Читать книгу Security Breach - Mallory Kane - Страница 8
ОглавлениеTristan woke up feeling relaxed. The early-morning sun shone across his bed, warming his legs. He took in a deep breath, scented with gardenias. Sandy. She’d glowed the last time he’d seen her, just as a pregnant woman should.
As he smiled sleepily and turned toward her, searing pain tore through his calf, igniting painful memories.
He wasn’t in his bed with his wife beside him. He was on a cot in his old Cajun friend Boudreau’s cabin, where he’d been since Boudreau saved his life.
A memory of dark water and bright shark’s teeth hit his brain. His muscles tensed and the hot pain in his calf, where muscle had been ripped away by thick, sharp teeth, seized him again.
Clenching his jaw and groaning quietly, he consciously relaxed his leg. He’d learned the hard way that if he could avoid tightening the tendons and whatever muscles were left on that side, it didn’t hurt quite so bad.
The pain finally faded, but it was no relief. All he felt was a gaping emptiness inside. He was supposed to be dead. Was dead, as far as his hometown, Bonne Chance, Louisiana, and his family knew.
He couldn’t have notified his family if he’d wanted to. According to Boudreau, he’d spent nearly two weeks unconscious, then when he finally woke up, he was too weak to stand and walk.
Since then, he’d forced himself to walk every day, pushing through the awful pain. He couldn’t imagine how his mangled leg would ever work right, but if determination had anything to do with it, he would be successful.
Every morning, he sent up a prayer of thanks to God for letting him live. He’d been granted quite a few miracles in the past two months, and that one was the greatest.
He needed another miracle, though. He needed to walk across the dock from Boudreau’s cabin to his family home. The miracle he envisioned was that once he got to the house, Sandy would be there waiting for him, beautiful and happy because he was alive.
He’d run to her without limping or falling and take her in his arms, feeling the swell of her tummy between them. She would take his hand and place it in just the right spot to feel their baby kick.
But Sandy wasn’t there. She was in Baton Rouge with his mother, thank God.
Thank God for several reasons. First, while seeing her might be his fondest dream, that wasn’t his primary motivation to recover as fast as he could. He had to find and bring to justice the man who’d ordered him killed.
And to do that, he needed to retrieve a vital piece of evidence—at least, he hoped it would be vital. But he had to get his hands on it and it was in the house.
As much as he longed for Sandy, he prayed she wouldn’t come back to Bonne Chance. Not until he’d tracked down the person who had tried to kill him and wanted him dead.
While he’d been daydreaming about Sandy and their baby, the sun had risen above the window casing. From the floor, he picked up the bumpy cypress walking stick Boudreau had whittled for him,
He took a deep, fortifying breath, then slowly sat up and swung his feet off the bed to the floor. Putting on his shoes was a painful chore, but not as painful as standing.
He used the stick to lever himself upright. As he balanced, putting weight on his right leg, he grimaced in anticipation.
And there it was. The pain. He cringed and tightened his grip on the walking stick. Outside, the morning sun shone through leaves and sent dappled shadows dancing across the ground.
Tristan lifted his face and let the energizing sun’s heat soak through him, trying to keep his mind clear and open, trying to be glad he was alive.
But as hard as he tried to stay in the warm, bright present, the nightmare of his struggle with death clutched at him. He couldn’t shake the memory of plunging into the dark, churning water off the oil rig.
He relived each terrifying moment, as dark, chill salt water seeped in through his mouth and nose and the shock of cold on his skin paralyzed his muscles.
He’d felt but hadn’t reacted to the bumps and nibbles and flesh-ripping bites of the sharks that circled him until he’d opened his eyes and saw blood everywhere. His blood. It had swirled and wafted past him like ink dripped in water, darker than the brownish water of the Gulf.
Tristan gagged and coughed reflexively, and greedily sucked in fresh air until the horrible memories began to fade. He was beginning to appreciate the small things in life, like breathing. A wry smile touched his lips for a second as he limped over to a rough-hewn bench Boudreau had built under a pecan tree.
He didn’t sit, because then he’d have to stand up again. Instead, he propped the walking stick against the bench and watched the morning come alive. Birds circled the yard, stopping to peck for seeds and nuts and insects.
Boudreau had a goat tethered to a tree with a generous amount of line so it could wander almost uninhibited. A vague memory of cool milk sliding down his throat took away the remembered burn of salt water.
As the quiet of dawn turned into the hustle and bustle of daytime in the bayou, Tristan made a decision. There was no more time for rest and recuperation. He had to solve the mystery of his near murder, and there was no better time than now. He would walk a mile today, all the way down to the dock and back. He was ready to walk that far. He had to be.
