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Before dawn, Jadyn crept downstairs, hoping to put on a pot of coffee without disturbing any patrons or Mildred. She’d fallen asleep quickly, but her sleep hadn’t been restful. Instead, she’d tossed and turned, her mind racing with frantic dreams that disappeared from her memory the instant she awakened.
She knew the dreams came from the pressure she felt to find Raissa. The dreams had always come when something weighed heavily on her. And this was the worst situation she could recall being in. She and Colt had to make progress today. Time was running out.
If it hadn’t already.
She shook her head as she walked down the hallway to the downstairs kitchen. A clear head was important for today’s work. Getting more stressed or even depressed would decrease her awareness and she needed to be on top of her game. As she pushed open the kitchen door, Jadyn was surprised to see Mildred already inside, pouring a cup of coffee.
“What are you doing up so early?” Jadyn asked. “I didn’t disturb you moving around, did I?”
Mildred waved a hand and poured a cup of coffee for Jadyn. “I was disturbed all right, but it had nothing to do with you. I had these horrible nightmares about being chased by large killer clowns wearing spandex. They were throwing apple pies at me.”
Jadyn grinned. “Given the source of the nightmares, I know I shouldn’t find it funny, but I have to admit that it’s got a certain level of humor to it.”
Mildred slid into a chair at the tiny breakfast table and dumped what looked to be a half a cup of sugar into her coffee. “If it had happened to anyone else, I would probably find it funny too. Truth be told, once I get done being pissed over the car repair, I’ll probably find it funny. But I’d never let Helena know that.”
“No way,” Jadyn agreed as she sat down across from Mildred. “Milk the car situation for as much guilt as you can manage to get out of Helena.”
Mildred gave her a rueful look. “It’s going to be far less than I’d like. So you and Colt are heading out early?”
Jadyn nodded. “We wanted to get out of sight of the feds before daylight.”
“How’s Colt going to get around jurisdiction? Didn’t Agent Ross tell him to stay out of the swamps? He could probably make trouble for Colt if he wanted to. I’d hate to see him get ousted from his job over this.”
“No worries,” Jadyn said. “As sheriff, Colt may not have a valid reason to be in the swamps, but I do. As of five o’clock yesterday, Colt is officially on vacation from the sheriff’s department. And as of first thing this morning, he is officially a contractor working for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.”
Mildred smiled. “That is brilliant. Do you think it will hold?”
“Even if the FBI pushes Wildlife and Fisheries to change their mind, it will take days or a week to get anything through that quagmire. At the very least, we’ll have time to inspect all the camps.”
“That’s my girl. Beautiful and smart.”
Jadyn felt a blush creep up her neck. She wasn’t used to being complimented, especially by matronly women. Her own mother had been less than complimentary about, well, mostly everything that had to do with Jadyn.
“It was actually Colt’s idea,” she said.
“Fair enough,” Mildred said, “but he’s not as pretty as you.”
Jadyn laughed. “He’s probably okay with that.”
A buzzer rang at the front door of the hotel and Jadyn glanced at her watch. “Colt’s not due for another thirty minutes,” she said as she jumped up and headed down the hall for the lobby.
She could see the silhouette of a person outside the frosted glass of the front door, but the figure didn’t look tall enough to be Colt. She checked for her weapon, then unlocked the door and opened it a bit.
Maryse peered through the crack at her. “Stop staring and let me in,” she said. “I haven’t had coffee yet.”
Jadyn opened the door for Maryse to enter and she headed straight down the hall to the kitchen without another word. Jadyn hurried behind her, wondering what had caused her normally upbeat and late-sleeping cousin to take on sullen and early riser.
She entered the kitchen a few steps behind Maryse, who went straight for the coffeepot. Jadyn looked over at Mildred, who raised one eyebrow. Jadyn shrugged and slipped back into her chair. Whatever had caused Maryse’s personality shift was bound to come out sooner or later. So far, Jadyn hadn’t seen any indication that her cousin was a closet brooder.
Maryse sat her coffee down so hard on the table that it sloshed over the side. She cursed and grabbed a handful of napkins, stuffing them all under the cup before dumping even more sugar than Mildred had used in her cup. Jadyn briefly wondered if it wouldn’t be healthier to forgo the sugar and just add a shot of whiskey.
“So,” Mildred asked, “what brings you out this early?”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” Maryse grumbled and set to stirring her coffee with the force of a Category 5 hurricane.
Jadyn looked at Mildred, hoping to take a cue from the hotel owner, but she was staring at Maryse, looking as perplexed as Jadyn felt. Okay, so whatever was up with her cousin was so far outside of the norm that even Mildred didn’t have a guess.
