Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Ouida Mae’s alarm woke her the next morning at the normal time on a normal school day in her normal town.
But nothing was normal and hadn’t been since a week ago when her classroom had been destroyed, and she’d met Valentin, took in a pregnant teen, lost her and made love to a man she’d known only a week.
Her normal, safe life had been turned upside down. In the process of pulling herself together, she’d learned that normal was safe, but she’d been missing out on so much.
Ouida Mae stretched, opened her eyes and glanced over at the ma?—
Empty pillow beside her.
She sat up straight in bed, still naked, her pleasantly sore sex a reminder of the incredible night she’d shared with Valentin.
Speaking of which... Where had he gone? “Valentin?” she called out.
No response. A glance at her clock made her squeak. Normally, she showered at night. Given the circumstances and then making love with the PE teacher, she had missed that portion of her normal routine.
“Fuck normal,” she said out loud, flung back the sheets, swung her legs over the side and stood. For a moment, she swayed. “I’m out of shape,” she murmured and then wondered how one got in shape for physically demanding sex.
By having it more often.
She grabbed clean underwear and a bra and raced to the bathroom across the hall. After a quick shower, she slipped into her thong underwear and her lacey bra and dragged a brush through her tangles. After a brief attempt at scrunching her curls, she ran out of the bathroom into a solid wall.
Of male muscles.
Valentin caught and held her. “Umm,” he said. “I liked you in this outfit once before. Still do, but I like you even better in nothing at all.”
She melted against him at his sexy declaration. Ouida Mae wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. “You were gone when I woke up. I thought maybe you ran off full of regret.”
He chuckled, lifted her chin and smiled down at her. “No regrets,” he said. “I got up earlier, ran back to my room at the morning house, showered, changed into clean clothes and got back here in time to take you to work, as promised.” He grinned down at her. “Is this what you plan to wear to work? If so, none of your students are going to get anything done, not with their sexy, near-naked teacher standing at the head of the class.”
His hand slipped lower and cupped her butt cheeks. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you the first time wearing nothing more than what you have on now.”
“Do you want to go back to bed and make love again?” she asked.
“I sure do.”
“Too bad.” She stepped out of his arms and marched toward her bedroom. “Should have gotten back fifteen minutes earlier,” she called over her shoulder. “We barely have 15 minutes to get dressed and get to the school before the bell rings.”
He swept her up in his arms and deposited her on the bed. “It doesn’t take fifteen minutes if you do it right.” His hand slipped beneath the elastic band of her thong and between her folds to stroke her clit.
He brought her from zero to near orgasm in four well-placed strokes.
“We don’t...have time,” she gasped. “I’m not even dressed.”
He stripped her thong down her legs and tossed it aside. “Four minutes. That’s all I ask.”
“Only four?”
Valentin went down on her, using his tongue to bring her to sensory overload and mind-blowing orgasm in one and a half minutes.
Still pulsing from her own release, she shoved the waistband of his track suite down, freeing his long, hard cock. Ouida Mae guided him to her entrance, gripped his buttocks and slammed him home. She set the pace hard and fast, her body building up again to her second orgasm for the morning.
For a second, she teetered on the precipice.
When Valentin gave a final thrust, going as deep as he could, he remained buried for a full minute while Ouida Mae rocketed into her own bonus orgasm. When she returned to earth, she stared at the clock.
“Four minutes,” Valentin rose from the bed, brought her to her feet and patted her naked bottom, his hand lingering there. “You have five minutes to dress. I made sandwiches before I left for the boarding house. Hustle!”
Ouida Mae and Valentin entered the bathroom together, each taking a clean cloth, soaking it under the sink faucet and wringing it out.
Ouida Mae used hers to clean their lovemaking from his hard cock, while Valentin used his to cup her sex and wipe away all evidence of their coupling with a final stroke of his finger across her sensitized clit.
He gave her a brief, hard kiss, then turned her toward her bedroom with a reminder, “Three minutes.”
After grabbing another pair of panties from her drawer, Ouida Mae stepped into them, dragged a pair of dark trousers up her thighs, buttoned and zipped, then passed on the button-up shirt she’d planned to wear, opting for a quick pullover. She slipped into her shoes and ran for the door where Valentin waited.
