by Jana DeLeon
Olivia clicked the mouse a couple of more times, shifting the satellite image southeast until they saw a large clearing in the forest. “That’s it,” Olivia said, pointing to the roof of the main house.
John stared at the screen and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked.
“You said you looked this up before coming here, but you didn’t know it was the house in your dreams before arriving.”
“I know. I think it’s because in my dream I’m flying toward the front of the house and into the window. Just seeing the top of the roof wasn’t enough to trigger anything with me. But from the front of the house, you can see all the gables and the stained glass.”
John nodded. “A matter of perspective.” He pointed to a winding line on the west side of the estate. “That’s the main road and even that doesn’t show. The Cypress trees really have it covered, and it’s hazy. It must have been raining when the satellite took the shot.”
“There’s a shocker.” Olivia inspected the tiny line that appeared intermittently on the screen, then scanned the woods surrounding the home hoping to spot something similar. “What’s that north of the house, in the woods behind the caretaker’s cottage?” Olivia pointed to a miniscule break in the trees some distance behind the cottage.
John studied the screen and pointed above her finger. “Yeah. Look at this break a little farther north. It could be a road buried back there. Move the satellite view farther north.”
Olivia clicked the mouse and the screen shifted to expose a larger area of woods and marshland north of the estate. “There.” She pointed to a thin, curving line. “It looks like it runs to a river.”
“Bayou,” John corrected. “It isn’t big enough to be a river, but southern Louisiana is full of bayous and channels. Zoom in on the bayou north of where we saw the path.”
Olivia zoomed in as far as the satellite photo allowed. “It’s roofs. Do people live there?”
“Probably. And some that have houses elsewhere keep another place on bayous to fish. They call them camps, but a lot of them are little more than shacks that would crumple in a high wind.”
Olivia scanned the photo surrounding the camps. “I don’t see any roads to the camps. Just the barest traces of a trail from laMalediction.”
“They probably get there by boat.”
Olivia sat back in her chair. “Great. So we can be attacked by land or water, and since everyone in this town probably owns a boat, then we haven’t exactly narrowed things down.”
“Not exactly. But whoever owns those camps would be our best bet for someone who knows about a path to laMalediction.”
Olivia nodded. “So what do you want to do?”
“You got any hiking boots and a raincoat in one of those boxes?”
Olivia smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Chapter Eight
It took almost an hour of stomping through the dense brush behind the caretaker’s cottage before they located something that could barely serve as a pathway for a vehicle. It was about a hundred yards behind the caretaker’s cottage and there was no way someone in the main house could see anyone approaching from that direction.
John glanced at his watch. “Even though the rain stopped, it’s still really overcast. We’ve got a couple of hours before we start losing light, maybe less because of the trees.”
Olivia pushed the hood of her rain jacket back and wiped sweat from her forehead. “Assuming this takes us to those camps, how far do you think it is?”
“A couple of miles maybe. It’s hard to tell from the satellite map, especially if the path winds a lot.”
Olivia nodded. “Then I guess we best get moving.”
John gave her the once-over, and Olivia hoped the exhaustion she was beginning to feel didn’t show. “You sure you’re up to this? Even though it’s fall, the humidity here gets to people who aren’t used to it.”
“It will be humid again tomorrow and I want to know what’s going on.”
“Then let’s make tracks. I don’t want to get caught out here after dark.” He turned and started down the path, disappearing as he rounded a corner in the brush.
Olivia set out beside him, trying not to think about the things John had left unsaid. The dense brush and gray sky had already choked half of the light out of the swamp. The glow of the moon wouldn’t even scratch the surface. I don’t want to get caught out here after dark. But it wasn’t the dark that they had to be afraid of. It was the creatures that hunted in the dark and this marsh was probably full of them.
Not to mention whoever was trying to scare her. Olivia was pretty sure she didn’t want to run into him in the dark, either, even with her pistol tucked in the waistband of her jeans.
Olivia walked silently beside John, carefully observing the terrain before she took a step. The last thing she needed was a sprained ankle when the nearest doctor was probably light years away.
It took forty-five minutes to reach an abrupt end to the path, a giant wall of brush. John pointed to a muddy area just behind the brush. It looked like branches had been dragged through the mud. “Someone thinks he’s being clever.”
“He is clever. Who knows how long they’ve gotten away with using this path.”
“Let’s find a way around this mess. I want to leave it intact and try not to step in the open muddy area. I don’t want to leave footprints for him to discover.”
Olivia nodded and followed John around the side of the brush, careful to place her feet on dense under-growth. They picked up the path on the other side of the brush and followed it another five minutes when suddenly John crouched behind a bush, pulling Olivia down with him. He placed one finger over his lips and pointed. Olivia peered through the brush and realized they were directly behind the camps from the satellite photo, and someone was approaching in a boat.
Olivia peered through the branches and tried to make out the man as the boat pulled up to the pier, but he had a cap pulled low and he was looking down as he docked the boat. He tied the boat to a pylon, then grabbed a box from the boat and placed it on the pier. When he rose all the way up with the box, Olivia placed her hand on John’s arm and squeezed.
