Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (40 page)

“Nick, what happened? What's going on?”

“It could have practical applications, I suppose. If the flight attendant wants to know if you've had too much to drink, she could just test the air in your neck support.”

“Nick!”

He turned and looked at her. “This time
you
look terrible.”

She glared at him. “That's because I keep getting calls from desperate men in the middle of the night.”

“Lucky you.”

“Nick, be serious. What happened tonight? What are you doing at the airport?”

“They sent me home, Beth.”

“What?”

“The DEA pulled some strings and had my credentials pulled. They're sending me home.”

“Oh, Nick, I'm so sorry.”

“It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. They don't have to kill me—they just want me out of the way. All they need is time—just a few more days for the water to finish the job. There won't be any evidence left.”

“But what about Jerry? Someone will eventually find him.”

“Sure, in a week or so—probably at the Superdome, tucked away in a dark corner somewhere. What will that prove? Jerry worked for FEMA—half the people in the Superdome would have killed him if they had the chance.”

She stepped closer. “Nick, listen to me: You tried—that's all anybody can do. No one could have worked harder. What you did for J.T.—what you did for the people of the Lower Ninth Ward—Jerry would have been proud of you.
I'm
proud of you.”

He looked at her. “Will you miss me?”

“Of course I'll miss you. I know we don't always see eye-to-eye, but I look forward to seeing you at these deployments; they'd be boring without you. The truth is—I still care about you.”

“You do?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “What time is your flight?”

He looked at his ticket. “Noon.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, a week from Thursday.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You didn't think I was really going home, did you? I don't have to leave town—I just can't go back to DMORT again. New Orleans is full of civilian volunteers; there's no reason I can't be one of them.”

“Then why did you buy a ticket?”

“The government's paying for it—besides, I get frequent-flier miles.”

She glared at him. “Why did you let me go on like that?”

“It's healthy to express your emotions. You can't keep things like that bottled up inside—you might explode.”

“I still might,” she growled.

“Did you leave a lipstick mark? That's so embarrassing.”

“If you're not leaving, then why did you call me?”

“I need transportation.”

“I'm not a shuttle service,” she said. “Call a cab—get your own ride.”

“I don't need a ride, I need transportation. I want you to rent me a car.”

“Why me?”

“Because I don't want it in my name. If they're watching my credit card, I don't want them to know I'm still here. They dropped me at the airport and I bought a ticket; as far as they know, I'm gone.”

He took her by the arm and led her out into the ticket lobby, past the security entrance and baggage claim and toward the rental car counters at the opposite end of the terminal. “Where's J.T.? Is he all right?”

“I left him sleeping in my bed,” she said.

“Keep a close eye on him, Beth. He's just a kid, but you never know.”

They stopped at the first rental car location they came to. “I need a car,” Beth said. “What's the cheapest thing you've got?”

Nick frowned. “You drive a Lexus and you're sticking me with a Kia? I thought you cared about me.”

“I said that under false pretenses,” she said. “That's called ‘entrapment.'”

Nick turned to the agent. “Have you got anything with GPS?”

“Only on our luxury cars, sir.”

“She'll take it.”

“Wait a minute—” Beth complained.

“It's a business expense—you can deduct it.”

Ten minutes later, Nick was dropping his duffel bag into the spacious trunk of a midnight-blue Lincoln Town Car. “Now, this is me,” he said.

“No, this is
me
. Don't fall asleep at the wheel—it's on my credit card.”

“Relax, I bought their insurance. I'll try to call you when I get settled in someplace. I'll have to find a pay phone somewhere; I sure wish they'd get the cell phones working again.”

“Nick, where will you go?”

“I know just the place,” he said. “It's cheap, it's out of the way—and the folks there don't like federal agents.”

It was after midnight by the time Beth got back to St. Gabriel. She slipped off her shoes and tiptoed into the dormitory, hoping not to wake either the boy or the female DMORT personnel sleeping nearby.

When she got to her bed, she found it empty.

She checked the floor on either side. She got down on her knees and looked under the bed. She tiptoed to the bed nearest hers and shook the woman awake.

“Wha—”

“Andrea, it's me. Did you notice anybody come in or out of here tonight? Did you see a young boy leave, about ten years old?”

“I didn't see anyone. What's wrong?”

“Never mind—go back to sleep.”

She checked the bathroom—it was empty. She went to the DPMU and checked the cafeteria—maybe the boy was hungry, maybe he had gone off in search of an MRE—but there was no one there. J.T. had disappeared without a trace, and there was no one she could ask about him—no one else had seen him enter, and he wasn't supposed to be there.

She stepped outside and looked around. The grounds around the DPMU were dark and still. She hurried across the parking lot to Nick's trailer; she quietly pulled the door open and stuck her head inside. She saw the abandoned spaces that Nick and Jerry had once occupied—but no sign of J.T.

She felt panic rising inside her like a tide; she could feel her heart pounding in her throat. She took long, slow breaths, trying to push it all down. She needed to
think
.

