by BJ Bourg
“Simon!” Rancid Breath hollered. “I hear another cop car.” He hurried to where Simon stood over Amy. “Do you think it’s him?”
Amy knew he had to be talking about Clint. So, they’re trying to use me as bait to get to Clint, she thought.
“Is the car coming this way?” Simon asked.
“It sounds like it’s getting closer, so it must be.”
“You get on one side of the road behind those trees and tell David to get on the other side behind the truck. If it comes down the road, shoot out the tires and disable the car. If it’s Clint, don’t kill him. His ass is mine. If it’s anyone else, cut them in half.”
Amy tried to remember everything Clint had told her about the Parker brothers. She knew there were four of them—Simon, Taylor, David, and Thomas—and Clint had killed Thomas during the armed robbery attempt and massacre of his family. Simon was the one whose boot was on her wrist and David was somewhere in the darkness, so Rancid Breath had to be Taylor.
Taylor started to walk away, but shot a thumb in Amy’s direction first. “Don’t go getting greedy with the blonde,” he said. “After we kill that bastard Clint Wolf, I want my turn with her.”
Once Taylor had strolled off, Simon leaned over and grabbed Amy’s pistol, trying to pull it from the holster. Amy instinctively grabbed his thumb with her left hand and wrenched it back. Simon howled in pain and jerked his hand away. “You little bitch!”
Amy knew what would happen next. Simon was silhouetted against the moonlight and she saw his hand rear back to strike down at her. In that moment, she rolled onto her back and pushed off with her left foot. In one swift motion, she launched her right foot upward into the air and toward Simon’s head. The heel of her boot landed flush on his face, catching him off guard. He grunted and stumbled backward. Amy seized the moment and rolled back to her right and shot a second kick toward Simon’s knee. With a shriek, he toppled sideways and fell to the ground.
CHAPTER 11
Cradling her right wrist in her left hand, Amy bolted toward the northbound shoulder of the road, heading for the banks of Bayou Tail. The grass was tall along the shoulder of the road, but she could see the moonlight glinting off the water between the weeds. If only she could make it to the water she’d be home free.
Simon screamed in rage and a gunshot exploded behind her…and then another. Dirt exploded into the air to her immediate left and she cut to the right. Spurred on by fear and an intense desire to live, she crashed through the tall weeds and covered the short distance to the bayou side in record time. More shots exploded behind her and, without a bit of hesitation, she dove headlong into the murky, alligator-infested water.
“Get that bitch!” Simon screamed, snapping off more shots, but the sound of gunfire turned to muffled pops as Amy plunged deep into the water of Bayou Tail. Kicking her feet as fast as she could and taking long strokes with her arms, she turned left and headed north, trying to stay parallel to the shore. Her gun belt and clothes were weighing her down and she had to struggle to keep from sinking to the bottom of the bayou. Her throbbing wrist was making matters worse and she began to worry she wouldn’t make it.
When she could no longer hold her breath, she fought to resurface and caught a mouthful of much needed air. Trying not to cause too much of a ripple, she treaded water and scanned the dark shoreline. The brothers had switched off all the headlights, so it was hard to get her bearings. She was about to dip back under the water when one of them spoke and gave away his position.
“Where is she?” It was definitely Simon and he was somewhere to her left. “Did we get her?”
“I don’t see her,” called a voice that was even with her position. It sounded like Rancid Breath, but she couldn’t be sure. “We need to get set up. That cop is getting close. I think he’s heading this way.”
They were right; the siren did sound closer. Amy knew Melvin would eventually head south, if he wasn’t already. She had to do something quick or he would drive right into an ambush. Taking a deep breath, she slipped under the water and swam north as hard as she could, angling toward the shoreline. It felt as though she were moving backward, but when she resurfaced two minutes later she saw the dark shadows of the weeds along the highway. In the dim glow from the moon, she was able to see what looked like a large willow tree that had fallen into the bayou along the shore. If she could put the willow between her and the Parker brothers, she would be safe.
