Rebel Without a Cake Page 25

  I ripped a piece of fabric from his shirt and used it to stanch the flow of blood. It wasn’t much of a bandage and it wasn’t nearly good enough, but it was all I had. I was pretty sure that Kale would survive the wound if he didn’t lose too much blood or get shot again. Junior wouldn’t miss a second time.

  I couldn’t think. I had no idea what to do. I had two seriously injured people with me. Both of them needed medical attention, but I wasn’t strong enough or fast enough to get it for them. I would have given anything for a miracle. A few bars of service on my cell phone. The help of a random stranger who had either medical training or a high-powered rifle. I wasn’t picky.

  I sat in the dirt watching gasoline creep across the driveway and feeling utterly helpless. Other than decorating cakes and making a mean chili verde, I didn’t have many useful skills. I should learn how to shoot. Or go to medical school. I should study covert undercover operations and practice moves that would let me get across that road and up the hill without being detected.

  I should be able to do something.

  I knew we’d already been sitting there too long. Junior would reach a new location any second. I strained to hear any sound or see any movement that might tell me his location, but he was good at what he did. Nothing gave him away.

  But I did pick up a low hum that seemed to grow louder all the time. The hum of wheels on pavement. Someone was coming toward us, but I didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened. Maybe we were about to be rescued. Maybe Junior had decided to finish the job up close and personal.

  My breath caught in my throat and my heart slammed against my ribs. I inched forward carefully and watched for the vehicle to come into view, and I prayed that Georgie had figured out where I was and was now riding in like the cavalry.

  After a very long time a truck came into view. I couldn’t tell who was driving, but it didn’t look like Junior’s truck and I was able to let out the breath I’d been holding. Two more trucks rounded the curve in the road right behind the first one. In a blur of motion all three trucks pulled to the side of the road and people began to pour out.

  I didn’t know if Junior would try to finish what he’d started with so many witnesses around, but I thought I should warn them that they could be in danger. I jumped up and raced toward them, shouting for them to get back and take cover.

  Eskil stepped out of the tangle of people and grabbed my arms. “Slow down there, Rita. Don’t worry. We came to put out the fire.”

  I tried to explain but the words kept getting stuck. Whole sentences turned into single words by the time they reached my mouth. “Nettie,” I said insistently. “Kale. Shot.”

  Eskil gently pressed me toward someone else. “Don’t worry, little girl. It’ll be okay.”

  I grabbed his arm, desperate to make him understand. “Junior. Out there,” I said and did my best to pinpoint his location. “He shot Kale.”

  One of the other men seemed to understand what I was saying. I directed him toward the Ranger and turned back to find that Eskil’s face—what I could see of it between his eyebrows and beard—was tight with anger. “You’re sure it’s Junior?”

  Was I? I shook my head and managed to connect a few words at a time. “No, but Kale said. Tell Georgie. Have to stop him.”

  Eskil led me along the caravan of rescue pickups and put me inside the cab of the last one in line. He grabbed a rifle from the rack behind my head and growled, “You stay right here. I’ll take care of this.”

  “No! Don’t. Let the sheriff do it.”

  My plea fell on deaf ears. I watched in horror as Eskil trotted across the road and disappeared into the undergrowth. I sank down in the seat and tried to take a couple of deep breaths, but I was too worried to sit still. If anything happened to Eskil, I knew Bernice would never forgive me. I had no idea what I could do to help him, but that useless feeling filled me with desperation. Still not sure what I could do to prevent a tragedy, I opened the door.

  I heard a clatter and a metallic click followed by a deep male voice. “Stop right there, ma’am. I can’t let you get out of the truck.”

  I whipped around to see who was talking and ready to argue with whoever Eskil had told to keep an eye on me, but the face I saw in the driver’s side window chilled me to the bone.

  Pointing some massive handgun at my head, Junior slid into the truck with me and turned the key. I knew that wasn’t the gun he’d used to shoot at us from the hill, but I caught a glimpse of a rifle with a scope as he tossed it into the truck bed.

  Before anyone noticed what was happening, Junior executed a perfect three-point turn and took off toward town. I hadn’t buckled my seat belt, and I didn’t buckle it now. I had to look for an opportunity to jump out of the truck, and I didn’t want anything to slow me down when I found it.

  Junior drove like a madman, which, of course, he was. The truck bounced over ruts in the road and swerved dangerously around curves. And the only thing I could do was hang on for dear life.

  * * *

  Facing your own mortality is not as much fun as it looks in the movies. A million thoughts raced through my head as Junior and I barreled toward Baie Rebelle. Most of them were completely inane. I noticed the color of the sky, the way the butterflies swarmed up from the bushes, and how those bushes swayed as we roared past.

  I knew I should be looking for a way to escape, but I couldn’t seem to order my thoughts. I gripped the armrest and told myself over and over that I would be able to jump when Junior slowed to go through town. It seemed logical, but I felt an almost overwhelming pressure to do something now.

  Maybe he wouldn’t take me into town. Maybe he had a secret hiding place along the way. Maybe he’d shoot me, or throw me into the water. Maybe nobody would ever know what happened to me.

