Chapter 1
THE ROAD narrowed and the potholes appeared closer together—and deeper—the farther DJ drove into the Louisiana bayous. Go get the man. So much easier said than done in this alien landscape. DJ was a city girl. Bright lights. Traffic. Throngs of people. That was her comfort zone and preferred hunting grounds. Out here in the boonies? Yeah…no. The bayous creeped her out. Big time. The road she followed abruptly ended in a T intersection. She stopped and rolled down her window. Hot, humid air engulfed the interior despite the air conditioner blasting on high. The scent of rotting vegetation was so thick, it coated her tongue when she breathed through her mouth. She’d almost rather smell a decomposed body. Almost.
She looked both ways. Nothing. She stared in the rear-view mirror, back the way she’d come. Safety lay that way. Lights, people, civilization—such as it was. She shifted her gaze to the right. The dark ribbon of curving road beckoned her with a curled finger. A sense of danger and anticipation warred within her. The road, such that it was, on the left abruptly disappeared in a wall of Spanish moss and overhanging trees.
Threading frustrated fingers through her long hair before smoothing it back from her face to secure it in a messy pony tail with a rubber band, DJ resisted the urge to beat the back of her head against the headrest of the standard issue rental sedan. Her boss’s order had sounded so simple sitting in his Las Vegas office last week.
Go get the man.
That had been an abrupt change in orders since her first trip to Louisiana several months ago.
“Forget the man. Go back to town,” she muttered, even as she eased the car into a right-hand turn. The problem was, she couldn’t forget her orders or the prophetic—and anonymous— text on her phone not long after she returned from New Orleans.
Scorched earth.
DJ had no desire to be the heroine in some blockbuster movie, especially a thriller. As she stared down the dark road though, that was preferable to being cast as the stupid girl in a teen horror flick. Unfortunately, she felt far more like the latter, especially given that there’d been no traffic since she’d passed a rattle-trap pickup about an hour previous.
“Lost satellite transmission.”
The cultured voice startled her and DJ slammed on the brakes.
“Lost satellite transmission,” the voice droned again.
“Stupid GPS.” She punched the OK button, cutting off the voice before it could tell her again that she was in the middle of nowhere. She’d been driving around in circles looking for a place the GPS insisted didn’t exist, even though it was on her map. The road narrowed further, to the point she’d have trouble turning around. Heaven help her if she met a car coming head-on. Water lapped on both sides—open on her left, dotted with cypress and underbrush on her right. She’d have to keep driving until she found another road or a bisecting driveway. It didn’t help that the setting sun was shining directly into her eyes.
The truck came out of nowhere, lights off, hurtling into the passenger side of her car. Sparks flew as metal scraped metal. DJ fought the wheel, but the other vehicle was bigger and it pushed her inexorably toward the water of the bayou. She scrabbled for her service pistol, hindered by the seatbelt strapping her in. She finally popped the buckle loose, grabbed her automatic and emptied the clip into the windshield of the truck, right as the driver’s side tires of her sedan hit the edge of the road. The car slid down the embankment and hit the water with violent force.
Glass shattered from an explosion. Flames teased torn metal. DJ, stunned from the concussion, clawed her way through the driver’s side window as water rushed into the car. Holding her breath, she kicked away from the vehicle and swam as fast as she could. Too bad it wasn’t fast enough.
THREE DAYS EARLIER
DJ stared at the file propped open between her body and the steering wheel of the rental. She was in Louisiana under the radar. No official vehicle for her and no real weight of the U.S. Marshals Service behind her inquiry. Her orders were simple.
Go get the man.
Only this particular man was a freaking ghost. Hell, every blasted one of the men on her list didn’t seem to exist. She’d had them on radar since bumping up against them after an alleged terrorist attack in east Texas. Their military records had been purged after the debacle in New Orleans. From a private lab out in the boonies blown to smithereens to the destruction of computers and files in a high-rise office building in downtown New Orleans, this group of wraiths remained ten steps ahead. After everything had been said and done, she was lucky to still have her badge and job. Deputy U.S. Marshal. Her orders were to track and arrest fugitives from the law. That made her a manhunter, right? Right.
DJ had heard rumors of a situation in a little town that sat on the New Mexico border with Mexico. BPS and a whole host of state alphabets were all over that one. One tale stated the mercs had military gunship helicopters. She’d scoffed initially but wondered now. Maybe her boss was right. Maybe they had been buried, but not six feet under. What if they were some sort of clandestine military group? She’d had that since back in Texas.
