Deadly Competition (Without a Trace)

by Roxanne Rustand

  “She’s managing the entire pageant, dear.”

  Mandy cast a look back at Clint, who appeared oblivious to her distress, and she knew she didn’t dare protest. He thought he was paying her a compliment, and it would embarrass him more than it did her if she protested. She couldn’t do that to him…no matter how misguided he’d been.

  Portia moved remarkably fast in those high, high heels, and in a few minutes they were hurrying down a long hall in the Loomis Hotel.

  “Wait for us,” Portia shrilled when they reached a set of double doors leading into a ballroom.

  Inside, the decorations were an explosion of pink—pink roses, massive pink candles, pink lace and ribbon confections as centerpieces on each table. Swaths of pink satin swooped from the ceiling to showcase the dais, where a long table awaited the coordinators, Mandy supposed. A dozen chandeliers cast soft, flattering light on the crowd of ladies who all wore elegant dresses and corsages.

  “We have one more entrant,” Portia announced. “We’ve now set an all-time record.”

  The chatter abruptly ceased. The women all clapped politely, their eyes narrowing as they took in Mandy’s running shoes and casual clothes.

  She hid a grin at the small, satisfied smiles that flickered through the group as they frankly dismissed her as a threat in the competition.

  If anything, their reactions filled her with relief, because the last thing she wanted was the high-profile attention of the front-runners.

  Then a tall male figure emerged from the crowd. “Miss? Miss? Over here!”

  Mandy instinctively turned to the sound of the voice, only to face multiple explosions of light as a photographer snapped several pictures.

  Stunned, she stared at him, then hurried to his side. “Please, no,” she whispered. “No photos.”

  He chuckled. “Of course there’ll be photos. Where do you think you are?” He pulled a card from his front pocket. “If you want to buy some extra copies, just let me know.”

  The nightmare of constant recognition began at church the following day, and continued over the next week every time Mandy had to go downtown. It was clear that most of the old guard thought her entry in the contest constituted the deepest travesty, though most were too polite to do more than give her a cool glance.

  On Wednesday, when she took Sarah to her appointment with Jocelyn, she parked at the front of the building and hurried inside. Sarah promptly went to the children’s table in the waiting area, while Mandy stopped at the front desk to check in.

  The perky receptionist looked up and smiled. “Good afternoon!” She leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile. “I just want to tell you that I’m rooting for you, even if all the older women aren’t.”

  Bemused, Mandy smiled back. It was that obvious? “Uh…thanks.”

  “Well, you know—they think the pageant is for the old biddies who have been around here forever, or the stuck-up society gals, and they think that you’ve got to be married, and all that.”

  “Honestly, I agree with them.”

  “But I think it’s way cool that you dress just like yourself, instead of wearing all that mother-of-the-bride stuff. You know, the fancy clothes.”

  “Thanks.” Mandy smothered a laugh at her backhanded compliment. “But please don’t vote for me. The other women would be so much better.”

  The fact that the other women would actually still be here a few months from now to fulfill the obligations of Mother of the Year, while Mandy would be long gone, was a point she didn’t dare make.

  “See? That’s what I like about you. None of that pretension and arrogance, like some people around here.”

  Nonplussed, Mandy couldn’t think of anything to say. All she wanted was to slip back into the shadows of anonymity, where she was safer. But it was too late for that, and she already felt jittery as a cat in a lightning storm. The other day, she’d quietly packed a bag that stood just inside her apartment door.

  In case she had to run.

  Dean couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. But then, Katherine didn’t realize who she was up against. She didn’t even know that he’d found her and had already made a trip to Loomis.

  Watching her, his right to possess her had ratcheted up both his anger and soul-consuming jealousy when he saw her smile at the little girl and the man she was shacking up with. How dare she?

  But she wouldn’t be playing house much longer.

  Dean bared his teeth in an angry smile as he lazily moved his mouse and cruised the pages of the newly posted Loomis Mother of the Year Pageant Web site.

