“Did Nonny tell you she recognized a clearing where the Comeaux family owns a trapper cabin way out in the bayou?” Flame asked. “I think it’s a big coincidence that Vicq tried to kill you the other night at the Hurican Club and then he followed us today. He dated Joy once and she broke up with him.”
“He got into a really heated argument with James Parsons at the club,” Ian added. “And strangely enough, it was the driver who stepped in and calmed everything down. The minute he spoke to Comeaux, the man backed off.”
“Vicq Comeaux doesn’t back off anyone,” Gator said, unless there’s a reason.”
Kadan came in, poured himself a cup of the rich, thick coffee Nonny kept hot, and turned around to regard them all. “That was some of the sickest stuff I’ve ever seen. They’re hooking her on drugs, but they evidently like filming her frightened and fighting, so whatever they gave her in the car to calm her, they aren’t doing anymore. I think they’re stringing her out so she’ll cooperate. They’re using terror tactics, beating her, most of the time in some sexual display. I saw two men, but there was at least one more in the shadows, who stayed out of the view of the camera. She stared at him a lot, very frightened.”
“You recognize the men from any of the photos or files you’ve looked at?” Gator asked, avoiding looking at his brother.
“One was the Parsons kid. He’s a real piece of work. The other is the driver.”
“Carl Raines,” Flame supplied.
Kadan nodded. “He’s the one who I think must have arranged the grab. He spends a lot of time with her. Most of the video clips are of him.”
“No evidence of the old man participating? You get the idea it was him in the background?”
Kadan shook his head. “Couldn’t say one way or the other, but whoever it is, she’s very afraid of him.”
“If she’s at the Comeaux cabin, why would she have pictures of the area?”
“Maybe they were going to grab her then and something went wrong,” Tucker offered.
“Or that sleazy kid got high just bringing her close to the cabin, knowing what was coming,” Kadan said. “He’s really screwed up and he’d savor the idea of showing her around, all the while knowing what he was going to do to her.”
Flame felt sick. Joy was caged up with monsters torturing her. She had no hope left by this time and she would be sick and confused. “If we pull Joy out of there, she can tell us who else is involved. She won’t be as afraid of me. I can check out the Comeaux cabin and if she’s there, go in quietly while you all…” She hesitated, glancing at Nonny. “Secure the place.”
“She’ll have to go to the hospital,” Kadan advised.
“We’ll notify the doctors and her family when we have her,” Gator said. “I don’t want to wait until dark.”
“If Vicq Comeaux is guarding her out there, he’ll kill her and dump the body if he hears you coming,” Wyatt said.
“He won’t hear us,” Gator assured. “We know what we’re doing.”
“I’m coming with you.” It was a declaration and Wyatt looked every bit as stubborn as Gator.
Gator shook his head. “You can wait nearby, Wyatt, but you’d be a liability we can’t afford. This is what we do. One mistake and it’s all gone to hell.”
“How could something like this be goin’ on in our t backyard, Raoul, and we not know it?” Nonny asked. “Do you think they took that other poor woman?”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Gator said.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Tucker said. “We’ll do our best to get a lead on finding her if she’s still alive.” Gator’s grandmother appeared very agitated, wringing her hands together, her back ramrod straight and her features very set. Flame rubbed her hand over Nonny’s ann. ‘We’ll bring her back to safety, Nonny,” she reassured gently. “I’ve seen your grandson in action. He’s very good-and so am I. We’re not leaving her there and we’re not messing this up.”
“Should I call her family?”
Nonny’s thin body was trembling. Flame put her arm around the woman and led her out of the kitchen to the more comfortable couch in the sitting room, mouthing the word
“I’m fine,
Flame stood up, feeling tears burning behind her eyes and clogging her throat. Joy would never be the same again. She would be forever isolated, eventually smiling and talking and walking around with her friends and family, but deep inside, deep where it counted, she would be forever cold and scared and filled with rage.
She looked at Raoul because she couldn’t stop herself. She knew he would see the shadows and the demons and she would feel even more vulnerable for turning to him for comfort, but she couldn’t help it. Why did it always seem as if evil prevailed? Life wasn’t anything like the fairy tales and just once, she’d like a damned happy ending.
Gator’s heart nearly stopped when he saw Flame’s expression. He pressed his hand to his chest to make certain it was still beating. She could knock his legs right out from under him when she looked so sad, so openly fragile. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hold her close to him, where nothing could ever hurt her. Flame was a woman who kept one hand on her knife and would scoff at his notion that he had to protect her, but that didn’t stop his need to do so.
He flung his arm casually around her neck, drawing her to him, pretending not to see the tears so close, pretending her body didn’t tremble against his. She’d kill him if she cried in front of the others, so he was walking a fine line, using his body to shelter her while taking care that he didn’t trigger a flood of tears. “Let’s go to work,” he said gruffly. “I know where the Comeaux trapper cabin is located.”
Flame walked close to him, allowing the brush of his hard body against her to give her control and focus. She’d never relied on anyone but herself and it was a strange feeling to allow herself to be comforted by a man. A GhostWalker. She tasted the word as she slid into the four-wheel-drive Jeep. Were they all ghosts, just as she was? She glanced around her at the other men. They all looked hard. Battle-scarred. And they all had shadows in their eyes. It didn’t matter that Tucker Addison ate Nonny’s food with gusto and was polite and gentle when he spoke to the older woman. Flame could see those same shadows, the light never quite reaching his eyes. Sharing something in common with them made her feel a little closer to them all.
The men murmured in low tones, developing a plan for making their way to the Comeaux trapper cabin. They would get as close as possible using the Jeep, take a pirogue the second part of the way and then go through the water. Wyatt would stand by with the airboat and when they signaled to him, he’d bring it in to remove Joy quickly.
None of the men protested when Gator said Flame would enter the cabin alone to check if Joy was there. She only half listened to them, knowing they were a team. She was odd man out. They had trained together and worked like a machine, each knowing what the other would do. Kadan was a shielder and he would make certain no one would hear or see them coming. Gator and Flame could silence any noise, adding extra protection.
The pirogue was flat-bottomed and made of cypress. Gator pushed the canoe through a sea of purple water hyacinths. Great egrets fed, walking through the water on stiltlike legs. A few fluttered their wings as the pirogue moved through them, but they didn’t appear too disturbed. The boat passed groves of cypress draped in Spanish moss, tupelo gums and dramatic maples all turning shades of red or russet. It seemed a lost world with the tangle of brilliantly colored flowers on the swamp floor and the prairie grasses swaying gently with the slow flow of water. Flame had never been this far into the bayou and was astonished at the beauty of it all. It seemed obscene to her that somewhere a woman was held captive, drugged and tortured in the midst of so much splendor.
The skies darkened as another storm front moved over them. Gray clouds swept the blue from overhead and a fine drizzle began, turning the horizon into a silvery haze.
Gator pushed the boat through the thick fields of
The men all stepped out of the boat and held the sides, politely waiting for her. Flame took a slow, careful look around, trying to see if there were any telltale bubbles or even the rigid eyeplates of an alligator marring the surface of the water. In the thick field of
