Blood on the Bayou (24 page)

The head of the terrorist organization responsible for the attacks said Gamut 9 paid the tab for destruction of the chemical plants and we believed him. And wanted him, and Gamut 9, destroyed. Everyone living in the Delta—and a lot of people in the noninfested states—boycotted gas stations carrying Gamut 9 oil. Within a few years, the company disappeared from the United States.

“But the federal investigation into Robusto Oil didn’t find anything.” I open my eyes. There’s nothing to see behind my lids except fleeting glimpses of
Caroline’s face the day before she died, before she was bitten by monsters someone might have deliberately created.

“What was there to find?” Hitch asks. “Robusto pulled out their drilling equipment after the mutations. As far as a satellite can see from outer space, they left nothing behind.”

“Nothing but some tunnels underground and a mobile cave being used as a biological weapons lab.”

“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe not. There isn’t enough evidence to know one way or another.”

“And the person who wrote the note couldn’t give you any idea where to start looking?”

“Maybe they could have, but they didn’t.” He tosses his headpiece into the cup holder between us. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn to what?”

“Who told you where to find the cave?”

“It was one of the Junkyard Kings,” I improvise, knowing Hitch will never believe a truth involving talking fairies. “They meet with the local highwaymen at the gates and exchange supplies and information. One of their contacts said they heard screaming in this corner of the swamp and went to check it out. They saw the entrance to a cave, but didn’t go inside. They didn’t want to borrow trouble.”

“How long ago was this?” Hitch asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t think that would be important. You don’t usually think of a cave as something that’s going to move around.”

“S’all right,” Hitch drawls. “At least we’ve got
something.” His gloved hand comes to rest on my knee. “But I’m going to ask a favor.”

“Another favor?” I try for a joking tone, but fail. Nothing is funny right now.

“When we get within a mile or two of where we’re going, I want to park and go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Okay, that sounds—”

“Alone.”

I shake my head. “No. What’s the point in me helping you if—”

“The point is that we may have found what we’re looking for and I have training you don’t,” he says. Not in his holier-than-thou way, but in a rational tone that reminds me Hitch isn’t the same man I knew in many ways. The man I loved wasn’t a federal agent, with training in sneaking and spying and deadly breeds of intrigue. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to get inside unnoticed, plant the explosives I brought in my case, and get out before they know I’m there.”

I eye the case his suit came in with new respect. It’s black—not the clear number he carried the last time he was in town—and not much bigger than a carry-on bag, but I know there’s room in there for an explosive device serious enough to blow up a building. Amazing how tiny bombs are getting these days.

Jesus. There’s a
bomb
in the truck. Mere feet from my feet. I’ve never been this close to a weapon like that. It makes me squirm, and Hitch pull his hand from my leg.

“So you’re just going to do what this guy who poisoned Stephanie told you to do?” I ask, a tremor in my voice. “Without taking the time to surveil or whatever it is you—”

“I don’t have the time to ‘surveil,’” he says. “And I don’t see that I have a choice.”

“But Hitch,” I say gently, understanding that his thinking is probably pretty muddled right now. “What if there are innocent people in there? Those people Steven saw being pulled inside obviously don’t want to be a part of this. They could be victims like Stephanie and the baby.”

“Then I’ll do my best to get them out.”

“Your best.” My skin suddenly feels colder, though the air-conditioning in the truck is still on low.

“Yes. My best.”

I shift the car into park. I don’t trust my wobbly leg to keep tension on the break. “Hitch . . . This is crazy. What if your guess is wrong? What if this guy is lying about what’s going on at the lab?”

Hitch starts to protest, but I barrel on before he can argue with me. “And even if he’s not, and you’re right, and only good can come from destroying the weapons being developed, who knows how many people you’re going to kill doing it? It could be a lot. And you’re still a doctor. You swore to protect
all
life.”

“I know.” He drops his gaze to the seat. “But I . . . This man isn’t someone I can afford to cross. I can’t make an enemy who can . . . do the things he does. Stephanie and the baby will never be safe.”

“Why? What kind of—”

“There are things I absolutely
can’t
tell you. Please.”

I dig a fist into my flip-flopping stomach. “You’ve met this guy, haven’t you? It wasn’t just a note. You—”

“Stop.” He rubs a hand down his face, as if he can wipe our conversation away. “I
can’t
say anything else. I have no idea who could be listening.”

The hair at the back of my neck prickles. “Why?” I ask, then mouth silently, “Are you wearing a wire?”

“No. I’m not wearing a wire,” he says out loud, eliminating the possibility that the truck is bugged.

I relax. A little. “Okay . . .” I scan the area outside, but see nothing but road and trees and bayou and a single nutria slinking through the tall weeds and into the water with a slick splash. “So . . . I don’t get it. Who’s going to be listening? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yep.”

“And we’re alone.”

“It appears that way.”

My brow furrows, and the seed of a wonderful, horrible suspicion plants itself in my mind. Horrible, because the thought of Hitch being a player in the Invisible Drama is horrible. Wonderful, because I might not be alone. There might be someone I can talk to about all this. Someone who, unlike Tucker, is not the enemy.

At least I don’t
think
he is.

“I need you to explain,” I say.

“I can’t tell you anything else.” His jaw clenches,
and a hint of his usual stubbornness hardens his expression.

“You can,” I insist.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should care.”

“I need to—”

“No you don’t.”

“Tell me, goddamnit!”

“I can’t!” he shouts. “And you wouldn’t believe me, anyway!”

