Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series) (29 page)

Maryse nodded. “When Colt didn’t check in, we got worried. I was going to come alone but Mildred pitched a fit, and Taylor insisted she come since she brought Sophia to town. Then Sophia convinced us that she was the only person who could talk Samuel out of hurting anyone, so…shit. Really bad call on that one.”

“We found the fake entrance to the channel,” Taylor continued, “and then Sophia pulled a gun and made us get out of the boat and swim to shore.”

Jadyn stared. “And you ran all the way here? No wonder you both look ready to drop.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “Maryse had Mildred call the sheriff’s department and ask them to send backup, but we didn’t know how long he’d be.”

“And that’s how Deputy Nelson found us,” Jadyn said. “Well, you saved the day with your backup call.”

“Least I could do since I brought the enemy here.” Maryse stared down at the unconscious Vincent. “Who the hell is he?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” Helena said as she staggered into the clearing. She was still wearing the cowboy gear, but had replaced the snake with a hot-pink whip. The cowboy hat had taken a beating and was all crumpled and cockeyed on her head.
 

Jadyn held in a grin. “It’s a long story. One we don’t have all the answers for ourselves.”

Maryse glanced at Helena and flinched. “If it’s all right by you, I’ll wait until you’ve sorted it out and I’ve had a shower and at least two beers—maybe therapy—then you can tell me all about it.”

“And cinnamon rolls,” Helena threw in. “Damn it. Someone owes me an entire tray of cinnamon rolls.”

“It’s a deal,” Jadyn said to Maryse.

“Uh, guys,” Deputy Nelson broke in. “If we want to get this party back to Mudbug before that storm hits, we need to get a move on.”

“He’s right,” Colt said. “Maryse and Taylor can take Maryse’s boat back. Jadyn and I will take Samuel and Sophia’s body. Deputy Nelson can take Vincent, and he goes straight to the hospital with a set of handcuffs attached to the gurney.”

“Yes, sir,” Deputy Nelson said.

“If you’re all done jawing,” Helena said, “would someone please get me the hell out of here?”

Jadyn couldn’t agree more.

###

It took them a bit of time and a lot of effort to haul Sophia and the still-unconscious Vincent to the boats, Vincent being the majority of the effort due to his size. Deputy Nelson handcuffed him to the boat in case he woke up and decided to make a dash for it, but Colt doubted he would be dashing anytime soon with that bullet in his rear.

The paramedics from the hospital picked up Sophia’s body at the sheriff’s department and hauled it off for processing. Colt was not even ready for the hailstorm of shit that was coming over his killing one of the richest and most influential women in the state. Maryse and Jadyn had drifted off to the hotel as soon as they hit the dock, both talking about long hot showers as though they were better than winning the lottery. At the moment, Colt agreed with them.

But first, he and Jadyn needed answers from Samuel.

He brewed them a pot of coffee and everyone took a seat in his office. Before he could even start with the questions, Samuel, who’d been silent the entire boat ride back to the dock, began to talk.

“I’m so sorry,” Samuel said. “You don’t deserve everything that happened today. Neither of you.”

“And you do?” Colt asked. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you faked your death to get away from Sophia.”

Samuel nodded. “She was brilliant and beautiful and I was a lowly construction worker with humble beginnings. She enchanted me. It wasn’t until after we were married that I saw the cracks in her armor.”

“I assume she’s disturbed,” Jadyn said.

“Oh no,” Samuel said, “disturbed is far too light. Sophia was a sociopath. She was just a very skilled one.”

“How did you figure it out?” Jadyn asked.

“The first thing I noticed was the cunning with which she dispatched anyone at the corporation she considered a threat to her own promotion. Her father didn’t believe in giving family something they hadn’t earned, and that included his daughter. She did completely unethical things to rid herself of some of her competition.”

“Did you confront her about it?” Colt asked.

“At first, but when I realized she was actually gleeful over how her victims had suffered, I knew I was wasting my breath.”

“Why didn’t you just leave her?” Jadyn asked.

“Don’t you think I would have if I could? You don’t understand. People like Sophia don’t care about anything but the game. And for Sophia, the game was controlling anything she wanted to control. That included me. When I started pushing back, she told me that if I ever left her, she’d have my entire family killed.”

“And you believed her?” Colt asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Colt nodded. “I guess I would have.”

“Wow,” Jadyn said. “That’s a living nightmare. So did you rig the explosion to fake your death, not knowing that Sophia’s father would be in that building?”

“No!” Samuel plopped his coffee mug down on Colt’s desk, sloshing the dark liquid onto the desktop. “It wasn’t me who rigged the explosion. It was Sophia. I knew she was up to something. She’d been spending a lot of time in one of the units I was working in. It focused specifically on excavation, which is where I learned about explosives. I was programming the software to handle their tolerance calculations.”

“And Sophia worked with you on that programming?” Jadyn asked.

“Yes. I knew she had an ulterior motive, but at the time, I took it as her keeping an eye on me. I didn’t think…and then all the pieces began to fall together.”

“Like what?” Colt asked.

“I found parts for explosive devices in a box in the back of our bathroom cabinet. It was Sophia’s space and I usually didn’t go into it, but that day I was out of shampoo. I recognized the box as one our explosive parts were delivered in and checked the contents. She had everything she needed to build a bomb that could easily level a small office building.”

“What did you do?” Jadyn asked.

“I watched her as closely as possible. What else could I do? If I went to the police, they would have thought I was crazy, and even if they took me seriously enough to question her, it would only have made things worse for me.”

Colt shook his head. “You would have had an almost impossible time convincing them that someone of Sophia’s wealth would be involved in such insane behavior. And the cops would have trod lightly because of her influence in the city.”

