to put up with his quirks.
Wonder what was up with that? Lily glanced at Remy. Her partner had male model looks and was seriously ripped. She figured he’d have women throwing themselves at him.
He caught her staring at him, winked, and returned to a conversation with Noel’s wife about Jessica’s doll house.
“He’s something special, isn’t he?” Kayla, Pierre’s wife said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“When did you first meet Remy?”
“Almost a year ago. We were on a protection detail together.”
The other woman’s gaze shifted to her brother-in-law. “Is he good?”
“The best I’ve worked with.” Well, aside from Durango, Cahill’s Delta unit. “And it’s not just skill. He cares about the people we protect.”
She frowned. “Don’t all of you?”
“Not necessarily. Fortress’s people are very good. Maddox wouldn’t hire anyone who wasn’t. To those I’ve worked ops with, our principals aren’t just a job. A lot of them become friends.” At least some of them did. She counted Sophie Winter as a good friend, quite a step up for a woman who, before Fortress, isolated herself. “It makes us fight that much harder to save one of them because they matter to us.”
“And you would do that for Remy as well?”
Lily blinked. Well, Kayla had some claws on her. “In a heartbeat, just as he would do the same for me.”
Kayla relaxed against the back of her seat. “Don’t be angry with me. He has such a big heart. I want to know you’ll fight for him.”
Remy’s gaze shifted to his sister-in-law as he draped his arm across Lily’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry about me. I would trust Lily with my life and have many times over the past few months.”
“We love you, Remy, and your job isn’t exactly safe.”
He smiled. “Most days it’s boring babysitting jobs.”
Yeah, until the day it wasn’t. Lily had a feeling this op might be an adrenaline ride.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Remy breathed a sigh of relief after the last of his family finally pulled out of the yard and onto the dirt road toward their various homes. His ears rang from the sudden quiet in the wake of the Doucet clan’s departure. He adored his nieces and nephews, but they were a boisterous bunch of kids. He smiled. One day, he wanted his own noisy children to love as much as he d
id his brother’s offspring.
Knowing his mother would keep Lily occupied for a while as they loaded the mountain of dishes into the dishwasher, he pulled out his cell phone, placed a call to James.
He sat on the porch stairs. “It’s Remy.”
“Have you found out anything yet?”
“Mouton didn’t contact you?”
“No.”
Of course not. He sighed. “Lily and I found Christine’s Escalade at Rosemont Bayou. Her purse was inside, under the passenger seat. We also found her scarf on a tree limb at the water’s edge. I doubt Mouton saw the scarf.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mouton had the SUV towed, but he didn’t cordon off the area. He doesn’t believe Christine is missing. My guess is he figures you and your wife had a fight and she’ll show up when she’s good and ready.”
“I filed a missing persons report!”
“And because there’s no evidence to the contrary, he blew it off. I left the scarf on the tree. You should press Mouton to have one of his deputies search the area around the SUV down to the bayou. Just do me a favor, and don’t tell him I was the one who tipped you off. Mouton is not a fan of mine and took great pleasure in telling me despite my law enforcement background, he was doing things his way.”
“Which is doing nothing,” James’ voice was filled with disgust. “You can be sure I’ll insist that he do the search. If he asks where I heard the information, I’ll blame the grapevine.” A sigh. “If I’d been in town, that would undoubtedly be true. Remy, what does all this mean?”
“There’s no body.”
“What if the kidnapper dumped her body in the bayou?” He drew in a ragged breath. “There may not be anything left to find. Wouldn’t that explain not receiving a ransom demand?”
Yeah, he’d thought about that, but the scenario just didn’t play for him. He believed Lily was right. Again. The little elf was proving herself a very sharp lady. “There’s no evidence to indicate a struggle in or around the car, nothing on the trail to the bayou. The scarf was speared on a tree branch. No rips, no blood, no possible way anything but a person put it there deliberately. If the kidnapper killed Christine and dumped her in the bayou, why would he leave her scarf behind like that? Wouldn’t he want you to think she was still alive so he could collect money from you for her return?”