by Jenna Ryan
The big man’s mouth opened and closed like a codfish. “I’ll go,” he finally managed.
“Question first.” Ryder gestured at the corridor. “That spooky old woman we met in the bar. Who is she?”
Bo gave his head a short shake. “Wasn’t no spooky woman downstairs—unless you mean Lorri. She paints white streaks in her hair, tells fortunes sometimes and sleeps with whoever when no one’ll listen, which is most of the time. She ain’t got the sight, just likes to pretend she does.”
“How old is Lorri?”
“Hell if I know. Fifty maybe.”
“Anyone older who’s blind?”
Bo stared. “You got a movie star, and you want an old blind woman instead? That’s just plain screwy.”
“We both want her,” Mia told him. “You must have seen her. She’s tiny, very frail and thin. She has white hair and eyes.”
Bo’s genuinely startled expression didn’t calm her leaping nerves one bit. “You met that one, you met what none of us in Blackwater ever want to. Swamp witch doesn’t show herself to many. When she does, you best be getting your headstone ready.”
Mia made a wary circle. “Are you saying your swamp witch foreshadows death?”
Bo swallowed around Ryder’s gun. “Lady, the swamp witch is death. You don’t believe me, go on down the road another twenty miles. You spot a falling-down shack, you stop and go around back. That’s where what’s left of her is.”
“What’s left of her?” Mia repeated, but she already knew. “The swamp witch is dead, isn’t she?”
Bo’s chin shook. “Dead and buried for more than a hundred years.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Steam rising in delicate wisps extended deep into the bayou. It would burn off, Mia knew, as soon as the first rays of sunlight broke through the canopy of trees and moss.
She estimated she’d gotten about two hours of sleep, most of it filled with dreams of voodoo queens, snakes and one dead swamp witch with opalescent eyes. She’d dreamed about Ryder as well, but going there would take her into territory she wasn’t prepared to explore right now. Better to stick to the occult and snap the lock on any sexual frustration.
Ryder was gone by the time she dragged herself out of bed. Taking that to mean there was no rush, she showered and dressed in faded jeans, a black tank and boots better suited to the area than last night’s high-heeled shoes. Ryder came in as she was snapping the lock on her suitcase.
“Don’t start.” He held up a hand in warning before she could speak. “I have bayou connections, but I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. No way do I believe in encounters with dead swamp witches.”
“Leaving us with only a card-carrying Jack the Ripper-like killer to worry about.”
“It’s enough.” He swung her case from the bed. “Jesus, Mia, did you actually bring a headstone with you?”
“Jack the Ripper-like killer.” She reminded him and shouldered her overnight bag. “I hope you have a breakfast stop in mind, or I might just die of hunger and save whoever—killer, witch, take your pick—the trouble.”
He said nothing to that and in doing so set the tone for the morning. They ate flapjacks smothered in raspberry syrup at a café in Blackwater, then drove with the windows down, bluesy country rock blasting into air that grew increasingly muggy as the miles slid by.
“Are we going in circles?” Mia used a road map to fan her overheated face. “If we are, and it’s because your GPS gets persnickety in the bayou—not an uncommon occurrence by the way—I still know how to read one of these.” She wagged her impromptu fan. “If it’s deliberate, forget I spoke, and go back to brooding.”
“We are circling, it’s deliberate, and I’m not brooding.”
Her fanning motion grew more thoughtful. “You know, Ryder, not everything in life has a logical explanation. Some people swear that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly, but they can.”
“So it naturally follows that if bumblebees can fly, swamp witches can rise from the grave to spout nonsense at us.”
“Something like that.” She waited a beat before stage-whispering, “It’s a myth, actually. Bumblebees only look like they shouldn’t fly, when in fact their peculiar physiology is what makes flight possible.”
“Is that a long-winded way of saying looks can be deceiving?”
“Think about it.” She kept her tone practical. “That old woman didn’t do anything a decent psychic couldn’t pull off. Yes, she knew my name, but she said it herself, she heard you talking to me when we came in.”
“I had a second chat with her outside, Mia. She knew your surname, too.”