  Nervous energy mixed with the fear. My foot began to tap in an erratic rhythm that only made me feel worse. More to calm myself than to get Junior to confess, I decided to get him talking. Even hearing him rant and rave would be preferable to sitting there in silence, imagining all kinds of horrible things.

  I said the first thing that popped into my head: “You’re not going to get away with this, you know.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Everybody knows you set that fire. Nobody will believe it was an accident. But your plan failed. Nettie’s still alive and so is Kale.”

  “Shut. Up!”

  “All this has been for nothing. You wanted your father’s property all for yourself, but you’ll never get it now. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life in prison.”

  I didn’t see his hand move in time to duck. He backhanded me across the cheek. Pain seared my face and the taste of blood filled my mouth.

  “I said shut the hell up.”

  A rational woman would have taken his advice, but I was a long way from rational. “When did you decide to frame Eskil? Before you killed your brother, or after?”

  He glowered at me. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  “And you’ve just added kidnapping to your long list of felonies. Did you really think nobody would figure out it was you? Because that’s just crazy, you know.”

  He sneered at me. His eyes were ice cold and empty. “Who’s the crazy one?” he said in an ominous voice. “Who’s the stupid one? Huh? Tell me, which one of us is driving the truck?”

  Junior had a point, but it had been pure dumb luck, not superior genius, that had put him behind the wheel. Plus the fact that he was carrying a loaded gun. And the whole homicidal maniac thing.

  I experienced a moment of crushing despair before I remembered what Nettie had said when she started regaining consciousness back at the house. “Too smart,” she’d said right after I’d asked about Junior’s weaknesses. Junior was too smart for his own good. She’d tried to give me the answer but I’d misunderstood her.

  If that’s what she meant, I ha
d two choices: Try to placate Junior and hope he’d calm down enough to have second thoughts about turning me into alligator bait; or push his buttons and hope anger made him careless.

  Since I didn’t think I could convincingly pull off calm and soothing, I went with Plan B. Besides, I’d been doing a pretty good job of pissing him off already.

  “You didn’t know what your mother was going to do until she died, did you? She didn’t tell you that she was giving half of the property to Silas.”

  Junior’s jaw clenched but he didn’t say a word.

  “You thought you were going to get everything. You really thought your mother was going to cut Silas out just because your father had?”

  “She was stupid,” Junior said through clenched teeth. “She couldn’t see what a worthless piece of shit he was. He threw it all away. All of it. And why? Because of some crazy-ass idea that owning property was wrong.”

  We zoomed past a house that was nestled in a grove of trees. It was there and gone too quickly for me to think about escaping.

  I tried to keep him talking. “You didn’t mind that at the time, though. In fact, I’ll bet you encouraged Silas to think that way. I’ll bet you fed into his crazy idea so you could have it all. You knew how he was.”

  “He didn’t know how to listen to anybody else,” Junior said. “He didn’t know how to compromise. He didn’t know how to change his mind. Once he made a decision, he stuck with it.”

  “Except his marriage and family,” I said. “He changed his mind about them.”

  Junior laughed. “Shows what you know. He didn’t change his mind about them, it just never occurred to him that going off and living in the swamp for twenty years was abandoning his family.” He shot a look at me and his smile slipped off his face.

  “Did you plan to kill him, or did you just see an opportunity and go for it?”

  “I went there to talk sense into him,” Junior said. “I told him we could do great things together. I told him we could put the land together and make the biggest charter company in the state. We could have made money hand over fist. But he wouldn’t listen. Silas never listened.”

  “He told you no?”

  “He told me to leave and never come back. He told me he’d been watching me with Kale and he was angry that I’d stepped up to take his place.” Junior snorted a harsh laugh. “Like he was any kind of a father to the kid.”

  “He’d been trying to talk to Kale since your mother died. Did you know that?”

  “Oh, yeah. I saw the two of them together that night. But that kid’s a chip off the old block. He won’t listen to anybody either.”

  “Silas was trying to tell Kale about your mother’s will?”

  “Silas was trying to warn him not to work with me. He thought I was using Kale. I gave my life to that kid, and Silas tried to ruin everything!”

  “And that’s why you killed him?”

  “I killed him because he deserved to die. Somebody had to do it.”

  “I know he did a lot of damage,” I said. “He hurt people. He abandoned his family. He broke his mother’s heart. He stole from his neighbors, taking the fish they caught and the animals they trapped right under their noses. I never even met him and I know he did bad stuff. But we don’t get to decide who lives and dies.”

  Junior didn’t give me a direct answer. “My father worked himself to death trying to make this family one that other people would respect. I’ve broken my back to do the same. Silas? He didn’t give a rip. He killed a man we all considered a friend. He stole a family secret.”

  “The still?”

  “That’s not what we do out here,” Junior ranted. “We watch out for each other. We help each other.”

  And apparently kill each other, but I kept that observation to myself.

  “He called me stupid,” Junior said. “He. Called me. Stupid! He lived like a damn pauper out there. He gave up everything and turned his back on everybody, and my mother still loved him best.”

  I didn’t know if that was true or not, but that didn’t matter. Junior believed it, and it had become his reality. It would take someone with greater skills than mine to make him see the world differently.

