Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1) Read online

  Either way, she’d be dead, so it might as well be faster rather than slower.

  Lang turned to look at her, and Ceelie was pleased to see the upper part of his T-shirt sleeve was covered in dried blood. Maybe Jena had at least grazed him with her shot, and he hadn’t changed clothes, so they were hiding out. He hadn’t brought her to anyplace he’d been living for long.

  He walked closer and nudged her knee with the toe of his worn leather boot. “Wake up. We gotta move.”

  When she didn’t respond, he kicked her, more to startle her than to hurt. She opened her eyes and tried to sit up, but he had to help her first to a sitting position and then to her feet. She reeled and the room reeled with her. Finally, her equilibrium settled.

  Lang’s hand on her upper arm slid to her breast; she stiffened when he squeezed, hard. “We’ll find a new spot to hide out and then I might have a few ways to convince you to talk.”

  He turned away to the round table in the center of the room, and Ceelie made a shuffling run toward the cabin door.

  He caught her by the tail of her shirt and slung her to the ground, knocking over one of the chairs. “Nice try, bitch.” Leaning over her, he slapped a length of duct tape over her mouth.

  “Just for that, I’m gonna take a little taste of what my brother’s been enjoying as soon as we get to our next stop. First, though, we have a couple of nosy cops out in the marsh who’ll eventually work up the balls to come in here. So we’re gonna take a boat ride.”

  Cops! Ceelie’s frantic gaze skittered around the cabin, looking for something that would draw their attention without making Lang angry enough to knock her out again. Or at least she had to let the cops know they’d been here.

  As Lang pulled her across the cabin toward the door, she remembered the business cards in her back pocket and managed to twist her arms enough to pull one out between her fingers and let it drop to the floor.

  Then she had no choice but to be dragged out the door and down a wooden dock, where Lang shoved her into a small aluminum boat. She thought about jumping in the water, or upending the boat, but with her hands tied behind her she’d drown. She hadn’t given up on living enough to commit suicide. She just had to wait for an opening, hope Lang made a mistake, and pray that the authorities would find her before it was too late—and Gentry, because she knew he’d be looking for her.

  Lang propelled the boat away from the dock with a long pole to avoid making noise, and continued to use it in the shallow cove to make slow but silent progress. Did he know where he was going or was he looking for a hideout of opportunity?

  Over the shoulder of his moonlit silhouette, Jena spotted the bobbing light of a flashlight crossing the shoreline toward the cabin. Maybe two figures, but it was hard to tell. It took a few moments for her to realize tears were blurring her vision, adding to those already coursing down her cheeks.

  She swallowed down the fear and rage; there was no time for it. Since he didn’t want to draw attention, Lang had shut up for a change, so it gave Ceelie a chance to think of a strategy.

  Coins. Tante Eva sure hadn’t lived as if she’d been wealthy, so either LeRoy Breaux had stolen some coins or the coins were themselves the curse that Tomas had talked about. If the curse had started with Julien Savoie, maybe he had found a cache of coins when he built the cabin on Whiskey Bayou, so their age would make them valuable. Cajuns, Creoles, and Chitimacha alike were proud peoples, but often downtrodden and suspicious. The Savoies were some of all three, so they might well be more likely to hide the treasure than use it, especially if they thought the money might be claimed by somebody else.

  If she were a suspicious swamp-dwelling half-breed, which she was, and she came across a cache of treasure she didn’t want publicized, where would she put it? Ceelie had looked under the mattress in the cabin, but not inside the mattress. She’d looked under the bed and moved every stick of furniture. She’d gone through everything in the cabin’s kitchen. There were open rafters, so there was no attic in which to hide something.

  Tante Eva didn’t have a bank account; Ceelie couldn’t imagine she had a safety-deposit box.

  The most likely story was that Tante Eva had told LeRoy about the coins—they’d lived together for years, although Ceelie didn’t know how many—and that LeRoy had stolen them and skipped town.

  That story, however, wasn’t going to satisfy Lang Broussard. He wanted the money. She was going to have to get him talking, at least enough to learn what he thought happened to the coins, and then wing it.