Finally, Maryse stopped stirring and looked at Jadyn. “You going to tell the feds about what that biker said?”
“Not right away. I’m going to talk it over with Colt first and see what he thinks. All that information does is answer the question of why that particular location and why Zach was out of the car. It doesn’t help at all with finding Raissa.”
Mildred nodded. “And if the feds find out we were at the diner asking questions, they’ll bring a rash of crap down on Jadyn. Ross is just looking for a reason to get Wildlife and Fisheries to bench her.”
“Ross is a douche bag,” Maryse said. “Most feds are.”
Because her cousin was married to a federal agent, Jadyn wisely decided to remain quiet. Luc hadn’t seemed remotely douche-baggy to her, but perhaps Maryse’s comment was an indication of why her mood was so foul. Marital discord couldn’t possibly be fun.
“Is Colt picking you up here?” Maryse asked.
“Yes. He should be here any minute.”
“You taking Helena?”
“God no! Last time she was supposed to be shadowing me, she couldn’t keep up with a walk down the street. Can you imagine her keeping up with Colt and me getting in and out of the boat and tromping through the swamp? Not like I can tell Colt to wait for her to catch up.”
“You’d end up leaving her somewhere in the swamp,” Mildred said, “and then we’d have to hear about it for the next hundred years.”
“I’m going with you,” Maryse said suddenly.
“Oh.” Jadyn looked over at Mildred who shook her head. “I thought Luc wanted you to stay out of the swamp.”
A flush started on Maryse’s neck and crept up her face. “I don’t give a damn what he wants. This is an emergency.”
“An emergency that Jadyn and Colt can handle,” Mildred pointed out.
Maryse shook her head, her expression leaving no doubt that she’d dug in her heels. “They can’t cover all the camps in one day. If I cover part, we can get them all done.”
“Luc wouldn’t ask you to stay away from the swamps unless it was critical,” Mildred argued. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ve got my gun,” Maryse said.
Jadyn rubbed her hand across her mouth. The last time her cousin had brandished a weapon, it hadn’t turned out so good for a hutch, an urn, and her dead father’s ashes.
“Ahhh,” Mildred said, “you’re not exactly a sharpshooter. If you got into trouble, I don’t know that you’d be able to handle it.”
“So I’ll take Jadyn with me. She’s a crack shot and Colt doesn’t need any help.”
Jadyn froze. She’d connected with her cousin from the first moment they’d met, and she definitely cared a lot about her, but no way did she want to be in a boat all day with a pissed-off, gun-toting Maryse. Frantically, she ran through a list of reasons they couldn’t ride out together.
“I have to go out with Colt,” Jadyn said, latching onto the one logical reason she could come up with. “Technically, he’s my contractor, which is why he has the right to be in the swamps. If Agent Ross or his men catch him out there alone, they’ll arrest first and ask questions later. If I’m there, it will get him a pass, at least for a while.”
Maryse slumped down in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. “Then I’ll go with you two and it will take twice as long to get the job done, but I’m not sitting in my office all day pretending nothing is wrong.”
A knock at the kitchen door broke into Jadyn’s thoughts and she whirled around to see Colt standing in the doorway. They’d been so busy arguing, she hadn’t even heard him come in.
“Am I interrupting?” Colt asked.
“Yes,” Maryse said, “but that’s never stopped anybody in this town before. You may as well come in.”
After a moment of hesitation, he stepped inside.
“Look,” Jadyn said to Maryse, “I understand how you feel, and in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. But it’s a really bad idea.”
Maryse sat up straight in her chair, her expression moving from sullen to angry. “You think I’m going to let some…some man tell me what to do?”
“He’s not some man,” Mildred said. “He’s your husband.”
Colt shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe I should wait outside.”
“No!” Maryse said. “You’re part of this.”
Colt’s eyes widened. “Me?”
Maryse nodded. “I want to go with you and Jadyn today to search the camps. I probably know this swamp better than anyone.”
“Probably.” Colt looked over at Jadyn and Mildred. “I get the feeling I missed an important part of this conversation.”
Mildred shot a frustrated look at Maryse. “You missed the part where Luc said he doesn’t want her in the swamp because of a case he’s working.”
“Oh.” Colt shoved his hands in his pocket, looking more uncomfortable than Jadyn had ever seen him. “That puts a different spin on things. If Luc says no, then it’s no.”
Maryse narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you had a pair.”
“Did when I dressed this morning,” he said, “and even though you like to walk down streets in a robe and carrying a handgun, I’m more afraid of what Luc would do to me if I let you go with us.”