“That’s the cook,” she whispered. “Tom Breaux.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” Olivia looked back toward the pier and watched as Tom placed two more boxes on the pier. “I can’t make out the writing on the side of the boxes.”
“Too far away,” John agreed.
They watched as Tom stepped onto the pier and picked up one of the boxes. He headed toward the middle of the three camps and set the box on the steps next to the back door, then repeated the process for the other two boxes. After setting the last box on the top of the pile, he knocked on the back door and it opened. Olivia narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the figure inside the camp but it was dark and she didn’t have a clear view.
The door to the camp opened and Tom carried the boxes insides, one by one. Ten minutes later, he stepped outside and started back toward the dock. In the branches of the tree above their hiding place, a hawk cried out and took off, breaking a branch off the tree with his launch.
Tom stopped short at the sound of the breaking branch and looked directly at their hiding place. Olivia released the branches and ducked further down behind the bush, almost colliding heads with John as he ducked as well. Even though she knew he couldn’t hear her breathing from that distance, she sucked in a breath and held it, praying that Tom wouldn’t decide to take a closer look.
The seconds ticked away like hours and Olivia focused on an ant crawling across the top of her hand. She felt John shift beside her and he tapped her on the shoulder. “He’s leaving,” John said.
Olivia straightened back up to a crouch, releasing the breath she’d been holding out with a whoosh. She peered through the bush just in time to see Tom start the boat and back away from the dock. She turned to face John and was suddenly aware of the proximity of their bodies. �
��What do you think?” she asked as she tried to shift backwards and increase the inches between them.
John stared at her for a moment then looked back at the bayou. He rose from the hiding spot and shook his head. “I don’t know. Could be it’s his place. Could be he was delivering to someone. I didn’t get a look at whoever opened the door.”
Olivia rose to stand beside him. “I didn’t either. It could be a man or woman or Bigfoot for all I could see.” She scanned the area surrounding the camps. “I don’t see any vehicles here, though.”
“No, but someone could easily navigate the path with an ATV. One would fit in that storage shed over there with no problem.”
“Do you think we should try to look inside?”
John scanned the camps, and Olivia could tell his mind was processing the pros and cons. “No, it’s too risky,” he finally said. “And wouldn’t prove anything except that someone has access to laMalediction, which we already know. It wouldn’t tell us if that person is Tom or Aubrey or someone else completely.”
Olivia nodded. “I don’t see another road.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. You can probably only get to these camps by boat.”
Olivia shoved her hands in her pockets and looked up at John. “I don’t like it. Tom basically warned me away from the house, insinuating that it made people die or disappear, and he’s the one who claimed he’d seen Aubrey’s truck driving through town, but he’s got a pathway to laMalediction in his backyard.”
“If the camp is his.”
“Yet another coincidence?”
John frowned.
Olivia opened her mouth to continue, but John clamped his hand over it. Instinctively, she started to struggle, but then realized he was looking back toward the camps.
“It’s Tom again,” John whispered. “He’s docked his boat and is coming this way…with a shotgun.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the path and into the dense foliage of the swamp as he began to run.
Olivia lurched forward at his tug and then broke out into a run behind him. Branches slapped against her face, slinging rainwater into her eyes and causing her vision to blur. Her thighs burned with the effort of running through the dense brush wearing the heavy hiking boots. John was about ten feet ahead of her, but he glanced back every couple of seconds to make sure she was still behind him. Olivia could hear Tom tearing through the brush behind her, so she knew he was in pursuit, and from the noise level, it sounded like he was getting closer by the minute.
For a split second, she worried they were running the wrong way. The cypress trees seemed to close in, confusing her sense of direction. What if they’d veered too far off the path and got lost in the swamp? She was just about to pull her pistol from her waistband and prepare for the worst, when they broke out of the swamp and into the lawn just to the east of the storage shed near the caretaker’s cottage.
John made a dash for the shed and slipped inside, leaving the door open. Olivia reached to close it, but John put his hand out to stop her. “It’s better if he thinks we’re working. That it wasn’t us he was chasing.”
John handed her a set of safety glasses and a pair of welding gloves, then grabbed the chain saw and headed out of the shack. “Take a couple of deep breaths and act normal,” he whispered.
“I appreciate your help with this,” John said in his regular voice as they left the storage shed. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your work.”
“No.” Olivia waved a hand in dismissal, trying her best to appear nonchalant. She couldn’t see Tom anywhere, but she would swear she could feel him watching. “I needed a break and sometimes physical activity is the best way to loosen the creative mind.”
“Really?” John smiled. “Then prepare to have your mind well loosened. I’d like to get the rest of that tree cleared out of the drive before it gets dark. The rain got me a little behind.” He stopped in front of the tree and pointed to her welding gloves which she slipped on. “Grab the other side of this branch.”
