Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series)

by Jana DeLeon

  She had a feeling if she knew that answer, then some of the mystery surrounding Clifton Vines would start to unravel. She waited as Colt handed out maps with the assignments for each search party and gave them instructions for CB usage. As the groups began to head for their boats, Colt motioned to her and called out to the two fishermen they’d questioned in the diner.

  The men stopped and turned around as Colt and Jadyn approached them. Colt shook hands with both men and thanked them again for joining the search.

  “We’ve received some strange information,” Colt said. “I’m not at liberty to go into it as it’s related to an ongoing case, but I was hoping you could help.”

  The two men looked at each other and nodded. “Anything we can do to help,” the first man said.

  “Did Clifton have a camp?”

  “Not that I ever heard of,” the first man said as the second shook his head.

  “Did he borrow anyone’s camp?”

  “I suppose he could have,” the first man said, “but I don’t know of any in particular or on a regular basis. Clifton didn’t take a day off very often.”

  “He usually went fishing when he did,” the second man said.

  The first man grunted. “So he always said, but I think he just took his bass boat out and slept. He never caught much, and had no tales about the one that got away.”

  The second man shrugged. “You’re probably right. I never saw him at the hot spots.”

  “Did you see him fishing anywhere?” Colt asked.

  “Saw him coming out of channels in the evening several times recently,” the second man said. “Two were regular fishing locations that most of us know about, but the other one doesn’t make much sense now that I think about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a small channel with a lot of cypress trees making up the bank. The hurricane did a pretty good number on the older trees. I don’t think you could get very far back, and the channel’s too narrow to have much good fishing.”

  The first man nodded. “Sleeping. I told you.”

  Colt smiled. “You’re probably right.”

  The second man narrowed his gaze at Colt. “You don’t think Clifton is off somewhere in a camp, letting us all run around like fools, do you? Because I can’t see him doing something like that.”

  Colt shook his head. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who would let everyone worry for no reason, but like I said, I got some information that I have to check out or I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

  “I guess not,” the second man said, but he still looked confused.

  “Would you mind pointing out the channel with the hurricane damage?” Colt asked.

  “Sure.” The man took the map from Colt and pointed to an area a good bit north of the search area. “You used to be able to access it from Bayou Bend, but I don’t think you can get through anymore.”

  Colt folded the map and nodded. “I won’t hold you guys up any longer. Thanks for the information.”

  The two men gave him a nod and headed for their boat. Jadyn fell in step with Colt as they walked toward the dock.

  “What do you think?” Jadyn asked.

  “At this point, I don’t know what to think. He may have a hideout back off that channel or have just been sleeping. Still, there’s no way he got that far north without a boat. Clifton’s bass boat was parked on the side of his house, and I haven’t had any theft reports.”

  “So if he was hiding out, you think he’d be using the camps closer to the wreckage site.”

  Colt nodded as he untied his boat from the dock. “Easier to get to. Easier to get away from. To get that far north, he’d have to swim several channels as there’s no logical walking path around that wouldn’t take him hundreds of miles out of his way.”

  Jadyn stepped inside the boat and took the seat next to the driver’s seat. “Then I guess we should start with the camps. What about the Peter Vincent situation?”

  Colt frowned. “I don’t believe for a moment he’s here out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “Neither do I, and I think he lying about knowing Clifton.”

  “So what’s his angle?”

  Jadyn shook her head. “Maybe he’s the one who damaged Clifton’s boat. Maybe Sophia’s opinion on what happened isn’t the answer to all this.”

  “Maybe.” Colt sighed. “This mess has more layers than my mom’s ice cream sundae cake.”

  “I bet they’re not nearly as pleasant.”

  “Not even. Well, I assigned Peter to the area farthest from us. Right now, I’d like to keep you as far away as possible from anyone we suspect could have poisoned your water.”

  “Fine by me. I never liked the guy. Something about him is off.”

  Colt tossed the rope into the boat and climbed in. As he guided the boat down the bayou, a flood of thoughts ran through Jadyn’s mind, but no matter how hard she tried to focus on Clifton Vines, the mystery surrounding him, her attacker, and who he might be, she couldn’t stop herself from going back to the e-mail.

  When they returned home tonight, Colt would have a chance to read it. And then everything she hoped would happen between them was over. She didn’t think for one moment that Colt would turn down the job opportunity he’d always wanted.

  And even if the job didn’t hold the same glitter that it once did, she had no doubt that Maria would.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Colt closed the door on the last of a string of camps along their current stretch of bayou and pushed the dead bolt back into place. It had been a long and completely fruitless day. They’d spent five hours searching camps that morning, then returned to the sheriff’s department for gas and lunch before heading out again. Now, six hours later, they were out of camps and no closer to finding answers than they had been that morning. None of the other search party participants had gotten lucky either, and many had finished their areas and were loading up their boats to leave.

  “Is this the last one?” Jadyn asked as they headed back to the boat.

  “Yep. And we’ve accomplished a whole lot of nothing.”

