In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (45 page)

Andrew’s face drew up into a fierce scowl. “You think two old ladies and an old man, two niggers and a cop did all this?”

“Your father doesn’t care about any of these people except the trooper. It seems he was James’ best friend. We’ve got orders to take him out when we find him. Also, we’re to waste the broad James shacked up with.”

Andrew snorted. “That goes without saying.” He swiveled his chair around and stared out the window at the dying February sun. “Do her first.”

“It’s already been ordered. As soon as we find her, she’s history.”

He woke up
and looked around. It was dark inside the motor coach. He could hear gentle snoring and a few lowered voices speaking. Through the long corridor to the front of the coach, he could see Delbert and Kyle sitting up front. Del was driving and Kyle sat, his foot propped on the dash console, his face turned toward Del.

He moved his gaze and saw Edna Mae in one of the side beds. Her hands were tucked demurely under her chin as she lay on her left side. Doc and Carol were sleeping side by side on pallets on the floor; Dick and Jenny were laying on another. Martin Cobb was propped up along the pantry door, his head lowered, his gentle snores somehow childish. Ellen was lying in the top bunk on the right side of the coach and Mary Bernice was stretched out on the bed formed when the two dinette couches were folded out.

“They’re in this because of you,” Gabe hissed at him from the dark recesses of his conscience. “You’re gonna be the cause of them dying, you selfish prick!”

“Don’t listen to him, Jamie,” James whimpered. “He just wants us to get caught again. He doesn’t care about the rest of us. He just wants us to get hurt like him.”

“The kid’s right,” Jimmy’s harsh, impersonal voice broke in. “You’d better skip the first chance you get, buddy boy. If you don’t, these fine folks are gonna pay for your foolishness.”

He slammed his hands against his ears to shut out the voices, but he couldn’t. They were inside him, taunting him, muttering, speaking over each other’s words. Their warnings and threats blended into one another and became a cacophony of sound that thrust everything else out of his mind. He couldn’t think with their blaring words running into one another. He couldn’t think with all the possibilities that were beginning to form with their words.

“They’ll go after Annie first,” Gabe warned. “You know they will. And what they’ll do to her won’t be pretty.”

“They won’t get her unless you let them,” Jimmy reminded him. “If you don’t do anything to stop it, they will, but you can do something, can’t you, Jamie?”

“You can’t let them catch me again,” James pleaded. “They’ll kill me next time.”

“Who cares?” Gabe shouted into the darkness. “What good are you to anyone? Even your own father knew you were worthless!”

“I want to live,” James cried, his little boy sobs shrill and sullen. “I’ve never had the chance to live and I want to!”

“What you got to live for, you sniveling little bastard?” Gabe bellowed. “You let the old man do whatever he wanted. You ain’t nothing but a coward and a faggot!”

“And what are you?” Jimmy scoffed. “You’re the coward. Running and hiding. Letting other people do your dirty work for you. You’re a thief. You lied and you cheated and you caused a lot of heartbreak for a good woman who sure as hell deserved better. You think she’ll want
you
back?” Jimmy laughed scornfully. “Even if you could go back to her—which you can’t—she’d be better off without a liar like you.”

“And you’re better, huh?” Gabe yelled. “Who the hell are you to judge me?”

“I’m who I am,” Jimmy answered. “And it’s gonna be up to Jamie to let me handle this. Isn’t it, Jamie? I can take care of you, Jamie, and everybody else.”

“Jamie’s a looney.” Gabe tittered. “He’s a certified looney tunes. Who the hell cares what happens to him?”

“Jamie can’t help me,” James pouted. “He’s a druggie. Who can trust a druggie?”

“Just say the word,” Jimmy whispered. “Just give me a chance. I’ll see that everything’s done up right.”

He tried to block out the words tumbling around inside his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, turned over on his side, drew up his knees and pressed his face into the pillow. His whimpers escaped the notice of those in the motor coach.

“Go away,” he screamed at the voices in his head. “Go away and leave me alone!”