They hurried into his truck, stretched some speed limits and arrived at the school with three minutes to spare.
As they walked toward the school, Ouida Mae sighed. “I almost feel guilty for making love with you last night. With Sophie, God knows where, I shouldn’t be selfishly enjoying sex.”
“Having regrets?” Valentin asked.
She shook her head and smiled. “No regrets over the sex. The timing, maybe, but never the sex. I’m worried about Sophie.”
“I checked with Remy this morning on my way back to your place. He’s meeting with Senator Anderson at the Department of Children and Family Services today to see what they can do to speed up your approval.”
“I hope they can make it happen really soon. That sweet girl needs some good things to happen for her.”
“Agreed.” He stopped short of entering the school and turned toward her. “I’m staying after school to work with my students on more self-defense lessons. We’ll only be an hour if you can wait that long for me to take you home.”
She smiled. “I can wait. I need to work on some more lesson plans and figure out when I’m going to reschedule that sex education course.”
“I’d kiss you, but there are too many curious eyes already watching us,” Valentin said.
“I’ll take a rain check,” she said.
They walked into the school like any other teachers and parted ways, going to their separate classrooms.
Worrying about Sophie made the morning drag by for Ouida Mae. She couldn’t wait for lunch to find out if Valentin had heard anything from Remy.
He hadn’t heard anything. No call, no text.
She ate the sandwich he made for her. Several of the teachers stopped by with their condolences over Child Protective Services taking Sophie away from Ouida Mae.
Their concern and empathy only made Ouida Mae feel worse.
If she’d thought the morning was slow, the afternoon moved at glacial speed. When the last bell rang, Ouida Mae had the start of a headache pressing at her temples. She glanced at the clock and sighed. It was Friday. She didn’t want to work on her lesson plan, but she had an hour to wait for Valentin to finish his self-defense lessons with the students.
She packed her things in a satchel and debated staying in her classroom or joining the students in the gymnasium. Her third choice was to go to the bathroom first and then decide.
Ouida Mae left her satchel on her desk and hurried to the teachers’ lounge and the bathroom only teachers and administration were allowed to use.
As she made her way back to her classroom, it struck her. It was Friday a week ago, at around the same time, that her classroom had been breached and trashed. So much had happened since then. The fact that it had happened exactly one week ago gave her an uneasy feeling.
A loud crash, much like the one she’d heard that fateful day, made her jump. Her startlement quickly morphed into anger, pushing Ouida Mae’s logic to the back of her consciousness. She marched down the hall and turned into her classroom, ready to kick ass and take names.
A man dressed in black with a black ski mask covering his face had just climbed through the same window that he’d broken the week before.
His back was to her when he straightened and turned to grab one of the student desks to fling it into other desks.
Ouida Mae bubbled up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I will not stand by and let you trash my classroom again. If you’ve got a beef with me, bring it.”
The man spun to face her.
About that time, Ouida Mae’s logical brain kicked in. The man was well over six feet tall. Ouida Mae barely stood at five feet tall. He could easily overwhelm her as he had Mr. Jones.
As quickly as her anger had surged, it slipped away, leaving her exposed and in fight or flight mode. A quick glance around for a weapon brought her to the conclusion that her best choice was flight.
As she spun to leave the room, the man in the black mask pushed through the desks, heading straight for her.
Ouida Mae burst out of the room and into the hallway, her shoes sliding across the smooth tiles. That loss of traction cost her.
She’d only taken three long strides when the man in black caught her by her hair and yanked her to a stop.
Ouida Mae drew in a deep breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, praying the admin staff in the office hadn’t already left for the weekend.
No one came out of the office as the man pulled her backward, slamming her body into his. He wrapped his arm around her neck and squeezed hard, cutting off the air she needed to scream.
Ouida Mae kicked and twisted in a desperate attempt to free herself. He’d trapped one of her arms under his. With her free hand, she tried to pry the man’s arm away from her throat before she passed out or died.
No amount of effort on her part made him loosen that arm. She wished she’d accepted Valentin’s offer to join his class that afternoon.
Then, she remembered watching a video about self-defense. She reached up and behind herself with her free hand, hoping to gouge the man in his eye. After hitting his nose and then his cheek, her thumb finally made contact with his eye.