When Boudreau appeared, carrying a bucketful of water from a hidden artesian spring, Tristan told him his plan.
“What for you thinking about going down there?” Boudreau shook a finger at him. “You ain’t got the stamina yet, you. You want somewhere to go? Strip the sheets off that cot and take them down to the spring and wash them. Use that Ivory soap. It don’t hurt the water too much.” He stalked past Tristan into the house and within a moment came back out, carrying the bucket, now empty.
“Haul up a bucketful of water when you’re done washing. See how that goes, then we’ll talk about how far you think you can walk.”
“Boudreau,” Tristan said. “You saved my life. If you hadn’t been out fishing that morning and stopped the bleeding in my leg, I wouldn’t be alive now. I owe you too much and respect you too much to argue with you, but I can’t lie in bed any longer. I’ve got to strengthen this leg as much as I can, although I know it’s never going to be as good as it was.” He sighed. “There’s enough I won’t be able to do. I don’t want it to wither down to complete uselessness.”
“Wither? Son, ain’t no use making up stories about what ain’t happened yet. The future gonna happen, yeah, but its story ain’t been writ yet. You start pushing yourself too much, you’ll undo the good you’ve done and, before you know it, you’ll accidently throw yourself into that future of your own making. See?”
“So what should I picture, rather than the truth that without most of the muscle in my calf, I’ll never do better than a slow and painful limp for the rest of my life?” he asked bitterly.
Boudreau studied him for a moment. “How ’bout you picture that pretty little wife of yours back home and mourning for you. See if that’s a better motivation.”
“What? Sandy’s back? Here?” Shocked, he glanced in the direction of the house. Then one of the many things Boudreau had told him during the past few weeks came into his mind.
He recalled his friend telling him that Murray Cho had gotten into the house without setting off the alarm and had come out a few moments later with what looked like Sandy’s laptop computer.
Tristan had been surprised—he’d never imagined Murray Cho as a thief.
“She can’t be back,” he cried. “Murray could come back. He thinks she’s gone, and if she surprises him—”
“There you go again, making a surefire mountain out of a piece of ground where there might be a molehill one day. Slow down, son. Let things happen as they will. Just be ready when they do.” Boudreau assessed him. “Meanwhile, how come you think she’s not safe? You left her alone when you worked on the rigs.”
He thought of Sandy, waiting for him week after week, never having a full-time husband, and he never having a full-time wife. Now she was less than a mile away.
He wanted to run to her and grab her up and kiss her until they both were panting with desire. He wanted to see how much her tiny baby bump had grown. And he wanted to put his hands on it and feel the child they had created, the child he already thought of as his son.
But he was afraid. Not only did he not want to show his face, he didn’t want to chance her telling someone—her best friend, or his.
“I had no choice. Besides, I didn’t know they were going to kill me. If they find out I’m alive, what’s to stop them from doing it right this time?”
“Who’s them? That captain’s dead. Everybody’s gone from the oil rig now.”
“Come on, Boudreau. The captain was never the man in charge. The boss is still out there. He’s some big muckety-muck in the company that owned the oil rig, Lee Drilling. And that man knows I can potentially identify him.”
“Yeah?” Boudreau said. “Who is he?”
“I said potentially. I don’t know who he is. The first time I heard the captain talking about a plan to smuggle illegal weapons into the US and give them out to kids on the streets, it was a complete accident. I realized I was listening to terrorists, and that was only one side of the conversation. I put together a program to capture and save every conversation that took place on that satellite phone.”
“And that captain never said a name?”
“I don’t know. I never had a chance to listen to all the recordings. Too afraid I’d get caught. I stored them on a flash drive, hoping I could get it to Homeland Security. They can use voice recognition technology to identify the man, and that will implicate him in the smuggling operation.
“Something went wrong with my program and the captain caught me fooling with his satellite phone. He kicked me out of his office and never said anything, but I know that’s why they tried to have me killed.”
“So where’s that flash drive? You for sure didn’t have nothing on you when I fished you out of the Gulf.”
“That’s just it. I hid it in the house the last time I was home. My plan was to get it to Homeland Security on my next week off. But I never got that week off. Now I don’t know if Murray found it when he got the laptop.”
“That’s why you don’t want Sandy back here.”
