But Not Forlorn: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 7)

by BJ Bourg

  BUT NOT

  FORLORN

  A Clint Wolf Novel

  (Book 7)

  ___________________

  BY

  BJ BOURG

  www.bjbourg.com

  BUT NOT FORLORN

  A Clint Wolf Novel (Book 7) by BJ Bourg

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2018 by BJ Bourg

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  Cover design by Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 1

  Sunday, April 23

  Mechant Loup-North

  As he gave his campaign speech, Lance Beaman scanned the faces of the Mechant Loup-North residents who had gathered at the home of Chet Robichaux, his old friend and client. He was better at one-on-one interaction, and he tried to focus on the people with whom he’d connected during the meet-and-greet.

  There were a few nods as he began his speech—mostly when he spoke about his many years in real estate and how he had spent a lifetime in the area helping locals realize their dreams of becoming homeowners—but no one seemed especially enthusiastic.

  “I plan on bringing real change to Mechant Loup, just like I did with the development of Mechant Loup-North.” A few nods here and there. He had been instrumental in developing the subdivision north of the Mechant Loup Bridge, and it had helped bring in a new flavor of people from all across the country, most of them retirees searching for a final resting spot that was quiet and safe. The majority of the people in the room were among those who had relocated here within the past year. According to Chet, they had already established residency and registered to vote, and were all self-described hardcore voters who voted in every election. “I’m going to revamp the police department and make sure our children and schools are safe!”

  Could the polls be wrong? Lance wondered, the tightness returning to his chest as he surveyed the unenthusiastic crowd. According to his consultant, he was eleven points ahead of Pauline Cain in the race for mayor, but it appeared he wasn’t carrying two percent of this room. He adjusted his collar. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back and he cursed his choice of wardrobe—slacks, long-sleeve button-down shirt, and sports jacket. Why aren’t they applauding my speech? Doesn’t everyone want school security and child safety?

  It suddenly dawned on him—hardly any of these people had school-aged children, so they didn’t care as much about school safety as a younger crowd might. “You know, people, I hope to retire someday.” He pulled the microphone away from his face and made a show of studying each and every person’s face, nodding vigorously as he did so. When he spoke again, he raised his voice a little. “Apparently, retirement makes you look twenty years younger. I mean, judging by the looks of you handsome devils with your beautiful better halves, it certainly does.”

  That brought an initial chuckle from an old man who sat at a table to his left, and that caused a few others to laugh.

  “Well, I hope to look as good as y’all do someday.” He nodded and pursed his lips. “But it’ll be a while yet for me, because I’ve still got some work to do. As you all know, people want to retire to a place where their dollar stretches a lot farther and where they can leave their doors unlocked if they want.” He paused and studied the expressions on their faces. His message seemed to be resonating better. “You each want a mayor who will do everything he can to keep your property safe, and someone you can talk to if you have a problem—any problem.”

  Applause sounded from the back of the room and it spread like a wave. Lance smiled to himself. I’m finally getting somewhere with this group.

  “I’m the only mayor with the integrity to hold the police department’s feet to the fire. I’ll make sure they crack down on criminals and drug dealers, while leaving the good citizens alone. The drunks you often see roaming around town as you walk the strip, and the drug dealers who are operating in the shadows of our beautiful landscape”—he raised his left fist and turned his outstretched thumb downward—“they’re all about to have a rude awakening, because when I become mayor, I’m bringing my whip and I’m cracking down on them all!”

  More applause.

  Lance took a breath and wiped sweat from his bare dome. “You know, I hate to say it, but we can’t expect our current mayor to be tough on crime. I’m sure you’ve all seen my commercials…”

  Nearly every head nodded and a low murmur of approval spread across the room. One man, a well-groomed fellow wearing a fancy suit with a red tie, stood at the back of the room. Lance had noticed him earlier and the man seemed indifferent during most of his speech. Now, though, at the mention of the town’s current mayor, the man’s face had hardened and he glowered at Lance. Trying not to show his uneasiness, Lance looked away and found a friendlier face at the front of the room, continued.

  “How can we trust a mayor to be tough on crime when her husband, Hays Cain, was involved in all kinds of shady business?” When he mentioned Pauline Cain’s late husband, several men in the room booed. His voice began to grow with excitement as more and more people began to verbalize their disdain for Hays Cain. “Some might say he was a victim, but we all know he was involved in illegal activity of the highest order, and there’s no way his wife was not aware of his wrongdoings.