Gasping for air, she dog paddled toward the north side of the fallen tree and said a silent prayer of thanks when she got close enough to grab onto one of the branches. Trying not to snap any of the branches or make the water ripple, she pulled herself along the edge of the tree until she reached shallow water. She tried to stand, but her boots sank in the soft mud and her head dipped below the surface. Black water poured into her mouth and she choked, trying to cough it out of her throat.
“Hey, did you hear that?” called one of the brothers. “I think she’s over there.”
Suddenly, a bright light shone across the water and began stabbing at the shadows. Holding onto a low-hanging branch, Amy allowed her body to sink into the murkiness, keeping only her lips above water. An occasional beam of light flashed through the branches, but she was confident they couldn’t see her—the tree was too thick and they were at least forty yards on the other side of it.
Something splashed into the water along the opposite bank and she saw the light jerk in that direction. Someone fired shots at the noise—at least four of them—and she heard Simon scream at them to cease fire. “It’s an alligator, you idiot!”
Amy gasped when she remembered the alligators. Careful not to make too much noise, but hurrying as fast as she could, she pulled herself hand-over-hand along the northern side of the tree. Although her arms screamed in fatigue from the long swim, she didn’t stop until she was safely on dry ground. Exhausted, she dragged herself to the shoulder of the highway and collapsed. After taking a few deep breaths, she rolled to her back.
Amy’s polyester shirt clung to her tight frame and she pulled on it as she lay there panting, her heart pounding in her ears. When she’d gathered up enough energy to move, she rolled to her hands and knees and began crawling north. Every now and then one of the brothers would yell that they saw her in the water, and that would be met with an occasional gunshot and lots of cursing. Based on the sound of their last shot, she knew they had not advanced toward her position.
She continued crawling until she was about fifty yards farther, where there was a slight bend in the highway. She was familiar with the road and knew she’d be able to see headlights approaching from about a mile away. She picked an enormous cypress tree as cover and backed into the dark shadows beside it, immersing herself in the thick weeds that grew naturally along the bank. Pickers clawed at her bare arms and left an after-burn, but she ignored it. The minor discomfort was nothing compared to what the Parker brothers would do to her.
Amy waited in the darkness, listening as Melvin’s siren zigzagged across town. She hadn’t worked with Melvin long, but she knew enough about him to know he would be frantic, driving like mad all around town searching for her. When will you think to head south?
The bayou water had washed away her bug repellent and she swatted at a flock of mosquitoes that buzzed around her head. Saying a silent prayer, she keyed up her radio, but the water had rendered it useless. Sighing, she flexed her wrist several times before trying to draw her pistol. If Melvin didn’t find her in a hurry, the Parker brothers would, and she needed to be ready. After several attempts, and some help from her left hand, she was finally able to pull her pistol from the holster.
Amy squeezed the grip to test her strength and pain shot through her wrist. She transferred the pistol to her left hand and aimed it in the direction of the Parker brothers, waiting…watching.
After about five minutes, the siren in town seemed to multiply and it was getting closer. She looked to the north, squinting to see down the dark highway. She
couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw bright flashes of blue against the night sky in the distance. As she watched, headlights came into view around the far curve in the road—lots of headlights and flashing lights. Melvin was coming and he had backup!
The Parker brothers were yelling at each other and Amy heard an engine roar to life. What were they planning? The reports from some of their earlier gunshots had sounded like an AR-15, so they were heavily armed. If Melvin and the other officers drove up on the Parker brothers, they would be trapped in the front seats of their cars and wouldn’t stand a chance.
Amy bolted from her hiding spot and ran north along the shoulder of the highway, pushing her tired legs as hard as they would go. Her boots were heavy and her wet socks swished with each step, slowing her down. With every couple of steps she took, she glanced over her shoulder, expecting at any moment to be mowed down. She stayed close to the bank of Bayou Tail, where the shadows were thick, but Melvin was closing in fast and she’d have to get to the middle of the road soon. She wasn’t sure how much of the highway the Parker brothers could see, but if they had a visual on this stretch, they’d definitely be able to see her figure silhouetted against the oncoming headlights and flashing blues. She just hoped they’d miss if they took a shot at her.
