Alligator Moon

by Joanna Wayne

  “Come with me, Cassie. I’ll tell you everything. You deserve to know the truth.”

  The hallway seemed a hundred miles long, each step a struggle as Cassie followed Annabeth toward the double doors emblazoned with the words Do Not Enter. Ginny Flanders had entered anyway, and she hadn’t come out alive. Cassie visualized the gurney being wheeled out the doors with a sheet pulled over Ginny Flanders’s head. Only it wasn’t Ginny. It was Cassie’s mother. The hurt seeped past the anger now, and tears burned at the back of Cassie’s eyes.

  Annabeth pushed through the swinging doors, then waited for Cassie to follow. Cassie was a step behind her, but she stopped at the door, hit with the crazy feeling that if she entered those doors she wouldn’t come out again. Go in healthy. Come out dead. Do Not Enter.

  “Please, just tell me what happened to my mother, Annabeth.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “No. I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. Your mother had a reaction to a drug. Drug allergies can be very dangerous.”

  “What do you know about my mother’s allergies? What do you know, Annabeth?”

  “Rhonda Havelin came here for surgery.”

  “Your husband said he’d never seen her.”

  “Norman lies, Cassie. He’s my husband, but he lies. Susan, Angela, Dennis. They were all in on the secret, all part of the lie.”

  “What secret?”

  “Come with me,” Annabeth said, motioning Cassie to follow. “I’ll show you the file with Rhonda Havelin’s name on it.” Annabeth switched on the bright lights above the operating table and adjusted the controls on the air conditioner so that icy air flowed from every vent, as if she were preparing to perform surgery herself. Then she crossed the room and stood beside a metal cart that held an array of surgical tools and a manila folder.

  Cassie’s body had gone numb, but her mind fought to understand. Her mother had been in this room. She’d been on the operating table. And she’d died. Oh, God, this hurt so much!

  Annabeth picked up the file and held it so that Cassie could see the name Rhonda Havelin written in bold black letters. “Read this,” she said, holding the folder out to Cassie. “Read it before the secret destroys all of us.”

  Cassie’s hands shook as she took the file from Annabeth.

  She opened it and the truth stared back at her. Rhonda had died May 10 of complications during a face, eye and brow lift. The primary contributing factor had been an allergic reaction to propofol.

  “The death was no one’s fault, Cassie, the same way Ginny Flanders’s death was no one’s fault.”

  “That’s not true. Mom knew about the allergy. She’d have never had any kind of surgery performed without making sure everyone knew of her history.”

  “That’s not what the notes in the file indicate.”

  “I don’t care what the files say, Annabeth. My mother would have made the doctor aware. And if my mother died on the operating table, why wasn’t the death reported?”

  “That’s the reason for the ugly secret, Cassie. It was an accident, but it wouldn’t have been good to have another death with all the fuss over Ginny Lynn. It wouldn’t have looked good for Norman at all.”

  Annabeth moved to Cassie’s side and put an arm around her shoulder. Cassie jerked away. She didn’t need Annabeth’s comfort. All she needed was the truth.

  “Dr. Guilliot screwed up. Say it, Annabeth. Just say it.”

  The elevator bell rang. Someone was coming.

  Cassie clutched the file to her chest, ready to rush past whoever was getting off the elevator and get the hell out of here before someone tried to stop her. That’s when she saw the needle in Annabeth’s hand. A breath later she felt the prick and the burn as Annabeth plunged the injection through the flesh of Cassie’s left arm.

  Cassie shoved Annabeth, knocking her to the floor, but not before some of the drugs had reached her bloodstream. Cassie fell against the cart, sending the instruments flying as the door to the operating room swung open and Norman Guilliot stepped inside.

  “Norman!” It was Annabeth’s voice, though it seemed to be coming from the glaring lights above the operating table and to be bouncing off the walls.

  “Surprised to see me, Annabeth?”

  Cassie didn’t hear the answer. She was floating, up toward the lights, but someone turned them off, and everything went black.