“You don’t know that. Think about this for a second, Hitch. I told you I can manipulate matter with
my mind
. And I really
can
. My game is off today, but I swear I’m telling the truth.”

“Annabelle—”

“I can work
magic
.” I refuse to let his pitying expression divert me from my course. “And I’ve seen other people do even wilder things. So please . . . try me. You might be surprised what I’ll believe.”

He hesitates, but only for a second. “This is different.”

“How?”

“I can’t,” he says. “You have to drop this, or I can’t promise you’ll be safe.”

“It’s too late for safe. It was too late the minute you asked me to help you.”

“I’m sorry.” A hint of guilt creeps into his voice. “I needed someone who could get information, and I didn’t have time to find someone else I could trust. I swear I would never have put you in danger if—”

“I don’t care,” I say, simultaneously touched and confused by his “trust.” How can trust exist amidst all the lies we’ve told each other?

Unless . . . maybe . . .

Maybe trust isn’t inextricably tied to truth. Maybe trust is like faith, something you believe in without necessarily knowing all the facts. Something that feels right and real, even when the supporting arguments are weak and the evidence sketchy at best.

Maybe I should trust Hitch, and quit pushing. Maybe I should trust in how good it felt to be with Cane last night, and mark spying on him off my schedule. Maybe I should don a habit and devote my life to the church and swear off meat and potatoes and liquor and men and lead a life of quiet contemplation as the bride of a god I’ve never seen and rarely felt on the off chance that heaven is real.

For some people faith is enough, but I know myself better. I need facts.

“I’m fine with being in danger.” I turn the key in the ignition, shutting down the Land Rover and our forward progress until I get what I’m after. “The truth is worth a little danger.”

Hitch sighs, and I see the war he wages with himself played out in the wrinkle between his eyebrows. Wrinkle, smooth, wrinkle, smooth, and then finally he says, “Whatever this man gave Stephanie isn’t the only biological weapon he developed before he left the lab.”

“Okay.”

“He has others. And one of them . . .” He breaks
off with a frustrated sound. “This is pointless. We’re wasting time. You’re never—”

“What’s the weapon do?”

His looks up, resignation and misery mixing in his eyes, and I know I’m about to get the goods. “It makes people appear . . .”

“Yes?”

“Not . . . there.”

My heart lurches. “You mean . . .”

“Invisible.” His laughter is tight, breakable. “It makes people fucking invisible.”

The world does another sloppy omelet flip, but this time Hitch and I are on the same side of the pan, sizzling together, trapped in the same hot bed of insanity and magic.

There’s only one question left unanswered.

I open my mouth to ask him who he’s been in contact with: the Big Man, Tucker, another Invisible I’ve yet to meet—because I’ve been assured there are more. But before I can speak, a shadow falls across the hood of the car. A shadow with a head and arms and manly shoulders, but no body attached.

None that we can see, anyway . . .

T
he shadow shifts and stretches as whoever’s standing in front of the car circles around to the driver’s side. I instinctively reach for the keys to start the truck and get the hell out of here, but Hitch’s hand whips out, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t. Let me talk to him.”

“You know this person?”

“If it’s the person who’s been following me since I left New Orleans, yeah.”

“And what if it’s not?” I hiss, cringing away from the window as the shadow spills across my lap. “There’s more than one of them.”

I feel Hitch’s surprise in the flinch of his fingers, but before he can say a word, the shadow knocks at the window and a familiar voice drawls, “Come on out, girl.”

Tucker
. I pull in a ragged breath, but don’t know whether to trust the relief rushing in my chest. Tucker has been friendly lately—more than friendly—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to kill me. And maybe Hitch, too. Why else would he be out here?

How
is he out here? I didn’t hear a car behind us
and there’s no way he could have followed us on foot all the way from Donaldsonville.

“Is this the person who’s been following you?”

“No,” Hitch says. “But the man I talked with said he’d send someone else to take care of me if—” He breaks off with a curse. “I knew better. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“You should have,” Tucker pipes up from outside, proving he could have heard every word we’ve said. “But that’s all right. Annabelle’s a friend of the cause. Aren’t you, Belly-welly?”

Belly-welly?
I can understand him skipping “Red” on the off chance Hitch remembers my “cousin” called me Red, but really.
Belly? Welly?
He should be shot. For the crime of uttering that nickname alone.

“I don’t even know what ‘the cause’ is.” I can’t hide how angry I am. How could Tucker do this? Threaten the life of an innocent child?

“You
know
him?” Hitch shifts closer to the passenger’s-side window. The atmosphere in the car shifts perceptively, shock and horror swelling like a balloon about to pop.

I face him, knowing turning my back on Tucker for a few seconds won’t get us in any more trouble than we’re in already. “Don’t freak out on me,” I warn. “I tried to tell you the truth. I would have told you more, but you kept trying to have me committed! You thought I was crazy.”

Hitch’s eyes slide from me, to the window where Tucker is still patiently waiting, and back again. “What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to
believe
me,” I say, exasperated. “You knew all about these weird bioweapons and invisible people and you still couldn’t connect the—” I almost say, “the shots and the people threatening to kill me if
I
talk, to the weapons and the invisible people threatening to kill you if
you
talk,” but bite my lip at the last second.

I’m not sure Tucker knows I’ve spilled the beans about the shots. On the off chance that he doesn’t, I can’t risk saying too much. Instead, I settle for, “You still couldn’t connect the dots?”

Hitch’s gaze flickers again, but I can feel him starting to relax. “Guess I couldn’t.”

“Well I guess you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“No, I’m not as smart as
you
think I am.” Hitch nods his head toward the window. “This person is a friend?”