The Secret of Cypriere Bayou

by Jana DeLeon

  “Well, you’re about to know something. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  Brian sighed. “The only thing that bothers me is that you didn’t come to me earlier. You know I’ll help you any way I can.”

  Gratitude and guilt washed over John like a tidal wave. He didn’t deserve a friend like Brian. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I didn’t want you risking anything for me. You’ve already had enough trouble with the captain.”

  “Man, this is Rachel we’re talking about, and your mom. You guys are like family.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t have left you out.”

  “I understand. What can I do to help, now?”

  “I need you to do some digging on a sheriff in Cypriere, name of Blanchard, and a café owner, Tom Breaux.”

  “Okay. You think they got something to do with Rachel?”

  John gave his friend a brief rundown on the happenings at laMalediction and the earlier conversation with the sheriff. “I think he’s lying, but I don’t know about what.”

  “And the cook with the gun?”

  “I don’t know. Could be he’s running something illegal through the bayous and it has nothing to do with this place. Could be he saw something and doesn’t like people creeping around. Could be nothing.”

  “But might be something. I get you. I’ll see what I can find out. Do you need me to come out there?”

  “No. I need you back in New Orleans where you can check on things.”

  “Okay, man. I saw your mom after work today.”

  John felt his lower back tense. “How is she?”

  “Upset, worried, exhausted. She said she hasn’t heard from you since yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been a little busy. I’ll call her later tonight unless I lose phone signal.”

  “Do that. Hey, what about that woman who’s renting the place? Seems sorta strange a woman wanting to stay at some creepy old house in the middle of nowhere. You want me to run down some information on her, too?”

  John glanced at the bathroom door again, trying to block the mental image of Olivia in the shower from his mind. “No. She has nothing to do with Rachel.”

  “She’s messed up in something though?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “But she’s not saying what.”

  “I don’t think she knows,” John said. “She’s scared, and I get the impression that’s not her norm.”

  “Maybe she knows more than she’s letting on.”

  John bristled a little at Brian’s words, but he knew his friend wasn’t saying anything that he wouldn’t have said had the situation been reversed. They were cops. They had to think that way. “She says she doesn’t know and I believe her.”

  “What does she look like, this writer?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Brian chuckled. “Thought so. If she was an old hag, you would have described her straight out. Be careful, John. I know you’ve got good instincts, but you really don’t know that woman, and your emotions are already running high with Rachel missing. Even if that writer doesn’t know what she’s mixed up in, that house of cards could come crashing down on you, too.”

  John stared out the window at the rain, coming down in sheets. “I know. Call me when you get something, okay?” John closed his phone and tossed it onto the tiny table in the kitchen. He knew he should call his mother but he dreaded the conversation, knowing he couldn’t lie to her even though he didn’t want to tell her the truth.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver charm bracelet—a bracelet he’d given Rachel for her birthday the year before. He’d discovered it when he and Olivia had searched the basement. It had been underneath an old table, just at the edge. A link was broken, which could mean nothing, but it could also mean that she’d hit her arm on the table or someone had man-handled her enough to break the bracelet. No matter the scenarios he could create, none of them were good. The bracelet proved Rachel had been in the house. Where was she now?

  He needed to get back over to the main house and find out before the trail got any colder, but he needed to do it without Olivia. He blew out a breath. Looking for Rachel meant leaving Olivia unprotected, pure and simple. He’d already seen the results of that once. Could he risk it again?

  “What’s wrong?” Olivia’s voice sounded behind him.

  He turned to face her, surprised he hadn’t even heard her come out of the bathroom. She had on gray athletic shorts, a NY Yankees T-shirt and was towel-drying her hair, and damned if she still didn’t look great. Brian was right. He was in trouble.

  “The Yankees, huh?”

  Olivia smiled. “It was a gift from my editor.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Like why someone locked you in a hole. He probably went through your luggage first.”

  Olivia laughed. “Ah, that whole Mason-Dixon thing. I didn’t even think about it. I guess I figured an eighty-year-old caretaker and a house full of ghosts wouldn’t care.”

  “Well, technically, Louisiana is more into football.”

  “Technically, so am I.”

  “Please don’t tell me you like the Giants.”

  “Actually, I always kinda liked the Dolphins. I like the ocean.”

  “Now there’s a unique method of choosing a favorite team.” He glanced back out the window at the main house. Did he run the risk or not? Now was the time. “I want to ask you something, but you have to say no if you’re not comfortable.”

  Olivia gave him a wary look. “Okay?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the intruder and how he gets around. I’d like to set up a trap in the basement.”

  “What kind of trap?”

  “Nothing permanent, but tracking that sheetrock all over the upstairs of the house yesterday gave me an idea. I could put some of the drywall dust from that ceiling collapse at the opening of the tunnel you were trapped in and at the bottom of the basement stairs. With any luck, the intruder will walk through it without noticing and give us an idea where another tunnel opening is hidden.”

  Olivia nodded. “It’s a good idea, really. The lighting in the basement is so dim, no one would notice unless they look down. I mean, it’s worth a shot anyway.”