  THE BAYOU held no comfort for John tonight, no escape from the pain. He’d left himself wide open for this the first time he’d made love to Cassie. No matter how good they were together, no matter that she slid into his arms and into his heart as if she were meant to be there, the relationship had never had a chance of making it beyond a few weeks in Beau Pierre.

  A summer to remember because there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he could forget.

  But the bayou wasn’t the answer, and though he was a lot of things, he wasn’t a coward. So he’d go back to the old shack and if Cassie was still around, he’d tell her goodbye.

  “Sorry Puh-paw and Muh-maw, sorry I let you down. You’d have loved Cassie.” But then, how could anyone not?

  The house was dark except for the glow of his desk lamp. He walked to the bar and took down the bottle of whiskey. He hadn’t had a drink of hard liquor since the night Cassie had come here and found him drunk and reeling from Dennis’s death.

  But tonight he needed a drink, needed it bad.

  He poured the amber liquid and swirled it in the glass, taking it with him to the desk. There was a slip of paper stuck under the corner of the lamp. A note from Cassie. Dear John. Just the kind of note he needed to make the night complete.

  For two cents, he’d wad it and toss it into the garbage. No one offered two cents.

  CASSIE LOST her balance and toppled forward. Someone caught her and held her upright as she faded in and out. From light to darkness. From silence to voices that came from all around her and back to the knowledge that she was being dragged along between two people.

  “We can’t kill her, Annabeth. I’m a doctor. I took an oath.”

  “We have to do this, Norman. There’s no other way.”

  Norman and Annabeth. Fragments of reality stole into Cassie’s mind on a hit and miss basis. Her mother was dead. Now they were talking of killing her.

  “We’ll need to put her to sleep, Norman. The drugs I gave her will wear off soon.”

  “Then what do we do with her?”

  “Drive her to Grand Isle and dump her in the Gulf. That way we won’t have any new body parts washing up here. And you won’t have to kill her. You can simply leave her to drown.”

  “No. This has gone too far. It has to stop, Annabeth. I can’t take any more of this. It has to stop.”

  “It will stop, Norman. Once Cassie’s gone, it’s over. The secret will only exist between you, me and Angela, and Angela will never tell.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “You have no choice. You shouldn’t have operated without Fred. You forget to write everything down when you talk to the patients and you didn’t check Fred’s notes. Now you’ll have to pay for your mistake.”

  “They’ll find Cassie’s body.”

  “Not for weeks or even months. Maybe not ever if you take her out far enough. I’ll help you, but we have to act quickly.”

  Cassie heard the words, but they jumped about in her head, coming together slowly. They were going to kill her. She tried to scream, but her tongue was stuck to the top of her mouth and she choked instead.

  A blast of hot, humid air hit her in the face and her feet were scraping now instead of sliding. They were outside, behind the old plantation house, in the dark.

  Cassie tried to scream again, then realized something was stuffed into her mouth to keep her quiet.

  “Put her in the car, Norman.”

  No. She couldn’t let them take her away from here. She’d left John a message. If she stayed here, there was a chance he’d find her in time, but if they took her
away…

  “I can’t do this, Annabeth. I can’t. I’m a doctor. I took an oath.” His arm fell from around Cassie and he collapsed to the ground, put his head in his hands and started to sob.

  Cassie heard the purr of a car engine and the squeal of brakes, though she couldn’t see the vehicle. John. Please let it be John.

  She tried to break away, but Annabeth’s fingers dug into her arm and she shoved Cassie to the ground.

  Norman reached up and grabbed the gag from Cassie’s mouth.

  “Tell whoever it is that she passed out, Annabeth. Tell them she fainted from the heat.”

  Cassie sucked in a breath and tried to regain her equilibrium. She had to stay conscious, had to let whoever was coming know that she needed help.

  The car door slammed and Cassie saw the figure moving toward them, not recognizable in the dark until he was mere feet away. Fred Powell.

  “Help me!” she begged, knowing there was little chance he would.

  Her voice was little more than a squeaky shudder, but Fred ran toward her and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him. “Don’t worry, Cassie. I’ve got you now.”

  “Trying…to kill…me.”