“You ain’t alone,” Jimmy warned. “You got these good people to think about.”

“He’s gonna get ‘em killed,” Gabe said and laughed. “Every last one of them.”

“He doesn’t care what happens to me,” James sobbed. “Nobody does.”

“Stop it!”

Doc Remington
was on his feet even as the scream’s first sound blasted through the motor coach. He bumped into Dick as the two of them hurried to the thrashing man who was kicking his feet against the coach’s side panel.

“Leave me alone!”

Marty Cobb pushed himself up and dove for Jamie’s legs, holding them down as Doc began to prepare a syringe.

“Make them go away! Make them leave me alone!”

“He’s hallucinating,” Dick said quietly as his wife put her hand on his shoulder.

“Please, don’t do this to me! Oh, God! Leave me alone! Stop doing this to me!”

Kyle’s face was
chalky in the glow of the coach’s dash lights. He was looking back through the coach, the hair on the back of his neck standing up as he listened to the howls of pain and madness coming from his friend’s throat. Even when there was no longer anything but the strangled sobs and hopeless whimpers coming from his friend, Kyle couldn’t make himself go to the back. Very slowly, as the last sounds died away, he faced forward, his eyes on the dark highway. He was vaguely aware of the Virginia state road sign they passed. He faintly heard Del speaking to him, but he shook his head.

Doc smoothed the
wet hair back from Jamie’s forehead and looked down into the wide, staring eyes. A trill of worry ran down the old man’s spine and he let out a wavering breath.

“He’s withdrawing from more than the drugs,” Doc said.

“Is he going to be all right?” Ellen asked.

Dick shook his head. “We don’t know yet, El. He’s been through so damned much.”

“He’ll be all right once we get him up to Janice’s,” Jenny said. “She’ll take good care of him.”

But as he
listened to the quiet exchange in the rear of the coach, Kyle Vittetoe wasn’t sure anyone would ever be able to help his friend again.

“Dr. Casey?”
the heavily-accented Cajun voice asked.

Bridie sat in her office chair. She was bone-tired and forgot to flip on her phone scrambler. “This is she.”

“I decided I’ll take de order you placed, but I ain’t found all de ingredients as yet. How much spice you want in dis ting?”

A flash of annoyance shot through Bridget’s mind. “If you’re asking how many of those interfering shitkickers I want eliminated, I want them all,” she snapped. “They’ve made my family look like fools and that will not be tolerated!”

There was a momentary silence, then the voice at the other end of the line lowered. “How you gonna s’plain all them many deductions, Dr. Casey? Ain’t you really just wantin’ to get back your investment?” The voice turned hard. “I guarantee I get back de investment or you don’t pay dis boy.”

“We don’t want him back, you backwoods ninny,” she yelled. “We want him dead!”

The man’s voice went deep and ugly. “Dat can be arranged, Dr. Casey. All I’m sayin’ is it’ll be harder to do dat if I got to clean up de other mess.” The Cajun twang turned sly. “You want dem folk what interfered punish, I can do dat by wiping away dat investment for you. Ain’t dat better dan dat what you want?”

Bridget thought about it for a moment. “Maybe you’re right.” She brought one elegant nail to her teeth and tapped the white enamel. “Yes, perhaps it would serve a better purpose. Let them know just how powerful this family is.”

“I tink dat would be best,” came the amused answer. “Dey won’t interfere no more, I guarantee.”

“Do whatever you want,” she snapped. “Just don’t bother me with the details.” She hung up and leaned back in her chair. A vicious smile twisted her lips. The Cajun would find James and eliminate him.

It might well turn out to be a good day after all.

The Badger slowly
hung up the receiver. His dark cinnamon eyes were hot with hate and his thick lips were pulled taut over his grinding teeth. With his hand still on the receiver, he turned to look at Thais Whitney.

“Take care of it,” he ordered.

Thais grinned. “Consider it done.” The big man quietly exited the office.