  Jadyn shook her head. “You realize we may never get answers for this, right? Vines might have drowned and the chances of finding evidence of that is slim to none. And if he is Sophia’s disappearing husband, he could have vanished again.”

  “Not knowing doesn’t sit all that well with me.”

  “Me either, especially as I picked up a stalker while investigating this case. I’m hoping finding nothing will be enough reason for the stalker to cut his losses.”

  Colt stepped into the boat behind Jadyn, his frustration mounting. Jadyn’s stalker was the primary reason he needed answers. No way did he want something like that hanging over her head. It was no way to live. Look at how crazy it was making Maryse, and Jadyn could hardly be expected to stay out of the swamps unless she resigned from her position. So until they had a motive or name assigned to her stalker, they had to assume she was still at risk.

  Colt had been invested in Jadyn’s welfare almost since the moment she’d set foot in Mudbug, but after last night, he wasn’t even going to try to deny that everything concerning her had become incredibly personal. This morning, he’d fought the urge to suggest she stay behind. He knew it was a completely illogical suggestion. First off, there was no way she’d agree to it. And second, finding Vines was her job and she took her job seriously.

  But it didn’t stop him from wishing he could handcuff her to his desk.

  “What now?” Jadyn asked. “Should we check out that sketchy fishing place the diner guy told us about?”

  Colt glanced up at the sky. “We’ve got about another two hours of sunlight, but I don’t think I know a way through there that’s not currently blocked with debris. The direct route is definitely a no-go. A huge cypress tree is blocking entry to the channel. I was going to talk to you about getting a crew out there to move it, as one of the ponds off that channel is a favorite fishing hole for the locals.
They’ve been bitching.”

  “Is there any way around?”

  “I’m sure there is, but offhand, I don’t know it.”

  “Would Maryse?”

  Colt nodded. “Probably. No one knows these channels as well as Maryse.”

  Jadyn motioned to the CB. “Give her a shout and ask. Last night, she offered to listen in on the search talk in case she could help.”

  “Great,” Colt said and picked up the CB. “Maryse, this is Colt. Are you out there?”

  “My husband says I am,” Maryse replied, “so it must be true.”

  Colt smiled. “I need your expertise.” He gave Maryse coordinates for the area they wished to search. “The hurricane blocked the normal access points but we were hoping you knew a way around that wouldn’t take hours.”

  “Sure. Let me check my phone. I made some notes the last time I was harvesting in that area.”

  Colt looked over at Jadyn, who lifted her hand with her fingers crossed. He nodded. If Maryse didn’t have a work-around, then he didn’t know who would. As the minutes ticked by, he started to lose hope, but finally the radio screeched and Maryse came back on.

  “I’ve got a way around for you. Shouldn’t take you more than a mile out of the way of the main channel. Are you ready to write?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Colt hurried to make notes as Maryse provided directions and coordinates. At first he thought she’d missed the mark completely, but then he saw the logic of the path she’d given him. It wasn’t the most direct route, but they shouldn’t have any problems running around in the channels she’d chosen.

  “This is great,” he said. “Thanks!”

  “No problem. Hey, will you do me a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “I know it’s a pain, but can you check in every hour? I’ve got a hotel full of worried people, and I’d feel better if I knew my directions hadn’t gotten you stranded.”

  “Will do.”

  Colt looked over at Jadyn. “Between Mildred worrying about you and Taylor and Sophia worrying about finding her husband, I bet Maryse hasn’t gotten a moment’s peace all day.”

  “You know it,” Jadyn agreed. “I’m glad I’m out here with you sweating and itchy.”

  He handed Jadyn the map. “Do you mind navigating?”

  She scanned the map. “Looks simple enough. As long as things haven’t changed since the last time Maryse was out here.”

  Colt started the boat. “Let’s find out.”

  Jadyn folded the map so that she could see the notes and the area they were traveling and held it behind the column to avoid the wind. A second later, Colt took off down the bayou. This was the last card they had to play. Either they found something, or they had to deal with the fact that they may never know more than they knew right now.

  Thirty minutes later, he cut the engine and the boat glided to a stop in front of a dam of cypress trees. He cursed as he scanned the trunks that completely blocked the last channel they needed to traverse. Another hundred feet and they would have been in the area the other fishermen had seen Clifton exiting.

  “I guess this is new,” Jadyn said.

  Colt nodded. “Maryse said there were a couple of trees down here but there was still enough room to pass on the left side.” He looked at the huge trunk that now covered the previous entry point. “It hasn’t been in the water that long.”

  “It might have happened during the storm that sank Vines’s boat.”

  “Probably.”

  Jadyn walked to the side of the boat and peered over the barricade. “Looks fine on the other side. I don’t suppose we could pull one of these out of the way?”

  Colt shook his head. “It would take more than this boat to move a tree that size. And the last thing we want to do is risk the motor when we’re out here alone.”

  And with someone stalking you.

  He didn’t say it, but he knew Jadyn was well aware of the risks.

  Jadyn frowned and leaned over the side of the boat, peering at the trunk. “There’s a rope here, tied around a big branch.”