“Making her better than Iona, but not necessarily a ghost. We signed a room register, remember?”
He frowned. “You grew up in the bayou. Aren’t you honor-bound to believe?”
She cast him a mysterious smile. “Oh, I’m not telling you one way or the other what I believe, I’m just rationalizing so you’ll feel better. You ask me, there are a lot of dead people walking around this world. Some die and don’t leave. Others die and move sideways. Still others move in.”
“Squatter spirits?”
“Exactly. Is any of this helping?”
“Not really.” He eased his truck through a puddle that spanned the entire road. “Look, I told you, I have bayou relatives. My mother was born here. Unfortunately, like Lorri with the white-streaked hair, any second sight she thought she possessed only manifested itself when she was drunk or stoned.”
Touchy subject, Mia realized, and possibly part of the reason for the broody mood he had going.
“I’m sorry, Ryder,” she said when he didn’t continue.
“Don’t be.” The look he shot her could have cut glass. “She wasn’t a mean drunk, just a careless one. She drove her car off a bridge when I was ten.”
“Were you an only child?”
“No, I have a sister. She drinks more than my mother did. My father doesn’t drink or do drugs. When my mother died, he carried on. Pillar of a man, I thought. I was in my first year of college when he got fired for screwing his boss’s wife, and heading into my second when a decade of embezzlement finally caught up with him.” He glanced over. “Want to bail out of the truck yet?”
“Hardly.” She adjusted her sunglasses before reaching down to pat his knee. “My daddy was a good man, but he had one truly disastrous vice. He gambled. Lost his shirt—and everything else—at least seven or eight times. Always scraped enough together so we got by, plus my grandmother, who lived with us, had money of her own that she never let him touch. But still.”
Although Ryder’s expression altered, she couldn’t read it. “I had a grandmother,” he said softly. “She drank, gambled, smoked and still managed to be there whenever I needed her.” They bumped along a rough, sun-dappled road beneath a cluster of weeping willows. “Is your mother alive?”
“Very.” Mia grinned. “She moved to the west coast when I was a kid and became a lesbian. Her brother, my uncle, was mortified. He took his wife and my twin cousins, Jimbo and Jessabel, to Atlanta so they wouldn’t be branded.”
“With names like Jimbo and Jessabel, they’ve been branded from birth.” He glanced in both mirrors. “Have you noticed anyone behind us?”
“Are you serious?” But she turned to double check. “If I’d known what you had in mind when we left Blackwater, I’d have brought along a ten-pound bag of breadcrumbs.” She ducked to peer through the rear windshield. “Those clouds to the west do not look promising.”
“Clouds are the least of our problem, Mia.”
“Why?” Swinging back, she followed his gaze to the dash. Fuel level was good. There was no oil light. And the engine temperature gauge was…”Ah, right, see it. Very hot. And we’re in the back of beyond, sans breadcrumbs.”
“Belle Font’s ten miles from here.”
“Which is good news since it means you have some vague idea where ‘here’ is. You do know we could have hidden just as easily in Bayou Mystère, right?”
“Mystery Bayou?” He checked the mirrors again. “Wonder what the swamp witch would say about a name like that?”
“Probably welcome home.” Mia kept an eye on the rising engine temperature. “I spent seventeen years of my life there. I could run an outboard through the local waterways blindfolded when I was a kid.”
“Mia, the murderer you saw would’ve had your background memorized before you met Crucible.”
“So better to break down in a place neither of us actually knows in a parish we…” She straightened. “Is that a gas station?”
He eased them onto the shoulder. “Could be. I see pumps.”
And derelict vehicles scattered among the trees and bushes in the adjacent lot.
To the right of the auto graveyard, Mia spied what might loosely be called a diner, and behind it, a huge shed that leaned to the left. Directly ahead stood a lopsided sign with two words hand painted across the face.
ALLIGATORS BEWARE!!
“Perfect.” She hopped out when Ryder braked near the oversized shed. “Either they’re warning the alligators to stay away, or warning us about the alligators. I see a camper van with Oklahoma license plates parked in front of the diner.”
