Blown Away (24 page)

“Thank you for making sure they were found so soon.”

He nodded. “It was…it was—” A sob came up his throat. “Awful. I’m so sorry about them.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Cari said swiftly. “The tornado killed them.”

Mike had managed to move slightly until he was standing beside Cari with his hand on the small of her back. It was the only solace he could offer. One wrong move could set Morgan off.

“Yes, the tornado…” Lance said, and then his voice trailed off as his gaze slid to Cari’s face. “Do you ever wonder why things happen the way they do?”

She nodded.

“Me too,” Lance said. “You know, I miss my parents…a lot. I love Morgan’s Reach, probably more than anything else on earth, but I didn’t know how to take good care of her.”

“I know,” Cari said. “I’m so sorry.”

Lance shuddered. “Oh God, Cari. I fucked up big-time.”

“I know,” Cari said, then took a deep breath. She
had to ask. She had to know. “Why, Lance? Why did you kill that man? His death wouldn’t have changed anything that was happening.”

Lance shrugged, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. It just happened. He pulled foreclosure papers out of his briefcase, and I just…” He sighed. “I just went blank. By the time I came to my senses, he was dead.” Then his gaze narrowed. “If only you hadn’t been there…in that place and in that moment.” His eyes filled with anguish. “Why, Cari? Why were you there?”

“I was following the blood drops. I thought someone was hurt.”

Lance rolled his eyes, then waved the gun in the air. “And you…ever the do-gooder, had to follow them, didn’t you? Did it ever occur to you it could have been an injured animal? That you might have been putting your life in danger?”

“Yes.”

Lance swayed on his feet, then managed a wry smile. “You haven’t changed a bit from the kid you used to be.”

“You have,” Cari said.

Mike gasped, then held his breath. Cari wasn’t pulling any punches, and he could tell Lance didn’t like that.

“Shut your mouth,” Lance said, and pointed the gun straight at her face.

Cari’s gut knotted, but as long as she could keep him talking, he wasn’t shooting.

“I know you were the first on the scene at my house after the storm.”

Lance frowned. “We just covered that. So what?”

“Why did you really come?” she asked.

Lance’s lips thinned as a muscle jerked at the side of his jaw.

“Just leave it alone, Carolina,” he snapped.

“If you’d found me that day…injured but alive. What would you have done?”

He jerked as if she’d just slapped him. It shouldn’t have been a shock. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t asked himself all the way there that day. But the need for a definitive answer had been taken away when he’d found everyone dead, letting him keep a measure of his self-image intact. Now she’d breeched that tenuous barrier between himself and insanity.

“Never mind,” Cari said. “You don’t have to say it. I can see it in your eyes.”

“I told you to shut up!” Lance yelled, and waved the gun at her again.

Mike grabbed Cari’s elbow and gave it a squeeze in warning.

She felt his concern, but she knew something about Lance that Mike didn’t. Lance didn’t have it in him to be a cold-blooded killer. He’d killed, but it had been without premeditation. What was happening to him now had to be his worst nightmare. She wanted to
weep for what she was witnessing. She’d never seen a human being self-destruct so visibly. That she’d known him intimately made it all the more painful. But if she was going to die, she deserved to know.

“If Mom and Dad had been alive, and you knew for a fact that I’d already told them what I’d seen, would you have killed them, too?”

Lance choked on a sob, then fired the gun into the air.

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Just shut the fuck up!”

Mike grabbed Cari and spun her around, then threw her to the ground and covered her with his body just as the sheriff and his deputies came rushing out of the cave.

Lance took one look at the police rushing out, then back at Cari, sheltered beneath Mike Boudreaux’s body. She had been his first love. Always. And he’d thrown her away as casually as he might toss a paper cup in the trash. It had taken years for him to realize that just like there was only one Morgan’s Reach, there was also only one Carolina North.

Mike held his breath, waiting for the shot.

Hershel Porter was drawing his gun as Lance shifted his aim.

“No, Lance, no!” Hershel shouted.