  If he thought Tante Eva still had these mysterious coins, she had to have them hidden somewhere on the property, assuming LeRoy hadn’t stolen them without Lang knowing about it. They weren’t in the cabin, so they were either buried in the swamp or they were underneath the cabin. She decided on the web of lies she would spin. Now she just had to stay alive and keep Lang Broussard in a good mood long enough to trap him in it.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sometime between one and two a.m., Gentry and Paul finally gave up and made their way back to the fish camp that had become the new central command.

  Gentry collapsed on the floor against a back wall of the main front room. He’d found a shred of duct tape and some drops of blood near the wall, and he knew Ceelie had been here, maybe even leaning in this same spot. The duct tape was another sign of her; it would make an easy, cheap, and effective restraint for Lang to use on her.

  No doubt they’d been here. Lang hadn’t been careful about fingerprints—why bother, at this point? Plus, he’d been in a hurry. Gentry thought they’d surprised him, but not quickly enough to prevent him from slipping out of here with Ceelie. Then, of course, there was the business card, which Warren seemed to think Ceelie had found a way to drop, to let the authorities know they were getting close.

  He shut his eyes, sending a prayer heavenward for the first time in three years. When he’d killed Lang—make that when he’d thought he’d killed Lang—he’d abandoned the faith instilled in him by his parents. He didn’t understand a God who made a man choose between killing his brother or letting his partner die, who let innocent people like Ceelie get caught up in something so evil because a junkie wanted drug money, who let screwed-up people like Lang prosper and survive while someone good and honest like Jena Sinclair fought for her life.

  But he prayed his way through that baggage. He prayed for Ceelie to survive both physically and emotionally, for Jena to survive the surgery she was undergoing as of about a half hour ago. He prayed that he would be strong for them and help them move on with their lives no matter what wreckage Lang left behind.

  Surely, every once in a while, the good guys had to win. Surely it was time to end the Savoie curse. To end the Broussard curse. Maybe it wasn’t just the love of the parish he and Ceelie had in common; it was the ghosts of the past.

  He did not pray for Lang. If there was a God, and if he were listening, he’d know a hypocritical prayer when he heard it.

  Gentry opened his eyes halfway and watched Warren, Sheriff Knight, and a captain from the Louisiana State Police huddle over a parish map. The cabin, which had no electricity, had been illuminated like a stadium with portable lights running off noisy generators. If the freaking International Space Station flew over, the cabin would probably show up as a bright dot in the middle of a dark, dark swamp.

  The map, which covered the entire round table, showed every bayou and bay and bog and gator slide in the parish—thousands of places to tuck oneself away and hide. To commit torture.

  Don’t go there. If he went there, he’d lose it.

  A virtual armada of state and parish marine units had been gathering for the past two hours, ready to launch a massive manhunt from what had become Fishing Camp Central as soon as the first gray predawn light gave them visibility. LDWF agents from the adjacent parishes in Region 6 had arrived during the night.

  Sheriff Knight was in charge, but Warren had a major role since his teams knew the waterways better than anyone. Knight thou
ght the most likely area for Lang to hide out would be within the confines of the Pointe-aux-Chenes Wildlife Management Area, more than 35,000 acres of protected wildlife area just east and southeast of Montegut and stretching into neighboring Lafourche Parish. Left to his own devices and absent any emergency calls, the Pointe-aux-Chenes WMA was one of Gentry’s favorite places to patrol and one of the state’s last stands to protect the rich ecosystem from erosion and storms that pushed in saltwater. It was secluded but for the hunters who were already into duck season, but it had no cabins. Roughing it had never been Lang’s cup of tea.

  “What do you think, Broussard?” The sheriff speared Gentry with a glare. Apparently the groveling hadn’t been sufficient, so he’d further the ill will by disagreeing.

  “I don’t think he’ll go into Pointe-aux-Chenes.” Gentry climbed to his feet with difficulty. He was emotionally and physically spent. “I doubt Lang has a tent or anything to protect him from the elements and, believe me, my brother doesn’t do physical discomfort. There are only two boat launches if he needs to get back on land, and there are lots of hunters and fishermen this time of year. He’d see it as too risky. Plus, there’s a possibility that he was injured.”