Tristan nodded grimly. “I’d like to get Homeland Security to put a guard on her, but to do that, I’d have to let them know I’m alive. And as soon as they hear from me, they’ll pull me in to DC for debriefing. Oh, they’d honor my request to guard her, but I can’t be sure she’s safe if I’m not the one protecting her. I mean look at how many good soldiers who have the protection of the government have been killed. How many innocent civilians.”
“I get you wanting to protect her yourself, but, son, you ain’t capable right now.”
Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what are you saying? That my only choice is to notify Homeland Security? I’d be signing her death warrant. Somebody as high up as the captain’s boss would know as soon as I surfaced. He’d have plenty of time to kidnap her before Homeland Security could react. She might end up being tortured for information she doesn’t even have. And I wouldn’t be here to rescue her.”
* * *
SANDY FELT AS THOUGH she hadn’t slept at all and therefore the little bean had been restless, too. She hadn’t been able to shut her brain off. Every time she’d go to sleep, her dreams had been filled with images of Tristan sinking into the cold, dark water as hungry sharks circled around him. It was like a slideshow that wouldn’t stop. Click—murdered. Click—murdered. Click—murdered.
Then she would wake up with her heart racing and tears wetting her cheeks and pillow.
Finally, around seven o’clock, she got up and bathed and dressed and headed into the kitchen. For a second, she stared at the coffeepot in longing. But she’d sworn off coffee for the pregnancy, not wanting to have a baby who was hooked on caffeine.
She yawned. “You have no idea how much I would enjoy a cup of coffee this morning. And there might be some decaf in the freezer. But my tummy has let me know in no uncertain terms that it likes grape juice and only grape juice.” She patted her belly. “So grape juice it is, right?”
As she sat at the kitchen table and drank the juice, she looked at her phone, recalling Maddy’s warning from the night before. She wanted to blow off the Homeland Security agent who had become her friend, but she knew Maddy would bug her until she called the sheriff. If she refused, Maddy would call him herself.
“No choice but to do it,” she muttered as she got up and went into the nursery. It was the only place in or out of the house where she could get a reliable cell signal. She dialed the sheriff’s office.
“Baylor,” she said when Sheriff Baylor Nehigh answered. “It’s Sandy.”
“Well, hello. I didn’t know you were back in town,” he said. “How’re you doing? How’s the baby?”
“Fine. We’re fine,” she said. “The baby’s fine. Baylor—”
“Now how far along are you? I’m trying to remember.”
Sandy closed her eyes and prayed for patience. If she couldn’t get her question in, Baylor would be off on Tristan’s death and she’d have to listen to his theories for at least twenty minutes before she could get another word in edgewise.
“Five and a half months, Baylor. I think someone got into the house while I was gone. My laptop computer is gone.”
“Now, what? You say a computer is missing? Well, now, we can’t be responsible for that. You’d have to talk to the crime scene unit, although my guess is that oil rig captain took it when he broke in to kidnap Agent Tierney,” he said. “If it was him you’ll never get any money for it.”
“Baylor! That’s not why I’m calling. The laptop went missing while I was gone. I thought if you or the crime lab had it then I don’t need to worry that someone got into my house while I was away.”
“I’ll be glad to check on that for you, but do understand, my budget is too small to replace your laptop.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’ll buy a new one.” She paused. “You don’t want to take fingerprints or anything, do you?”
“I can send my deputy out there when he gets back. It’ll probably be after dark. He’s gone to Houma to deliver some paperwork. I need a courier, but like I said—my budget won’t handle it.”
“No, no,” Sandy said, feeling relieved. She didn’t want anyone coming into her house right now. She’d come back to be alone with her baby and try to come to peace with Tristan’s death. “I’m sure you’re right about how it happened.”
“Anything else I can do for you, Sandy?”
“No, Baylor. Thanks.”
Sandy hung up while he was telling her to take care of herself. She rinsed her glass, then headed out to walk to Boudreau’s cabin. She took a deep breath of clean morning air and yawned again. “I’m sorry about last night, bean. I couldn’t get what Maddy said out of my head.”
She wondered if talking to her unborn baby about things that upset her was bad for him. She hoped not, because talking to Tristan’s child soothed her, and according to the latest baby books, it was good to let the baby become used to the mother’s voice.
“Did you know your daddy was an undercover agent? Wait. What am I thinking? You were there when Zach told me. Naturally I had to hear it from his oldest friend, because Tristan apparently thought I didn’t need to know that little tidbit.” She heard the bitterness in her voice. She didn’t want to sound like that when she talked about Tristan. Certainly not to her baby.
With an effort, she made her voice light and soft, the way she talked when she told him a fairy tale or quoted a poem. “He was a real-life spy, I guess. He worked for Homeland Security, catching bad guys. Until one day, one of the bad guys killed him.”