Before she closed the door, Mia checked her iPhone for a signal and discovered the battery was dead. “Figures.” She shook it, sighed. “Ryder?”
But he already had the hood up and his head under it.
Reaching into the truck, she grabbed his phone. “I hope you’re a mechanically inclined rogue,” she murmured.
“Radiator’s leaking,” he revealed while she swung back and forth searching for a signal bar. “Clouds are moving in fast. Do you see anyone, hear anything?”
“No one and nothing except frogs and crickets.” Giving up, she dropped the phone in her purse and turned for the diner.
A rattling sound behind the shed had Ryder pausing to look and a smiling Mia reaching for his hand. “Not what you think, city boy. Remember the sign and bear in mind, alligators can’t read.”
When he narrowed his eyes, she laughed and drew him forward.
“That van’s been Frankensteined.” He switched his gaze to the building. “Diner’s no better. Windows are cracked, door’s warped.”
“Doesn’t bode well for us scoring a cold drink, does it?” As the first cloud brushed the edge of the sun, Mia glanced up and around. “Very weird. It’s ninety plus degrees, and I swear a chill just ran down my spine.”
“Yeah. Felt it.”
“Maybe we should…” She pointed at the truck.
But he shook her off. “Better to tough it out. Unless you have a torch welder in that suitcase of yours.”
She summoned a smile. “No welder, no kitchen sink. Sorry.”
Pushing through the door, they stepped from fading sunlight into a fifties-style diner crisscrossed with long shadows. The walls were greasy, the linoleum floors dingy, and the smell of old burgers and gumbo hung in the thick air. The man behind the counter wore a stained white T-shirt. His hands and fingernails were filthy, his brown hair stuck up at odd angles, and Mia would have bet money his weasel-thin face hadn’t seen a razor for upward of two weeks.
“Hey, ya’ll. You lost, too?” It wasn’t the counterman who greeted them, but a thirty-something man wearing blue plaid shorts that rode dangerously low on his hips.
He stuck out a hand. “I’m Bud. This here’s my wife, Tina. We had a mind to do some camping in the bayou near Frog Lake, but we got ourselves turned around.” He fluttered the edge of the map he’d spread out on the table. “These damn things don’t do squat unless you know where you are to start with. Fella back of the counter owns the place. Claims him and his wife can’t read, so Tina and me, we’ve been scratching our heads and thinking we might have to spend the night in that big old shed at the edge of the swamp.”
Behind them, the counterman’s eyes darted from person to person, but always, Mia noticed, returned to Ryder.
She nudged him with her hip while Bud rambled on about pesky bugs and heat so wet a body could drown in it. She whispered, “Am I the only one who thinks something’s not right here?”
Ryder nodded. “Menu’s written in chalk. You don’t read, you don’t write.” He placed himself between her and the counter. “Now might be a good time for you and Tina to visit the ladies’ room.”
“Visit the…Why?”
“Do it, Mia.”
His tone warned her not to argue. She tapped Tina’s arm. “I think we should…”
Ryder’s hand pushing down on her head cut her off. “Under the table,” he shouted—a split second before buckshot sprayed the wall in front of them.
CHAPTER SIX
“What the hell?” Instantly panicked, Bud bobbed and weaved in place. “Why’s a counterman shooting at us?”
Ryder took him to the floor, and then flipped the table onto its side for cover. Another blast of buckshot peppered the oilcloth top.
“Call 911, Mia.” Pulling the gun from his waistband, he prepared to draw the counterman’s fire. “Tell whoever responds that we probably interrupted an armed robbery.”
“Figures we’d bump into a thief in counterman’s clothing.” Mia punched the number with a vengeance. “I hate to think how horrible this day would’ve been without a gris-gris.”
Beside her, Bud and his wife plastered themselves to the floor. “What’s happening?” Bud croaked. “Who is that guy?”
“An imposter,” Mia said, and then winced and ducked. “Apparently.”
“Where’s the real diner guy? Dead?” His voice rose to a near squeal. “Do you think he’s dead?”
Mia shook her head. “I don’t know.” She turned her attention back to the phone. “Yes, I said an armed robbery.” A pair of shots rang out. “Extremely armed.”
