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Jadyn climbed back in the boat, mentally calculating how many cabins they’d covered, then checked her watch. “That makes twenty so far.”
Colt nodded and directed the boat down the bayou. “And we haven’t found a single thing. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going about this all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it was a miscalculation to start near where the car was found. Maybe he dumped the car away from wherever he’s hiding to throw us off track.”
Jadyn sighed. It made sense…as much as any of this did. “So do we shift focus to the east side of the swamp or finish up here first?”
“I wish I knew.”
He looked as defeated as Jadyn felt. With every empty search, her spirits dropped as much as her frustration level rose. With Maryse and Mildred counting on her to deliver results, Jadyn knew the pressure was on, and it was getting to her. What if she failed? What if she found Raissa too late, or God forbid never found her at all?
The grim look Colt wore left her no doubt that he felt the same pressure she did, and probably a whole lot more. He’d known some of these people his entire life. And a crime of this magnitude occurring in his hometown would make him feel even more responsibility to restore things to normal.
On the upside, the pressure and stress of trying to locate Raissa and the horror of seeing the mayor decked out like an extra in Pulp Fiction had completely eliminated any romantic feelings she might have had for Colt.
Until now, when she thought about it.
Crap.
And now that she was thinking about it, despite the perpetual scowl, he still managed to be sexy as hell. No man had a right to look that good when he was feeling that down. It wasn’t fair to women. Especially to her.
She sighed. In one flash of thought, she’d undone an entire morning of blockage.
Suddenly, he cut the speed of the boat and she pitched forward a bit. He grabbed his binoculars and focused on a group of trees to their left.
“Shit!” He tossed the binoculars on the bench behind him and made a U-turn before shooting off down another channel.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ross and he’s coming straight for us.”
Jadyn’s pulse quickened. She had every right to be in the swamp, and Colt’s paperwork was all legit, but she’d hoped they wouldn’t have to defend that position, especially so soon. “He’ll go straight on the main channel, right?”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
He whipped the boat around a sharp corner and she clutched her seat to keep her balance. Then the boat hit something and came to a grinding halt. Jadyn launched off her seat and crashed onto the bottom of the boat. Colt jumped around the steering column and knelt beside her.
“Are you okay?”
She sat up and touched her head where she could feel it throbbing. It had a small knot already and she’d bet anything it would be a big one before the day was over. “I’m fine. It’s just a bump.”
“Let me see.” He pushed her hand out of the way and inspected her forehead. “Can you get up?”
She nodded and he extended his hand to help her. A rush of blood ran through her head as she rose, making her slightly dizzy, but a second later, it was gone and all that remained was the dull ache of the bump.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you dizzy?”
“No. My head hurts a little from the bump, but otherwise I’m okay.”
“You’ll probably be sore as hell tomorrow. I’m sorry about that.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “I drove right on top of something big, probably a submerged tree. It stopped the boat completely.”
“I noticed.” She leaned over the side of the boat and peered into the water. “You better take a look at this.”
“What?”
“Either I’m having a flashback to yesterday or we’re sitting on top of a car.”
Colt stepped to the side and peered over. “Unbelievable. It’s like…”
His voice trailed off as he scanned the bayou from left to right. Suddenly he hurried to the bow of the boat and looked into the water again, then practically ran to the back of the boat and leaned over so far Jadyn thought he might fall into the water.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I think this is Old Man Humphrey’s car.” He rose back up and faced her. “And I don’t think it’s the only car down there.”
Jadyn stared. “You see other cars?”
“I think so. The water’s too murky to be certain.”
Jadyn peered over the side of the boat again, trying to see deeper into the muddy water, but she couldn’t make out anything past the car hood the boat was lodged on.
“Do you think—oh no!” She pointed down the bayou as the boat they’d seen earlier tore around the corner, sending a giant wake up the bank.
Colt turned to look and cursed. “Don’t give him any more than our cover.”
Jadyn nodded. She knew how to keep her mouth shut and play a role. It was the only way she’d managed eighteen years in a house with her mother.
Ross dropped his acceleration to nothing about thirty feet in front of them and hurried to the bow of his boat as it coasted to them. When he got close enough, he grabbed the back of their boat to stop his progress, then he stood up and glared.
“I thought I made myself clear,” he said. “Neither of you is allowed in the swamp—not in this area.”
“And I thought I made myself clear,” Jadyn said, “that the swamps are my job, and you have no authority to relieve me of my duties.”
