4 Big Easy Hunter (15 page)

“Ferg told Scotty what he was up against, and Scotty told Dell,” said one of the policemen. “That’s when Dell decided to bring down the security team from Colorado to watch over the situation in the guise of providing security for the wedding.”

“Everything was moving along pretty well,” said one of the guys dressed in black. “Ferg was being followed, and each person he met with was then followed, too. We were sure we’d have enough information about the gun dealers and the shipment to notify the F.B.I. before this morning’s gun delivery, but then a printing plate disappeared this week, and Ferg couldn’t complete the printing order.”

Oh my gosh! I had ruined everything. They all must hate me. I put my head down and tried to will back the tears. Mick was standing close behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“I tried to warn you off in the bar,” said the guy who scared me with the knife. “I didn’t know then that you’d taken the plate, but I did know you were watching Ferg a little too closely. It was hard to hear you screaming and crying all night, but there was nothing I could do.”

My mouth hung open. I couldn’t comprehend that he knew I was in the tomb, and he left me there. “You knew?” I whispered. I could feel Mick tighten as he moved beside me, and I knew his anger had been fueled.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he said. “But the only reason you’re safe today is because I was following you. We may never have known where they put you if I hadn’t followed the driver. Even Ferg didn’t know where you were.”

Mick raised his voice at the man, “Why on earth would you leave her in there all night? What’s wrong with you?”

“I couldn’t disturb anything,” he said with understanding of Mick’s anger. “Someone may have come back for her, and if she was gone, the whole operation could have been jeopardized. Susan, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bring anyone to you until the guys at the port were apprehended with the money and the guns.”

Tears ran down my face again. I was miserable. Being in the tomb had been an exhausting ordeal, and I was seriously concerned for my mental state.

“Is she being charged with anything?” Mick asked abruptly.

“No,” Detective Bentley said. “I’ll only be filing this one in my Susan Hunter file back home.”

“Susan Raines,” I whispered. “I’m Susan Raines.”

Mick drove me back to the hotel where Mom, Dad, Darby, and Nate were waiting in the lobby. I assumed I looked a bit zombie-like, and from the look of horror on Mom’s face when she saw me, I figured I was right. After a tearful reunion, and after Darby and Nate had made a couple of sandwiches of me with their two-man group hugs, Mick led me to our room.

There wasn’t a mirror in the restroom at the police station, and I had only washed my hands. But now I was shocked to see my appearance in the mirror. It was far worse than I could have imagined. I was filthy from head to toe. My mascara was streaked down my face, and there were dirt tracks from tears. My eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. The smeared blood on my neck made it look as though my throat had been slit and blood was smeared down the front of the right-side of my blouse. My slacks had a rip at the knee.

I burst into tears.

There was nothing Mick could do to console me. It was the breakdown I had feared. He undressed me, stripped down himself, and put both of us in the shower. He scrubbed me from top to bottom while I sobbed the entire time. After drying me off, we both slipped into thick, plush hotel robes. I was calmer now. Mick picked me up and carried me to the bed.

As he lie down beside me, I whispered, “When did you get here?”

He had to take a moment before speaking. I had never seen Mick cry before today, and I felt so much regret at having put him through this. He was still having trouble keeping his emotions in check.

“About 1:00 A.M.,” he said. “It was the worst moment of my life to show up and find your family at the police station trying to file a missing person’s report even though you’d only been gone for a few hours. It was a knife in my heart, Susan, to realize you’d gone missing and had probably been abducted.”

I held his hand against my cheek. I didn’t know what to say. I felt so guilty and ashamed.

“I was home early on Thursday and had just taken Joe out to the field for a run when Detective Bentley came around the building and told me he was on his way down here. He said he was sure you were in trouble, and I should get my things and come with him. When he told me about the printing plate, I didn’t know what to say. You hadn’t mentioned it all week.”

“I thought I wasn’t getting involved,” I whispered. “When I found the plates, I knew someone should know about them, but I didn’t want to get caught up in anything here, so I sent one to Detective Bentley. I figured he could check into it once we were all back home.”

Mick smiled a little smile and said, “It does sound like a better plan than the ones you usually come up with, but you need to stop coming up with any plans.”

I nodded and scooted closer to him. We had already decided to let Mom, Dad, Darby, and Nate go to the bachelor and bachelorette parties without us. We were going to spend the rest of the afternoon in our hotel room and go out for a romantic dinner later.

Mick’s hands found their way through the opening in my robe. Maybe we wouldn’t go out for dinner after all.

Dell and Lisa’s wedding was by far the most beautiful wedding I had ever seen – even in magazines.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, with the temperature having dropped a full ten degrees, and there was a light breeze to keep everyone comfortable. The garden had been enhanced with flowers and sculptures and was breathtaking.

Lisa was exquisite in an amazing wedding dress. The dress was sleeveless with a plunging neckline and a fitted bodice. The skirt was exceptionally full with layers upon layers of organza pulled and stitched to create beautiful folds. It was sexy and elegant, and as it should be, all eyes were on the bride today.

I was almost ashamed to show up after all the trouble I had caused, but I needn’t have worried. When Ferg saw us coming across the lawn, he broke into a run from the carriage house and threw his arms around me in a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re ok, Susan,” he exclaimed. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am Bogart showed those plates to you. All of this was my fault.”

“I need to keep my nose out of where it doesn’t belong, Ferg,” I rasped at him. “I’m glad you’re ok, too. I couldn’t bear the thought that something I did might have had you killed.” I shuddered a bit.

“We’re all good now,” he said giving me another hug. Introductions were made between him, my parents, and Mick, and he left us with a cheerful, “Enjoy your day!”

