Paul laughed nervously as he handed Mary Lynn a blanket for Nathan. “I told you he’d be here. Sometimes I think Willie never sleeps.”
Luke put his hand on the banker’s shoulder. “Can you get Nathan to the hospital? I’ve got to find the drug dealer who got away.”
Paul nodded. “I can. We’ll take good care of him. You do what you have to.”
They’d shown no surprise when he’d told them he was an ATF agent and Luke couldn’t help but wonder if every Nester on the lake knew it. He wouldn’t be surprised. Keeping secrets around here was like storing wine in a colander.
“And be careful,” Mary Lynn said as she climbed into the passenger seat. “I don’t want to see anyone else hurt.”
Luke grinned, knowing the old maid believed saying the words would somehow keep him safe. “I will.” He watched them drive away, thinking that in some strange way they belonged together, the banker with his sad eyes and the old maid with her unused heart.
Willie reached the carport and pointed at the taillights with his thumb. “Where are they going this time of night?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. How fast can you get me over to Jefferson’s Place?”
“Fast as I can get the Landry brothers out of the way.” He jogged beside Luke down the steps to the lake. “They came to help and they’ll be disappointed if you don’t let them. I’ll be hearing their complaining for weeks.”
Luke had never known the Landry brothers to talk to anyone, much less help in a crisis. Nana’s cooking must be affecting their brains. “I’ve got a tough job. You think they can handle it?”
Willie laughed. “They’re old oil field workers. I think it was Larry who told me he was a shooter, handling dynamite for twenty years. His brother was a rigger. I reckon they can handle anything you throw their way.”
Luke glanced at the pair waiting in their chipped green boat. They looked no friendlier than usual. For the first time he noticed their broad shoulders and muscular forearms. He’d thought of them as old men, but now he realized they were far more. They were part of his troops, if only for the night.
A few minutes later, when Luke asked the Landrys to round up the two drug dealers he’d left tied up, one brother picked up a huge flashlight and the other lifted a monkey wrench like a weapon. Without a word, they climbed out of their boat and marched off toward the lodge.
Luke decided Willie was right. The Landrys could handle Tanker and Sneezy. He climbed into Willie’s boat and the motor roared before he had time to sit down.
Willie didn’t bother asking questions as they raced across the lake. Luke felt his muscles tightening as if he were in the water swimming, pulling the boat along. The moon reflected off the lake, making the world seem timeless. A heavy anchor settled against his heart.
He couldn’t see Skidder. If he wasn’t on the water, there would have been only one place he’d try to dock.
With each buck of the boat across the water, they were moving closer to Jefferson’s Crossing. Luke didn’t even blink as he scanned ahead of him for his canoe and the third drug dealer.
Nothing.
The anchor over his heart doubled in weight. Skidder must have made it to the opposite shore.
When Willie tapped the dock, Luke jumped out of the boat and onto the dock as if someone had fired a starter gun in a race. He made it to the end of the dock before Willie tied up.
Luke froze five feet from the door. He took it all in at once.
Twinkle lights stretched through the open door and onto the porch and the steps. Lawn chairs were scattered and broken in the dirt. Blood dripped from one step to the next as if slowly leaving the scene.
“Something happened here,” Willie stated the obvious. “Something bad.”
Luke studied every detail as if it were a map. It took a moment, but he finally registered something in his peripheral vision.
“Hell!” Willie breathed his thoughts. “What is that?”
In the flashes of tiny lights reflecting off silver duct tape, Skidder looked like some kind of half-alien, half-human on display.
Luke tried to grab a handful of hair to raise Skidder’s head. The balding man screamed as if he were being tortured. “Turn me loose. I’m hurt. I was mugged by an old woman. She jumped off the porch and attacked me for no reason. I was just asking to borrow their car. I wasn’t doing nothin’.”
Flipping on his flashlight, Luke ran it the length of the drug dealer. Whoever had tied him up had been in a hurry, but they’d done an effective job with what looked like half a roll of tape. Every time Skidder moved, the tape tried to rip away flesh.
“I think the other one gave me brain damage.” Skidder’s eyes reflected wild in the twinkle lights. “The world’s spinning like crazy. I think I’m dying. Even the lights are blinking on and off like stars.”
“He’s bruised,” Luke mumbled. “Not bleeding.”
Willie’s face twisted in anger. “Ask me if I care. Selling drugs to kids. He should be left here to rot. You mind if I hit him a few times for Dillon’s sake?”
Luke barely heard the old man’s suggestion. He looked back at the splatters of blood on the porch. “If that’s not his blood, whose is it?”
Willie didn’t have to answer. They both knew there would have been only two people at the place this time of night.
Luke nodded toward the old man. “You look around out here, I’ll check inside.”
Willie nodded and stepped into the night.
Luke rushed inside. He checked the kitchen, noticing only the wind chimes moving. Nothing upstairs. Nothing in the store or cafe.
Flipping the light on in the little office, the memory of kissing Allie flooded his senses thick and rich.
As if his thoughts had conjured her, Luke looked down and saw a dozen pictures of her scattered across the floor. He knelt. School pictures, clippings from the paper when she won an art contest, a snapshot of her waving good-bye in front of what looked like a college dorm. Each was carefully dated.
Luke noticed the old box that had sat on Jefferson’s shelf for as long as he could remember was on the floor as well, and he knew-these weren’t Allie’s or Nana’s keepsakes. These were Jefferson’s.
“The van’s missing,” Willie yelled from outside. “If one of them is hurt, the other’s driving. They got to be heading to the hospital.”
Luke tucked a picture of Allie at about eight in his pocket and hurried out of the store. “They’ll be right behind Paul. Let’s go.”
Willie stepped on Skidder’s foot as he passed, then apologized with no sincerity in his voice.
“My truck’s not far.” Luke headed toward the trees, walking the hidden path by memory as he rushed into the shadows.
“I’m right behind you.” Willie’s words were clipped and clear as if somewhere long ago he’d followed orders without question.
“What about me?” Skidder whined from the porch. “I’m the one dying. I should go to the hospital. They got to give me something for this pain in my head.”
“Don’t worry,” Luke yelled back. “The Landrys will pick you up when they come.”
“Landrys? Who are Landrys? What are the Landrys? They better not be some godawful bug or alligator that lives on this stinking lake. I’m high, but I ain’t moving down the food chain, you hear.”
The crunch of dried leaves brushed away Skidder’s oaths as Luke moved toward his place. He’d always been careful not to leave enough of a path so that anyone could accidentally find his cabin, but now he didn’t care. Allie or Nana was hurt. Maybe both.
He had to get to them.
Chapter 39
I’d always hated hospitals. Saw them as cold, impersonal, and full of people long past caring. To me they
