Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (5 page)

Standing around made him jittery, and as he returned the
flask to his pocket, he decided to check the premises. Looking for what, he didn't
know, probably just a reason to hang out until someone showed up.

He walked along the galerie toward the back of the cabin,
ducking under the outside staircase, then rounding the corner of the building.

It was like stepping back in time. Frank's gin mill still
occupied the center of the yard, but the revenuers must have put him out of
business because no steam came from its rusty pipes. The big iron kettle was
there. A reasonably clean apron was tied to its handle, and the ashes beneath
looked fresh. Then there was the water pump, and the tool shed with its bent
metal roof.

Nostalgia sucker punched him so suddenly he took a sharp,
deep breath. He'd not been one of their people, these Deverauxs, these odd
French-speaking Cajuns. Although of the same Acadian heritage, he'd been a town
boy, son of the mayor, living in the biggest house. But the Deverauxs had
opened their home and hearts to him.

The painful wave immobilized him momentarily, and it was a
while before he took heed of the persistent scratching coming from the far edge
of the property. He looked in the direction of the noise, and saw the striped
tail of a raccoon.

Several striped tails, actually, and as he fixed his
attention, a head lifted, staring at him with black-ringed eyes. He hurried
down the stairs. Most of the animals scattered instantly, but a few waited
until he was almost on them, appearing to issue a challenge with their dark
eyes.

Even they retreated when he got within a foot or two. All
except one, which held a scrap of fabric in its clever paw. Acutely interested
in what had drawn these coons out in broad daylight, Zach bent for a stone and
lobbed it, hoping the animal would drop the fabric before turning tail.

The creature jumped when the stone landed at its feet, then
whirled and ran away, leaving the cloth behind. Zach walked over and bent to
pick it up.

It was a coarse heavy cotton, and by the way it was folded
and creased, Zach suspected it was the placket of a shirt. When he turned it in
his hand, he caught some faded lettering. Needing better light, he lifted it,
then let out a whoosh of breath as he clearly saw the identifying stencil of a
Louisiana State Penitentiary uniform.

From long habit he always carried evidence bags in his pants
pocket. He reached in for one in which to store the fabric, then returned the
bag to his pocket, wanting to check out the site where the animals had been
digging.

Although the soil was richly black from eons of rotting
flora and fauna, something still blacker lay on top, and he dug out another bag,
using it to protect the object from his fingers as he picked up a small black
rectangle.

He expelled another rush of air as he saw the Fortier
Security Corporation logo.

God, oh, God, he'd ordered the card case inscribed himself.
The sting of salt nipped at his eyes, and he bit his lower lip against the pain
as he read the words inscribed on a silver bar across the bottom edge:

JEDEDIAH FORTIER, CHIEF PAIN IN THE BUTT.

* * *

Something was terribly wrong. Papa always kept his promise.

Liz's agitated pulse beat in time with the putt-putt-putt
issuing from her small rented motor boat as she headed for her father's cabin.
Richard Cormier had flashed an oily smile when he'd told her all the faster
boats were out for the weekend, then assured her this one'd get her there.
Yeah, Liz now thought irritably. At ten miles an hour tops, the trip should
take only two or three hours, and the snail's pace only increased her dark
mood.

Why hadn't her father shown up as he said he would? The most
reassuring reason was he'd gone to Maddie's and was even now sleeping it off in
that woman's arms. While the image of him betraying her mother's memory
revolted Liz, the other possibilities popping into her mind were worse, much
worse.

After settling her things in Zach's old room the night
before, Liz had made up the bed, then prepared the master bedroom for her
father, with barely acknowledged hope that sleeping here might make him feel he
really owned the place. Later, she scrambled some eggs in the remodeled
kitchen.

Her father still hadn't shown up by the time she'd finished
eating, so she called Stephen to plan their strategy for the next day, then
rattled around the house, waiting and waiting. And waiting some more.

