Gerard (Bayou Brotherhood Protectors #2)

Prologue

There they were again.

Headlights in his rearview mirror nearly blinded him.

Was it them? Had they caught up with him?

His heart hammered against his ribs as he rammed his foot onto the accelerator, wishing he had stolen a faster car.

One with more gas in the tank and an air conditioner that worked.

Instead, he had taken an older model boat of a car that hadn’t been locked and was easy to hotwire.

He’d ridden with the windows down to catch a breeze in the stifling southern Louisiana humidity.

He’d left New Orleans a little over an hour ago with his tail in hot pursuit.

And why wouldn’t they be?

He glanced at the ordinary gym bag sitting on the seat beside him and shivered. What the hell was he doing? Were the contents of that bag worth his life?

Taking it had been too easy.

Keeping it...not so much.

As soon as he’d grabbed the bag and run, they’d been after him. He’d lost them a couple of times in the streets of New Orleans and on the backroads west of the city. Each time, they’d caught up to him.

The bag had to be tagged with some kind of tracking device. If he could get a free minute, he’d stop, find the device and toss it. Trouble was, he hadn’t had a free moment, the gas gauge had been sitting on E for the past thirty miles and he had run out of options.

When he’d seen the sign for Bayou Mambaloa, he’d turned off the main highway onto the parish road.

He remembered his father talking about his boyhood home. The home he hadn’t returned to in over thirty-odd years.

When the Mambaloa Boat Factory had closed, the community had practically dried up. Fewer jobs had meant no future for young people. His father had left when he’d turned eighteen and never looked back. His one regret had been leaving his high school sweetheart behind.

The key feature of Bayou Mambaloa that interested him now was that it was a town so small it barely warranted a dot on a map. Sitting on the edge of a bayou, he could steal a boat and lose the bastards behind him.

If they didn’t catch up to him before he reached the bayou.

If he could get to the bayou before he ran out of gas.

The trailing vehicle closed in on him. A loud bang sounded, his rear window exploded and a sharp pain knifed through his left shoulder, rendering his left arm useless.

With only his right hand on the wheel, he took a curve without slowing, sending the car's tail spinning out behind him. The rear tires regained traction and shot him forward. For a few precious seconds, the low-hanging trees blocked the headlights, which meant they couldn’t see him either.

A narrow dirt track ahead might be his only chance to lose the vehicle behind him.

Gunning the accelerator, he raced for the dirt track and spun the steering wheel to the right, sending the tank of a car down the rutted path.

He prayed the track would take him deeper into the woods where his pursuers wouldn’t find him and maybe close to a marina where he could find a boat and speed away into the bayou.

He killed the headlights even as he mashed his foot on the accelerator, slamming through the brush and mowing over small trees and bushes.

God, he hoped there wasn’t a tree in front of him.

His night vision had yet to adjust to the lack of headlights.

About the time he could make out more than the ruts in the dirt track, he emerged in a small clearing, with brush on either side and a dark maw ahead, sloping downward.

He didn’t dare hit the brakes and shine the red taillights, giving away his position.

The car’s forward momentum carried him through the clearing and down the slope.

A break in the overhead foliage let starlight through, the light reflecting off a smooth, glassy surface.

Too late.

He plowed into the water, the front end of the vehicle nosediving into the swamp. The impact jerked him forward, slamming his forehead against the steering wheel.

For a second, darkness enveloped him.

He blinked several times, forcing back a wave of dizziness. When he could see out the front windshield, he stared at the bayou.

Fortunately, the water wasn’t deep enough to submerge the car. The front tires sank into the silt, sending the engine under while the back wheels remained on the bank.

His left arm hung loose, and warm blood soaked his shirt, making it stick to the skin on his chest. He’d been hit. Bad. If he didn’t get out of the swamp and find a hospital, the guys who’d been following him would be the least of his worries.

As his strength weakened, he shifted into reverse and hit the accelerator.

The engine coughed once and died, waterlogged, steam whooshing from beneath the hood.

He tried to push the door open with his injured shoulder and winced. The door wouldn’t budge. After dragging the gym bag across the console, he turned in his seat with his back to the door. With his good hand, he pulled himself out of the driver’s seat and sat in the window frame.

