Deja Voodoo (A Cajun Magic Novel) (Entangled Suspense) (17 page)

Ed had the side toward the oncoming boat and let loose with all thirty rounds in his magazine, zeroing in on the men aiming at him. One jerked back and fell out of the boat. Another hunkered lower and kept firing. Ed hit the magazine release, dropped the empty, and slid another in place. Shifting his aim to the driver of the other craft, he did his best, the swaying of the boat making it more of a challenge. In the second five-round burst, he hit the driver, causing that vessel to swerve wildly to the right, the gunmen up front scrambling to hang on.

Joe shouted, “Going airborne!”

Ed gripped the handrail and bent his knees.

Joe hit the throttle hard and sent the airboat over a mound of dirt and crashing into another area of the swamp covered in giant lily pads.

The boat behind them flew over the mound in pursuit, and landed with a huge splash.

Joe swerved to the right, giving Marcus a clear shot of the slowed boat before heading for a stand of cypress.

Marcus fired off a burst of bullets, hitting two of the four men left on the trailing boat. The attackers swerved left.

Joe cocked the craft to the left, and Ed opened fire.

The approaching boat dropped back and turned around.

“Joe!” Ed yelled, and waved at Joe to get his attention, then pointed behind them.

They’d figured out the witness was not aboard their boat, and were headed back the way they’d come, no doubt to search for her.

Joe spun the airboat to follow them, pushing the vehicle as fast as it would go. Bit by bit, they gained on the other craft, cutting twin tracks through a stand of tall marsh grass, until they pulled alongside it. Marcus fired on the remaining gunmen, wounding one. The other threw himself overboard. The driver maintained his speed, despite his wound and glanced over at their boat. He pulled a handgun and aimed it at Joe.

Joe swerved at the last moment, missing an alligator nesting mound.

The other boat hit it on one side, tipping the craft enough that the driver lost control and crashed into a cypress tree.

Joe kept going. “Where to?”

Ed scanned the bayou. No other boats could be seen anywhere around them. “Rendezvous point.”

Joe nodded and turned, taking them into a darker, denser part of the bayou, where cypress trees towered over the water, Spanish moss hung low enough to touch the surface, and sunlight barely reached within.

Ed shivered, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He had to trust in Joe to get them where they needed to go, and hoped Ben and his boat had arrived safely at their destination.

And he prayed the bad guys didn’t head back to Bayou Miste and cause more trouble for Alex. The dark-haired bayou princess had managed to slip past all his defenses and, strangely, he wasn’t one bit sorry. He hoped he’d get to see a lot more of her. If all went well on this jaunt into the swamp.

Chapter Fifteen

Alex emerged from her bathroom wearing clean jeans and a baby-blue tank top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, since she was too impatient to blow it dry and straighten the curls. Her heartbeat hadn’t slowed since Ed and the guys headed out into the swamp. She needed to jog, sprint, or work out to burn off the nervous energy, but didn’t want to get too far from home in case they came back. “Heard anything?”

“Nothing.” Calliope sat with Sport on the couch, his arm over her shoulder, holding her close.

“You two look good together,” Alex admitted.

“I love Calliope,” Sport said.

Calliope squeezed his hand. “I love you, too.”

Alex didn’t comment on their mushy comments, but instead wished she and Ed were sitting there saying the same things. “You’re getting the hang of talking normally, Sport. I thought it would take you longer.”

“Television is great.” He grinned and stood, extending a hand to Calliope. “We go back to Alex mama’s house?”

Calliope let him pull her to her feet. “You bet.”

“When this is all over, we should take Lucie and Sport out to see Madame LeBieu,” Alex said.

“No!” Calliope stepped in front of Sport. “You can’t turn him back into a dog.”

She smiled. “Relax, I want to ask her for something to make him a human permanently.”

Her friend’s shoulders relaxed. “Well, then I’m all for it.”

“Are you sure you want to stay human, Sport?” Alex gazed at his soft brown eyes. “I have to admit, I miss my dog, but it’s been great getting to know you as a person.”

Sport reached out and touched her face. “I miss you, too. And sometimes I miss chasing FeFe.” He grinned. “But not T-Rex.”

She laughed at the memories of Sport chasing FeFe only to be brought up short by Maurice Saulnier’s pet alligator. “I hope Madame LeBieu can help.”

“Me, too.” Calliope slipped an arm around Sport’s waist and leaned into him. “He’s everything a girl could ask for.”

“We should get going. Mom will be worrying if we take much longer.” She led the way to the door. Heeding Ed’s warning, she checked outside for any suspicious movements, then held the door for the two lovebirds. As she fit her key into the lock, she remembered her cell phone on her nightstand. “Looks safe enough. You guys go on ahead. I need to call the gym and make sure my staff opened it on time.”

“Don’t be long,” Calliope called out, already halfway down the driveway, her hand in Sport’s.

“I won’t. Tell Mom I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Will do.”

Alex entered the house, went straight for her bedroom, and snatched up her cell phone. As she paged down through her contacts, the front door creaked.

