But Not For Fear

by BJ Bourg

  CHAPTER 40

  I must’ve been tired, because I didn’t remember anything after covering my face with my shirt. The next thing I knew, birds were chirping and light was pouring through the fabric. I removed the shirt from my face and glanced around, surprised to see that it was bright daylight.

  Remembering where I was, I sat up slowly, confused. I glanced in Melvin’s direction. He was leaning against a tree and staring ahead through his binoculars.

  “What time is it?” I whispered.

  “Almost nine in the morning.”

  I apologized for not waking up sooner.

  “I’m good,” he said. “It was quiet throughout the night. Regan woke up an hour ago and already went for a swim. She’s living like she’s on vacation. That woman really is fearless!”

  I took up my position and told Melvin he could go to sleep. He did and I watched throughout the day and into the evening. It was a Saturday during summer and I hadn’t seen or heard a single boat all day. That was highly unusual, and it was proof that the fear tactic—if this is what the murders were about—was working.

  When Melvin stirred from his sleep and rolled to a seated position, I told him this would probably be our last night out here.

  “Giving up already?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I was thinking we could stay here for the rest of the month. The mattress on my bed can’t compete for softness with the cypress knees that keep poking me in the back.”

  I nodded my understanding. I ached all over from sleeping on the ground. I had slept outside many times as a kid, but I never remembered it being this painful.

  My SAT phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. It was Susan again and she was asking if everything was okay. We had messaged back and forth throughout the day and she had questioned how long we would stay out here. That was earlier in the morning and I had told her I wasn’t sure. Now, though, I was starting to think this had been a waste of time. Thus, I responded that everything was quiet and I told her we might leave the area tomorrow afternoon.

  I told Melvin what I was thinking and, after eating a can of tuna, I retired to my nest in the bushes and slept through the night.

  Sunday brought more of the same, and I began to wonder if the killer had seen Takecia drop us off and had been scared away. I thought we had been adequately hidden during the ride and she had buried the boat in the trees when we’d dismounted. The plan had been for her to ride around the lake for a while after dropping us off, just to make her visit appear normal. But what if the killer hadn’t been fooled?

  Just as the sun started going down, Melvin and I packed up our gear and stepped out into the open. Regan was taking some clothes down from a branch where she had hung them to dry.

  She smiled when she saw us. “You guys look like you’ve been sleeping on the ground for two days.”

  “I feel like it, too,” Melvin said, stretching long and hard.

  “I guess this was a dud.” Regan frowned. “I’m sorry it didn’t pan out.”

  “You win some, you lose some,” I said as I helped her load up the flatboat. “Rather than making Takecia come all the way out here, we’ll just jump in with you.”

  “Fine with me,” she said, shooting a thumb toward Melvin. “It’s his boat anyway, so who am I to deny you guys?”

  The aluminum hull was a fourteen-foot flatboat with two bench seats—one for the driver and one for passengers. After the gear was loaded, there wasn’t much leg room and Regan and I had to stretch our legs out over our rucksacks. Melvin took his place on the aft bench seat and grabbed the tiller.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Without looking over my shoulder, I stuck my thumb in the air and we were off. The wind felt good against my face and hair. The mosquitoes had probably taken a pint of blood each from Melvin and me during the two nights we had slept in the swamps. Since we were supposed to remain unseen, unheard, and undetected, we had refrained from using smelly bug spray. As a result, we were covered in tiny mosquito bites. They were spread across my arms and neck, and there were even a few on my face.

  Regan, for her part, had been completely unscathed. Since her entire reason for being out here was to serve as bait for the killer, she hadn’t been restricted in her use of comfort products—and she had packed a lot of repellent. She had only been in town for a month, but she had quickly learned that the mosquito was the unofficial Louisiana state bird and that they grew to the size of bats in Mechant Loup.

  Melvin slowed the boat as we approached the pass that led out of the lake, and I idly wondered why he even bothered. I hadn’t seen another boat or human being since we’d come out here Friday afternoon, so there was no need to—

  “Shit!” Melvin said, shoving the tiller abruptly and swerving to the right side of the bayou.

  I grabbed onto the side of the boat to keep from spilling into the water, and Regan slammed into me. I shot a glance over my shoulder just in time to see a white boat veer sharply left and slow to a stop. The waves from the larger boat rocked the flat boat we were in. Melvin slowed to a stop as well and we sat there rocking in the bayou.

  “Watch where you’re going, you bald-headed prick!” one of the men in the boat said. There were four of them, and the speaker was standing near the captain of the boat. “I don’t want to have to come down there and kick your ass.”

  “What’d you say?” Melvin asked, maneuvering the flatboat around to face the larger boat and the four men.

  “I said, I’m going to come down there and kick your—”

  “Shut your mouth,” said the captain. “That’s Melvin Saltzman—Officer Melvin Saltzman. He’ll stomp a mud hole in your face on a dry day.”

  The man who had spoken clamped his mouth shut. He stammered for a minute and then mumbled an apology. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “No worries.” Melvin waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Where’re y’all coming from? We haven’t seen another boat out here all weekend.”