  He wouldn’t have thought to seek it out, but it paid to have people who owed you favors.

  Like the rookie cop down at the police station, whose wife just happened to have a cousin living in St. Tammany Parish, and who’d noticed a familiar face when searching for her cousin’s entry in the pageant.

  Ben’s call had come at midnight. Dean spent the rest of the night studying the pageant schedule and staring at the photographs of Katherine, who must have thought dyeing her hair would be a great cover. The fool.

  He leaned back in his chair, satisfied, as the first rays of morning sun crept through the curtains.

  According to the Internet trip calculator, Loomis was 876 miles and just under fourteen hours away. He’d made it in twelve the last time on a lot of caffeine and no sleep, and this time he’d do even better.

  Thanks to the good folks of the Loomis pageant and their busy little Webmaster, he wouldn’t have any trouble tracking Katherine down once he got there.

  He’d been so livid before his first trip that he hadn’t taken the time to plan. He’d gone unarmed, ill-prepared. This time, he would think things through. He would make every last second count, and he would cover his tracks.

  This time, he wouldn’t be coming home alone.

  TEN

  “So, how are things going?” Clint asked over supper on Thursday evening. “You’ve got what—eleven days until the final pageant awards banquet?”

  “Ten. And there’s some sort of event or deadline almost every day. Are you sure you want me to stay involved in this?” Mandy made a face. “I feel like a pony matched against a field of thoroughbreds. If I drop out, you could get a refund.”

  The hopeful look in her eyes made Clint smile. Didn’t she realize how lovely she was? How beautiful, inside and out? “I still think you’re the best prospect in the bunch.”

  “I’ll probably be disqualified, anyhow.” She pushed a kernel of corn back and forth across her plate with her fork. “They told me that they need an essay, five hundred words or less, by tomorrow. With Sarah and errands and keeping this place up, I just haven’t had time.”

  “Actually, I’ve been working on one. The rules say it can be written by the nominee or a friend.” She was so quiet and un-assuming that he could only imagine how she’d react if she were to see his paper. “I’ll finish up tonight and drop it off tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  Sarah looked up from her plate. “Can we go see the agillators, Unca Clint?”

  The child asked for so little that he couldn’t say no, even though there was a stack of bid calculations on his desk that should keep him working from now until long after midnight. “You mean the alligators? Do you remember what they like to snack on?”

  She giggled. “Marshmallows!”

  Mandy looked at them. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “They eat lots of stuff.” The child’s eyes widened with delicious horror. “They gots big, big teeth.”

  “How on earth would they develop an affinity for marshmallows?”

  “Swamp boat tours,” Clint said. “The guides use marshmallows and chicken carcasses to lure the alligators closer to the boats, so the tourists can take pictures. I suppose the marshmallows work well because they float.”

  “And they taste good!” Sarah chimed in.

  Mandy laughed. “So, Miss Sarah, who is going to take those poor alligators to the dentist when th
ey get cavities?”

  “They’re too mean to get cav’ties. My momma said so.” Sarah’s smile abruptly faded at the thought of her mother, and she grew quiet again.

  She’d done better since Mandy arrived, but there was no denying that the poor little girl still missed Leah very much. Every evening, when Clint went to tuck her into bed, she said her prayers and begged God to bring her momma back, then clung to Clint’s neck as he murmured the endless reassurances that he tried to believe himself.

  Mandy met Clint’s gaze, then stood and began collecting the plates with a flourish. “I think,” she said, “that instead of sitting around doing these dumb ol’ dishes, we should find the agillator treats and go before it gets too late. I need to see these friends of Sarah’s who like marshmallows. Can anyone find the bag?”

  Sarah climbed down from her chair and dutifully went to the pantry. She still appeared subdued, but at least she hadn’t dissolved into tears, as she might have just a week or two ago.

  “You’ve made such a difference here,” Clint said quietly. “You have a wonderful way with her—have you ever thought of being a teacher?”