A shot rang out.

Mike flinched as Cari screamed.

“Son of a bitch,” he heard someone say, then lifted himself off Cari far enough to look up. His stomach
heaved. He cursed softly beneath his breath, then quickly turned away.

“What?” Cari asked, as she struggled to get free.

“No,
cher
, no. Don’t look,” Mike said, as he helped her to her feet.

“What happened?” Cari cried.

“He’s gone,” Mike said.

Cari pushed him aside in disbelief.

Lance was on his back, the gun still in his right hand, a gaping hole on the same side of his face. But she was so deeply in shock that the emotional impact of what she was seeing wasn’t sinking in. How had the sheriff shot him at that angle when he had been on the other side of the clearing? Then the truth registered, and the ground seemed to shift beneath her feet.

Hershel hadn’t shot Lance Morgan. Lance had pulled the trigger on himself.

She didn’t even notice when she started to scream. She was coming apart from the inside out, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. One minute the sky was above her, the next, everything went black.

Mike’s arms were already around her. He caught her before she fell.

Hershel came forward, his gun still in his hand.

“There was nothing I could do to stop him,” he mumbled, still rattled that he’d watched a man he’d known so well put a gun to his head and pull the
trigger. He swiped a shaky hand across his face, then glanced at Cari. “Is she hurt?”

“Not by a bullet,” Mike said, as he held her close.

Hershel nodded, then turned to the deputies. “Lee, radio the office. Tell Vera to call the coroner, then tell her how to get here.”

Lee looked rattled. “Chief, we’ve wound around so many times, I don’t reckon I know exactly where here is.”

“I do,” Aaron offered. “I’ll help.”

The two men walked away as Hershel glanced toward Lance’s body, then back at Mike. “This is gonna be real rough for Joe Morgan to hear. I’d rather do anything than have to call him with this news.”

Mike didn’t have any answers for the harried officer. He was too focused on getting Cari away from the scene. Quickly he carried her to the other side of the clearing, then eased himself down onto a stump, still holding her cradled against his chest.

Hershel followed. “Want me to call an ambulance for her? Not sure how close they can get, but…”

Mike looked down. Her cheek was streaked with dirt and tears, and there were still fading bruises beneath her skin. She’d been through so damn much. But he kept thinking of how determined she’d been, how strong in standing up to Lance, and shook his head. “Medicine can’t fix what’s wrong with her. Just let me know when it’s okay for us to go. I want to get her back to Baton Rouge as soon as possible.”

At that moment, Cari moaned.

Mike’s eyes narrowed anxiously. She was coming to, but in what condition?

Cari opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Mike. Her Mike. The big man with the tender touch. All she wanted was to go home. Then it hit her.

There was no home.

But there was Mike.

And, with the grace of God, they had a lifetime ahead of them to make a home together.

Mike’s face was a blur. Her voice was shaking. “Away…take me away from here. Please.”

“Yes,
cher
…I will. You did a good job today, but the job is over. We’re going home.”

Hershel patted her arm. “This paperwork is on me, girl. Like the man said…you did a good thing today, but now it’s time for me to do my job. You two go on. If I need something, I know how to get in touch. Okay?”

“Very okay,” Cari said, then took Mike by the hand as they walked away. Moments later, they disappeared into the trees and never looked back.

There wasn’t much for Hershel to do now except wait for the coroner. He would call Joe Morgan later. Right now, there was another call that had to take precedence. He reached for his cell phone and put in a call to the Chicago P.D., then asked for Detective Sandy Smith. As soon as he heard her voice, he started talking.

“I got some news for you. It’s not good, but it’s what you needed to hear. We found Austin Ball’s body. Decomp is already pretty bad due to the heat and humidity here, but his identification was still in his pocket, and the foreclosure papers he’d come to serve were underneath him, along with a baseball bat, which we’re assuming was the murder weapon.”

“Oh Lord,” Sandy said. “What about the perp?”

“He’s dead. Suicide.”