  Cassie relaxed against Fred as the world started fading out. When she opened her eyes again, he was setting her into one of the pirogues tied behind the plantation. She tried to grab hold of a spindly cypress tree. Her hands didn’t move. They were tied behind her. Her feet were tied as well, and someone had stuffed the gag back in her mouth.

  She’d wanted to join her mother in Greece. Now she’d join her in death.

  A ONE-YEAR FELLOWSHIP under the tutelage of Dr. Norman Guilliot will change your life.

  And so it had, though not in ways the professor who’d told Fred that would ever have imagined. He’d learned a lot about fame and wealth and what it could get you. He’d learned that the rules changed the closer you got to the top. Mostly he’d learned that beautiful women like Annabeth and Gina could be bought as long as you had the price. And that legends like Norman Guilliot were all too human.

  Cassie sat deathly still in the opposite end of the boat. She’d quit swaying back and forth and her pupils had returned to near normal. She was regaining full consciousness. How unfortunate for her.

  EVERY SOUND, every smell, every movement seemed magnified a hundred times over as they floated down the bayou. An owl screeched. A fish splashed in the water, sending ripples cascading to the shore. A mosquito buzzed around her face.

  The same swamp, the same bayou, the same hot, stifling air as when she’d been here with John, and yet everything was different. She choked on the gag and Fred reached over and pulled it from her mouth. They were too deep in the swamp for anyone to hear her even if she screamed.

  “Why are you doing this, Fred?”

  “For the money, of course. Why do people do anything? Money or passion. That’s all there really is. And Annabeth pays very well to keep her and Norman’s secrets hidden.”

  “What secret does Annabeth have? Her affair with Dennis Robicheaux?”

  “Annabeth and Dennis. Never happened, though she’d have liked for it to. She came on to him often enough, but Dennis would never have betrayed his boss.”

  “Then why was he murdered?”

  “Annabeth didn’t trust him to keep the secret, especially after I told her Dennis was leaving here and taking a job in L.A.”

  Words tumbled about in Cassie’s head and she struggled to make some sense of what she’d learned tonight.

  “Whose fault was it that my mother died?”

  “The good surgeon, of course. Had it been anyone else’s mistake, they’d have just had to face the music. But a man like Guilliot shouldn’t have to pay for forgetting to note a drug allergy on a patient’s surgery chart—not when the price of that mistake was going to be so high. Another death on top of Ginny Lynn’s would have ended the Guilliot dynasty and his loyal surgery team couldn’t let that happen.”

  “So you threw my mother to the alligators?”

  “You make it sound so much worse than it was. She was dead. Nothing was going to bring her back to life. And if you hadn’t come snooping, no one would have ever known. She told us herself. Her family thought she was in Greece. No paper trail. No trail at all.”

  “Will I be dead when you dump me, Fred?”

  “No. Think of it this way, Cassie, I’m giving you a fighting chance. Of course, you won’t likely make it to the bank with your hands and feet tied.”

  Cassie watched in horror as two gators swam a few feet from the boat. Fred would throw her overboard and she’d sink slowly to the bottom while the air left her lungs. But she might not die fast enough. She might still be alive when the first sharp teeth bit into her flesh. Might feel her body being literally torn apart in the strong jaws of the alligators. She’d see her bloody flesh floating away from her in the dark, turbid waters.

  There was no way to stop Fred. The most she could do was kick him and perhaps turn the pirogue over so that he’d fall into the water with her.

  A person’s life was supposed to pass in front of them at a time like this. All Cassie reviewed was the last few days. She saw herself in John’s arms. That was the image she’d carry with her to her death.

  “It’s time, Cassie. If you thought John Robicheaux was going to save you, you’re all out of luck.” Fred reached for her. She screamed and kicked at him as hard as she could. Fred fell backward, cursing as he did, but somehow he managed not to sink the small boat. He picked up the oar and swung it. It hit a glancing blow to her head and before she could regain her balance, he’d rolled her over the edge of the boat.

  She heard the splash, felt the water as it slid over her and sucked her under. John would find her. She knew that he would. But he would be too late.