“Did you decide to wait for me?” she called out, her hand poised over the number to the gym as she stepped into the hallway.

Instead of Calliope, a tall man wearing a ski mask stood in her hall with a wicked-looking handgun pointed at her chest. “Alexandra Belle Boyette?”

Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest, and all her karate training scrambled in her brain. “W-who wants to know?” she answered, her thumb pressing the number on her phone, praying whoever was on the other end would answer immediately instead of letting it ring ten times as usual.

“We’re going for a walk.” The man motioned toward the rear of the house.

“Wow, you’ve got a gun. Where are we going?” She spoke in a loud, clear voice. If someone was on the other end of the line, hopefully they’d hear and call the police. Her gaze darted from the man in her hall toward the front door, praying Calliope and Sport would return. But at the same time she prayed they wouldn’t, or they’d be in danger, too.

“Turn around and walk. Make a sound and I’ll shoot you.”

“Please don’t shoot me,” she said as loud as she could without being too obvious. Willing her mind to calm, she weighed her options. Turn the way he’d indicated or take a bullet. Now wasn’t the time to be a fool.

When she turned away from him, he slipped up behind her and pressed the gun into her side. Then he grabbed her cell phone, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it, killing any chance of someone finding her by tracing her phone.

Before she could drop into a ready stance and use her training in karate, the man clamped her arms to her sides and stepped in close enough that she could smell his cologne. What murderer wore cologne to a killing?

Then he jerked her wrist up between her shoulder blades.

“Ow!” Pain shot down her arm, bringing tears to her eyes. She rose up on her toes to alleviate it, but he pushed harder. Then she felt a thin strap of plastic rub against her wrist, and he pulled her other arm behind her and zip-tied her wrists together.

Again, he brought her close enough so that she couldn’t kick out. With her hands tied behind her back, she was in a heap of trouble with no way to fight free. She opened her mouth to scream, but he shoved a wadded-up sock into it. Big enough to fill her mouth and absorb all her spit, but small enough not to be noticed by someone from a distance. Clever on his part. Really bad on hers.

“Move.” He pushed her to the back of the house and through the rear exit into the backyard. His hand left her side for a moment as he yanked his ski mask off his head and tossed it to the ground. “Keep walking.”

Like she had a choice. All her self-defense classes had taught her to fight no matter what. Even if her attacker shot or stabbed her. Most attackers killed their victims anyway.

He crossed to the street behind hers, cutting through the yards, working his way to the far edge of town where some of the houses had been abandoned, their owners having relocated to the city to find work. The farther away they got from her house, the deeper she sank into despair.

No one was expecting her for another ten minutes. Plenty of time for this man to kill her, or shove her into a car and leave town undetected, then dump her body in the bayou. No one would know where to look. No one would find her before the alligators stripped her bones.

Her pulse pounding, her eyes shifting left and right, she knew she had to make a move before she ran out of options.

He shoved her toward an abandoned mechanic’s shop on the farthest edge of town. No one ever came back here, and the few backyards they’d passed through, the owners had already left home for work or school.

If she wanted to get out of this mess, she had to do something soon.

Without letting herself think, she threw herself to the ground, landing hard on her arm. She twisted around, caught her attacker’s legs in a sweep, and brought him down.

“Damn!” he muttered, hitting the ground hard, his gun flying from his hand.

Struggling to stand without the use of her hands and arms, she lurched to her feet and ran as fast as she could. She’d gone less than a block when she was hit from behind in a flying tackle. With no way to brace for her fall, her head hit the curb. Pain blinded her, then everything went black.

…

Joe pulled the airboat up to the dock at the marina and shut down the engine. Ed leaped out and pulled out his throwaway cell phone, punched in the number to Ben’s phone, and waited for it to ring, hoping they had reception where they were in the bayou.

“We made it,” Ben’s voice came across.

“I’m calling in the local sheriff to get out there and clean up the mess,” Ed said.

“Do that. We’re good for the time being, although our witness is in flap.” Then Ben added disgustedly, “If Madame LeBieu doesn’t have something to cure her trash mouth, I might shoot her before Marcus gets the chance.”

Ed grinned. “Hang tight. We’ll be out to pick you up as soon as we’re sure we got them all.”

“Will do.”

Joe stepped onto the dock. “Don’t look now, but here comes trouble.”

He glanced down the street. The entire Boyette clan was moving his way en masse. He scanned the faces and didn’t see the one he wanted to see the most. His heart thumping hard against his ribs, he ran to meet them. “Where’s Alex?”

Calliope spoke first, tears streaming from her eyes. “She went back for her cell phone. We went ahead of her. We’d only been gone fifteen minutes. When she didn’t show up, Sport and I went back looking for her. She wasn’t there, and all we found was this.” Calliope held up a broken cell phone.

He gripped Calliope’s arms and forced her to look at him. “Where did you find that? How long ago?”

“In her house, on the floor. She’s been gone twenty minutes.” Calliope crumpled into sobs.