  She looked a little startled at that. “Not really. But now that you mention it, maybe I’ll look into it. I’m enjoying every minute I have with your niece. She’s such a sweetheart.”

  Mandy was a sweetheart, too, though he could hardly say so. She was an employee in his house, an invaluable asset for helping things run smoothly while Leah was gone. She’d swiftly become the anchor he needed at home, so he could save his company from going belly-up.

  Logically, muddying this business relationship with personal feelings was the last thing he should do. At best, it would make things awkward, with her living in the apartment over his garage. At the worst, it could lead to Mandy leaving if things went sour. He couldn’t take that risk.

  But with each passing day, he seemed to notice something new about her. The sparkle in her eyes when she laughed. The delicate turn of her wrists, or how she put Sarah above every other priority and found a way into the child’s wounded heart.

  He could not imagine seeing her walk out of his life. And yet—he knew so little about her. Was she simply reticent about personal revelations, or was there something in her past that she was afraid to share? Nothing had turned up in his background check, but still…

  Maybe a trip through the bayou would be a good thing. Sarah would likely fall asleep, and he could start asking Mandy more questions. Leah’s old party icebreaker would be the perfect way to start.

  And in the boat, Mandy wouldn’t be able to smile, shrug and walk away.

  The sun was low in the sky and casting long, mysterious shadows through the forest of cypress trees near the shore when they parked Clint’s truck at the bayou.

  “This is absolutely lovely,” Mandy breathed as they eased away from the old pier in a sleek cabin cruiser. “How big is it?”

  “Twenty feet. There’s a small galley below, and it sleeps four. One of my customers couldn’t pay his bill, and this became part of the settlement.” Clint gave her a self-deprecating smile. “It’s a little rich for my taste, but I haven’t yet had the heart to put it up for sale. Sarah just loves coming out here.”

  Mandy curled up in one of the cushioned seats at the back, and Sarah took the other. “Do you water-ski?”

  “Haven’t had time, but maybe someday. When Leah and I were teenagers, she and I used to borrow a boat and go skiing quite a bit.” Clint shot a quick glance at Mandy while maneuvering through the heavy swamp vegetation beyond the old pier. The vertical dimples framing his mouth deepened, and the slide of his dark gaze spurred her awareness of him all the more. “When Leah comes back, maybe you can join us?”

  “Yes…sure.” A flash of guilt niggled at her. Was it a lie if she simply agreed with him when she knew it would never happen?

  I shouldn’t have come, she realized as her insides started to do a jittery little tap dance. The dreamlike intimacy of the early evening stillness and the luxurious confines of the boat afforded a welcome escape from her worries, yet brought a different sort of tension over things she couldn’t ignore.

  Clint’s low laughter at something Sarah said.

  His easy, masculine confidence as he handled the boat like it was an extension of himself.

  The dark five o’clock shadow that roughened his strong jaw and made him look just a little dangerous.

  She’d been so careful to maintain a polite distance. To keep everything purely platonic and businesslike. So what on earth had she been thinking when she agreed to go with him out on the bayou?

  “I spent most of my childhood out here.” He pointed to an old white wooden boat with what appeared to be a crumbling shack on top, trimmed in blue. “Eight Bells is only thirty-five feet long, but she was my grandfather’s shrimping boat. She kept his family fed and helped him build a pretty good business going after shrimp, crawfish and crab.” A corner of Clint’s mouth lifted in a wry grin. “I spent all of my summers helping him, but I probably wasn’t much help until I got older. He was a very patient man.”

  “Does it still run?”

  “It floats, but it would take a lot of work to restore. Someday, when things calm down, I’ll get started.”

  A flock of stately herons, white ibis and other wading birds she didn’t recognize stepped gracefully through the murky shallows nearby, oblivious to the boat slipping past them as they hunted for small fish. Overhead, a speckled hawk soared, scattering some of the ever-present gulls with its piercing cry.