The man cursed. His arm loosened. Ouida Mae let her body go limp, dropping out of his hold. Once she hit the floor, she rolled away and leaped to her feet.
“Goddamn bitch, you’ll pay for that,” the man yelled and chased after her.
Ouida Mae’s only hope was to make it to the gymnasium where Valentin was conducting his self-defense training. Unfortunately, the gym was on the opposite end of the school from her classroom. She’d never been a fast runner, but if she wanted to live, she had to stay ahead of the man in black.
As she ran, she screamed like a banshee, over and over, praying someone in the gymnasium would hear her cries.
This time, she made it to the office before the assailant caught up with her again and flung himself at her, tackling her to the ground.
Ouida Mae hit the ground hard enough that the air rushed out of her lungs. Before she could scramble to her feet again, the man threw himself on top of her, pinning her to the ground. He pulled her hair, lifting her head off the floor. “You stupid bitch. Between you and the brat, you’ve caused enough trouble.
“Let go of me,” Ouida Mae said. “The sheriff is on his way.”
“The hell he is. They’re working a vehicle fire on the highway north of town. They won’t be coming this way anytime soon. It’s just me and you.”
“And me,” another voice said from the other end of the hallway close to the gym. “Let her go, and I might consider letting you live.”
“Come closer, and all I have to do is twist just to break this bitch’s neck.” As if to demonstrate his point, he pulled back harder on her hair.
Ouida Mae cried out.
Valentin’s lips formed a tight line, and his jaw hardened. “Let her go. You don’t want to add murder to your rap sheet. If you let her go, I’ll let you leave. No one knows who you are. They won’t catch you.”
“No way. I’m taking her with me as insurance.” He lurched to his feet, yanking Ouida Mae up by her hair.
Before he could get her in another headlock, Ouida Mae twisted and slammed her palm upward, hitting the man in his nose.
He screamed, released her hair and pressed his hands to his face. Ouida Mae darted away from him, heading straight for Valentin.
When the man in the black ski mask realized he’d lost his ticket out of there, he turned and ran out the front door of the school, right into a cluster of the students Valentin had just released from their after-school lesson.
Valentin and Ouida Mae ran after the man. As soon as they cleared the door, Ouida Mae yelled to the students, “Get back!”
Too late.
The assailant grabbed Nigel by the wrist and yanked the boy toward him. “Come any closer, and I’ll hurt the kid.”
Valentin and Ouida Mae stopped in their tracks.
Nigel exchanged a glance with Valentin.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ouida Mae saw Valentin give an almost imperceptible nod to the boy.
The skinny little nerd twisted, ducked beneath the man’s arm, grabbed his wrist and shoved it up between his shoulder blades.
With the man being over a foot taller and three times Nigel’s weight, it wouldn’t be long before he overpowered the kid.
Valentin and Ouida Mae rushed forward, but not before half a dozen of the lingering students reached Nigel and the assailant first. Big Boy Herschel hit the man in the side, knocking him to the ground. One of the other boys jumped on his back and picked up where Nigel left off, shoving the man’s arm up between his shoulder blades.
The man rocked back and forth in an attempt to unseat Herschel and almost succeeded.
All the boys and girls came to Herschel’s rescue and dog-piled on the man in black. He wasn’t going anywhere.
One of the students who hadn’t found a piece of the attacker to sit on stood. “I’ll be right back.” He ran back into the school.
“Do you guys want me to take over?” Valentin asked.
They replied as one, “No, sir!”
“We can hold him until the sheriff gets here,” Hershel said.
Valentin pulled his phone from his pocket, called 911 and reported the incident. “Dispatch will have Deputy Taylor call us back. In the meantime, we need to secure this guy.”
The kid who’d run back into the school reappeared, carrying several long zip ties. He handed them to Valentin. “They use these in all the cop shows. I saw them in the janitor’s storage closet one day when I was hiding from some of the bullies.”
Valentin took the zip ties from the kid and secured the attacker’s ankles first. “Okay,” he said. “One at a time.”
As the boys rolled off the man in the ski mask, Valentin bent over and grabbed the man’s free hand, relieved Herschel of the hand he had pushed up between the guy’s shoulder blades and quickly bound his wrists together.