For a second, he hesitated, the stars overhead blurring.

His father had told him of the alligators that lived in the bayou. Some grew as long as seventeen feet and weighed over five hundred pounds. And they were most active at night.

With no other choice, he swung his legs out of the car and dropped down into the water, sinking six inches into silt. When he tried to move his feet, the suction made it difficult.

A light shone through the foliage, bouncing toward him. Men’s voices murmured in thick air.

Leaning into the car, he grabbed the bag from the console and waded to the shore. If he didn’t get moving faster, the alligators would be the least of his worries.

Once he made it up the bank, he pushed through the brush, following the shoreline, trying to move silently but not succeeding. Leaves crinkled, branches snapped, and the damned frogs and cicadas had decided to shut the fuck up. It was as if they wanted him to be found by the men tracking him.

A spotlight from a boat shone across the water, aiming toward the shoreline.

He ducked low as the light swept over his position, continuing toward the men following him. It stopped, shining brightly at something.

A voice sounded over a bullhorn, “Parish Sheriff’s Department. Raise your hands above your head!”

A shot rang out, the spotlight waivered and a boat motor revved, moving the boat quickly toward the shoreline.

“Put down your weapons and raise your hands in the air,” the voice blared over the bullhorn.

Another shot rang out.

The boat swerved and then righted. Return fire popped off from the boat.

Swear words and footsteps crunching through the underbrush moved away from where he hunkered low in the brush.

The boat ran up on the shore, and the men on board jumped out and gave chase.

With his pursuers being pursued, he gathered what little strength he had and headed in the opposite direction.

After several hundred yards, he doubled back in the direction he hoped he’d find the road.

After fighting his way through thick brush and thorny vines, he broke out of the woods and ran into a barbed-wire fence, the sharp prongs slicing into his legs and torso before he realized a fence was there.

Beyond the fence stretched a long field with plants lying close to the ground with rounded humps scattered throughout.

Light shone from the corner of a barn on the far side of the field.

If he could make it to the barn, he might find a house nearby and another vehicle.

With his good hand, he grabbed a fencepost, planted his foot on the middle strand of the barbed wire and swung his leg over the top, planting it on the same wire on the other side. He was swinging his other leg over when a shout sounded.

“ Putain de merde!” a voice said from nearby.

Two shadowy figures rose from the plants in the field. One held a large object shaped like a watermelon in his hands.

Fear spiked, and he flung himself away from the fence.

The hem of his jeans caught on a barb, and he tumbled to the ground, wrenching his shoulder.

Pain knifed through him, and his head swam.

He could barely move; his clothes were soaked from his blood, and he wasn’t sure he could get up again.

Even the stars overhead blinked in and out. Dark. Bright. Dark.

Must get up. Keep moving.

So tired.

Hurt.

His thoughts, like his vision, faded in and out, confused, unfocused.

How had the men who’d been following him gotten away from the police and ahead of him into the field?

The stars blinked brightly again.

His strength waning, he dragged himself to his feet, shifted the bag barely hanging on his good shoulder and staggered away from the men in the field. He prayed they couldn’t get a bead on him. If they did, he hoped they made it a clean shot, ending his life quickly.

With his gaze pinned to the light shining on the corner of the barn, he moved one foot after the other. Each step was harder than the last as he waded through thick vines, trying to avoid tripping over fat watermelons all around him.

Halfway to the barn, his knees buckled. He fell forward, his face slamming into a fat, ripe melon, cracking it open. His face slipped into the wet flesh of the melon, the sweet juice touching his lips.

He tried to push himself up from the ground, but his good arm wouldn’t move. He’d lost too much blood. The thumping pulse in his ears steadily slowed.

“Dude,” a male voice, thick with a Cajun accent, sounded close. “Do he be dead?”

“Don’t know,” a guy with a deeper voice said.

Not dead, he thought. Yet. Unable to move, he tried to force air past his vocal cords.

A booted foot pushed into his hip.

“What’s he got in da bag?” Cajun Man leaned down, pulled the bag from his shoulder and unzipped it. “ Fils de pute! Is dat what I tink dat is?”

“Gimme that,” the man with the deep voice said. A second later, he whistled softly. “That’s a shit-ton of money in there.” His feet moved. “Holy, fuckin’ shit. Git down.” The men dropped to the ground.