Sandy sighed. “You tell your witness for me that her help was appreciated.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hershel said. “And you tell your widow for me how sorry we are for her loss.”

“Yes. I will,” Sandy said. “Send me copies of all your reports and…as bad as the news was, thanks for calling.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hershel said, and hung up.

He glanced at his watch. Still time enough to get back into Bordelaise and see what that DEA crew was up to. See if they’d come up with any fresh leads on the missing prisoners. After that, he needed to stop by Katie Earle’s. Word was her husband, J.R., was due to arrive at any time. Surely to God the man would have news about their missing son, and he would be able to slot in a few more pieces to the puzzles remaining in Bordelaise before he put his head on a pillow tonight.

It was growing dark in Chicago. Like Hershel, Sandy Smith had one last call to make before her day
was over. She punched in the number of Marcey Ball’s home, and waited for someone to pick up. The news she had to give wouldn’t be good, but it would be closure, which, in Missing Persons, was more than she usually had to offer.

Suddenly she heard the soft, trembling voice of Marcey Ball answer the call.

“Mrs. Ball. This is Detective Smith. We have news.”

Six months later

C
ari leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief. The complete manuscript of her latest work—a book she was going to call
Blown Away
—was in the computer. She’d just typed
The End
, which were usually her favorite words. This time, though, the story was different. This was the first time she’d written something that wasn’t fiction. The story of the murder, of living through a tornado, then being a witness to her own funeral and to the suicide of a lifelong friend, had been the most difficult thing she’d ever had to write. But it was a story that had to be told.

The news of her resurrection and the reason behind it had swept the publishing world, even the national news. Once the wire services had picked up on it, there had been no stopping the onslaught of
coverage. In the midst of correcting court records, moving Susan’s body to the Blackwell family mausoleum, and the final cleanup of her family’s land, Cari’s life had become public property.

For the first two months after the truth was revealed, everything Carolina North did was considered newsworthy, right down to the enormous engagement ring that appeared on her finger about a month after the story hit the headlines. The fact that Fortune 500 business magnate Michael Boudreaux was finally taking a wife—a wife who happened to be famous mystery writer Carolina North—just added to the story’s romance and mystique.

Their engagement had been public, but their wedding had not been. One weekend they’d hosted a dinner party for their closest friends, but instead of serving dessert after the meal, a priest had appeared and performed an impromptu wedding for Cari and Mike.

It was not lost upon the guests that neither bride nor groom had one living family member to stand up with them. But it was also noted, that neither one had let that ruin the moment. When the news was announced at the table, and the priest moved into place, the room became a hive of excitement. Chairs were pushed back. Last sips of wine were abandoned as Cari rose from her chair and took Mike’s hand.

It had been little Daniel who’d put everything in perspective when he’d appeared in the doorway holding a small pillow with the wedding rings attached.

“I gots da wings!” he’d crowed.

“And I gots the girl,” Mike echoed.

It had been Cari’s laughter they remembered afterward, along with the expression on Mike’s face when Cari had said the words “I do.”

Their honeymoon had been brief—a four-day trip to Honolulu, with the promise of a longer honeymoon in Paris when Cari finished the book she was writing.

And, in an odd way, the retelling of her story had been healing in a way she had not expected. It had given her the chance to recall the precious memories of her youth and the wonderful life she’d lived in Bordelaise. It had made the way it all ended a little easier to bear. And, as Mike often reminded her, good memories were best when in constant use.

But now the manuscript was done. It was time to send it off.

Cari opened a new e-mail, sent a quick note to her editor, copied the message to her agent and attached the finished manuscript to the message.

It was out of her hands.

Oh, there would be the line edits and copy edits, and the final draft to go through later, but that was down the road. All she wanted to do now was sleep.

Mike was due home from Los Angeles tonight. She had a bottle of champagne cooling, and Songee had made his favorite dessert, bread pudding with raisins and Bourbon sauce.

They would share the bubbly and the dessert, and make sweet, sweet love in the night.

And then would come Paris and the rest of their lives.

It was a good beginning.