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Colt eased the game warden boat around a sharp left turn in the bayou, scanning ahead for other boats, particularly any occupied by Ross and company. He would have preferred to take his own boat, but Jadyn had pointed out that using her equipment made the contractor thing look more legitimate. She had a pad of paper with drawings of different sections of the swamps that she’d been reworking. The cover story was that Colt was helping her remap the area since Jadyn didn’t know it well and the existing set of maps hadn’t been updated since the last hurricane, which had shifted things significantly.
The channel they traveled was about half a mile from Boudreaux’s Pond, where Colt hoped Ross would remain stationed with his team rather than wandering around the area. It made logical sense to check the camps surrounding the pond first. And technically, everything was official with the contractor job, but Colt knew they’d catch hell if Ross caught them nearby.
As he directed the boat toward the middle of the bayou, he was pleased to see a clear stretch about a mile long. The occasional fisherman was probably tucked away out of sight under the cypress trees that hung over the water, but he couldn’t think of a single reason Ross would be lurking under a canopy of tree limbs. If he was on the channels, he’d most likely be in the middle, in plain sight, which meant that so far, they were in the clear.
“Maryse said we couldn’t cover all the camps in one day,” Jadyn said as Colt directed the boat toward a dilapidated dock.
“She’s right. We’ll need another half day to cover them all. But I’m hoping we find something today and seeing the rest isn’t necessary.”
Jadyn nodded. “I hope so too. Who’s camp is this?”
Colt grimaced. “Old Man Humphrey’s. Can’t you tell by the ten nonworking refrigerators scattered in the weeds in front of it? He must have settled for appliances since he couldn’t get automobiles down here.”
Jadyn smiled. “One day, when things are right again, I’m going to drive out to Old Man Humphrey’s house just to see what all the complaining is about. And if I feel like being insulted a bit, I might even knock on the door and strike up a conversation.”
“You’ve got to really be lacking in company to seek out Humphrey.” He drew the boat up to the dock and Jadyn reached for a post.
“It’s not that,” she said as she tied off the post. “I just figure I can do my job better if I know what I’m working with. I’ve met a lot of people since I’ve been here, but some of the old-timers are almost hermits. I figure I’m going to have to go to them for any exposure.”
“Exposure is a good choice of word. God only knows what you may get spending time with the recluses I can think of. And you definitely want to announce yourself from the property line. Most of them think shooting first and asking later is their constitutional right.”
“Maybe I need to talk to you about getting a bulletproof vest,” she said as she stepped onto the wobbly dock.
“It’s probably not the worst idea.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone has been here recently,” she said as they pushed their way through the overgrown brush toward the camp.
“No, at least not from this direction.”
“Is there a road running behind it?”
“Yeah, about half a mile away from this camp. The gap gets a little wider the farther down the bayou you go.”
“A half mile is definitely doable, even with a hostage.”
“Ten miles is doable with a hostage as long as you’ve got a gun on them and there’s no witnesses around.”
Jadyn sighed. “You know, normally I am the most based-in-reality person I know, but just this once, I wish I could have that ‘glass half-full’ mentality.”
Colt nodded. He understood exactly what Jadyn was saying, but he also knew it was useless to wish for things that could never happen. Some people liked to think that law enforcement work made people—from the positive person’s point of view—jaded. But he knew better. If he and Jadyn hadn’t already been grounded in reality, neither of them would have been drawn to the work in the first place. Statistics didn’t lie. There was always a chance a bad situation could turn out fine, but in law enforcement, you had to be geared to accept that it often didn’t.
Keeping that fact in the forefront of your mind minimized disappointment.
Colt walked up the steep steps leading to the camp, trying not to dwell on the disappointment he was going to feel if this case turned out badly. He already knew quite well the odds against a happily ever after, but when it was personal, you tended to push those odds back in place of hope.
He twisted the front doorknob and the door creaked open.
“It’s not locked?” Jadyn asked.
“No. A lot of locals don’t bother,” he said as he stepped inside. “There’s not much traffic this deep in the bayou. Visitors tend to fish in the ponds closer to town. Sometimes kids go into camps and have parties, but they won’t haul a truckload of beer through the swamp on foot for a half mile when other camps are closer to the roads.”
She followed him inside and glanced around. “Not much to see.”
“No. A lot of these places are one big room and a bathroom. They’re not meant for full-time living. But that makes them easier for us to search.”
He crossed the tiny structure and opened a door on the far wall. “Looks like no one’s been here for a while.”
“Then on to number two,” she said, clearly trying to force optimism she didn’t feel. “Do you mind giving me a rundown on the owners as we cover the cabins? If it’s not a bother?”