“Exactly,” Samuel said. “So I watched and waited, hoping that I could figure out what she was up to before she put something into action. But I was too late.” He shook his head. “The box went missing from the bathroom cabinet one morning and the maid informed me Sophia had left for the office an hour before. I’d slept so soundly that I never heard her leave and I dressed in a panic and set off for the office.”

“Maybe she drugged you,” Jadyn suggested.

Samuel’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought about that before, but you could be right. Anyway, one of the executives pulled me aside as soon as I entered the building to give me a warning about Sophia. Apparently, her father had informed her that morning that he was giving the chief operations officer position to one of the older male vice presidents in the company. He’d made the decision and told the top executives the night before.”

“Did one of them tip off Sophia?” Colt asked.

“Maybe,” Samuel said. “Or maybe she had his office bugged. I’d always wondered. Regardless, I knew it was going to be bad.”

Jadyn drew in a breath. “Are you saying Sophia killed her father?”

Samuel nodded, clearly miserable. “I think so. When I reached her office, she was sitting there studying her nails and smiling, as if nothing negative had happened to her that morning. I pretended I hadn’t heard anything and greeted her as I always did, then said I needed to speak with her father about some hardware upgrades and left.”

Samuel drew in a huge breath, then blew it out. “As soon as I was out of her sight, I practically ran to her father’s office, but his secretary said he’d stepped out to one of the power buildings to meet with me as I’d requested. But I hadn’t requested a meeting at all.”

“Sophia,” Jadyn said and shook her head.

“I ran across the facility until I was out of breath, then slowed to a fast walk and jog when I could manage it. I was just about to turn the corner to the power building when it blew. I dived behind a metal storage container that was sitting close to the building. Between the two, I was sheltered from the blast.”

“And when it was over,” Colt said, “you just walked away?”

“I guess I went into shock. Debris covered the container completely, so I was hidden from sight, and there was no reason for anyone to look for me there. I just sat there, my mind racing so fast it made my head hurt and my body so weak I couldn’t even work up the energy to try and escape.”

Samuel shook his head. “I sat there so long my legs went numb. I heard the sirens and screaming around me but I just sat, completely silent. I didn’t know how long it had been before I finally got the strength to dig my way out of the debris. When I did, I discovered it was pitch black and the facility was empty, and that’s when it hit me.”

“Everyone thought you were dead,” Jadyn said.

“Yeah. It was the perfect opportunity to be rid of Sophia forever and still protect my family. So I dived into the bayou and swam away. Then I hacked myself a new identity and created a new life.” He put his hands over his face and sobbed. “All this time, my parents thought I was dead. They buried an empty coffin. And I’ve been afraid to contact them all this time because I knew Sophia would be watching. And she almost won. What I don’t understand is how she found me. Was it the fingerprint?”

Colt shook his head. “There was never a fingerprint.” He told Samuel about Sophia’s artist friend and how Sophia hired Taylor.
 

“It’s all so unbelievable,” Samuel said. “No one will believe it.”

“People will believe,” Jadyn said. “You have my word along with Colt’s, Maryse’s, and Taylor’s. All of us saw what you saw. They can’t call us all liars.”

Colt blew out a breath. “I have to be honest. I don’t know what to do about all this. I have no intention of asking the prosecutor to pursue identity theft charges. You’ve been punished enough already and no one was harmed by your actions, as the real Clifton Vines was deceased. The New Orleans police don’t have a warrant out for your arrest, but I’m certain they’ll want to talk to you.”

“Can you put me in jail for the night?” Samuel asked.

Colt stared. “You want me to lock you up?”

Samuel nodded. “It will probably be the best night’s sleep I’ve gotten in twenty-nine years.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jadyn pushed her untouched coffee aside and grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator in Colt’s office. It had been an incredible, satisfying, yet equally horrifying day. She couldn’t remember a time she’d had that many guns pointed at her and hoped to never beat today’s record.

She slumped back in her chair and sipped on the water. Colt had left a couple of minutes before to set Samuel up with the promised shower. She supposed she could leave and head for a shower herself, but her bathroom things were at Colt’s house.
 

You can borrow some shampoo from Mildred. You’re stalling.

She sighed. Leave it to her never-exhausted conscience to weigh in on her current state of flux. Her entire body ached. Her feet were actually throbbing with desire to be loose of the tightly laced boots. And she probably smelled. But none of that outweighed the one unresolved thing.

The e-mail from Maria.

She wished she could walk out of the sheriff’s department, head to the hotel for a shower, and sleep until she couldn’t sleep any longer, but Jadyn knew herself better than that. No way could she go about her normal life without knowing where she stood with Colt. And no way was she waiting for him to read the e-mail, then lounge around if he didn’t immediately make up his mind.
 

It would drive her crazy. She’d be watching his every move, looking for a sign that he had made a decision to return to New Orleans. Or worse, taking every positive sign as an indication that he had decided to stay in Mudbug, but never knowing if that decision was permanent.
 

Like it or not, she had to come right out and tell him what she’d read.

The door opened and Colt walked back in. Jadyn sat upright and took another swig of her water, trying to grasp the words she needed to start the conversation. But nothing sounded right.

“Some day, huh?” Colt said as he leaned against the desk in front of her.

“Oh yeah.”

“I’ll be doing paperwork and answering questions for a month. I’m glad there are plenty of quality witnesses to back me up on the ‘Sophia Lambert was a crazy person’ thing.”

“It definitely helps, but I have to believe that others saw the real Sophia. Even a sociopath can’t hold their cover every minute of every day.”

“Poor Samuel. What he went through to get away from her and protect his family. I hope the New Orleans police release him while they investigate. I want him to see his parents.”