  It was too early to know if any of the blood from the truck was Lang’s. Maybe it was all Jena’s or some of it was Ceelie’s, but as many shots as Jena had gotten off, chances were good Lang had been hit too. Maybe the bastard would bleed to death, doing them all a favor.

  Knight crossed his arms, wearing the demeanor of a man who’d just taken a bite out of a lemon. “You think he could find a way to depart the parish?”

  Gentry rubbed his eyes. “My gut says no. If Lang took Celestine Savoie because he thinks she can lead him to this alleged cache of treasure, it’s easier for him to hide out nearby. I think he’ll find another place like this one: an isolated fishing camp where he can get out of the elements, reachable only by boat. I think he’ll stay relatively close to Whiskey Bayou and the Savoie cabin. He has to go back there eventually if he thinks that’s where the coins are.”

  “Except he has to know that cabin is under surveillance night and day,” Warren said. “How does he think he can get in there to search right under our noses?”

  Gentry had no answers as to his brother’s state of mind now, but he knew the way Lang used to think. “He thinks he’s smarter than the average bear, and bears definitely include law enforcement.” Gentry walked over to look at the map. “He’s been playing a game of chicken with us all along, trying to scare Ceelie Savoie away from the cabin, leaving Tommy Mason for us to find the way he did, then setting the tongue outside Ceelie’s door.”

  Gentry had been thinking about something else. “What do we know about that car?”

  “It was registered to Tommy Mason over two years ago,” Knight said. In honor of the heat, the sheriff had removed his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. The end of his tie flapped from his right pants pocket. “His wife claims to have no knowledge of it, or of your brother. What about it?” His expression told what he thought of Jennifer Mason’s lack of knowledge.

  “Since he had wheels, I’m guessing Lang was probably watching my house and followed Jena Sinclair and Ceelie Savoie from there.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted them back. The sheriff’s eyebrows shot skyward, and Warren shook his head with a what-an-idiot expression.

  “Let me get this straight, Broussard. The victim of this abduction, taken by your brother, was staying at your house. I’d been led to believe she was staying with Agent Sinclair.” Knight crossed his arms and, yeah, the man was intimidating. Gentry wanted to grovel again. “Son, you’re up to your neck in this shitstorm.”

  “Yes, sir, it would appear so.” Gentry shrugged. You couldn’t argue with the truth.

  Knight shook his head and resumed his study of the map.

  Warren walked over to Gentry, put a hand on his shoulder, and nudged him into the back room, which contained a bathroom and a couple of sets of bunk beds. “See that bed over there?” He pointed to a lower bunk. “We can’t do anything for the next three hours, when day breaks. Close your eyes for a while if you can. You’re our best insight into both Lang and Ceelie. I need you to be sharp, and the sheriff has you on his radar again as a potential problem. Just sleep a while.”

  Seriously? The man thought he could sleep? Gentry opened his mouth to protest but then closed it. Warren was right. He’d be no good to them if he turned sloppy out of fatigue; nothing he could do about the stress. He couldn’t sleep but he could try to relax and slow the thoughts racing through his brain. “Okay, but let me know if anything comes up or you hear about Sinclair’s surgery.”

  Gentry stretched out on one of the bottom bunks and a sweet scent hit him like a blow to the gut. Ceelie had been here; her head had been on this pillow. He could smell her shampoo. He rolled to his side and pulled the hard rectangle of foam to his nose, inhaling her. Twenty-four hours ago, they’d been in his bed, together.

  “You all right, Broussard?” Paul Billiot came in and flopped on the bottom bunk on the other side of the room. “Warren’s put me in time-out for a few hours too.”

  Gentry cleared his throat, unwilling to let Paul see how choked up he’d gotten over a faint scent on a pillow. “Yeah, I’m not feeling the whole going-to-sleep shit, though.”

  “I hear ya,” Paul said, then promptly fell asleep. Gentry could tell by his steady breathing.