  Clint guided the boat through the thick reeds into a narrow channel of open water surrounded by a dense, flooded forest of moss-draped cypress. The massive, teepee-shaped trunks were deeply ribbed, rising to a towering canopy of foliage that blocked most of the fading, evening light. The sheer magnificence of it all made Mandy feel as if she’d stepped into the presence of the Almighty.

  Then up to the right, through the underbrush, she caught a glimpse of a crumbling mansion with broken windows and peeling paint—the perfect setting for a horror movie. “Why would anyone let such a beautiful home go to ruin?”

  “That’s the old Renault place,” Clint said dryly. “You remember Charla, right?”

  “She certainly isn’t a friendly woman.”

  “An understatement. That place was her husband’s greatest joy, according to local legend. His family heritage. When he died, she closed it up and built a new, even more ostentatious place at the front of the property. There’ve been a lot of offers for the old one, and even her own late son wanted to reclaim it. She refused.”

  “Why not just sell it?”

  “Her late husband was reportedly unfaithful, and she makes no bones about taking pleasure in seeing his family home rot away. Down here, with our oppressive heat and humidity, decay doesn’t take long.”

  Sarah stirred, and Mandy slid forward in her seat to reach over and hold on to the child’s bright orange life jacket. “What a shame.”

  “Believe me, there are lots of things in this town that don’t make sense. Old feuds, revenge, unsolved murders…it’s not exactly Mayberry.”

  Then he fell silent, and from the distant expression in his eyes, she knew he was thinking about his sister again.

  Clint deftly skirted a crowd of tall, narrow wooden forms rising six feet or more above the water. Brownish-gray at the tips and draped in green, they looked like ancient druids.

  “Wow—are those ever strange. Sarah, do you know what they are?”

  “Knees.” Sarah said with a giggle.

  “Cypress knees,” Clint amended. “The green on them is duckweed. It’s everywhere out here. From a distance, some parts of the swamp look like solid ground and green lawn, but it’s just all the duckweed floating on the surface.”

  The last rays of the sun had faded to pale lavender, and now the bayou was filled with the boom of bullfrogs and the piercing calls of birds. Overhead, an owl hooted its mournful, lonely cry.

  Mandy longed
to reach over the edge of the boat to trail her fingertips along the warm, indigo surface of the bayou…though the sides of the boat were too high and the possibility of mysterious creatures lurking in its depths made her think again. “How deep is it here?”

  “Most of the swamp around here is maybe two to four feet, but the bottom is deep muck. Some of the bigger channels around here might be forty feet or more. You could probably go wading right here, but—” he lifted a brow “—I probably wouldn’t. Never know what might be out here. A water moccasin just went by a few minutes ago.”

  From somewhere in the deepening gloom came a loud splash.

  “And there’s gators!” Sarah exclaimed. “That was one, right, Unca Clint?”

  “Maybe.”

  The boat was substantial, with a powerful motor, but Mandy shivered all the same. “Will we get very close to them?”

  He smiled. “You already are. Take a good look over there—near the bank of that little island.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “There!” Bouncing up and down with excitement, Sarah pointed at the water, and now Mandy grabbed her life jacket with both hands.

  Mandy didn’t see anything except reeds and cypress knees and a few old logs floating in the water maybe twenty feet away…until one of the logs executed a swift roll and dove out of sight. She drew in a sharp breath as images of the old Jaws movie flew into her thoughts. Hadn’t a shark attacked a boat in that one?

  She eyed Sarah, then chose her words with care. “They won’t…be looking for dinner, will they? Maybe we should head for home.”

  Clint grinned. “This is a big boat and we’re good. Sarah? Got your treats?”

  She nodded and handed him the bag of marshmallows. He lobbed several of them close to where the gator had disappeared, and a split second later, the water boiled and a set of massive, open jaws broke above the surface to snap down on the white blobs floating in the water.

  Sarah clapped. “More!”

  He sent a dozen marshmallows arcing through the air to land in several directions, and instantly there were other takers. Two gators ran into each other and a skirmish erupted before both disappeared.