  “Me, I’m going to rid this town of all criminal elements and I’m going to begin with Pauline Cain. Once she’s out of the way, I’m going to run every other criminal out of our town. They will know there’s no place for them here. They won’t work here, they won’t visit here, and they won’t live here. They will not be welcome here and I will make damn sure they know it!” The room erupted in applause and cheers. He stole a glance in the direction of the man at the back of the room. His eyes were mere slits and his jaw was set. Lance quickly looked away and continued. “In closing, I ask you to please join my team and help me spread my message about safety and security, so we can make this town the best place on earth to retire.”

 
; The room erupted again, but once the noise had subsided, a woman waved from the corner of the room. “What did you mean about my dollars stretching a lot farther?”

  “I’m glad you brought that up.” Lance wiped his hands on his slacks. “Yep, I’m going to make sure the town council never raises your taxes above the current rate.”

  “What about property taxes?” the woman pressed.

  “I will do everything in my power as mayor to make sure your property taxes never go up,” Lance lied. “And that’s a promise you can take to the bank!”

  Before anyone else could ask another question in front of the group, he waved and placed the microphone on a nearby chair. Chet rushed forward to rescue him, snatched up the mic. “Thank y’all for coming to our meet-and-greet,” Chet said loudly. “Please dig deep into your wallets and purses and consider making the maximum donation allowed by law. We need your help to put this town back on the right path, and it begins right here and right now.”

  Lance stood and smiled as he watched men pull out their wallets and women dig into their purses. He recognized many of them, because he had closed the deal on most of their homes in Mechant Loup-North, and they had all been pleased with their purchases. Most of the attendees filed into a rough line and stopped to hand him their contributions and to say goodbye on their way out the door. He felt like a priest bidding his congregation farewell at the end of mass. It made him feel powerful. A few people slipped out the back, and he figured they were too embarrassed to admit they didn’t have enough money to help out. He didn’t mind, though, as their vote was more important than anything else.

  Once the majority of the crowd had gone, Lance visited with Chet for a few minutes before calling it an evening himself. “I want to thank you for putting on this event,” Lance said, stopping in the doorway to shake hands with his friend. A thought suddenly occurred to him and he looked around, wondering what had become of the stranger at the back of the room. “Say, Chet, did you notice the well-dressed man at the back of the room?”

  “They were all well-dressed. Can you narrow it down a bit more?”

  “He wore the red tie.”

  “Hmm, I can’t say that I noticed anyone in a red tie.” Chet scowled. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

  Lance shrugged. “It’s nothing, I guess. He just didn’t seem like a supporter is all.”

  “Yeah, well, you won’t get a hundred percent of the vote, that’s for sure. Pauline Cain is popular in some circles, but then you knew this would be an uphill battle.”

  Lance thanked his friend again and walked down the cobblestone steps and strode across the smooth driveway. His car was parked a few dozen feet from the door, and he groaned as the Louisiana heat enveloped him. It wasn’t summer yet but it was already hot. His short legs pumped like pistons as he hurried to his car. He stripped his jacket off before he reached the car and tossed it in the back seat as soon as he opened the driver door. He cursed the stifling heat that enveloped him when he took his seat.

  “Hurry up, damn it!” he said, twisting the key in the ignition and turning the blower on the air conditioner as high as it could go. The air that initially blew through the vent was smothering, but he knew it would only last for a minute or so. He left his door open while waiting for the air to cool, glanced back toward Chet’s place. The sun was setting behind the house and the shadows in the front yard were starting to grow long. He had one more stop to make before heading home.

  Finally, the air from the vents cooled and he slammed his door. He glanced up and paused with his hand on the gearshift. What the hell? He leaned forward and squinted, unable to comprehend fully what he was seeing. Just to the left and front of where he was parked, a clump of thick trees grew at the center of the boulevard. From the shadows of those trees, a man wearing a hooded mask emerged and stood directly in front of his car, blocking his way. The man approached slowly, menacingly. There was a satchel over the man’s left shoulder and he was holding some sort of bottle in his right hand.

  In a state of panic, Lance began fumbling with the gearshift, trying to find reverse. Before he could get it in gear in time, the man touched off a lighter and lit a wick that extended from the bottle. In one deft motion, he then launched the bottle directly at the front windshield of Lance’s car, aiming for the driver side. Flame immediately exploded across the windshield and onto the hood.

  Letting out a terrified scream, Lance fumbled some more with the shift and it finally fell into place. He smashed the accelerator and his vehicle shot backward. When he’d backed up enough, he smashed the brakes, but the pedal felt spongy and his vehicle barely slowed. Suddenly, it slammed to a stop and his head jerked violently with the collision. A quick glance in his rearview mirror told him all he needed to know—he’d plowed into a large pickup truck that belonged to Chet’s son.