“Suzy-Lynn, you get your lard ass out here and help me,” the fake counterman yelled. He squeezed off two more rounds.
“Deputy Sheriff’s coming.” On her stomach, Mia sidled closer to Bud. “Do you have a gun?”
“In the van. I can’t—I’m sorry.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” she agreed. “Stay down, okay?”
Drawing the Magnum from her shoulder bag, she eased up just far enough to see. What she saw was the armed robber take aim at Ryder. He squeezed the trigger as Ryder did, froze for a moment, and then slithered boneless out of sight behind the counter.
With a big exhale, Mia relaxed her wrists on the edge of the table.
“Is it over?” Bud warbled after a long pause.
“I’m thinking not,” Mia told him. She arched her brows at Ryder who was crouched behind a table to her right. “Who’s Suzy-Lynn?”
Even as she spoke, a shrieking woman with bright red hair burst through the kitchen door. Arms waving wildly, she released a stream of bullets from her 9mm automatic.
“Don’t move.” Ryder slapped a fresh cartridge into his Glock.
The woman heard him and spun. Her face furious, she put two bullets into his table. While Suzy-Lynn was diverted, Mia steadied one hand on the other and fired. With a sideways jerk, the woman turned, smiled and raised her arm.
Mia had the trigger of her gun half-squeezed when she heard Ryder’s shot.
Suzy-Lynn’s smile transformed into an expression of astonishment. Her weapon clattered to the floor. She joined it with a thud. Curling into a ball, she panted in short, groaning gasps.
Five tense seconds ticked by.
“Is it over now?” A wobbly Bud tried again. “‘Cause I think my bladder might’ve let go.”
Ryder crossed to check on Suzy-Lynn while Mia stood and helped Tina—ghost white and shaking in spasms—to her feet.
“Not a bad shot, Mia.” Ryder tucked the Glock back into his jeans. “You hit her shoulder.”
“Yes, her left shoulder. She’s right-handed.”
“Point is, you didn’t kill her.”
“I didn’t slow her down much either.”
He grinned. “You did enough
.”
Had she? Mia blocked the picture of Helene Dubose’s dying face and replaced it with Bud’s blotchy red one as he attempted to cover the wet patch on the front of his shorts.
In the end, both of the would-be thieves survived. Ryder discovered the real husband-and-wife owners bound and gagged with duct tape in the kitchen. The woman had a black eye, and the man’s knuckles were swollen. Otherwise, neither appeared injured.
The deputy sheriff arrived within ten minutes. Mia didn’t hold out a great deal of hope for the efficiency of a man named Boswell Hogg; however, he did his job well and actually showed less disdain for the armed robbers than he did for the diner’s greasy-haired male owner.
With four paramedics working at cross purposes, a single functioning ambulance, Bud talking a mile a minute and the diner’s owner threatening to sue everyone in sight, the place was in turmoil for well over an hour.
“I contacted the state office,” Hogg told Ryder. “There’s a trooper en route. Meantime, I’ve got your statements and theirs.” He nodded at Bud and Tina. “If you’re in a hurry, I’m not looking to waylay a government agent, especially a fed. I pay my taxes every year like any other law-abiding citizen.” His brown eyes twinkled. “Mostly pay ‘em, anyway.”
Mia wandered off while Hogg and Ryder finished their conversation.
The clouds overhead resembled swollen black bruises and made her think of the female diner owner’s injured eye. Men could be bastards sometimes. But not always, she reflected, with a glance back at Ryder.
Tall, dark, hot, and good with a gun. As bodyguards went, she could do a lot worse.
Which left them where? She wondered. Not involved, that’s for sure. Certainly not for any length of time. Sex—assuming they got that far—would be better if she let her feelings weigh in, but the truth was, neither of them could afford to get tangled up in emotions that would have nowhere to go once Helene’s murderer was apprehended.
And wasn’t that a depressing thought?
Looking around, she noticed that the trees between the shed and the edge of the swamp no longer moved. Nothing did. Even the gator she’d heard earlier had lapsed into silence.