Chapter 15 #2
Harold Goddard held up the duct tape he’d retrieved from the shopping center.
It looked unremarkable except that it was stretched slightly out of shape.
How had that happened? Had Branson or Swift done something to it?
And if so, what and how? The speculation was cut off when his cell phone rang.
He put down the tape and clicked the on button.
“You have them?”
“No,” Wayne answered.
“You followed him, but you weren’t able to get your hands on him?” Harold clarified.
“We had him cornered, but he dived into the bayou.”
“And then what?”
The man on the other end of the line hesitated, and Harold could picture the scene.
“Did you shoot him?” he asked.
“We tried to wound him, but he got away.”
“And he didn’t go back to the bed and breakfast?”
Again the man seemed reluctant to answer. Finally he said, “When we didn’t find him, we went back to the place where they were staying.”
“And?”
“There was an explosion,” Wayne said.
Harold shouted a curse into the phone. He walked across the room and snapped on a news channel. A breathless reporter was giving the details of a mysterious explosion in Houma.
“I’ll get back to you later?” Harold advised.
“You want us to stay in Houma?”
“Yes.” He clicked off and focused on the report.
It seemed that the man and woman who had rented the cottage were Craig Branson and his wife.
But he knew they’d just met each other. Could they really have gotten hitched so fast?
Probably they had only been pretending to be married when they’d rented the room.
But were they dead?
He’d keep checking to see if they surfaced somewhere. Meanwhile, he’d look around for another couple he could send into each other’s arms.
For the second time in his life, Craig Branson was completely devastated.
Sam’s death had almost killed him. He’d survived.
But now he was facing unimaginable heartbreak.
He had no idea where he was going as he put distance between himself and the terrible explosion.
He simply drove aimlessly, wanting to get away from the place where Stephanie had died.
Moisture clouded his vision, and he finally pulled over to the side of the road, thinking that he was a menace to other drivers if he couldn’t see straight.
He sat for long moments, gripping the wheel and trying to get his emotions under control. But grief rolled over him, drowned him, making him wonder if there was any use going on without Stephanie. What if he just drove his car into a bayou? There would be no one to miss him. No one to mourn him.
He’d lived his life a certain way because he’d thought he’d never find a woman he could love.
Never marry. He’d found Stephanie, and it had been wonderful, except for the serious complications.
Not just because she was supposed to marry the man responsible for his brother’s death, but because someone had tried to kidnap them.
He’d tried to find out who it was and hadn’t succeeded.
It flickered through his mind that figuring out who they were would give him a goal.
If he could pull himself together again. For the moment, he was too paralyzed with grief.
He started to swing back onto the highway, then stopped short as a car horn blared, and he realized he’d almost plowed into another vehicle.
“Sorry,” he mouthed when the other driver gave him the finger. After that, he drove slowly to the next town and found a downscale motel where he could hole up.
He debated using his credit card, then decided that if he was supposed to be dead, maybe staying dead was the best way to go, for now. He paid in cash, then pulled back the covers on the lumpy bed and threw himself down, wondering how long he was going to be there and what he was going to do next.
He let the notion of getting a gun and shooting himself swirl around in his head. That’s what you did with an animal in pain, didn’t you? It had a lot of appeal, but at the same time, he hated the idea of giving up everything he had ever worked for.
Yeah, but what was it worth now? Without Stephanie.
Jake Harper cradled his wife Rachel in his arms. An hour earlier, she’d been struck by a thunderbolt.
Not literally, but the effect was the same.
She’d been standing in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when something had made her whole body jerk.
Thank God he’d been there to catch her and take the plate out of her hand when she’d fallen.
He’d picked her up in his arms and asked her what was wrong, but she hadn’t been able to answer him, either aloud or in her mind. So he’d struggled to suppress his own fear as he cradled her in his lap and rocked her, waiting until the storm passed and she was able to function again.
Finally, she raised her head and looked around as though she didn’t recognize her surroundings—when they were in one of the apartments Jake owned in New Orleans.
Long ago, he’d gotten into the habit of moving around the city.
He had several comfortably furnished places, and he and Rachel split their time among them, including the plantation in Lafayette where Gabriella Bordeaux and Luke Buckley lived.
With funding from Jake, Gabriella had turned her family’s plantation house into a showcase restaurant called Chez Gabriella.
She and Luke lived upstairs in the plantation house, and Rachel and Jake had one of the cottages on the property, where they stayed part of the week.
All four of them were children from the Solomon Clinic.
And all four of them often joined forces to practice their psychic powers together.
Jake stroked Rachel’s hair. “What happened?” he asked.
“There was an explosion, near Houma. Turn on the television set.”
Jake picked up the remote from the end table and clicked on a news channel. Instantly, they were in the middle of a breathless report from the affiliate in Houma.
“It is believed that Mr. and Mrs. Craig Branson were killed in the explosion that destroyed a cottage at the Morning Glory B and B,” the reporter was saying. “Authorities are still not sure what caused the explosion.”
“A bomb,” Rachel whispered.
Jake shuddered. “And the couple are dead?”
Rachel closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her forehead. “No.”
He stared at her. “What happened?”
She dragged in a breath and let it out. “They escaped. Craig was out trying to get some information about the Solomon Clinic. Stephanie . . .”
“Their names are Craig and Stephanie?”
“Craig Branson and Stephanie Swift.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t she have a dress shop on Royal Street?”
“Yes.”
“And . . . isn’t she supposed to marry a nasty piece of work named John Reynard?”
Rachel nodded. “Yes. Only that was her father’s idea.
Then she met Craig, and she knew she couldn’t marry Reynard.
” Rachel gripped her husband’s hand. “Reynard found out where she and Craig were staying. He found a way to get Craig out of the house. He kidnapped Stephanie and had his men set the cottage to explode when Craig came home. Only someone else set off the bomb.”
“And you know all this—how?” Jake asked in a rough voice.
“It . . . came to me.” She looked at her husband. “Stephanie and Craig each think the other is dead. Both are devastated. Think about how you’d feel if you thought I was . . . gone.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m trying to make you understand why this is so urgent.”
Jake’s chest tightened as he imagined his own grief if he somehow lost Rachel.
He knew she followed his thoughts and emotions; knew from the way she wrapped her arms around him and from her own churning mind that she was imagining the same terrible situation—in reverse.
We can’t leave them like that, she silently whispered.
We agreed that contacting them could be dangerous, Jake argued.
Are you saying you can abandon them in so much pain?
Jake let the question sink in. No. What do you want to do?
They’re far apart now. I think I can boost the signal between them. Let them talk to each other.
She turned to her husband. But I can’t do it alone. Will you help me?
He hesitated, caught by the urgency of her request and the need to keep both of them safe. Not just themselves, but Gabriella and Luke, too.
They’d made a commitment to the other couple; now Rachel was saying they should act on their own.
Can’t we wait?
They might go mad. Or kill themselves if we just wait.