Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection Read Free

about the kidnapping, which had probably happened just prior to me leaving New Orleans. But even if I’d known about it, I wouldn’t have put those events together with Chauvin and Harold and Clara. “They came here,” Harold said.
    “We were checking in two fishermen,” Clara said, standing, holding one hand out to the side, indicating that I should join Harold in the sitting area. She moved to the sink, where she washed her hands, saying, “John-Roy Wayne busted in the door.”
    “I was in back”—Harold thumbed at a doorless opening in the shadows of a hallway—“getting extra pillows and blankets. I heard Clara scream. Not a scream,” he corrected. “More a startled, scared yelp.”
    “The man had a gun. He wanted money,” Clara said. I could hear the underlying fear in her voice, and smell the fear-stink from her pores. She had been terrified. Still was, though her hands, drying on a towel, were steady and sure. “And he wanted to know where you were.”
    “Me?” I had never even heard of John-Roy Wayne.
    “Yeah, you,” Harold said. “He said, ‘Where’s the Cherokee bitch?’” He looked at his wife. “Sorry for the profanity, honey. Anyways, I grabbed my gun and came out here. Moved so fast that I hit the doorway.” Harold held up his right arm to reveal a bandage on the back, just below the elbow. “That’s my blood all over. Took us a while to get it to stop bleeding. The doc at the emergency room said I hit a small artery. At the time, I didn’t even notice. Anyways, Clara, she’s a smart one. She hit the deck when I came charging out.
Everyone
hit the floor, and I fired at John-Roy. He ran. My rounds hit the door, but I think I missed John-Roy. Anyways, he took off with wheels screeching.”
    “In a stolen car.” Clara brought me a glass of iced tea with a wedge of lemon and indicated I should take a seat on the love seat, across from Harold, in the tiny sitting area, and I centered the cell on the table between us. It was all very domestic, considering the circumstances. I took the tea, sat, and sipped. Clara said, “The sheriff thinks he probably stole an airboat off the wharf a mile or so north. One’s been reported missing and the stolen car was found there.”
    Over the cell, Rick said, “CSI is on-site. There’s evidence the women were in the car.”
    I didn’t want to ask what kind of evidence. I had a bad feeling about what they were going through. A real bad feeling.
    “Anyways,” Harold said, which he said a lot, “the fishermen bailed. Haven’t seen them since. But their room is ready anytime they want to come back. Extra pillows and blankets waiting.” From the satisfied way he smiled, I assumed that the men had already paid for the room. Whether they used it or not was up to them.
    “The police think he’ll head north along the waterways.” Clara handed me a linen tea napkin, like a cocktail napkin but classier. “They think he’ll likely end up back in Alexandria.”
    Rick said, “I’d agree, except for the tiny mention of a Cherokee female. I did some checking. This hasn’t been released to the press, but the female werewolf you killed, Jane, was the prisoner’s little sister, Victoria Wayne.”
    My heart fell. I had already begun to consider that, somehow, the crimes were related to me. I’d just gotten the whys of it all backward. Of course,
I
hadn’t killed the were-bitch, but I was the visible face of Yellowrock Securities. YS’s previous hunt for the “wild dogs” in the area had hit the news about three days after we left Chauvin. My photo, taken directly from the pages of YellowrockSecurities.com, had stared back at me for all of fifteen seconds on the news that night. No one had mentioned the presence of Rick and PsyLED, or the Younger brothers. Just me and the fact that I had stayed in the Sandlapper. Apparently I looked good on the small screen. My partners had made fun of me for being a movie star for days. I had figured that was the