Getting up from his chair, The Badger walked to the console and poured himself a tall glass of iced water. He drank half of the liquid before throwing the tumbler as hard as he could against the far wall. He didn’t even blink as the crystal shattered and cascaded to the thick pile carpeting.

“Bitch,” he spat. “Dirty, filthy, goddamned bitch!”

“You knowed dere ain’t never been no love lost ‘tween her and de boy, Badger,” The Badger’s partner drawled.

The Badger spun around, his face sat in a mighty scowl of pure fury. “She ordered his death! Her own brother! What kind of woman is she?” He threw out his hand. “What kind of
doctor?”

His partner shrugged. “What you wanna go gettin’ you all worked up for, Badger?” He leaned down and turned off the tape recorder that had been grinding away on The Badger’s desk. “We got her contractin’ for de boy’s killin’. We go get a court order and we go over dere and pick up dat boy she hire. Unless he don’t talk, we go pick her up, too.”

“He’ll talk,” The Badger snarled as he flung himself down in his chair. “Giles Fontaine’ll talk or I’ll pull out his tongue myself!”

Agent Mark Sadler
stared up at the Florida-based FBI agent with disdain. He’d been dealing with this particular bastard all along. He hadn’t liked him the first time he’d spoken to the cracker on the phone, and didn’t like him any better in person. He let his eyes travel down the unkempt, creased brown suit, the scuffed shoes, the grease-splattered tie, and wondered how on earth the Bureau could overlook this man’s appearance.

“We’ve got it on good authority,” the man said in a condescending and high-pitched voice that was irritating the hell out of Mark, “that several Iowa citizens were involved in abducting James Tremayne from the clinic in Louisiana.”

“So?” Mark snapped.

Obviously the Florida agent hadn’t expected such outright antagonism because his eyes widened, then his mouth turned hard. “So,” he spat back, “Mr. Tremayne was admitted by his family to the clinic. He—”

Sadler stood, put his hands on the top of his cluttered desk and leaned toward the man. “Gabe James was kidnapped from Iowa, taken to Louisiana against his will by hired thugs who threatened one of our citizens and nearly ran over a second. Any way you look at it, Agent Bartow, that’s kidnapping, and as far as I know, still a federal crime!”

The Florida man’s jaw clenched. “His family had a court order for him to be committed to—”

“A court order good only in Georgia,” Sadler shot back. “There was never any extradition order signed in this state, or Louisiana either!”

A feral gleam entered the Southern man’s eyes. “So what you’re telling me is you and your department will not cooperate in trying to locate Mr. Tremayne. Is that it?”

Sadler’s lips pulled back in a warning smile. “In a nutshell, Agent Bartow.” He straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down his nose at the red-faced federal agent. “And you can get your skinny, white-trash ass back to Florida and tell your boss, Liam Tremayne, it’ll take the entire Florida Army National Guard and Reserve to come up here and try to take Gabe James back. By this time tomorrow morning, the whole sordid mess that happened to him will be plastered all over every newspaper in this country.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Bartow warned his Iowa counterpart. “A big, dangerous mistake, Sadler.”

Sadler’s smile tightened. “No, Liam Tremayne made the mistake of thinking he could snatch one of our citizens and get away with it.”

“James Tremayne is his son,” Bartow shouted. “He has every right to—”

“Gabe isn’t a child, Bartow,” Sadler interrupted. “The only hold Liam Tremayne ever had on him is now broken.”

Arnold Bartow’s lips twisted in a vicious smirk. “Don’t count on it, Sadler. You don’t know Mr. Tremayne. It isn’t wise to underestimate him or what he can do.”

“Just like it wasn’t wise to underestimate us plow boys either.”

“Don’t think this is over,” Bartow warned. He started to say something else, but the phone rang.

“Special Agent Sadler,” he barked into the receiver.

“Our cargo reached its destination and the shipment is intact,” Virgil Kramer said.

“That’s good to hear,” Sadler said, looking up into the flushed face of his adversary. “I’ve got a Florida federal agent with me right now. Can I call you back?”