  She kicked frantically, buying seconds of time, fighting to keep from sinking to the muddy bottom. Beau Pierre. God, she hated this town.

  JOHN HEARD the scream and the splash. It was close by, maybe yards in front of him, around the next bend—or two. He poled with frantic, hurried strokes the way he’d been doing ever since he’d lifted his pirogue from the bed of his truck and slid it into the bayou.

  Surely Cassie was still at the plantation with Annabeth. He’d be there in under ten minutes. He’d find her safe, but the scream…and the splash.

  He saw the boat when he made the bend in the bayou and spied Fred Powell staring over the edge and into the water. The picture was clear. It had been Cassie who’d screamed, and she was nowhere in sight.

  John zeroed in on the bubbles floating to the surface, then dived into the water and swam toward them. It would be too dark to see beneath the murky surface. He’d have to go by feel and pray for a miracle. When he reached the bubbles, he looked up and saw the silver pistol in Fred’s hand, pointed at his head.

  With one fell swoop, John tipped the boat over and ducked beneath the surface as Fred spilled into the water with him. Fred kicked and sputtered and one of his boots caught John’s groin. He doubled over in pain, but didn’t surface. The water was only about six feet deep, but darker than ever with Fred stirring up the mud. Finally, John’s foot hit on something bulky, and he went down for it with the last bit of breath in his burning lungs.

  He caught hold of Cassie’s hair, then found her shoulders and tugged her to the surface. He half swam, half waded to the bank, slipping and falling with her onto the muddy bank. He didn’t notice Fred until he felt the heel of Fred’s boot cracking against his ribs.

  “Nice show, John. Too bad it was for nothing.”

  Cassie coughed, choking on the water expelled from her lungs. John rolled her to her side, but kept his eyes on the pistol in Fred’s hand.

  “Make one move and I shoot the reporter first,” Fred warned.

  “The way you shot Dennis?”

  “Yeah, but he was luckier than you. He never saw it coming, not until he turned around and watched me pull the trigger.”

  John reeled from the anger
that ripped through him, then felt as if something had exploded inside his head. He dived toward Fred, tackling him around the ankles and knocking him to the ground. The gun went off, and the bullet grazed John’s leg. He felt the pain, but it was no match for the driving anger and the knowledge that if he didn’t stop Fred, he’d kill Cassie.

  They wrestled for the gun. It went off again, but this time, it was Fred who took the bullet. Blood gushed from his stomach and the gun fell from his grasp.

  John rolled away, grabbing the gun as he did. He didn’t know if Fred was dying or not, but Cassie was lying face down in the mud, deathly still.

  Panic burned in his lungs.

  He fell to the ground beside her, rolled her over and started CPR. Seconds later she opened her eyes and started coughing again. He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her wet hair. Relief had never felt so good.

  “Where’s Fred?” Cassie asked, between watery coughs.

  “Over there.” He nodded to the lifeless body. “Dead I think, but I’ll go check now that you’re breathing again.”

  John walked over and felt for a pulse. There was none and from the looks of the stomach wound, it was probably best for Fred that he’d died almost instantly. He walked back to Cassie, limping a little and still bleeding.

  “You’re hurt,” she said.

  “A flesh wound. No worse than getting snagged by a fish hook. You okay?”

  He held her close, thankful that for once in his life he hadn’t failed someone he loved. At least he hadn’t failed her yet. “Let’s get out of here, Cassie.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the pirogue.

  “I owe you my life,” she whispered.

  “No problem. I’m just glad I could make the party.”

  “Me, too. Stay around for the cake and ice cream?”

  “I’ll try, Cassie. I’ll try.”

  It was a promise he’d never expected to make.

  EPILOGUE

  Six weeks later

  CASSIE SAT on the edge of the dock at the trapper’s shack at dusk and swung her legs over the water. An old gator half-hidden in the high grass didn’t even give her a rise. They seldom did anymore unless she started thinking about the night she’d almost swam with them. But even then it was Fred Powell who gave her the creeps instead of the spiny reptiles.