Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
I’m not sure who was more surprised, but I’m going with me.
I sprang back from the giant wall of fur as if I’d hit a trampoline and vaulted into a tree faster than you could say Yogi.
The bear, who’d been standing on his hind legs and apparently scratching his back on a tree, stared at me, eyes wide, then whirled around faster than I figured anything of that size could manage and ran off through the brush.
I looked down and realized that the bear had probably saved my life. The tree he was scratching on was perched on the edge of a bank with a twenty-foot drop. Directly below it were cypress roots pointing up like giant stakes.
A boat motor fired up in the distance and I realized I’d miscalculated.
There was a chance that the shooter and the boat operator were two completely different people, but I wasn’t betting on it.
I jumped out of the tree I was in and grabbed on to the bear’s tree, then leaned as far as I could over the water.
Downstream, I saw someone in a black hoodie push a flat-bottom aluminum boat away from a dock that by my calculation was directly behind the office.
Since it was ninety degrees and a thousand percent humidity, I would bet my last bullet that was the shooter.
And there was absolutely no way I could get to the dock before they got away, nor could I make a leap from the embankment into the water without impaling myself on the cypress knees.
I lifted my nine, figuring I could try to shoot out the engine when they passed, when I saw the rope swing dangling off the embankment just a bit down from me.
Without bothering with a risk assessment, I ran down the embankment as the boat drew nearer and leaped onto the rope like Tarzan. I swung out over the bayou and when the boat was almost below me, I let go and dropped.
Bull’s-eye!
In a perfectly executed Jackie Chan move, I landed right in the bow of the boat with both feet firmly planted and facing the startled driver, whose hoodie had blown back.
Kim!
She moved for her pocket and I launched, tackling her out of the boat and into the bayou. When we hit the water, I wrapped the hoodie around my hand and yanked her up to the surface when she emerged sputtering.
“Put your hands up or I drown you right here.”
I heard cheering down the bank and saw Ida Belle and Gertie standing on the dock.
I glanced behind me as I treaded water and saw the boat was only a couple feet away.
I tucked one arm under Kim and pulled her toward the boat.
When I reached it, I grabbed a cleat and spun her around, slamming her into the side of the boat.
“Grab on, and so help me God, if you reach below the water for that gun, I will shoot you.”
She burst into tears and started blubbering. “I dropped the gun when you knocked me over. I swear. I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
“I just wanted to scare you so I could get away.”
“And you thought shooting at a CIA assassin was the way to do that?”
Her eyes widened and she started shaking her head. “I didn’t know. I swear. I just thought you were a regular detective. Oh my God. Please don’t kill me. I swear I wasn’t trying to kill you. I’m just not a good shot. I only learned how to shoot yesterday. Oh my God.”
I shook my head and pulled myself over the side and into the boat, then reached down and pulled her up and over, dropping her into the bottom. She’d gone completely limp and was now collapsed in a dripping heap, sobbing like a baby.
The boat was still running, so I grabbed the throttle and gave it some gas, turning it around. When we got to the dock, Ida Belle and Gertie stared down at the crying lump in the bottom of the boat.
“Who is it?” Gertie asked.
I reached down and pulled her up.
“Zion’s latest victim.”
With the help of Ida Belle and Gertie, I pushed Kim onto the dock where she slumped like a corpse, leaning against a piling.
“Search her,” I directed. “I want to make sure she doesn’t still have that gun.”
I started my search in the boat, lifting seats and digging in cubbies to try to find something—anything—that indicated why Kim had broken into Eleanor’s cabin.
“Well?” I asked when I came up with nothing.
Ida Belle and Gertie both shook their heads.
“Nothing on her,” Ida Belle said. “And she’s zoned out like she’s drugged.”
“Maybe she’s in shock,” Gertie said.
“I’m the one who got shot at,” I pointed out.
“But you’re used to it.”
It took both Ida Belle and me to carry/drag Kim up the trail toward the office. We ran into Mildred halfway there, struggling down the path with a cane.
“I called the police when I heard gunfire,” she said. “Then I saw Ida Belle and Gertie go running by and I couldn’t stand waiting any longer. I had to see if you were all right.”
“We’re fine,” I said. “And we caught your intruder.”