  The captain shot a thumb toward the south. “We were doing some spear fishing in the Gulf. Got out there early this morning, shot our limit, and we’re heading back now.”

  I leaned back to see around Regan and cast a casual glance at the side of the boat. I froze in place when I saw the name of the boat.

  “Diable D’eau Noire!” I said out loud, probably butchering the French pronunciation. It came out more as an accusation than an observation, and a couple of the men appeared uneasy. I pointed toward the name on the boat. “This is Phillip Burke’s boat. These guys dive for Phillip!”

  Melvin slowly stood in place and scanned the faces of the men. He pointed to one of them. “How long have you been working for Phillip?”

  “It’s more of a part time gig. I do it on the weekends.”

  “I recognize everyone except you,” Melvin said, pointing to one of the other men. He was unshaven, shirtless, and wore wetsuit shorts. “What’s your name?”

  The man hesitated. His dark blond hair was wet and messy. There was a tattoo on his chest of a scorpion with an oxygen tank strapped to its back. He shifted his bare feet.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Melvin asked. “Don’t you know your name?”

  The man’s face hardened and I noticed his fists clench as he stared down at Melvin.

  “Saul,” said the captain of the boat, “tell the man your name.”

  My ears perked up as I remembered the poem we’d found in Gabe’s phone that mentioned King Saul.

  The man called Saul turned his glare toward the captain, but only for a split second. In the next moment, he grabbed an oxygen tank and jumped off the back of the boat, hitting the water and sinking immediately into the dark abyss.

  “What the hell?” asked one of the other men on the boat. “Where in the hell is he going?”

  Before I could do or say anything, Regan snatched up her rescue tank and dove headfirst into the bayou. The last thing I saw before the black water swallowed her up was her strong, pale
legs kicking like pistons.

  CHAPTER 41

  When Regan Steed saw the man with the scorpion tattoo glance down at the oxygen tank at his feet, she knew exactly what he was going to do. Although she hit the water a step behind Scorpion and Melvin’s boat was at least twenty feet from the Diable D’eau Noire, the strong kicking of her legs and strokes from her right arm helped close the distance.

  Within seconds, Regan found herself immersed amongst his bubbles and was following his trail to the bottom of the bayou. She couldn’t see in the black water, but she could feel the difference in the texture of the water. It was as though Scorpion’s body had softened up the water and created a portal through which she found herself slipping. Whatever it was, she found it extremely easy to push through the waters of southeast Louisiana.

  Regan had kayaked most of the rivers in the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which included the usual suspects: the Big Pigeon, the Chattooga, the Ocoee, and the Nantahala. She had spilled into the roaring rivers many times during her trips and had been forced to swim for her life against the powerful and icy currents. There, the struggle was real and one wrong move might send her crashing headfirst into a large boulder or trapped under a fallen log beneath the surface, either of which could end her life in minutes. But here, the calm and warm waters of this gentle bayou were no match for her powerful kicks. She moved with the ease of a river trout, descending into the depths as rapidly as she would if she were back on the Chattooga River with the current to her back.

  Her eyes were wide open, but all she saw was a dark green hue. At times, dark objects would blur by. They mostly presented as indistinct shadows, but one of them appeared to be of a large reptilian shape, and it was then she remembered that Louisiana was home to the largest lizard on the continent: the American alligator.

  For a split second, she longed for the dangerous waters of the mountains, where the worst that could happen was being beaten to death by rocks or drowned—either of which sounded better right now than being eaten alive by a giant bayou creature. However, that thought was short lived, because she suddenly bumped into a human figure. Since the only other human down here was Scorpion, she knew she was in for a fight. He must’ve felt her, too, because he suddenly kicked out and changed directions.

  Knowing she would need to be at her best, she quickly brought the rescue tank to her mouth, exhaled, and then sucked in a lungful of air. That was one. She would have about twenty-nine breaths left.

  Regan was now in an underwater pursuit, following the white noise that exploded in front of her from the wild kicking of her suspect.

  You swim like you’re drowning, she thought wryly as she moved gracefully through the water. It was easy to see that she was faster than Scorpion. Her efforts were smooth and deliberate and she was able to reserve her strength and air. His movements were desperate.

  With a few kicks of her legs and one stroke of her arm, she was within arm’s reach of the large shadow that represented Scorpion. Since she didn’t know why he was running, she had no probable cause to arrest him, so she simply swam up beside him. It was at that moment that he kicked her in the face with his heel.

  Her head snapped back and she lost a step in the water, but she recovered quickly and was soon upon him again. Now that he had attacked her, she could arrest him for battery on a police officer.

  With her right hand, she reached forward and grabbed the closest thing to her. It was a foot. She jerked his foot toward her and sat down hard in the water, creating a drag that was too great for the man to overcome. Like a worm on a hook, she could feel him wiggling desperately against her grip. She was about to pull him closer when the heel of his other foot suddenly shot forward and smacked her right in the nose, causing her to lose her grip.

  Her eyes smarted from the blow, but she was undeterred. Giving chase again, she quickly overtook him and grabbed onto the back of his shorts this time. As she held on tight with her right hand, she brought the rescue tank to her mouth with her left hand and took another breath. Twenty-eight left.