“Dude. You dead?” A hand touched his injured shoulder and jerked back. “ Merde! He’s covered in blood.”

“Whoever shot this motherfucker will be lookin’ for him,” deep voice man said, “and this bag of money.”

“Tink it be counterfeit?” Cajun Man asked softly.

“Not if it’s worth killin’ fer. It’s gotta be the real deal. Come on. Let’s get outta here.”

“What about da melons?” Cajun Man said.

“Fuck the melons.” Deep Voice man zipped the bag. “Don’t need no stinkin’ melons when we got a sack o’ cash.”

“But we promised Ol’ Man Beaufoy we’d bring him da melons for tomorrow’s farmer’s market.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the old man’s melons. We need to get rid of this body so whoever’ lookin’ fer him don’t look ’round these parts.”

“De man’s not a goner yet,” Cajun Man said.

No. I’m alive. But for how much longer?

“Help me drag him to the bayou.” A meaty hand gripped his injured arm.

Pain ripped through him, and he blacked out.

When he came to, he was being dragged across the vines and watermelons. A smell so intense it nearly choked him filled his nostrils.

“What if da ’gators don’t clean him up?” Cajun Man asked. “Da remains will come to da surface.”

The two men stopped and dropped him to the ground.

The haze of semi-consciousness ebbed and flowed over him as the two men discussed how to get rid of his body.

“We could weigh him down.” Deep Voice coughed. “God damn pigs.”

“ Putein! ” Cajun man swore. “Dem hogs smell like death.”

“No fuckin’ kiddin’,” said Deep Voice. “We gotta get rid of him so those lookin’ fer him’ll never find him.”

“Yesiree,” the other man said. “Dat way we keep da cash with no one da wiser.”

He didn’t have the energy to tell them that the men he’d taken the bag of cash from would stop at nothing to get the money back.

“Need a way to dispose of him so’s nobody finds any part of him,” Deep Voice said.

A loud grunting sounded close by.

“It’ll take dern near forever ta get ’im to da bayou. I vote fer tossin’ him in da pigpen. Dey’ll clean him up, bones ’n all.”

Fat raindrops plopped onto the back of his head and neck.

“Better hurry before it starts rainin’ pitchforks and hammer handles,” Cajun Man said.

A loud honking sounded.

“What the hell?” Deep Voice cried out.

More honking and flapping wings whipped up the air around them as rain began to fall in earnest.

“Get this goddamn bird off me,” Deep Voice yelled.

“Tryin’,” Cajun grunted. “Biggest damned goose ever I saw.”

The goose’s honk was cut off in a distressed squeak.

Deep Voice grunted. “Die, motherfucker.”

“You done broke her neck,” Cajun Man said. “She be one dead goose.”

The bird dropped beside him and lay still, the feathers brushing softly against his arm.

“Can’t leave it by the pigpen. It’ll draw attention to the hogs ’fore they’ve had a chance ta do their work,” Deep Voice said.

“Should carry it on back to da farmhouse,” Cajun Man said. “Maybe she won’t look farther afield.”

“I’ll let you do that. We been here long enough,” Deep Voice said, “and makin’ enough noise to wake the dead.”

“Iffn’ we don’t leave outta here soon,” Cajun Man said, “Bernie’ll be up and loadin’ our backsides wit’ buckshot.”

“Check fer a pulse,” Deep Voice said. “Don’t want no part of murder.”

“Da goose or da dude?”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Deep Voice growled. “Get the fuck outta my way.”

As someone pressed thick fingers to the base of his throat, the stars blinked out one last time.

“Dead as a doornail,” Deep Voice said. “Don’tcha know that whoever shot this guy will be looking for that bag.”

“Not just worried ’bout da shooters,” Cajun Man said. “Da Popo might decide to come dis way lookin’ fer the dead guy and the bag.”

“Fuck,” Deep Voice said. “Help me strip him and get him into the pigpen.”

As he faded into death, his last thought was of the irony of his life and death. He’d loved bacon, sometimes consuming a complete package at a time for breakfast. How fitting he’d be consumed by a hog that would someday end up as bacon on someone else’s breakfast table.