After the beautiful ceremony, we were all seated together for dinner. Darby looked at me and said, “Well, Susan, I guess we should give Nate a little credit.”

“Yeah,” said Nate with an accusing edge to his voice. “You didn’t want any protection from evil spirits, and the fortune teller saw you with the knife slit across your throat and dead in a tomb. You should have let me put the oil on you.”

Mom and Dad both frowned while Mick’s mouth fell open. “What?” he asked. “You had fortunes told, and Susan was told she was going to die?”

“I told her not to believe it, and that it was all bullcrap,” Darby tried to reassure Mick. “But, yeah, she did get a bad fortune.”

“The lady said death would come to me in the form of a knife, and she saw my entombment here,” I said waving my hands around spookily.

I could see Mick’s blood start to boil. “I don’t see how she can lawfully tell someone they’re going to die,” he fumed. “I’m going to ask Detective Bentley to look into it before we leave.”

“Forget about it, Mick,” I said. “I did have a knife to my throat, and I was in a tomb. If she had a vision of me while I was still chloroformed or sleeping, then she was right.” I placed my hand over his and leaned into him. “Let it go, please.”

“Well, I don’t see how the oil helped Nate all that much,” said Dad as he took another bite of his salmon. “He lost his eyebrows and eyelashes, and now he looks a little bit like a drag queen. Not that you don’t look good, son.”

Mom broke out into peals of laughter, and it only took a moment for everyone to follow suit. Darby had tried to help Nate draw in his eyebrows, and they both tried trimming false eyelashes to look more like a man’s lash, but Nate still looked quite feminine.

I fared much better than Nate, and was happy when I dressed for the wedding. The soft, layered dress from Nordstrom was lightweight, clingy, and looked really pretty. I curled my hair instead of only blow-drying, and it fell around my shoulders in soft waves. Makeup and concealer had done wonders for my face, and the small cut on my neck was well hidden.

Many of the guests had finished eating and were moving to the ballroom where music was already coming from the orchestra. “Are you ready for some dancing?” Mick asked. I nodded, and we made our way to the ballroom.

Dell and Lisa were already dancing their first dance to a beautiful rendition of Van Morrison’s
Someone Like You
. The music almost brought tears to my eyes as the lyrics rolled through my mind. The man had traveled the world searching for
someone like you
. It was a perfect first song.

As the dance neared the end, the Master of Ceremonies invited everyone to dance, and the song was reprised. As we joined Dell and Lisa on the dance floor, Mick swept me around into his arms. He was a great dancer, and it was a heavenly moment with the beautiful music, his arm around my waist, and his hand in mine. It felt like we were dating again. I was aware of his fingertips gently pressing into my back, his scent making me almost lightheaded with delight, his body close to mine as we swayed to the music. He nuzzled my cheek for a moment and whispered into my ear, “I love you.” It was a perfect moment which I tried to commit to memory so it would be with me even when I was old.

After an hour of dancing and a fair amount of drinking, Dell came to claim Mick and Dad. He wanted to introduce them to some of the other hockey players. Mom was giving her feet a rest by sitting in a beautifully upholstered chair along the wall. I left the ballroom to take a stroll through the rose garden. I stopped in front of a particularly beautiful sculpture of an angel and admired it.

“She’s not as beautiful as you,” said a voice as an arm slipped across my shoulder.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said giggling as I turned to face Darby.

“We haven’t had much time to talk,” he said, “but I want you to know how sorry I am everything happened to you the way it did. I can’t help but think that I should have known you were in trouble, or I should have been with you so you wouldn’t have been in trouble, or …” his voice trailed off.

“Darby, there’s nothing you could have done,” I told him softly. “There’s no way either of us could have seen what was coming.”

“Things are feeling different, Susan,” he said with sadness. “I’m not with you as much as I used to be, and things are changing.”

“I know,” I said. “Mom said you and I were like an old married couple, but now you and Nate are the old married couple, and Mick and I are the old married couple. It’s Mick’s turn to watch out for me and take care of me, and I suspect you’re going to have your hands full watching out for Nate.”

He gave me a big grin and said, “That’s it, isn’t it? Our friendship isn’t changing, our roles are changing. I can live with that.”

“I can, too,” I said affectionately as I leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek.

He returned a kiss to my nose, and said, “I’ll always love you, Susan. You’ll always be my best girlfriend.”

“I love you, too, Darby,” I said affectionately.

“What’s with all the kissing?” Mick asked with a smile as he joined us.

“Just a little torch passing, Mick,” said Darby. “She’s all yours.” He smiled and walked off to find Nate.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Dirt Road? We’re looking for Dirt Road?” Mick asked incredulously.

I laughed and said, “That was my reaction the first time, too.”

We were on our way to Aunt Sony and Uncle Alfred’s after stopping first at Delia Despre’s Cooking Creole barn. Mick surveyed the damage and called his uncle for a few contacts so the repairs could be done quickly and without excessive cost. His uncle had relatives on his wife’s side in Louisiana, and they were all in construction, too. Mick made several calls and arranged for people to be there as early as tomorrow morning, with all of the work being completed by week’s end. Mick offered to write Delia a check for the canceled classes and missed income for the week, but she would have none of it. She was charmed by him and appreciated his help.

Now I was trying to help him find Dirt Road so we could meet up with Darby, Nate, Mom, and Dad. We had planned to stop in for lemonade, but Aunt Sony insisted we all come for lunch before heading out to the airport for our flights home.

“We’ve driven far enough,” I told him. “It should be just up ahead on your left. Look for a homemade wooden sign.”

I was starting to think we passed it by, when I spotted the sign a little farther down the road. “There it is!” I exclaimed with a laugh. I wasn’t hot and miserable today, but last Monday’s memory of finding this place with Darby and Nate was still fresh in my mind.