Olivia stooped down to wrap her arms around the thick branch. John bent over at the other end of the branch, his head just inches from her. “He’s in the brush just behind the storage shed,” he whispered without raising his head to look at her.
Olivia took a deep breath and fought the urge to look over at the storage shed.
“Ready?” John asked out loud.
Olivia nodded and they lifted the branch and carried it over to the pile John had started just outside the driveway. On the way back to the downed tree, John said in a low voice, “He’s gone.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but he’s not standing where he was before.”
“So what’s the plan? If Tom’s our intruder then he could easily slip into the main house and watch us the rest of the day, and we can’t stay out here all afternoon just to throw him off track.”
John motioned to the end of another thick branch. “Lift your end, then drop it,” he said in a low voice. “Grab your wrist like you hurt it.”
Olivia nodded and lifted her end of the branch. She took one step backward and lost her grip. She pretended to stumble, then let out a cry and grabbed her wrist with her other hand. John immediately dropped his end of the log and rushed over to her. He told her to hold out her wrist and he slipped off the welding glove, pretending to inspect her wrist.
“Good job,” he whispered, then in his regular voice said, “You need to clean this and then I’ll help you wrap it.” He motioned toward the cottage. It had only one entrance and that had been in John’s sight the entire time. “I’ve got supplies in the cottage. Go ahead and get it cleaned. I’ll put the tools up and be right in.”
John picked up the chain saw and her gloves and headed for the storage shed. Olivia left the drive, trying to walk at a normal pace even though her body was practically crying to break out into a run. It seemed like forever, but she finally slipped into the caretaker’s cottage and closed the door behind her. She leaned back against the door and slowly slid to the floor, her heart still pounding.
JOHN PLACED THE CHAIN SAW and gloves back on a shelf in the storage shed and pulled the door closed behind him. He’d scanned the brush as he walked toward the caretaker’s cottage, trying to make out any movement or color that didn’t belong, but everything was silent. The optimist in him wanted to believe they’d fooled the cook with their little stunt, but if Tom Breaux was the intruder, the realist in him didn’t think it worked.
If anything, their act might have made things worse because they’d alerted the man that they were onto him and trying to play games. Lack of respect was an insult to people who were a little off mentally, and John didn’t think for a moment that someone sneaking through tunnels to leave creepy old photos on the bed of strange women was the least bit sane.
Which made him worry about his half sister even more. If she’d come to laMalediction like her calendar indicated, then it was very likely she’d stepped right into the middle of something very strange. And from the looks of it, dangerous. Whatever was going on, he needed to figure it out fast, before things got worse. He’d managed to dust the tunnel for prints that morning while Olivia was working in the library, but the only prints were his own. He had no doubt the photo would be the same, and couldn’t help but remember that Tom Breaux had been wearing gloves when he unloaded those boxes and chased them through the swamp.
John blew out a breath. He was getting in deep with Olivia and the mystery surrounding the estate. He kept telling himself that his sister was somehow mixed up in all of this—that solving Olivia’s problem would ultimately lead him to his half sister, but was he just fooling himself? He couldn’t deny that Olivia brought out feelings in him that he usually kept repressed. His mother and sister were enough responsibility for one man, and John had no intention of adding to the mix. But he couldn’t deny that he found her interesting, both mentally and physically. She would be a hard woman to ignore even under normal circumstances.
He stepped into the caretaker�
��s cottage and closed the door behind him. Olivia was in the living room, peering between the slats of the blinds. “You see anything?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She turned to face him. “What about you? Did you see him when you were putting the tools away?”
“No,” he said.
“So do you think it worked?”
John blew out a breath, not wanting to share all of his thoughts on the matter, especially as they’d probably only scare her more. “I don’t know. I’d like to think so, but we fled fast. I don’t know if we left footprints.”
“Oh, no.” Olivia covered her mouth with her hand. “I didn’t even think about leaving footprints. It has to be him, right? I mean, why else would he chase us?”
John shook his head. “For a million other reasons I can think of, just off the top of my head. A lot of illegal activity goes on in these swamps. Drug deals, arms trading and a host of other activities. If Tom was mixed up in something illegal delivering those boxes, and he thought something was out of order, he would check it out.”
“He was running after us with a shotgun,” Olivia pointed out.
“That’s one way of checking things out on the bayou.”
Olivia threw her hands in the air. “What now? If we assume it’s the caretaker, he’s got the advantage of home turf. If we assume it’s the cook, he’s got a way in and a loaded gun, and a bunch of creepy stories to scare everyone else away. We’re at a disadvantage either way. They’ve both had years to learn everything about this swamp and the house. How can we possibly combat that?”
“One of the first things we can do is figure out where the tunnels run in the house. We can’t keep him from approaching laMalediction through the swamp, but we need to cut off his method of movement through the house.”
“I didn’t even ask you if you had any luck with the bedroom tunnel this afternoon.”
John shook his head, knowing his frustration was showing. “No. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how to go beyond that wall at the end. There has to be another opening, but everything seems solid—sounds that way, too.”