Page 27 of Cursed (Decorah Security 2.0, #14)
Could she trust the housekeeper? Morgan wasn’t absolutely sure. Watching the woman carefully, she said, “Apparently, there’s a large deposit of oil on the Belle Vista property.”
Janet looked startled.
“Do you think that’s why someone in town wants Andre out of here?”
“Andre can’t leave,” Janet whispered. “He … he can’t spend the night away from here.”
“Right. The curse!” Morgan swore. All roads led back to the curse. “You think the curse got him arrested?”
“Yes,” Janet answered.
“We’ll break it,” Morgan snapped.
Janet looked at her with such undisguised hope in her eyes that Morgan had to turn away.
In the back of the police car, Andre silently stared at the scenery passing outside the window.
This was the familiar landscape of his life, but he saw it only in a blur of green and brown.
Then a heron took flight from the bank of a shallow pond and flapped across the marsh, soaring away from the speeding car.
Andre watched it disappear into a clump of marsh grass. It was free. He was in the back of a police car, speeding toward his doom. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Or was there?
Despite what the town thought of him, he’d never broken the law. Strange as it seemed, he’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. But now he began making desperate plans.
His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would break through the wall of his chest. All he knew was that he couldn’t let them lock him up. And he could think of only one alternative. A risky alternative.
In the next few minutes, he could end up dead. And if he did, maybe that was for the best.
Resolve firmed his jaw. No, not the best. If he died—then whoever had framed him for the murders in the swamp would win. And he couldn’t bear that thought. He had to take a chance on getting away.
He scanned the flat marshes on either side of the road.
He knew this patch of Louisiana as well as he knew the contours of his own body.
He knew where there was dry land. Knew where a man might suddenly break through the surface of what seemed like solid ground into thick muck. Knew where trails led into the bayou.
The car slowed as the sheriff came to the highway leading into town. Andre tensed. It was now or never.
He glanced at the bristled hairs on the back of the sheriff’s neck, thinking that was part of why he’d called the guy Old Razorback.
Putting that stray thought out of his mind, Andre made a strangled exclamation and fell sideways, drumming his feet against the seat in front of him as he went down so that the sheriff wouldn’t miss the performance.
Jarvis hit the brake, then glanced around. “What’s wrong?”
Andre answered with a gurgling sound in his throat. “Can’t breathe .... need …” He stopped talking as though his breath had suddenly been cut off—while he thrashed around on the seat.
Alarm colored the sheriff’s voice. “Gascon?”
Andre moaned. The grillwork obscured his line of sight, but he could feel the man’s gaze on him, evaluating the situation.
He lay on the seat, eyes slitted, pretending to gasp for breath, wondering on the level of gullibility he could count on from a small-town sheriff.
Hopefully, the handcuffs gave him that extra edge.
Or maybe this wouldn’t work at all. Maybe Jarvis would simply keep driving into town and tell the nice folks in St. Germaine that they’d gotten rid of a nasty problem, because it looked like the prisoner had died in the back of the patrol car. What a pity.
Andre felt every cell in his body sizzle as Jarvis pulled to the side of the road. When he jumped out, Andre slowly released the breath he’d been holding.
It was a struggle to lie there, limp and still as Jarvis flung the back door open.
When the sheriff leaned into the back seat, Andre jackknifed his legs, striking the lawman square in the stomach. Jarvis flew backwards, coming down on his butt on the muddy shoulder.
Andre sprang out of the cruiser, ducking low as he jumped into the ditch. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he almost lost his balance. But he righted himself, scrambled up the sides of the ditch and started running.
Behind him, he could hear scuffling noises. And worse, he saw a pickup truck pulling to a stop.
Merde ! The Brevard brothers were in back of the patrol car.
Andre didn’t wait to find out what was happening behind him. But he could hear feet pounding on the blacktop.
“Stop or I’ll shoot.”
Andre kept running. Into the tangle of bayou country that he had known all his life. He swerved to the right to avoid a patch of marshy ground where the mud would slow him down.
Just as he changed directions, the unmistakable whistle of a bullet went flying over his head.
“Stop, damn you,” Jarvis shouted. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
Another voice drowned out the sheriff. “Stop, you bastard.” That was one of the Brevards. Andre didn’t know which one, and he didn’t care.
He had no choice about what he was doing. No choice at all. He kept going, almost falling as he crossed a patch of slick ground, then righting himself as he made for the safety of the low branches of a small holly tree.
The first bullet had been a warning. The next one was meant to bring down the fugitive.
It whistled past his shoulder and plowed into a nearby tree trunk.
But Andre kept going, running awkwardly with his hands behind his back, knowing that no man would dare follow him into the snake and alligator infested swamp.
He stumbled, then got his balance and kept going, splashing through a trough of water and almost losing his balance. The vegetation closed around him, and he breathed out a sigh. He was safe—for the moment.
Safe from being locked in a cell. Because there was no way he could let the sheriff lock him in a cell.
But he might as well have declared his guilt, as far as the sheriff was concerned.
And his hands were still cuffed. What the hell was he going to do about that, out in the wilderness where a man needed a fighting chance against the dangers lurking on all sides?