“It’s no bother,” he said as they left the camp and headed back to the dock. “The better you can do your job, the easier it makes mine.”
“Great.” She released the boat from the dock.
“The next camp is owned by Roscoe Bartlett. He owns the general store. It’s been a while since I’ve been inside, but if I remember correctly, his is nicer than most of the others. Has a separate bedroom and the finish out is more like a house.”
Roscoe’s camp was indeed nicer than Old Man Humphrey’s, at least on the outside. The front of the camp possessed no collection of broken appliances and didn’t show any signs of recent passage, until they got to the steps. Two sets of prints showed in the thick layer of dust and led up the steps to the door.
Colt pulled out his nine millimeter and motioned to Jadyn to do the same. “I’ll go up first,” he whispered. “Wait until I’m on the porch before following. I want to minimize creaking as much as possible.”
She gave him a silent nod, and he started up the steps, slowly shifting his weight onto each step. When he stepped onto the porch, he motioned to Jadyn, then pressed his ear to the door. At first, he heard nothing, then he heard a low moan. He checked behind him as Jadyn stepped onto the porch.
“I heard someone inside,” he whispers. “Sounds like they’re hurt.”
He gently turned the knob and was surprised to find it unlocked. He eased the door open and inched his head through the crack until he could see the front room.
It was empty.
On the back wall were two more doors. He crept toward the door on the left, which he thought was the bedroom. As he drew up right in front of the door, a woman screamed.
Immediately, he threw open the door and launched inside, pistol ready for firing. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
The scene inside stopped him so short that Jadyn bumped into him before moving to the side to see what the holdup was. She probably regretted looking.
The screaming woman was clad in hooker-red lingerie and was handcuffed to the posts of the bed, but she wasn’t Raissa and the cuffs were plastic. The man in front of her wore black underwear with silver studs and a black mask. He held a leather whip and whirled around to stare at Colt, then froze, the panic clear in his eyes.
Colt grimaced at the sight and shook his head, frowning at both of them. “Sorry to interrupt, Bob. We’re looking for a missing person. We’ll just get out of here and let you and Jenny get back to…to whatever the hell this is.”
He managed to hold in his grin until they left the camp. Jadyn jumped off the steps and hurried up next to him.
“Okay, spill,” she said. “Was that Roscoe in the mask? Because you called him Bob. Do you know the woman?”
“No, that definitely wasn’t Roscoe, and he’d probably have apoplexy if he knew what was going on in his camp. Despite the mask, I know exactly who the man was—Bob Brant, our illustrious mayor.”
Jadyn sucked in a breath. “You’re kidding! I’ve only met him once and he totally gave me the creeps, which makes a lot of sense now. But isn’t he married to some woman with a drawn face and entirely too big hair?”
“Yes, that woman is not his wife. She’s an eighteen-year-old high school student who babysits his ten-year-old twins.”
Jadyn stopped in her tracks. “Oh my God.”
He turned back to look at her and grinned. “That’s one way of putting it.”
She caught up to him and jumped into the boat. “I don’t get it. The man’s cheating on his wife with essentially a child. So you want to tell me why you’re so amused?”
“Because last night Deputy Nelson was on a call about drug use behind the school.” He started the boat and headed down the bayou. “The supplier was the mayor’s seventeen-year-old son, and he would have made my life hell if I pressed charges. But now…”
“He’s not going to say a word.” Jadyn smiled. “I wonder what his son will think when daddy doesn’t bail him out again.”
“I’m sure he won’t think much of it, and as he’ll be sitting in my jail for a bit, I’m also sure I’ll get to hear all about it from him any time I’m in earshot. Even more interesting is what the mayor’s wife will think about his not saving her baby.”
“Sounds like you’re looking forward to it.”
“That kid has been running wild since junior high school. If he doesn’t straighten out soon, best case is he’ll be living at home until he’s forty. Worse case, he’ll live behind bars. Going to jail for a while might be the one thing that could knock some sense into him.”
“I’ve known kids like that, and you’re probably right. What about the girl the mayor was with? Where’s she headed?”
“Probably to a pole in New Orleans. Everyone in my position has tried with that one, but she’s determined to wreck her life. If you knew her parents, you know she comes by it honest. I’ll just be glad when she graduates and moves her drama out of Mudbug.”
Jadyn shook her head. “I guess small towns are no different than big cities when it comes to the sordid happenings behind closed doors.”
“Yeah, only people in small towns work harder to hide things, because once they’re out, it doesn’t take ten minutes for every resident to know their secrets.”
He directed the boat to the next dock, hoping this inspection yielded a more important revelation than the last. And one that didn’t have his breakfast repeating.