She stopped talking because she had to. She was breathing hard, mostly from trying not to cry, and she’d arrived at the dock. It was a beautiful morning. The sun glared and glistened off the water. “I should have gotten up earlier and watched the sunrise,” she said wistfully. “Although without Tristan...” Her voice trailed off and she smiled sadly at the memories of sunrises and making love and being happy.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “Let’s go. I want to talk to Boudreau.”
As she turned toward the path to Boudreau’s cabin, she noticed slide marks in the mud. Stepping closer to the wooden pier, she studied the markings. Someone had pulled a boat up there since the last rain. She shook her head. It was probably Boudreau. He used the dock all the time.
“I’ve got to be careful,” she murmured. “I’m seeing terrorists and bad guys everywhere.”
The sun was already yellow and hot when she stepped out of the tangle of vines and branches into Boudreau’s front yard. Boudreau was sitting on an old, rough-hewn bench, mending a tear in a fishing net.
“Well, now, you are moving much faster this—” he said, looking up. “What the hell you doing here?” he snapped, glaring at her.
“Boudreau, it’s Sandy. Tristan’s wife.” He’d known her for years, and the last time she’d been here was on that awful night, when she’d come to tell him Tristan was missing and feared dead. But when he talked nonsense, like just now, she wasn’t sure he remembered her.
Boudreau stood, dropping the fishing net and stalking toward her, the darning needle in one hand and his knife in the other. “I ask you a question. What you doing here? You go on now. Get out of here.” He stopped, pointing the tip of the knife back the way she’d come. “Go!”
“But I need to talk to you. I want to close the dock—”
“Get out of here, Mrs. DuChaud. Get!” Boudreau shooed her as if he were shooing a chicken, with a sweeping motion of his hands. “Get!” he yelled again.
Sandy stared at him in openmouthed disbelief. This wasn’t confusion. It was hostility. Did he think Tristan’s death was her fault?
“Boudreau, please, listen to me. This is important.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “I come down to your house one day soon. We talk then. Now you get out of here and back to your house tout de suite or I’ll sic my dog on you, I guarantee.”
She didn’t know a lot about Boudreau except what Tristan had told her and he’d never mentioned the man being violent. But he had shot that oil rig captain in cold blood, so maybe the best thing to do was to leave.
“Please, come talk to me,” she called out over her shoulder as she turned and headed back down the path she’d walked up to his shack.
“You just get gone and stay gone,” she heard him say.
By the time she got to the dock she was breathing hard again, so she stopped for a few moments. She stood on the dock and looked out over the dark, greenish-gray waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And there, diving and surfacing as the sun glared off the water with such intensity it was difficult to see anything but the splashes and waves, was the creature that she’d seen the day before yesterday, frolicking in the water. She squinted and shaded her eyes, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses with her.
Nothing helped her see any better, though. The sun was higher now and the glare was too bright. And all at once, it seemed that whatever the creature was, it had sensed that she was watching, because the splashing stopped. Sandy blinked and put both hands up to deflect the sun, but the water was glassy and smooth and the sun reflected off it like a mirror.
Whatever—or whoever—had been playing in the water just beyond the shallows was gone now.
“I’m going to have to get up early one morning, bean, and get out here so I can catch whoever or whatever that is. Maybe it’s a mermaid.” She smiled and rubbed the side of her belly. “Or a merman.”
Back at the house, she made herself some breakfast. By the time she’d finished eating, she’d convinced herself that Boudreau had shooed her away for her own protection. Maybe he knew there was a fox or a bobcat or an alligator running around that might do her harm. And he had promised to come see her. She knew from Tristan that if Boudreau said he would do something, he would.
“I guess we’ve got to wait for him, bean. He could have been nicer, though. He didn’t have to yell like that. Kind of hurt my feelings.” She drank the last of her juice and rinsed her glass and plate and set them on the drain board.
A glance at the clock told her it was just now eleven o’clock. “I still need to talk to him, though. He may have a better idea of how to keep people away from the dock,” she told the baby. “He may already be guarding it. Maybe that was him I heard last night, checking to be sure no one was using the dock.”
She yawned again. She’d been tired before she went to Boudreau’s. “We’ve got to take a nap, bean. I’m about to fall asleep standing up. Then we’ve got to drive into Houma and get some groceries and buy me a new, smaller computer. A notebook. That’ll be our big, exciting adventure for the day.” As she said the words, a faint echo of a chill ran down her spine. “I hope,” she added.