Mildred peered at Kim, who had her head dropped so low she couldn’t see her face, but she must have recognized enough to place her because her expression shifted from fear to shock.
“Kim? What on earth?”
Kim didn’t even acknowledge she had spoken, just kept looking down, half standing there.
“Let’s get her inside and secured until the cops get here,” I said. “I’m sure you have some rope or cord in that supply room.”
“I have handcuffs in my purse,” Gertie said.
“Do you have the key?” I asked.
“Hmmmm.”
Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “Handcuff her to herself and tie her to something heavy. Let the cops figure it out.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We got her inside the office and I pushed her onto a metal folding chair Ida Belle had grabbed from the janitor’s closet.
No sense getting the good furniture wet.
We were both already dripping on the rug.
I snapped Gertie’s handcuffs on her and tied a rope from the handcuffs around a post on the front desk, but I had serious doubts she was going anywhere.
Her shoulders were slumped and her expression vacant.
Whatever rush had prompted Kim to take the actions she had was completely drained from her system now.
“What were you doing in Eleanor’s cabin?” I asked.
She didn’t even flinch. Just continued to stare down at the floor.
“Did you use your drugs on Eleanor?”
I saw her jaw flex so I’d clearly struck a nerve, but that could have meant she had provided the drugs or had no idea that Zion had lifted the drugs from her and used them on Eleanor.
I had a feeling as soon as Carter announced that fingerprint on the drug bottle was a match for Kim, she might be more cooperative.
And I was more certain than ever that match was forthcoming.
“Phenobarbital—that’s what was found in Eleanor’s system,” I continued to push. “That’s what your mother took for her epilepsy. What you lifted to use for sleeping when your doctor wouldn’t refill your Ambien.”
She stiffened slightly and I knew I was right.
“You had to know a forensic team had already combed Eleanor’s cabin, so why were you in there? What were you looking for?”
Nothing.
“Kim, I don’t understand why you would cover for someone like Zion.
Do you realize how much trouble you’re in?
A woman is dead. A woman you worked for.
The cops can make a case for the supplier of the drugs to be contributory in her death.
And Zion is not the person you think he is.
He’s a con artist and you were his next target. ”
My phone rang and I saw Cassidy’s number in the display.
“I have to take this,” I said and jumped up and headed outside.
“I’m so sorry, Fortune,” she said when I answered. “But that fool Calahan went AWOL.”
“What? He left the hospital?”
“The front desk nurse said she saw him get into an Uber. The tech was coming in to do the colonoscopy and Calahan was no longer in the procedure room.”
“What time was this?”
“About an hour ago. I’m so sorry I didn’t notify you sooner, but I was asleep and didn’t hear my phone.”
“No apologies necessary. It was a long shot anyway and I appreciate the help. Calahan is a loose cannon, so there was no predicting how this would turn out.”
“Well, I’m not letting it drop. My next call is to his commanding officer. He’s supposed to be the person investigating rule-breakers, so he should be holding himself to a higher standard.”
“And yet they rarely do.”
“Harrison and Carter do, and that’s what has me so peeved. Anyway, sorry I couldn’t buy you more than the morning.”
She disconnected just as Carter’s truck pulled up in front of the office. I let out a breath of relief when I saw he was alone. He jumped out and hurried over when he caught sight of me.
“What happened? Was anyone hit?”
“No. But not from lack of trying.”
His eyes widened. “You took a shot at someone?”
“You need more coffee. If I’d fired, someone would have been hit.”
He shook his head. “Right. Sorry. So what’s going on?”
As we walked inside, I told him about the motion sensor and Mildred’s phone call and our trip here to ensure the cabins were secure.
I left out the part where I’d gone into the cabin and instead, told him I’d walked around to the back to see if it was secure when Kim fired the shot.
If she wanted to correct my statement, then she’d have to talk.
At that point it would be her word against mine, and I was betting on mine being the one believed.
At least by a jury. Carter knew good and well I’d gone in but no way he was letting that cat out of the bag.
He stepped inside and gave everyone a nod before going to stand in front of Kim. She never even acknowledged he’d walked inside.
“Ms. Barnes,” he said. “Why did you trespass onto a crime scene?”
No answer.
“She’s refusing to talk,” Gertie said.
“Shock?” he asked.
Ida Belle shook her head. “Maybe at first, but now it’s deliberate.”