When the speeding squad cars were within three hundred yards, Amy left the safety of the shadows and hurried to the center of the road. She jumped up and down, waving her arms high in the air. There was no immediate response from the lead vehicle and a horrific thought suddenly occurred to her—what if they didn’t see her in time? She could think of a dozen ways she’d rather die than being run down by a speeding cop car. She had worked her share of pedestrian accidents and they were never pretty.
Amy thought about firing a shot in the air, but then thought better about it, because it would certainly bring a response from the Parker brothers. Just when she thought she’d have to jump out of the roadway to save her own life, she heard tires screech and the headlights on the lead vehicle dipped sharply. The other cars followed suit and one of them swerved to the shoulder to avoid crashing into the rear end of the car in front of it.
The lead vehicle stopped within a few feet of Amy and she hurried toward the driver’s side, getting out of the spotlight as quickly as she could.
“It’s a trap,” she yelled once she was beside the lead vehicle—a pickup truck. She saw the Mechant Loup emblem on the door and was relieved when Melvin dropped from the front seat.
Worry had slashed deep lines in Melvin’s otherwise round face and he grabbed Amy by the shoulders, searching her for injuries. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Amy leaned a hand on his thick shoulder to steady herself, gasping for air, and pointing with the other hand. “It’s the Parker brothers. They…they’re over there and…and they’ve set up an ambush down the road.”
Several other patrol officers joined her and Melvin near Melvin’s truck, and she recognized some of them—they were deputies from the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office. They all looked in the direction she pointed and instinctively put their hands on their weapons.
CHAPTER 12
Mountain Bear Inn, Ridgeview, TN
I opened my eyes. Something had stirred me from my sleep, but I wasn’t sure what it was. My motel room was cloaked in darkness. There wasn’t a sliver of light except for the clock on the nightstand and a dim glow from the floor to my right. I sat up, wincing when a dull pain stabbed at my temple. At Chloe’s insistence, I’d scaled back to drinking half a bottle of vodka per night, but here I was, after only one night away from home, downing an entire bottle.
According to the clock, it was three in the morning. I’d only been sleeping for an hour or two, so why was I awake? I reached for my waistline and felt my pistol tucked into the front of my jeans. I pulled it out and set it on the bed beside me. The light on the floor had disappeared. I listened, but heard nothing in the tiny room. What woke me up? And what had generated that light?
The light suddenly appeared on the floor again and I realized it was my phone. I stood to my feet—a little too quickly—and swayed a bit, reaching for the bed to steady myself. I could hear my phone vibrating now. Still holding onto the bed, I leaned and picked it up to look at the screen. It was a call from Melvin. At this hour, it couldn’t be good. I grunted and stretched my eyes open, trying to force myself awake. “This is Clint,” I said, hoping I wasn’t slurring my speech.
“Chief, thank God you answered!” Melvin sounded out of breath and his voice was laced with excitement. “We have a problem.”
I fought through the fog in my brain and asked him what was going on. He explained that Amy had been involved in a high speed chase with one car when a second car intentionally crashed into her. She had been assaulted and shots had been fired. She fought back and was able to escape, but ended up in the bayou.
“Is she okay?” I asked. “Was she hurt?”
“Her wrist is banged up a little, but, other than that, she’s fine.”
“What about the people who did this?” I was pacing the floor in my motel, wanting to leave for Mechant Loup immediately. I cursed myself for drinking, knowing I’d have to wait to sober up before getting on the road. Even if I could leave now, it’d be a ten hour drive. “Did y’all get them?”