Where would the boy have gone? Maybe he had gone looking for Nick. He knew he wasn't supposed to, but he'd done it before—he had walked five miles alone in the darkness across the city of New Orleans. It was only ten miles to Baton Rouge—but the boy didn't know that Nick was in Baton Rouge—he wouldn't have known where to go. Would he have gone back to the city—back to the Lower Nine? Nothing she considered seemed to make sense.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her:
The entire DPMU is surrounded by cyclone fence topped with razor wire—the only way in or out is through the main gate
.

She hurried to the guard gate and found the officer on duty. “Did you see a boy go out of here earlier tonight—in the last two or three hours? He would have been about ten years old—about so tall.”

“Civilians aren't allowed on the grounds, ma'am.”

“No, of course not.” She stopped and thought. “What about cars? Have any cars passed by here other than mine?”

“We changed shifts at midnight,” he said. “I've only been on duty for half an hour, and I haven't seen anybody.”

“Do you keep any kind of gate log?”

He took a clipboard from the fence and handed it to her.

“I don't recognize any of these names,” she said.

“They're all guests. People who work here, people with valid ID, we just wave 'em through. That's what they told us to do.”

She checked the column marked “Time In/Out”—the final entry was at 4:45 p.m. “I don't see any guests listed for tonight.”

“Looks that way. Is there a problem?”

“Do you know this area very well? The area around New Orleans, I mean?”

“Yes, ma'am—lived here all my life.”

“Can you give me some directions then?”

“No problem. Where you headed tonight?”

She handed back the clipboard. “The bayou.”

41

Nick could hear people moving around him, but he couldn't see a thing—everything was dark. He could make out three separate voices, but their words were muffled, as if he were hearing them through a door. The voices sounded busy, efficient, professional; he wondered who they were. He seemed to be lying on his back, looking up; he tried to lift his arm, but it wouldn't move—he was paralyzed.

Now he heard a slow, zipping sound, and a slit of dazzling white light began to open in front of his face, moving down toward his torso. He saw latex-gloved fingers work their way into the slit and spread it wide; he closed his eyes tight against the blinding light. When he opened them again the image cleared: He was at the DPMU, lying on a metal gurney, staring up into the forensic examination lights.

A figure leaned in over him, masked and gowned, studying Nick's face but not looking into his eyes. Now a second figure joined him.

“Cause of death?” the first man asked.

“He pushed the wrong button,” his colleague responded. “They found him floating in the Lower Nine.”

“Well, let's get to it. Dr. Woodbridge, would you like to open?”

The two men stepped aside and a third figure leaned in—it was Beth, dressed in an impeccable business suit.

“There are traces of blood on his left mandible,” one of the men said.

“That's lipstick,” she replied.

Now she held up a scalpel in her right hand; with her left hand she felt for the joint between his right collarbone and shoulder. She placed the tip of the scalpel there and pressed—it felt as cold as ice.

Nick tried to scream but couldn't.

She drew the scalpel down and to the right, to the center of his chest, then from the sternum down to the lower abdomen. She made the same cut from his left collarbone, completing the classic
Y
incision that began every autopsy. She peeled the tissues back, exposing his rib cage, then leaned in closer and looked.

“Just as I thought,” she said. “He had no heart.”

She took him by the shoulders and began to shake. “Wake up,” she shouted. “Nick—wake up!”

The image in front of him began to change now. He was no longer staring up at examination lights, but at the rustic wooden roof of a bayou cabin. Beth's face began to change too—it began to soften and blur. Nick felt life flowing back into his body—he felt the power of movement returning to his limbs. He grabbed Beth by both wrists and jerked upright, sending her sprawling back onto the floor.

He pulled up his shirt and felt the skin of his chest.

“What's wrong?” Beth asked.

“Just checking something.”

“Nick, I thought you were dead!”

“I'm fine, no thanks to you.”

“I couldn't wake you up!”

“You keep nagging me to ‘get some sleep,' then the minute I try you wake me up—I wish you'd make up your mind.” He felt around on the cabin floor for his glasses and slipped them on. He looked at Beth and blinked. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Nick—J.T. is gone.”

“What?”

“I left him sleeping in my bed, but when I got back he was gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure—I looked everywhere. I had no way to call you, so I had to come after you. It took me hours to find this cabin again—I couldn't remember the way. I had to stop for directions half a dozen times.” She looked around the cabin, especially in the dark corners. “Why did you come here? Why would
anyone
come here?”

“Exactly,” Nick said.

“Where are Boo and Tonton?”

“Checking their traps. I don't know when they'll be back.” Nick had only been asleep for an hour or two, just long enough to become completely disoriented. He lifted his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind.

“Do you think J.T. might've tried to follow you?”

“It's possible—he's done it before. Did anybody see him leave?”

“No—but nobody saw him come in either. He wasn't supposed to be there, remember?”

Nick thought for a minute. “There are only two ways out of the DPMU—over the fence or through the gate.”

“But the fence is topped with barbed wire—do you think he would have tried to climb over?”

“Or under. He knew he wasn't supposed to be there—he would have wanted to avoid the cop at the gate.”

“Do you think that's what he did?”