  We were close to town by then so I started watching for my chance to get away. Moving surreptitiously, I put my hand on the car door and felt around for the handle. We reached the junction and I planted my feet, prepared for Junior to slow down so I could jump.

  He rounded the corner so fast we rocked up on two wheels. I thought we were going to flip, but the truck righted itself and the two airborne tires slammed onto the pavement. My teeth snapped together and I bit my tongue. It hurt, but I was more upset at the realization that Junior wasn’t going to slow down.

  He stomped on the gas and the truck shot forward again. He was focused on the road in front of us and I knew it was now or never. A few miles to the north he’d run into a patchwork of roads that spiraled off in a dozen different directions. If I let him get that far, nobody would ever find him—or me.

  I didn’t let myself think about what I was doing or how risky it was. Bringing my feet up, I twisted in my seat and kicked his arms as hard as I could. He lost his grip on the pistol and it clattered to the floor. I kicked again and the steering wheel jerked to the left. The truck careened dangerously as Junior tried to regain control. I didn’t dare change tactics. Even a few seconds could make a difference between living and dying.

  While I tried to keep him off balance, Junior struggled to get control of the truck. He lashed out at me with his fist, but I didn’t let the pain distract me. He didn’t have the gun, and that’s what mattered.

  I leaned against the door for leverage and tried to kick harder. I aimed for his shoulder, his hands, and his legs, always going for a different body part to keep him from anticipating my next move. Several times, I almost fell off the seat, but I managed to hold on until we rounded a sharp curve a little north of town.

  Junior swore and stomped on the brakes, and this time I did lose my balance. I landed on the gun and scrambled to pick it up as the truck screeched to a halt. Junior fumbled to shift into reverse as I climbed back on the seat and put the gun right up against his head. “If this truck moves another inch,” I warned, “I swear to God I’ll shoot you.”

  Beneath the sound of blood rushing through my veins, I thought I heard voices. Dimly, I became aware of someone outside the window. I blinked to clear my vision and realized that red and blue lights were swirling on the edge of my peripheral vision.

  Georgie threw open the truck door and yanked Junior out of his seat. Two other deputies shouted for him to get down on the ground and put his hands over his head. At least I think that’s what they were saying. My teeth began to chatter and my hands to shake. And very gently, Georgie took the gun from my hand and put it somewhere out of my reach.

  Thirty-one

  I didn’t get the whole story for days, but Eskil had realized almost immediately that the truck he’d put me in had disappeared. I don’t know where he went to make the call, but somehow he’d alerted Georgie to the danger I was in.

  She was only a few miles from Baie Rebelle at the time, and based on my claim that I’d solved the murder, she’d brought backup. They’d set up a roadblock and the rest was history.

  We stayed with Aunt Margaret that night and drove back to New Orleans the next day. On the way back, I finally talked to Miss Frankie about Christmas. She was shocked that I’d been so nervous to bring it up with her. And since she hadn’t been pulled in a dozen different directions for days in a row, she was able to come up with a solution so logical it had eluded me: I’d be far too busy to go away in December anyway, so why not go home for Thanksgiving week?

  Duh!

  I thought even Uncle Nestor would be okay with that. (Especially since it turned out that the fee to change the ticket wasn’t too steep, thank goodne
ss.)

  To my surprise, Miss Frankie even agreed to have Pearl Lee help her host the family dinner at Christmas. The only thing she asked was that I show up. With Pearl Lee on the organizing committee, I’d be there with bells on.

  Aunt Yolanda was beside herself with joy at the prospect of having me home even sooner than expected, and for a whole week. She really didn’t care when I came. So now that the decision was made and the new airline ticket bought and paid for, I could finally let myself get excited.

  I’ll never know whether or not I would have pulled the trigger that day. Sometimes I want to think I would have, and other times I assure myself that I could never take a life. What I do know is that there’s no absolute right or wrong when you’re in a life-and-death situation. Fight or flee. Cooperate or get in the way. Scream or stay quiet. You do what you have to do. Nobody else gets to judge your decision.

  I’d taken one look at Miss Frankie’s face after my brush with death and realized all over again how foolish I’d been to doubt her feelings for me. She’d told me more than once that she considered me family. She’d assured me over and over again that she loved me. It was my own insecurities that had taken over and made me doubt the evidence right in front of my eyes. I needed to do a better job of getting my personal demons under control. If my time in Baie Rebelle had taught me nothing else, it had taught me that.

  * * *

  Two days and one trip to the doctor later, I walked into the design room at Zydeco and found everyone sitting around a couple of silver tables. I’d been looking for Edie for several minutes, but I hadn’t been able to find her anywhere. Mystery solved. She was there, wearing a pumpkin costume over her bulging belly, and glaring at me from a stool at Ox’s table. Ox and Isabeau were dressed as Batman and Robin, Estelle had turned herself into Lucille Ball for the day, Dwight wore camouflage and had let his beard grow so that he resembled one of the locals from Baie Rebelle, although I was pretty sure he was aiming for one of the Robertson boys from Duck Dynasty. Sparkle wore a vampire costume that I think came out of her own closet.