Several hours after dark, she bundled up and went hunting for
him. She walked to the Cormier house. Everyone had gone, and the lights were
dimmed for the night. She checked Tricou's cafe, even looked in the lounge at
the Cormier Inn. He wasn't in any of those places, and the last anyone
remembered he'd been talking to Maddie on the veranda. The recollection of
their knowing looks made Liz angry, even now, which kept her fear at bay while
she guided her small boat through the swamp.

Floods and droughts had a way of altering the bayou, but at
the tip of a narrow peninsula she recognized a lone cypress, so hung with moss
it looked like a dying weeping willow, and she turned there into boggier water,
reasonably certain she was headed in the right direction.

At first the cypress knees appeared infrequently, but marshy
islands of alligator grass narrowed the channel, and she saw ripples on the
water that warned of submerged debris. She cut back on the gas, bringing the
tiny craft to a crawl, then weaved easily through the obstacles, surprised to
find she'd retained so much of her earlier skill. With renewed confidence, she
upped the craft's speed. Soon the twisted knobby roots, so reminiscent of aged
limbs, thickened. Still she navigated without difficulty. The dense cypress
branches filtered the sun until the light dimmed to the level of a smoky bar.
She peered through the gloom, looking for familiar landmarks and impatient to
move ahead.

Creatures chittered in the grasses. Something screamed from
afar. A bird, Liz told herself, tension creeping into her shoulders. Her hand
tightened on the tiller.

Water splashed to her left.

She jerked around. Foolish, she told herself, when she saw
it was only a diving fish, feeling more so when she turned back in barely
enough time to avoid being decked by a low-hanging branch.

She was afraid, and she wasn't used to fear anymore, not
like she once had been. These days she lived in a high-rise condominium that
teemed with security guards, and she drove or took taxis everywhere. She felt
invulnerable in the city, safe, protected, sheltered from harm.

Why did the bayou evoke such terror in her? She had once
known these waters like the back of her hand and had loved roaming them.
Especially when she was with Zach. He'd been her constant girlhood companion
and eventually her lover. They'd planned to marry when they got old enough.
Forever, they'd sworn. Forever.

Sparks of that long-ago love stirred in her heart. With a
burst of panic, she doused them. But they made her wonder what had frightened
her so badly that she'd fled in utter terror and snapped the almost unbreakable
bond between them. This watery land was raw and full of dangers, true, but it
hadn't always filled her with such trepidation. There must have been a reason,
but if there was she couldn't remember it and was reluctant to try. Even the
thought of dredging it up made her shudder.

Some things are best left to the past, she concluded, but
she still found herself regretting that Zach had been among them.

Soon the cypress grove thinned, and not long after that she
emerged on a wide waterway she clearly remembered. When the cabin finally
appeared, her regret intensified, even as her death grip on the tiller relaxed.
She saw the dock with the family name carved on one of the tall pilings. The
familiar tour boat bobbed gently in the water, its dented canopy frame creaking
in time with the motion. A good-sized aluminum craft stood at anchor nearby.

The house seemed taller, bigger. As she boated closer, she
saw the remodeling her father had told her about, which brought back the day
he'd tersely announced he'd added rooms and hooked up to city power, "Case
she wanted to come home."

Home. She hadn't thought of the place as home in oh so long,
but suddenly it felt that way.

Tears rushed up, and she blinked, hoping they would flow at
last. Her eyes burned briefly, then were dry, leaving a thickness in her
throat. Swallowing hard, she steered toward the dock until the bow hit wood,
then formed a noose in the tie rope and threw it over a piling.

The front door was closed. A plastic holder had been mounted
beside it and was filled with printed material about Deveraux Swamp Tours. She
smiled. Electricity, advertising. Her father had finally gone
twentieth-century. Maybe they even had running water.

"Papa," she called out. Getting no answer, she
hopped onto the cypress steps, then climbed up to the dock, passing a loop of
dirty rope as she headed for the door.

The rope uncoiled and slithered toward Liz's feet. Her eyes
froze open, allowing her to stare in horror as two feet of reptile undulated
over the toe of her shoe toward the edge of the pier with an agonizing lack of
haste. It hung on the drop-off for a beat of her racing heart, then slid
languidly out of sight.