Mrs. Boyette touched his arm, her face pale, her tired blue eyes gray with worry. “There’s more.” She glanced back at the little ones, already crying in their older siblings’ arms, and lowered her voice, “I received a call before we left to look for Alex. The man on the phone said he’d kill Alex if we didn’t bring him the witness.” Her fingers dug into his arm. “Please, help bring my baby back.” Her eyes shimmered with tears. Her eyes looked so much like Alex’s, it hurt him to gaze down into them.

“I’ll bring her back, Mrs. Boyette,” he swore.

“Alive,” she whispered.

He nodded, praying he could. He glanced around at the Boyettes. “Go home and call the sheriff. Then get on the phone with every one of your neighbors and ask if they saw anything. Cars, strangers, anything out of the ordinary. Tell them to watch for unfamiliar cars—hell, any cars, and write down the license plates and the direction they’re heading.”

Dolley stepped forward. “We’ve been watching the road and the canal for signs of your return.”

Madison finished, “Not a single car has passed in twenty minutes.”

“Good, that means he might have taken her on foot.” Ed glanced around. “Anyone know of a tracking dog in this area?”

Sport’s eyes widened and he stepped forward. “Yes.”

Calliope put a hand on his arm, her eyes rounding, filling with moisture. “No.”

Ed stepped up to the man who’d lived with Alex. “If you know of a tracking dog, get it out here. The sooner the better so that he can pick up the trail.”

Sport nodded, patted Calliope’s hand and said softly. “I have to do this, but I can’t as a man.”

“If you go back to the way you were before,” she said, her voice catching, “there’s no guarantee you can return to the way you are now.”

“It is a chance I have to take. For Alex.”

Calliope nodded, tears streaming down her face. She threw her arms around Sport’s neck and sobbed into his shirt. “I love you.”

Ed wasn’t sure what Sport and Calliope were talking about, and he didn’t really care. Alex’s life was on the line. “Go! Get that dog.” He spun toward Mrs. Boyette, every instinct telling him they were running out of time. “Go, make those calls.”

The Boyette family turned as one and ran back to their house.

He turned to Joe. “Top off the fuel in the airboat, okay? We’re going to need it.”

Joe nodded and jogged back to the marina.

He gripped Calliope’s arm and dragged her free of Sport’s embrace. “We don’t have much time. Show me where you found the phone.”

She swiped an arm across her damp face and ran toward Alex’s cottage, bursting through the open front door.

Ed followed, stepping into Alex’s empty house, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest.
He had to bring her back
. This sunny little cottage wasn’t the same without Alex’s determined, vibrant personality filling it.

“There.” Calliope pointed to the floor in the hallway where a few small pieces of hard plastic were still scattered.

Ed searched every room, working his way toward the back of the house where the back door stood open, the screen door not latched. “They went out this way.” He ran out in the backyard and found a ski mask lying on the grass. He lifted it, sniffed it, and wished he had the abilities of a tracking dog himself. By the time they got someone from the K9 unit there, Alex’s kidnapper could have taken her away from Bayou Miste completely.

“Ed.” Sport emerged from the house, Calliope clinging to his arm. He clutched a small pouch in his hand. “I know of a dog, but I will need help from Madame LeBieu.”

Ed’s head jerked up, his gaze narrowing on the man standing before him. “The Voodoo queen? Why?”

Tears streamed from Calliope’s eyes. “She can help. Trust me. She might be our only hope.” She swallowed a sob. “Take Sport. It’s what he wants. With Madame LeBieu’s help, he can find Alex.”

Desperate and running out of time, Ed nodded toward the other man. “Okay. Then come with me.”

“I’m going, too.” Calliope clasped Sport’s hand, her face set in sad, but determined lines.

“No, it’s not safe,” Ed put out his hand to stop her.

She glared at him and growled. “You’ll take me, or I’ll follow you anyway.”

“You don’t understand. We’ve been shot at and almost killed out on the bayou today.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’m going with Sport.” She slipped her arm through Sport’s and refused to let go.

He saw from her expression she wasn’t going to change her mind. “Fine. Then hurry. We have to get back to town before the kidnapper does something stupid.” He didn’t even want to think about what might happen to Alex. The men Leon Primeaux hired to do his dirty work weren’t known for the mercy they showed their victims. The only bargaining chip he held was Primeaux’s ex-girlfriend. The one person whose testimony would put Primeaux away for life, thus saving countless other lives from his ruthless machinations.

But how could he ever make that choice? Alex or the Ragsdale woman. There was no contest. But…official policy was not to give in to extortion or terrorist tactics. Ever.

The three of them ran back to the marina and climbed into the waiting airboat. Joe cranked the engine and spun the craft around, heading across the water. Clouds had gathered over the bayou, sinking low and heavy, threatening a deluge that would wash away all traces of Alex’s scent from the ground. Ed shouted, “Faster!”

“Goin’ as fast as this crate will move,” Joe shouted back.

They held on as the boat skimmed over man-made mounds delineating different areas of the swamp, through stands of marsh grass, and skidded around an alligator lazing in the middle of a tributary. Ed and Sport hung off the sides, peering around the giant fan to the rear, searching the bayou for any sign they were being followed.