“You can get up now, Herschel. By the way, that was a great tackle. Have you considered trying out for the football team?”
Herschel shrugged and then shook his head. “No, their heads get hit too many times. It scrambles their brains. Plus, my mom always told me the geeks will inherit the earth. I’m good with being a geek now that I know how to take care of the bullies.”
Valentin turned to Nigel and gave him a high five. “Dude, get a little meat on your bones, and you’ll make a great Navy SEAL.”
Nigel’s eyes shone. “You really think so?”
Valentin nodded. “Absolutely.” To the rest of the students, he said, “Though Nigel and Herschel got him down, you all kept him down. You couldn’t do that without excellent teamwork. I’m proud of you.”
He grabbed the man on the ground by the shoulder and jerked him up into a sitting position. “And who do we owe our excitement to today? Miz Mo, since this man has caused you the most grief, do you want to do the honors?”
Ouida Mae stepped closer to the man on the ground. She reached out and plucked the ski mask off his head. “Regis Fontenot. Aren’t you on probation? Your shenanigans will add more lines to your rap sheet and more years behind bars. You better hope Mr. Jones lives, or you can add murder to your list.” She threw the ski mask back at him. “What is it that comedian says? Can’t fix stupid.”
Valentin stared at the man. “What made you trash a classroom? You can’t possibly give a damn about whether or not Miz Mo teaches sex ed. Did someone pay you to trash her room?”
Regis gave them a stubborn, stony face.
“You might be able to get a plea bargain if you tell us who hired you. Was it Katherine Edouard?”
“Ha!” Regis laughed. “That woman is so busy trying to run the community she has no idea what her husband’s up to. She just keeps spending money like it grows on trees. She’s never stopped to ask her husband where he got it.”
Ouida Mae tilted her head as if considering the man. “But you’re smarter than her. You know where he got the money to fund his campaign, don’t you?”
Regis snorted. “Just because she has a law degree doesn’t make her smarter.”
“That’s right,” Ouida Mae said. “Booksmart isn’t the same as street smart, is it?”
“That’s right,” Regis said. “Even her husband, with his fancy degrees, didn’t read the fine print when the leader of a certain cartel offered to fund his campaign. Now, they’re calling the shots, and he has to go along with it, or they’ll leak information to the press. Not only would his campaign be over, but he’d also be spending time in the jail cell next to me.”
“What shots are the cartel calling?” Valentin asked. “I can’t believe they’re concerned about sex education being taught in the junior high.”
“They don’t give a rats ass about what’s being taught in the school,” Regis said.
“Then why did Mr. Edouard hire you to trash my classroom?” Ouida Mae asked.
“Can’t say,” Regis said.
“How did you know the sheriff’s department would be busy handling a vehicle fire north of town?” Valentin’s eyes narrowed. “Because you set the fire.”
“To keep them busy while you came back to trash my room again,” Ouida Mae crossed her arms over her chest. “It was a distraction.”
“Ding. Ding. Ding,” Regis smirked. “Give the science lady a prize.”
Valentin picked up from there. “Since the cartel is pulling Mr. Edouard’s strings, they forced him to come up with something to distract the local law enforcement from the real crime taking place. That helps clear the path for them to move through this area undetected.”
Ouida Mae’s brow twisted. “Trashing my classroom was a distraction?”
“With his wife making a big stink about sex ed in the classroom, it was easy enough to piggyback on her community activism.” Regis smirked. “It was my idea. Mr. Edouard just wanted me to deflect attention from the bayou whenever the cartel has shipments come through. Their supplier drops them off at an abandoned shack. The cartel picks it up and distributes it to their sellers on the streets of New Orleans, Atlanta and Houston. No one thinks to look in a pissant town like Bayou Mambaloa.”
A sheriff’s vehicle pulled into the parking lot. Deputy Shelby Taylor eased out from behind the wheel and hurried toward them. She shook her head when she saw Regis sitting on the ground, his ankles and wrists zip-tied. “Regis Fontenot. Figures. You never could stay out of trouble,” she said. “I hope you like prison food because you’re going to be spending a lot of time there.” She turned to Valentin and Ouida Mae. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” Valentin said.
“I was,” Regis protested. “The science teacher assaulted me. I could sue.”