  Before he could do anything else, a second bottle exploded across the windshield and the flames grew higher. Smoke began to seep into the cab. Due to the flames and smoke, he could no longer see the man, but he knew he was still out there somewhere.

  “What do you want?” he screamed as loud as he could, shoving the gearshift in drive. He shot a glance toward the house. There was no sign of life. Although it was futile to scream for help, he did so anyway. “Somebody help me!”

  A third bottle exploded into the rear windshield and the glass shattered, allowing the accelerant and fire to gush into the back seat. He was in real danger now and needed to get away. Locking the gearshift in drive, he shot forward, driving blind, trying to remember where the center of the boulevard was located. If he misjudged the route, he would end up in the trees and feed the already growing flames that were threatening to completely envelope his car.

  Swerving violently as he sped forward, Lance let out a terrifying cry when he caught a glimpse of the mystery man, who was poised to throw another bottle at his car—and this one was heading straight for the window on the front passenger door. Before the car could speed out of range, the bottle smashed through the side window and a fiery ball gushed into the opening and cloaked Lance in its hellish embrace.

  Lance didn’t know if his car was moving or not—and, at that moment, he didn’t really care. The pain and heat that wrapped over him was so intense it shocked him to his soul. He couldn’t even scream. When he opened his mouth in the blaze, the only noise that came out was a guttural moan, and the insides of his lips and tongue felt as though a cup of molten lava had been forced down his throat.

  As Lance struggled to suck in small amounts of heated breath at a time, he was vaguely aware of the driver’s side window being smashed open and another wave of fire gushing over him. Somehow, above the roar of the flames, he heard a strong voice calling out to him, “For you have sown the wind, you piece of shit, now reap the whirlwind!”

  CHAPTER 2

  Clint and Susan Wolf’s house…

  I rolled onto my back and stretched long and hard, letting out an animalistic growl as I did so.

  “You woke the neighbors with all of that noise.” Susan sat up next to me in bed, her right breast poking out of the side of her tank top.

  “We don’t have neighbors.”

  “Exactly my point.” She adjusted her shirt and tucked her breast away, which brought a frown to my face. She noticed and cocked her head to the side, pushed a lock of brown hair behind an ear. “You’ll be getting to spend a lot of time with her in the next hundred, or so, years—that is, unless you grow tired of me now that we’re an old married couple.”

  “Old married couple?” I laughed. We had gotten married on a cruise ship last Sunday. After the wedding, we had sailed from New Orleans to Jamaica, then the Grand Caymans, and then Cozumel. We had returned just this afternoon, a little after one, and had taken a long nap, neither of us wanting our vacation together to end. “We’ve only been married—what?—five minutes?”

  “I noticed how you avoided that whole question.”

  “I didn’t avoid anything.” I brushed my fin
gers lightly across her strong and tanned leg. “I’ll never grow tired of you, Susan Wilson.”

  “It’s Susan Wolf now, Mr. Man.” Susan straddled me and leaned her arms against my chest, studying my brown eyes with her own. “And I’ll never grow tired of you, Clint Wolf.”

  I’d known I was in love with Susan for quite some time and I had always felt very close to her, but I was surprised how much closer I felt after spending the last seven days with her—and how much I’d learned about her. It was the first real time we’d spent together talking about things other than criminal cases or fighting or our family or the shelter Susan was running for battered women.

  One of the things that surprised me about her was that she was afraid of frogs. She had told me over dinner one night in the cruise ship’s dining room that the fear stemmed from an incident that happened when she was a little girl.

  “There were these cute red boots I used to wear every time it rained. I’d go prancing around in the ankle-deep water, thinking I ruled the world. Well, this one day, the ditches had flooded and I was in a hurry to get outside. I rushed to the carport, kicked off my sandals, and shoved my right foot directly into the boot.” She had paused to shudder and cover her face. “There was a frog at the bottom of my boot. I have no idea how it got in there, but I just remember it feeling all slimy and cold between my toes—”

  “Wait—between your toes?” I’d asked, incredulous.

  She’d shuddered again and her face had twisted into a grimace as she nodded. “I smashed the life right out of that little frog. All of its guts squirted up between my toes. It was the grossest thing I’ve ever experienced. I was gagging and hopping around trying so hard to get the boot off that I fell and skinned both my knees.” She had paused to take a sip of water and I’d wondered if she was having trouble keeping her appetizer down. “The only way I’ll wear rubber boots now is if I throw them around first, so anything inside can come out.”