“It took me a while to find Amy, because she wasn’t able to update her location on the radio,” Melvin explained. “I had some deputies from the sheriff’s office helping me look for her in town, when someone south of town called to say they heard shots fired across the bayou.” Melvin paused to take a breath, and then continued. “We were hauling ass south when Amy flagged us down in the middle of the road. She was drenched from swimming the bayou, but she was okay, and she saved our lives, Chief. We were about to drive up on an ambush, but she risked her life to save ours.”
“An ambush?” I stopped pacing.
“The men who attacked her heard the sirens and took up positions on both shoulders of the road. They wanted to kill us, Chief.”
“Did y’all get them?” I asked again. “Are they in custody?”
“No, they got away.” Melvin explained how Sheriff Turner had activated his SWAT team. “The deputies helped Amy and me block off the road until the SWAT team could get there. When they arrived with the armored SWAT vehicle, they approached the suspects’ location and exchanged gunfire.”
“Was anyone hurt?” I asked, wanting him to hurry and tell the story. The suspense was killing me. “How’d they get away?”
Melvin told me no one had been hit by the exchange of gunfire, and the suspects had fled south in a Crown Victoria that looked like an old police package vehicle. The SWAT team had pursued them and lost them when they ditched the car near a boat landing. “We heard an engine revving up in the distance, so we think they stole a boat and escaped into the swamps.”
“Damn it!” My mind raced. I needed to get back to town so I could spearhead a search for the suspects. “Do we have any idea who they are? Was Amy able to identify them?”
There was a long pause from the other end of the line. All I could hear was Melvin’s heavy breathing.
When he didn’t answer right away, I asked my question again, knowing something was up. “Tell it like it’s a Band-Aid, Melvin,” I suggested. “Just rip the damn thing off.”
“It was the Parker brothers,” Melvin said quickly.
I caught my breath. Damn, they didn’t waste time coming after me. My blood boiled and I slowly sank to the bed as I thought about those thugs putting their hands on Amy. Their beef was with me, not with the people who worked for me. What if there had been a mistake? What if Amy had misidentified them? “Is she sure it was the Parker brothers? I mean, in all the excitement, maybe she thought—”
“She’s positive. Their leader was missing his front left tooth.” Melvin took a breath and then said, “Chief, there’s more.”
When he didn’t continue speaking, I said, “What is it, Melvin? Come on, man, spit it out.�
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He hesitated, and then said, “They want you dead. They were going to use Amy as bait to get to you. They were hoping it was you driving up to their ambush tonight.”
“I wish it had been me,” I mumbled. I knew they wanted me dead—that was to be expected. Hell, I wanted them dead. I started to say something, but then stopped. “Wait a minute, Melvin. There’s more, isn’t there? We all know they want me dead, so that’s not news. What’s going on? What more do you know?”
“Amy said they were asking about your blonde girlfriend. They…they want to kill her and everyone who’s close to you.”
“What the hell?” My heart was pounding against my chest like a kick pedal against a bass drum. I suddenly remembered Chloe was staying at my house. “Melvin, get someone out to my place as soon as you can! You need to get Chloe out of there! She’s not safe at my house.”
“She’s at your house?” I heard Melvin yell some orders in the background. “Okay, Chief, I’m on it!”
As soon as we disconnected, I called Chloe. My hand trembled as the phone rang. What if I was too late? What if—
“What time is it, Clint?” Chloe sounded groggy. “Is something wrong?”
“You need to get out of my house right now!” I paced back and forth in my motel room as I explained how the Parker brothers were in town and they wanted to harm me and everyone close to me. “Take Achilles and go to your dad’s house. Stay there until I get back. I don’t want you going to work and—”
“Excuse me?” Chloe laughed. “Sorry, Clint, but I’m not going to shut my life down for a bunch of lowlifes. I’ve got a major story breaking tomorrow and I’m not going to let them interfere with it.”
“These guys mean business. They attacked Amy and”—I didn’t want to alarm her, but I didn’t think I had a choice—“they were asking how they could find you. They want you dead, Chloe, so they can hurt me.”