“Coward,” Maryse said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jadyn held in a smile, mentally giving Colt points for both intelligence and knowing how to win an argument with a woman.
“You ready?” Jadyn asked Colt, hoping to get out of the hotel before Maryse launched another offensive.
“Hell, yeah.”
Jadyn rose from her chair and gave her cousin’s arm a squeeze. “Please don’t be mad. I haven’t known Luc very long but he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who’d ask you to do something like this unless it was really important.”
Maryse glared at her for a couple of seconds, then sighed. “You think I don’t know that? But this is Raissa we’re talking about.”
Her voice broke as she delivered the last sentence, and Jadyn’s heart broke a little. She knew that helpless feeling all too well, and wished more than anything that she could alleviate her cousin’s pain. But right now, she couldn’t think of a single way to help besides finding Raissa and returning her to the people who loved her.
“Colt and I are going to find her,” Jadyn said, even though she knew it was a promise she might not be able to keep.
“You do that, and you bring her home safe to Zach.”
Jadyn gave her a nod and followed Colt out of the hotel.
“Long morning?” he asked as they climbed into his truck.
“You have no idea.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t ask about women’s business, but what’s up with Maryse and Luc?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. He’s being really secretive about the whole thing—has been for a couple of weeks now, according to Maryse. I know he can’t talk about his cases, but I wish he’d tell her more than just ‘don’t go into the swamps unless absolutely necessary.’”
He frowned. “I’ve known Luc for years. Worked with him on a couple of cross-agency cases when I was with the New Orleans police. I know Maryse is his wife and that makes things different, but he’s never been an alarmist. Maryse doesn’t have any idea what kind of case he’s working?”
“No, and it’s not from lack of asking.” Jadyn looked over at him. “You don’t think it has anything to do with Raissa and Zach, do you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t see how, and case or no, Luc would have said something to me if he thought there was crossover. I’m positive he would have told me to be on the lookout if something he was working on was happening in Mudbug, especially given that his family and friends live here.”
Jadyn looked out the window as they drove up to the dock. “So it sounds like Luc is specifically worried that someone will come after Maryse because of him?”
“That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“And with Raissa missing, he can’t help but think it has something to do with her and Zach’s work. So now, he’s probably doubly stressed. His worst nightmare is staring him directly in the face.”
Colt nodded. “I’m sure it’s crossed his mind more than once.”
“That’s got to suck.”
“Especially when you’re married to a woman like Maryse. She probably hasn’t given him a moment of peace since the first edict.”
“I’m sure she hasn’t.”
“You know, based on everything we learned yesterday, I’m leaning toward Raissa’s disappearance being unrelated to her being an FBI agent. I was going to give Luc a call last night and bring him up to date, but I got sidetracked with a local crime spree and forgot.”
“Crime spree?”
“Yes, one of Old Man Humphrey’s many nonworking vehicles disappeared from his front lawn.”
“You think someone stole it? Doesn’t sound like the type of car people are clamoring to own.”
“Something big is gone from that spot in the yard. The problem is Humphrey’s ninety years old if he’s a day and likes his whiskey. For all I know, he could have sold it and forgotten or even driven the darn thing off himself.”
Jadyn smiled. “Sounds like a real mystery.”
“Yeah, but I’ll take drunken seniors with questionable missing cars over this mess with Zach and Raissa any day.”
“I bet,” Jadyn said, trying to figure out a way to tell Colt that she and Mildred had visited the diner the night before. It had been Colt’s idea to question the diner employees, and she wasn’t sure how he’d take her and Mildred beating him to the punch.
Finally, she decided to simply blurt it out. “I had a night adventure myself. Mildred and I went to that diner up the highway. I knew we’d be in the swamp all day today and a good part of tomorrow, and Mildred was itching to do something…”
“Makes sense that she would be,” he said, not sounding remotely irritated at their action.
“We played it off as the worried aunt and cousin, figuring the family angle would get us more.”
Colt nodded. “That’s smart. Did it work?”
“Yes and no. I mean, we got information, but nothing that helps us find Raissa.” She relayed the conversations with Dee and the biker to Colt.
He started frowning as soon as she got to what the biker said, probably running through the list of scenarios just like she had.
“Sounds like a crime of opportunity,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s what I think, too, but why take Raissa? I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” he said as he pulled up to the dock. “Hopefully, we can find something today. The longer this goes…”
Jadyn nodded as she grabbed her backpack from the backseat of the truck. He didn’t have to say it out loud. She’d already processed every horrible possibility.