Ross’s jaw flexed. “Maybe I don’t have the authority yet to get you out of my way, but I do have the authority to arrest this man.”
Jadyn shook her head. “I’m afraid you’re wrong again. You see, Colt is officially on vacation, so he’s not here as the sheriff. He’s doing some contract work for Wildlife and Fisheries.”
She reached into a storage compartment under the steering column and pulled out the paperwork approved by her boss. “Here are the documents. Everything is in order.”
Ross snatched the papers from her and scanned them, cursing under his breath the entire time. He shoved them back at her and glared. “This is bullshit. I know what you’re trying to pull, and you’re not going to get away with it.”
Colt raised his eyebrows and pulled three rolled documents from the storage compartment under the backseat. “These are the most recent maps of the area. Everything in red no longer exists. No bullshit. Jadyn is new at the job. She needs help identifying which channels changed after the last hurricane.”
“She could have hired someone else. Any fisherman in this town knows the swamps as well as you.”
Colt smiled. “Yeah, but I’m prettier to look at.”
Ross sputtered for a moment and shifted around, causing his boat to rock. Then he narrowed his eyes and stared down at their boat. “Why isn’t your boat rocking?”
“We’re lodged on something submerged here. Maybe you could give us a tow off of it.”
Ross stared down into the water. “What the hell is that?”
Colt shrugged. “Probably the cabin of a boat. Like I told you yesterday, they’re sunk all over this bayou.”
Ross looked back up and grinned. “Looks like a real problem. Good luck with it.”
He whirled around and stalked back to start up his boat. He threw it in reverse, then tore off down the bayou without so much as a backward glance.
“He’s in a hurry,” Colt observed.
“Yeah,” Jadyn agreed. “Makes you wonder why. He was pissed to find us here, but I got the impression we weren’t who he was after.”
Colt nodded. “I wonder what’s going on.”
“No telling. I figure by the time we get back to Mudbug, someone will have an answer.”
“I’m sure,” Colt said.
“I’m glad you didn’t tell him we were lodged on a car.”
“He’s already got one black car to tow out of these swamps. I don’t want to muddy the waters with a second. Besides, Old Man Humphrey’s car has nothing to do with Ross or Raissa. No use allowing him to make my job more difficult. I already got to tell Humphrey the car he took Melvina Watkins’s virginity in is at the bottom of the bayou.”
“Sucks to have your job.” Jadyn hoped the game warden position didn’t ever involve hearing about people’s sexual conquests, especially from a hundred years ago.
“Some days,” Colt agreed. “Guess we best get a move on.”
He threw one leg over the side of the boat and pushed down. “It’s solid as a rock. Can’t have been in the water for long.”
He swung his other leg over, then pushed the boat off the car. As the bow cleared the last of the top, he jumped inside and knelt down, inspecting the boat bottom. Several seconds later, he cursed.
“Damage?” she asked.
“Yeah. A pretty good tear. It’s easily fixed but I don’t think we should risk using the boat the rest of the day. We’ll have to backtrack to town and pick up my boat.”
Jadyn’s spirits fell a bit. Backtracking to Mudbug would cost valuable time, and time was already the one thing they didn’t have enough of. “Well, if it can’t be helped, then it can’t. We’ll take another look at the maps when we get back to Mudbug—revise our coverage this afternoon if we need to so we can account for the loss of time.”
Colt nodded and started up the boat. “I don’t think we’ll lose more than an hour.”
Jadyn took her seat as Colt pushed the boat up the channel as quickly as he dared maneuver in the narrow space. Sixty minutes of lost time probably meant cutting ten camps off their list for the day. Ten more chances to find Raissa was a big loss. Even though Colt was trying to downplay it, she knew he was as frustrated as she was with the setback. But all that frustration had to be pushed down, closed off in the back of their minds so that they were fresh and alert while they were in the swamps.
Distraction caused mistakes. Caused you to overlook things that you might otherwise see. They couldn’t afford any mistakes with this. Not a single one.
Colt swung the boat out of the narrow channel and back into the much wider main bayou. As he increased his speed, Jadyn wondered what had caused Ross to rush away from them so quickly. Something was up. Otherwise, she had no doubt he would have stuck around to harass them longer. No, Ross had been after something when he’d come across them, and whatever it was he deemed more important than their trespass against his orders.
As Colt made a hard right turn in the bayou. Jadyn got a full view of Ross’s problem.