  John blew out a breath of relief. “I’d need to do it now, before the storm gets worse. It’s just starting up now.”

  “Sure. What’s the problem?”

  “I’m worried about you staying here alone.”

  Olivia waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m fine. There’s only one door into this place; I’m pretty sure and I can see every room from the kitchen table. I’ll be right there working with a clear view of the front of the main house.”

  John studied her. The expression on her face was normal, but she pulled at the bottom of her T-shirt with one hand. She wasn’t as comfortable with the situation as she wanted him to believe. He placed his hand on her arm, his fingers clasped gently around her soft skin. “Are you sure? Because I can do it tomorrow…”

  “No. Then you lose the whole night, and he might come back tonight.”

  “Okay,” John said and dropped his hand. He grabbed his jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and pulled it on while walking to the door. Olivia followed him to the doorway and put her hand on his shoulder before he slipped out.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  John gave her a single nod and stepped out into the rain.

  OLIVIA WATCHED as John crossed the courtyard and slipped into the main house. She crossed her arms in front of her chest as a shiver passed over her. Her damp hair must be giving her a chill. She sighed as she stepped away from the window and back into the bathroom. Even she didn’t believe that weak excuse, but at least she’d managed to fool John. Maybe. He hadn’t exactly looked convinced when he left, but Olivia wanted him to go. If they could catch the intruder before she left, she might finally get the answers she’d be
en looking for all these years.

  A quick glance around the tiny bathroom didn’t reveal a hair dryer, but she wasn’t surprised. John didn’t exactly strike her as the primping sort of man. She grabbed a dry towel from a rack in the corner and wrapped it around her damp hair with a twist, then walked back into the kitchen. Her laptop was stuffed in her backpack along with the few other supplies she’d brought with her from the main house, so she pulled it out and set it on the kitchen table.

  Staring out the window, she watched the drizzle that had been falling for an hour turn into heavy drops with wind gusts, seeming to blow in sheets across the courtyard. LaMalediction looked just like it did in her nightmare as she seemed to fly in from a distance. The jagged lines of the roof, the storm…the overwhelming feeling that something bad was about to happen.

  Her nine millimeter was in the side pocket of her backpack and she pulled it out. She already knew the clip was full but checked it again. Instead of slipping it back into her backpack, she sat it next to her laptop and slid into the chair at the end of the table. The one that offered a clear view of laMalediction.

  She opened her laptop and pulled up the rough draft of her book, what little she had managed to write in between being stalked and trapped in small, dark places. Never in her career had a house made her so uneasy. Never had she spent so much time on edge, fear hovering just beneath the surface. Every emotion, whether it was fear or anger or attraction seemed to be magnified times ten. By all rights, she ought to be typing her best work ever, but instead she was wrapped up in a maze of secrets.

  Sighing, she tried to focus on the document on her screen but images of John kept replaying through her mind. The relief on his face when she fell out of the tunnel and into his arms. The hesitation before he’d left her alone in the caretaker’s cottage.

  The fear in his eyes after he kissed her.

  And ultimately, that was the clincher. John would investigate with her and protect her, but beyond that he’d drawn a line regardless of the obvious chemistry between them. Olivia didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  Her body definitely wanted him and she could hardly blame it, but her mind knew that even if she told herself it was just hot sex, she already felt more for John than was comfortable. While sex could sometimes be a welcome relief, Olivia instinctively knew that in this case it would just complicate everything, and more complication was something she definitely didn’t need.

  She forced herself to look at her rough draft, read the last paragraph she’d written and groaned. The independent, hardheaded heroine had just been rescued by the dark, mysterious hero.

  Great.

  JOHN SPREAD A THIN LAYER of Sheetrock dust at the bottom of the basement stairs, making sure he kept it in the area of the floor where the bottom step cast a shadow. With any luck the intruder wouldn’t shine a light directly on the surface. Worst case, if he noticed, maybe he’d assume someone had spilled the detergent. John couldn’t afford for the intruder to know they were trying to track him, especially when he had high hopes that the tracks would lead him to his sister.

  He felt a momentary tug of guilt for continuing to mislead Olivia. He’d left her alone tonight claiming he was doing this for her, but his sister was the primary reason he’d wanted to set a trap. If it had only been for Olivia he would have just caught the man and turned him over to the authorities, but he couldn’t afford to do that given the situation with his sister. Too many crazies refused to tell where they’d stashed their victims and lots of times the time lost finding them was the difference between life and death.

  And all that meant, in a way, that he was using Olivia as bait.

  He gave the basement one final glance, then headed up the stairs to the kitchen. As he closed the basement door behind him, he heard the click of a door closing at the front of the house. He froze for a couple of seconds and listened, but heard nothing. Surely if Olivia had decided to leave the caretaker’s cottage to find him she wouldn’t be so quiet about it.