  “Could have been a snare someone set before the tree fell.”

  Jadyn shook her head. “The rope’s too thick and rough for a snare. Something looks weird.”

  She reached out and pushed the trunk. Colt stared in amazement as the enormous tree glided easily a couple of inches away from the boat. Jadyn glanced back at him, then rapped on the trunk. There was no mistaking the echo.

  “It’s hollow,” Jadyn said. “Could insects have done this?”

  “No, or we’d see damage on the outside. And insects certainly didn’t tie a rope to it. The other end is tied off behind one of the trees that were already here.”

  Her eyes widened. “Very clever.”

  He leaned over the side of the side of the boat and released the rope from the old fallen tree. Afterward, he gave the trunk a good shove and it glided across the water. He started the boat and eased through the opening, stopping on the other side to push the log back into place and toss the rope over the connecting log.

  “Shouldn’t you leave it open?” Jadyn asked. “I mean, in case we need to get away quickly.”

  “I thought about that, but if he’s not back here and approaches, he’ll know someone untied the trunk. If we have to make a run for it, I should be able to strike the trunk with the boat to get away.”

  Jadyn didn’t look completely convinced that his idea would work, and he didn’t blame her. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure it would work either, but it was the best thing he could come up with that wouldn’t blow their cover if Vines had left the channel.

  He pulled his firearm from his holster and placed it on the dashboard of the boat. Jadyn removed her pistol from her holster and clutched it as she scanned the banks on both sides of the boat. The channel was a good twenty feet across at first, but narrowed as they progressed deeper into the swamp. Finally, they reached the end where it dumped out into a small pond, maybe one hundred feet across.

  “Look,” Jadyn said and pointed to a pile of brush on the far left side of the pond. Colt studied it for several seconds and finally made out the back of a boat, hidden by the brush. “He acquired a boat somewhere.”

  He retrieved his binoculars from the storage bench and looked past the hidden boat and into the trees. “I don’t see a cabin,” he said and passed the binoculars to Jadyn.

  She looked for a bit, scanning the trees from left to right, and finally lowered the binoculars. “I don’t either. But there has to be something back there, even if it’s just a tent.”

  “If Vines spent time back here, I’m willing to bet it’s more than a tent. It’s probably just set far enough back that it can’t be seen from the pond.”

  “You know what that means?”

  “That Vines was building a hideaway before his boat sank.”

  Jadyn nodded. “I’d love to know why.”

  Colt lifted the CB and called Shirley, giving her the code phrase to change to another channel. “Has everyone in the search party checked in at the dock?” he asked once they’d both switched channels.

  “Everyone but one,” she said. “One of the volunteers came across Peter Vincent on his way in and said Vincent wanted to continue searching other areas. He tried to talk Vincent out of it, but he wouldn’t hear it.”

  Colt clenched the CB with his hand. “I’m going to switch back to the regular channel. Let me know if Vincent turns up.”

  “You got it.”

  Colt hung up the CB, not at all happy with this new bit of information. “I don’t like it.”

  “Me either, but it plays right into our theory that Vincent is hiding something and Vines may know what it is. Maybe Vincent sabotaged his boat and Vines managed to make it to his hiding spot.”

  “Or Vines had a backup boat ready and faked the accident hoping that he’d be declared dead.”

  “Either way, it appears he’s trying to get away from something.”

  �
��And that something has to be big. Otherwise, why go to all this trouble?”

  Jadyn nodded. “So how do we approach this? If we’re to believe Sophia, he may have already killed one man in an explosion and stolen a stack of cash. How do we know the swamp isn’t set with trigger devices or other security measures?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Colt scanned the bank to the right, looking for a safe place to dock. “I’ll pull up to the bank over there next to those cypress roots. We can traverse the swamp straight back, then make our way to the left. Hopefully, if Vines set up any security measures near the bank, they’ll be where he docked his boat.”

  Jadyn nodded and Colt started the boat and directed it toward the bank of cypress roots on the opposite side of the pond from where the boat was hidden. He secured the boat to the roots and pulled two shotguns out of the back bench, handing one to Jadyn. He stepped out onto the bank and remembered he needed to check in with Maryse. He turned around and was about to ask Jadyn to make the call when he heard a twig snap behind him.

  Before he could react, a rifle shot boomed and he heard the bullet whiz past him, then the sound of plastic breaking. Instantly, he dived back into the boat, crouching on the bottom next to Jadyn, who’d dropped the instant the shot rang out. He looked up at the console and cursed when he saw that the shot had taken out the CB radio.

  No chance of calling for backup.

  ###

  Maryse sat in the hotel break room with Mildred, Taylor, Helena, and Sophia, all of them staring at the CB as if their attention alone would cause Colt to check in. Maryse glanced at her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes and felt her frustration tick up another notch.

  “How long?” Taylor asked.

  “Ten minutes overdue,” Maryse said.

  “Maybe they forgot,” Taylor suggested.

  Maryse shook her head. “They both know we’re waiting to hear from them.” She picked up the CB and called for them again, but the only reply was light static.