A mewing sound squeaked inside her closed throat, and she
stumbled backward, barely grabbing a piling in time to keep from falling off
the dock. As she clung tightly, struggling to regain control, she heard a
noise. Slowly she turned.

"Papa?"

Zach hadn't meant to scare her. When he'd heard the boat
approaching, he'd thought it was Frank coming back The wimpy-sounding engine
had made him a bit doubtful—he couldn't quite figure an old Cajun going out in
a kid's boat—but he wanted it to be Frank. Wanted it bad. He was the only one
who could give him answers to what Zach had found out back.

But as Liz stared at him wide-eyed, pale skinned, looking as
if she'd seen a ghost, she seemed more like Izzy than the crisp, controlled
powerhouse who'd taken a cell-phone call at her mother's wake.

He stepped around the corner of the house and crossed the
galerie
.
"Are you all right?"

"I ran across a snake." She looked down at her
shoes and laughed nervously. "It must be a snake with fashion sense,
because it took its time examining my Sketchers."

So much for seeming like Izzy, which left Zach in no mood
for jokes. But he put on the old Fortier grin anyway as Liz continued examining
her shoes. After a second or two, she raised her head. "What brings you
out here?"

"Looking up your pa." He hesitated, fascinated
with the gemlike shimmer in her eyes. "I wanted to explain—oh, hell, I
wanted to apologize for last night. Allain was way out of line."

"People in the Port do and say funny things," she
said. A pair of shallow lines appeared between her eyebrows. "Even . . .
Someone told me that you think Jed was murdered. Is it true?"

"I've got reason to think so." He didn't want to
talk about it right now, not with those unexplained items in his pocket, and he
glanced over at the little fishing boat tied beside the steps. Wasn't much more
than a flat-bottomed canoe. "You come out here in that, Izzy?"

"Liz," she corrected distractedly, looking at the
boat. "Yes. Why not?"

"Gators are rutting this time of year. If one'd come
after you in that piece of tin, it would have overturned you in a second.
Christ, where does Richard keep his brains?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Her voice held an irritable
edge. "Where's Papa? Sleeping it off inside?"

"I don't think so. Only boat here is that tour boat.
I'd think he'd use a smaller one to go to the Port."

"He does."

She then turned toward the door, clearly unwilling to share
her worries. If not for the dimming highlights in her cat's eyes, Zach might
have thought she'd been telling him her Wall Street Journal failed to arrive
that morning. Then he saw her knock on the door.

Knock? She grew up in that house.

No one answered. She knocked again.

"This isn't Manhattan,
cher
. Why don't you try
turning the knob?"

If she noticed his sarcasm, she didn't betray it. She just
did as he suggested and the door swung open.

She took a step forward, then stopped. "Oh."

Zach's nerves were already primed for danger, and he
instinctively nudged Liz out of the doorway and entered in front of her.

He'd expected mayhem. Instead he saw a typical Cajun living
room. The furniture had changed since he'd last been there, but not much—just
different patterns covering the plump cushions on the cypress sofa and chairs,
and a recliner he didn't recall. The crucifix still hung over the simple oak
mantel, and the wrought-iron rack that held the fireplace tools was the same
one Frank himself had welded almost twenty-five years before.

Liz squeezed past him. "Goodness, Zach. You act like
you were expecting an ax murderer." Inside, she turned to look back.
"I'm sorry. I meant it as a joke. It's only . . ."

She swung her arms helplessly.

"It's only—the tortoise-shell table is gone. And
where's the oak sideboard Mama kept the dishes in?" She gazed around
wistfully. "Silly isn't it? How could I expect everything to be just the
way I left it?"

"In case you haven't noticed, the kitchen's moved,
too." He glanced at an archway leading to another room. He moved to enter
the curved opening, then stopped. "Uh-oh."

He turned to look at her, hoping his expression didn't
reveal his shock. But she looked as unflappable as ever, merely quickening her
step and peering around his body.

Another quiet "Oh," left her mouth, but other than
that, and the faint tightening of her jaw, she calmly surveyed the mess.