  He turned off the kitchen light and waited until his eyes adjusted to the dark. He’d left the light on in the front entry and it cast a dim glow through the sitting room and into the kitchen entry. He moved silently across the kitchen and peered around the entryway. The sitting room and front entry were empty, and the front door was closed, but John knew he hadn’t imagined the sound.

  He slipped through the sitting room and into the front entry, then peered out one of the narrow windows that framed the front door. The stained glass made it hard to decipher if anything was moving outside, and the blinding storm combined with meager outside lighting didn’t help. He could barely make out the glow from the kitchen window in the caretaker’s cottage.

  Dual desires warred within him. He should go back to the cottage and make sure Olivia was protected, but he couldn’t help feeling that he was missing an opportunity to investigate if the intruder was in the house right now. Finally he decided a quick scan of the downstairs wouldn’t take that much time and he backed away from the window. That’s when he noticed that the front door was unlocked.

  He reached up and twisted the dead bolt, just to be certain, but he already knew before it clicked into place. The noise he’d heard wasn’t someone coming into the house. It was someone leaving. He drew his pistol from the waistband of his jeans, opened the door a crack and scanned the circular drive. Stupid! He’d played right into the intruder’s hands, leaving Olivia alone in the caretaker’s cottage.

  He eased out the door and stepped behind one of the huge columns that lined the front porch. The single light next to the front door barely cast light beyond the porch, and he strained to scan the circular drive in the storm, barely able to even make out the cars parked in the drive. Pulling the hood of his jacket over his head, he decided to make a run for it.

  The instant he stepped out from behind the column, he heard gunshots. He ducked down and whirled around behind the column again just as a bullet hit the column right above his head, scattering plaster with the blast. He didn’t even have to assess the situation to know that he was screwed. The intruder had a clear shot at him and he had nowhere to run. Olivia’s car was fifteen feet away in the circular drive and the front door, while only five feet from where he stood, was locked and had a light shining right above it.

  At least one of the intruder’s advantages had to go. Then maybe he could make it to Olivia’s car. He edged around the column toward the house and pointed his pistol at the entry light next to the front door. He paused for a moment, knowing that as soon as he made the shot he had to be ready to run. Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger and took out the light in one shot.

  The porch went immediately black, and he ran across the circular drive toward Olivia’s car. He could hear gunfire, but couldn’t tell the bullets’ path because of the rain and thunder. He was almost to the car when a burst of lightning lit up the driveway. A second later he heard a shot fire and felt a sharp pain, then a burn in his thigh. He dove behind Olivia’s car, cursing the storm for exposing him at the absolute worst moment.

  He glanced at the caretaker’s cottage, but the twenty feet may as well have been a mile now that the intruder knew where he was. The situation had gone from worse to impossible.

  Chapter Twelve

  Olivia grabbed her pistol and dove out of her chair at the first sound of gunfire, then cursed herself for sitting right in front of the window. She crawled over to the wall and peered into the courtyard. The light from the front porch barely extended a couple of feet from the caretaker’s cottage and the rain came down in sheets, never seeming to lessen.

  She pulled the unraveled towel from the top of her head and tried to think. Could it have been thunder that she heard? But she knew better. She’d been to the shooting range so often that the sound of gunfire was ingrained in her mind.

  Think, Olivia. What the hell is happening?

  If someone had been trying to shoot her they should have succeeded, but they hadn’t even hit the
picture window she sat in front of. That could only mean that they were shooting at John. She stared into the blackness trying to make out movement, when the light at the main house went out and the gunfire began again. She could barely make out a figure run from the porch and dive behind her car.

  John.

  She ran for the front door and threw it open, then turned off the porch light to mask her movement and slipped outside behind an old tractor, several feet from the entry. Another shot sounded across the courtyard and the driver’s window on her car shattered. She peered over the tractor wheel, trying to determine where the shots were coming from. Based on the angle, it had to be from the far side of the courtyard, but where?

  “John!” she yelled.

  “Olivia?” John’s voice sounded from behind her car.

  Thank God. “I’m going to open fire. Run for it!” She laid her arms across the tractor wheel and squeezed off two rounds toward the far end of the courtyard nearest the main house, then directed her aim ten feet over from there and squeezed off another two rounds. She couldn’t hear anything but the gunfire and the storm, and hoped that John was able to run. Aiming her pistol a little further down, she squeezed off another round before she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her down just as a bullet grazed off the fender of the tractor with a zing.

  “Get inside,” John yelled above the storm and she lowered her weapon and ran back into the caretaker’s cottage, John close behind. He slammed the door behind them, threw the dead bolt and pulled her into the bedroom at the back of the cottage. Only after he’d drawn the drapes did he slide onto the floor, his back against the bed, weapon still drawn, with a clear view of the front door.

  Olivia slid down beside him, trying to assess his injuries by the dim glow of the bedroom lamp. He was soaked to the skin, which made things more difficult, but she sucked in a breath when she saw a dark circle at the thigh of his jeans. “John, you’re hit,” she said. “We have to get you help.”

  “It’s just a scratch. The bullet grazed me.”

  “What the hell is going on here, John? It makes no sense.”