  Scorpion reached back and began battering her about the head and shoulders with a fist, trying to break free from her clutches. Regan lifted the rescue tank to her face in an attempt to ward off the blows. It helped. Every now and then, one of his punches got through her guard, but they were only glancing blows now and weren’t doing any damage.

  Regan could feel that they were sinking farther to the bottom, and she guessed that it was because of the heavy tank Scorpion was carrying. She tried to stop their descent, but the weight of the tank and his wild thrashing were too much even for her powerful legs.

  Taking a chance, she let go of his waistband and reached for the arm holding the tank. Her hand brushed against his face and she could tell that the regulator second stage was in his mouth. As long as he had air and was holding onto that tank, she knew it would be next to impossible to get him to the surface, so she reached for the regulator. Just as her fingers wrapped around it, he punched wildly at her and made hard contact with her left hand, jamming her left thumb and knocking the rescue tank loose.

  Regan gasped as she reached desperately for the handheld tank, but missed. The reaction caused her to lose valuable air. Scorpion must’ve sensed that she was at a disadvantage, because he began striking out wildly again and was able to grab her around the throat with his powerful hand.

  A sense of calm realization flooded over Regan. She understood she might very well die in these muddy waters today. The feeling was not unlike what she had experienced when her leg had become trapped under a log while kayaking on the Ocoee River three years ago. At that time, she had removed her knife and was prepared to cut her own leg off to save—

  My knife!

  Fading fast and desperate for air, Regan tried to break Scorpion’s grip with her left hand while reaching into her shorts with her right hand. Her head felt like it was about to explode just as her fingers wrapped around the handle of the Cold Steel Ti-Lite. With a flick of her thumb, she whipped open the four-inch blade and plunged it into Scorpion’s side.

  Regan heard an audible grunt through the water as she twisted the knife in the wound, but it only made Scorpion squeeze her neck tighter. The life nearly squeezed right out of her, Regan reached desperately for the hose to the respirator with her left hand and tried pulling it to meet the knife blade. She began to convulse, but somehow managed to press the razor-sharp blade to the hose and give it a tug. Scorpion immediately let go of her throat as his air supply was suddenly shut off.

  The water surrounding them erupted in an explosion of bubbles as the hose snapped around like a whip. Scorpion must’ve been breathing in when she cut the hose, because he began thrashing about wildly, as though trying to claw his way to the surface.

  As for Regan, her body began to relax as she prepared to succumb to the unrelenting urge to take a deep breath. She knew there was no way she could hold her breath all the way to the surface. As she thought of her husband coming home to an empty house, tears began leaking from her wide-open eyes and mixing with the black water that surrounded her like a coffin.

  CHAPTER 42

  I stood with mouth agape, as did Melvin and the three men left on the other boat.

  “What the hell happened?” the captain on the other boat asked. “Why’d he jump?”

  No one had an answer. I had seen Regan take her rescue tank with her, so I knew she could last down there for at least an hour. I thought about jumping in after her, but I wouldn’t know where to begin searching and I couldn’t survive more than a minute or two underwater. I felt desperate, like I had to do something.

  “Where are they?” I asked, scrambling back and forth along the edge of the boat, trying to penetrate the vast blackness beneath us. “Does anyone see anything?”

  Regan and Saul had disappeared into a sea of bubbles, but everything had calmed down on the surface. Every now and then a single bubble or two would rise to the surface and pop. Other than
that, there was no sign of life down there.

  “I can’t see shit,” said one of the men on the other boat.

  Melvin maneuvered his boat until it was positioned directly over where we’d last seen Regan go under, and then he leaned over the side. After scanning the area directly under us, he glanced up and scanned the bayou around us.

  “They could’ve gone off in any direction,” he said. “There’s no way to be sure of their location. Even if a bubble comes up, it doesn’t mean they’re still in that spot. It’ll take some time for the bubble to rise to the surface and, depending on how deep they’re diving, they could be yards away by the time we see it.”

  I ripped off my shirt and boots.

  “What’re you doing?” Melvin asked.

  “I want to be ready in case I have to go in after her,” I said, not sure myself why I’d done it. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do, but now I felt foolish. If I jumped in and tried to find her, I would be wasting time and disturbing the water, which would make it harder to find her.

  “Look, there’s another bubble,” called one of the men from the other boat.

  Melvin moved our boat toward the bubble and then let it drift. We were rocking with the motion of the gentle waves. It was cooler now that the sun was going down. Had it not been for Regan disappearing, this could turn out to be a nice and peaceful evening on the water. But she had disappeared and I was starting to worry. What would I tell Amy? Or Regan’s husband?

  “As long as there are bubbles, she should be fine,” Melvin said. Although he tried to sound confident, I could plainly see the worry lines on his face. Regan was in grave danger and we both knew it.

  I inched farther out over the edge of Melvin’s boat and tried to see into the dark water. I was about to pull back when the bayou suddenly exploded into action. Thousands of bubbles shot to the surface.