  Just as well. He wanted to think about coins, and about his brother. Lang had been laying low for three years. If their hypothesis was true that he was after a pot of gold at the end of the bayou and that he’d learned about that gold more than fifteen years earlier, what had happened to prompt his sudden interest?

  “Broussard! Billiot!”

  At the sound of Warren’s voice, Gentry sat up and cracked his head on the bunk above him, and saw Paul do the same thing across the room. He’d fallen asleep despite himself.

  Gentry was on his feet before he fully awoke. “What happened? Did somebody find her—find them?”

  “No, but come out here. We just got an interesting call from the state. Sheriff Knight wants to tell all of us at once and get some feedback.”

  Gentry followed Warren into the “war room” and noticed the eastern sky through the open front door. It had turned from jet-black to charcoal. Another half hour and they could see well enough to mobilize and discover what was around them.

  Sheriff Knight leaned against the room’s north wall, looking like he needed a nap himself. Warren’s fatigue showed in the dark circles under his eyes. After two hours of sleep, Billiot looked fresh as a water lily. Must be clean living.

  The sheriff ended his call. “Okay, we got a report back on the skull that Ms. Savoie found hanging on her porch.” He looked at his watch. “Lab’s been working overtime to get it to us as soon as possible.”

  A forensics report in under two weeks and in the wee hours of dawn. That had to be some kind of miracle, but Gentry didn’t see the big deal. They knew Lang was the culprit, and compared to his other crimes, stealing a skull and hanging it from a porch roof would probably rank low on the prosecutor’s list. Murder trumped grave robbery; that skull had been too bashed and battered to have been purchased.

  “The medical examiner had told us the skull belonged to a male, approximate age sixty-five at the time his skull was presumably separated from the rest of his body.”

  Knight paused for effect. “The DNA, though, matched up with some old information in CODIS; the skull belonged to LeRoy Breaux.”

  What the hell? Gentry and Warren exchanged shocked looks. How in God’s name had Lang Broussard gotten his hands on LeRoy Breaux’s skull?

  CHAPTER 25

  “Time to play, little Celestine.”

  Ceelie kept her face blank even though the feel of Lang’s thumb circling her breast through her torn blouse made her want to do a number out of The Exorcist and projectile spew right in the face that was such
a twisted parody of Gentry’s.

  But she’d decided, when they sailed away last night in that boat, twisting and turning through the bayous until she wasn’t even sure they were still in Terrebonne Parish, that no matter what he did to her physically, he would not touch her heart, her soul, or her mind.

  She was scared, no hiding that, but the anger had begun to take the edge off the fear. He might kill her. He might do horrible things to her before he killed her. But he would not break her. She made that vow to the memory of Tante Eva. To her father. To her people. To Gentry. To Jena.

  They lay on the moldy mattress of a rusted iron bed in the remains of a house that had seen serious flooding. The walls had gone way past mold, and the toxic air carried the chalky smell of baked-on mold spores. The doors and windows had been blown out or washed out.

  Lang had pushed the bed up against the wall and then hemmed her in with his body. First, he had stripped off his bloody shirt. His upper arm had taken one of Jena’s shots, and his anger over that was what had earned Ceelie the first punch to the gut as soon as she’d regained consciousness the first time.

  Her captor was thin, pale, and lanky, with lines on his face that told her his years had not been easy, and track marks across both arms that told her how he’d spent many of those years. She hadn’t seen him shoot up so far, but he’d popped pills. A lot of pills and no food, which made him unpredictable and volatile.

  She was going to have to channel her inner Gentry and Jena in order to protect herself. She’d been with both of them when they were outside the home environment, and both of them constantly scanned their surroundings, pausing long enough to assess a movement or situation, then resuming their scans. Ceelie needed to read Lang’s body language, to see what his triggers were and avoid them. If she were unconscious, she’d lose any control over her fate.

  Not that she had much control, but earlier, she had convinced Lang to cut the tape off her wrists long enough for her to pee in the deep sawgrass and relieve the pressure on her shoulders from having her arms restrained behind her for so many hours. He also had offered her a packet of peanut butter crackers, the little cellophane-wrapped packs sold at every convenience store and vending machine on the planet. He’d let her have a little more water, although his supplies were running low.