“Shut up, Regis,” Shelby said over her shoulder. To Valentin and Ouida Mae, she added, “I have backup on the way to collect this loser. Thanks for detaining him.”
“Thank these students.” Valentin waved a hand toward the geeks and nerds. “They detained him. All I did was secure him with zip ties.”
Shelby cocked an eyebrow at the students. “I’m impressed. Thank you for doing my job for me.”
Valentin filled the deputy in on what Regis had revealed.
Shelby got on her radio to dispatch. “Contact the DEA. Apparently, we have a cartel moving drugs through the bayou.”
After she hooked her mic back on her web gear, the pregnant deputy pressed a hand to her back and faced Ouida Mae. “I got some bad news as I was on my way here.”
Ouida Mae pressed a hand to her chest. “Sophie?”
Shelby nodded.
“Where did they place her?” Ouida Mae demanded. “With some horrible family who won’t love and protect her like I would?”
“I’m afraid not,” Shelby said. “They didn’t even make it to New Orleans before she slipped through their hands. Apparently, they stopped at a gas station. Sophie said she needed to use the restroom. When she’d been in there quite some time, they had the station clerk unlock the door only to find that Sophie had slipped out a small window and disappeared.”
“It happened last night, and this is the first time you’ve heard that she’s missing?” Ouida Mae clapped the hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. Sophie’s out there alone and pregnant.”
“Any idea where she would go?” Shelby asked.
Ouida Mae shook her head. “Before I took her in, she spent six weeks living in an abandoned shack in the bayou. No electricity, no water and relying on her boyfriend to bring her food. She only left the abandoned shack when a boat showed up and dropped one of its passengers at the shack and left. With someone else living in her shack, she had nowhere else to go.”
Regis laughed. “Wouldn’t it be funny if it’s the same shack the cartel is using to stage the product?”
Ouida Mae’s eyes widened, and her heart sank into the pit of her belly. She turned to Valentin. “Sophie has nowhere else to go. She might try to go back to that shack and see if the man is gone. If he and his friends find her…” She touched Valentin’s arm. “We have to find her.”
“She never told us where that shack was located,” Valentin reminded her.
“Didn’t she say her boyfriend brought her food? He would know how to get there.” Ouida Mae started for Valentin’s truck. “We have to get to Chase. Now.”
Shelby called out, “Ouida Mae, I’ll call for assistance. Let law enforcement handle this. The cartel is dangerous.”
“Chase might be the only one who knows how to find Sophie,” Ouida Mae said. “We have to get to him. He could be in danger as well if he goes out there looking for her.”
Valentin caught up with Ouida Mae, unlocked the truck door and handed her up into the passenger seat. He ran around to the other side, slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you know where Chase lives?”
“In the big house in the middle of town.”
“The one that throws all the fancy parties?”
“That’s the one.”
Less than two minutes later, Valentin parked in front of the Edouards’ house. Ouida Mae was out of the truck and halfway up the front steps before he caught up with her.
She punched the doorbell and paced as she waited for someone to answer.
Katherine Edouard pulled open the door. “You! Why are you here? Did you come to gloat? I can’t believe the board sided with you. Our children aren’t ready?—”
“Shut up, Katherine,” Ouida Mae said.
“How dare you come to my house and tell me to shut up?” She started to slam the door.
Valentin stuck his foot in the door to stop her. “We need to find Chase. It truly is a matter of life and death.”
“It’s always drama with you, isn’t it, Miz Mo?”
Ouida Mae said again, “Katherine, please, for the love of God, shut up and listen.”
The woman stared at Ouida Mae, shocked that she’d dared to speak that way to her.
Valentin said, “Sophie is missing, and Chase might be the only person who would know where to find her. She’s in grave danger. We need to get to her ASAP.”
“He stopped seeing that tramp months ago. Why would my son know where to find her now?” Katherine demanded.
“Because I didn’t stop seeing her,” a voice said behind Kathrine.
She turned to face her son as he descended the staircase behind her. “But you told me you quit seeing her.”
“I lied,” Chase said. “You could never see past Sophie’s mother. But I could. She has a big heart, she’s smart and she wants to live a better life than her mother. I love Sophie. I kept seeing her all this time.”
“But she’s pregnant,” Katherine said.
Chase nodded. “With my child.”