The rumors and a five dollar bill wouldn’t buy her a cup of coffee. Or a clue. The fact she was back in the freaking bayous tracking a list of names from a file that didn’t officially exist had her officially questioning her own sanity. Despite the urge to scream in frustration, she read through the drought of facts she’d written down after a frustrating morning of research. She had learned one thing. If she wanted information on anyone named Fontaine, she needed to speak to Sheriff Troy Thibodeaux in an outlying Louisiana parish. She’d finally tracked him down.
Parked outside the sheriff’s office, DJ glanced over the file again before stuffing it under the passenger seat. She slid out of the rental car into the sultry air of south Louisiana. As she walked into the chilled air of the station, she ignored the looks tossed her way—both the curious and the hostile. She showed her badge and ID to the desk clerk and was ushered by a uniformed deputy into the depths of the station before being deposited in the sheriff’s office. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Deputy Marshal.” Troy Thibodeaux offered his hand for a shake as he entered.
“Sheriff.” DJ shook his hand, pleased he didn’t feel the need to show her how strong he was. His grip was firm, but polite. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“What can I do ya for?”
“I’m trying to locate some people who are…” She wondered how to explain the situation without tipping her hand. “Material witnesses in an on-going investigation.”
Thibodeaux skirted his desk and sank into the well-worn chair behind it. His poker face was in place as he studied her, but he didn’t say anything. It’s what she would have done so she studied him in return. Older. A mustache, stocky, dark hair threaded with silver, brown eyes the color of mud, his uniform starched and buttoned.
When he still didn’t comment, she continued. “The Marshals Service has reason to believe that some or all of them might be in these parts.” She dropped into a guest chair and leaned forward. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the Radix Labs situation?” All she got was a quirked brow. “I have some names I’d like to run by you, see if they’re familiar.”
“Sure.” He didn’t look perturbed at all.
She started with the top of the list. “Ian McIntire.”
“Nope.”
“Joshua Harjo?” The sheriff shook his head so she ran down the list. “Michael Lightfoot? Sean Donaldson? Danny Keegan? Nathaniel Connor? Hannah McIntire? Rudek Tornjak?” The last name got a blink. She pressed the perceived advantage. “It’s my understanding Mr. Tornjak might be involved with a local girl.” She reached into a jacket pocket and removed a notebook she didn’t need, but used as a stalling tactic while she studied the sheriff’s reaction. “Isabelle Fontaine?”
“I know d’Fontaines, Marshal. They be good people.”
“Can you tell me the current whereabouts of Ms. Fontaine?”
“You gotta warrant?”
DJ considered her response to his question. The sheriff was oddly protective. Was it because she was federal? An outsider? Or was there a darker reason? “I don’t need a warrant, Sheriff Thibodeaux. Ms. Fontaine, to my knowledge, has done nothing wrong. As I said, these people are material witnesses. They aren’t suspects.” Much. But Thibodeaux didn’t need to know that.
The man leaned back in his chair, causing it to creak, and laced his fingers across his stomach. He watched her for a long moment from eyes shuttered by half-closed lids. “The Fontaines, dey be livin’ out in d’bayous, Marshal Collier. Blue Moon ain’t easy t’find if a body don’t know d’way. You be givin’ me a day mebbe two, I might be able t’take you out dat way.”
If DJ wasn’t mistaken, the sheriff’s accent had deteriorated on purpose—his way of reminding her she didn’t belong here. She pushed to her feet and dug out a card. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it onto the desk. “My cell phone number is on there. Call me when you can make…arrangements.” Her tone and expression conveyed her feelings on the matter—that she knew exactly what he was doing.
Shrugging, the sheriff made no move to pick up the card. “I be sure t’do dat, cher. Y’all have a nice day now.”
Ah yes, the southern way of saying, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.” DJ offered a high-wattage smile to convey she knew he was full of shit. “I appreciate the cooperation, Sheriff.”
The same deputy who’d escorted her earlier showed her to the front door, and stood just outside, leaning against the wall, one hand on the butt of his pistol, until she was tucked safely in her car and driving down the street.
“That was a complete waste of time,” she muttered.
Heading out of town, she followed a hunch and headed back to the site of the Radix Labs explosion. A sign with an arrow caught her eye. Blue Moon Bayou 19 miles. Ha. So much for the sheriff making time to show her the way. She’d find Blue Moon and the Fontaines herself. She turned to follow the narrower road. About a mile down the two-lane, she found a place to pull over and retrieve the file under the seat. Grabbing the map, she studied it. There it was. Blue Moon Bayou. Where the Fontaines lived.
“There’s more than one way to skin that cat, Sheriff Thibodeaux.”