miss fortune mystery (ff) - bayou backup (3 page)

Chapter 7

Jayne walked out of Walter’s general store, lifted a medicine bottle to her lips and leaned back as she took a big swig.  Her eyes grew wide with surprise and she jolted back upright then bounced forward, sputtering and coughing. 

“Whew, that’s some powerful cough medicine,” she said and wiped her forearm across her mouth. “My throat’s been feeling a little scratchy.  I hope I’m not getting sick.”

A slight twinge of guilt ran through me and I hoped Jayne hadn’t felt abandoned when I left her with Gertie.  It went away when Jayne laughed and tossed Shiner a dog cookie she bought from Walter.

“It’s probably from all the yelling you did at the banana pudding war a couple days ago,” I said and cringed at the memory.  “We’re lucky we made it out of there alive.”

“Either way, this should do the trick.” She lifted the bottle back to her lips, taking a smaller sip. “I bought some cough syrup made by the Sinful Ladies Society.”

“I didn’t know they had a doctor in their ranks,” I said and helped Jayne hold her shopping bags while we waited for Gertie to come out of the store.

“I wonder if they’d ever let me join,” Jayne said.

“Stranger things have happened,” I chuckled as I imagined my cousin hanging out with the ladies of Sinful.  “Never lose sight of your dreams.”

“This is some great cough syrup,” She said and took another dose. “I’m starting to feel better already.”

A familiar Jeep pulled up and Fortune rolled down the window.   Ida Belle leaned forward in the passenger seat and gave a little wave.

“Madison, have you got a minute?”

I nodded and asked Jayne to get some more treats for Shiner.  She was more than willing and bounded away, waving the twenty dollar bill I gave her up in the air.  Shiner sat next to me and watched everything going on around him.

“Do you have any enemies in this area?” Ida Belle asked with a slight frown.

“No, I don’t know anyone in this area, except you.” I shrugged. “Well, I guess after Sunday’s fiasco, Celia and her friends probably consider us the enemy.”

Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “Join the club.”

Fortune squinted, appearing deep in thought. “But she didn’t meet you until after the camper mishap.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked her, concern beginning to crawl up my spine.

Fortune looked me straight in the eye.  “Carter found the guy who spiked your tires.”

“And he’s dead,” Ida Belle finished for her.

Before I could respond or ask questions, we were interrupted by a huge commotion behind me.  Fortune looked over my shoulder and her mouth dropped open.  Ida Belle opened the Jeep’s passenger door and jumped out.  I spun around and saw a small crowd gathered around Jayne.  Most were shouting warnings while a few people shouted encouragement.

Jayne stood in the middle of the road with her arms raised.  Her words slurred together as she shouted, “Don’t worry, I’ve watched every episode of the Gator Tamer, and I know exactly what to do.”

Ida Belle whipped around, “Is she drunk?”

“Can’t be, she’s not had anything except cough syrup.” I answered.

“Sinful Ladies cough syrup?” Fortune asked and gave Ida Belle a sideways glance.

“That stuff is ten times more powerful than any moonshine they make in the mountains of North Carolina,” Ida Belle said.

“Oh no,” I said as reality set in.  I tried to remember how much of the stuff she’d drunk.

Jayne tossed the bottle of cough syrup into the air as the group of people backed up.  My stomach twisted when I saw a six-foot alligator in front of my cousin.  My gut turned to jelly when I saw her approaching the gator on tip toes from behind, clearly about to attempt to jump on its back. 

I called her name and was taking a running step in her direction, just as she jumped.

Oh No!

I didn’t know whether to be glad or sad that she didn’t get the loft she anticipated and plopped on the street next to the gator’s tail.  Anywhere near the deadly creature was too close.  To my horror, she haphazardly rolled over and attempted to grab the alligator’s hind section.

Thinking fast, a couple of the local guys grabbed her ankles and began pulling her away from the gator, but  Jayne reached out and swatted the gator’s tail as the guys dragged her away on her stomach.  Needless to say, it didn’t go over too well and the gator turned and snapped, the tip of its huge maw grazing her arm and leaving a pretty big slice.

The local guys kept pulling her from immediate danger while a middle aged man with dark brown shoulder-length hair and a mild beer belly rushed over to tend to Jayne.  The rest of the guys herded the alligator off the road – if you could even call it that. 

“You’re my hero,” Jayne slurred as he helped her get back upright into a sitting position.

Ida Belle jumped into action and checked the wound.  “She’s going to need several stitches and a shot, but she’ll recover.”

Jayne’s hero wore a beat up t-shirt that sported a logo from the tourist baby gator petting zoo.  He was instantly enamored by my cousin. “You’re one brave lady ma’am,” he said and took off his shirt and made a homemade sling for her arm with it.

“And I love your accent.” Jayne wavered back and forth as she spoke.

“Love is in the air.” Ida Belle rolled her eyes and patted Jayne’s hero on the back.  “We’re going to take her to the hospital now, Jimmy, so you’ll have to wait and court her some other time.”

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets bit by a gator,” I said and shook my head, hoping that I’d be able to deliver Jayne to Grandma all in one piece.

Jimmy the Hero gave Jayne a sideways hug and rubbed his bare beer belly.  “I’d be happy to take you to pet a baby gator sometime, ma’am.”  As he walked over to the gator herding guys, he called over his shoulder, “I’ll keep you safe.”

Jayne staggered toward the Jeep, her arm wrapped with several t-shirts donated by the chivalrous Sinful men. “Funny, I don’t feel a thing,” she slurred.

Fortune picked up the empty bottle of SLS cough syrup.  “I bet you don’t.”

Jayne stopped in her tracks and put her hand on my shoulder for balance. “Hey, Madison, my cough is all gone,” she said with a huge smile on her face.

“Your liver is probably gone too,” I said and grabbed her arm to steady her as I led her to the Jeep.

We were forced to hear every detail of the best Gator Tamer episodes as Jayne chattered about it non-stop all the way to the hospital.  Gertie arrived just as Jayne got signed in to the emergency room and was getting several stitches and treatment to prevent infection.

“Sorry she got a bottle of the cough syrup on my watch,” Gertie said and hurried to Jayne’s side.  “That darned Mother Nature got me – I was stuck in the ladies room.”

“Hey, Gertie.”  Jayne said as her eyes lit up. “I wrestled a gator, you should’ve seen it!”

Those two sure seemed to be getting along great.

“Don’t worry ladies, I’ll bring her back to town,” Gertie said as she waved us off.  “We’ll meet up with you tomorrow.”

Fortune stuck her head through the door of Jayne’s room and nodded to the nurse on our way out. “Pump her stomach while you’re at it,” she said and handed the nurse the empty bottle. “Too much cough syrup.”

Chapter 8

Shiner licked my face, waking me up from a deep sleep.  I must’ve been having another bad dream about the old man and his spike strips.  The whole situation with that guy creeped me out and I tossed and turned in the dark camper trying to get back to sleep.  I hoped the new tires would arrive soon so I could deliver this RV and get back home to North Carolina.

The sound of a vehicle racing down the street made my back tense and I instinctively gripped the pocket knife that was in my hand.  This week was the first time I’d ever slept with a weapon next to me, and it wasn’t something that was on my bucket list.  The vehicle screeched to a stop right next to the camper and I rolled over, grabbed the gun Fortune had lent to me and dropped to the floor.

Shiner let out a low growl as I made my way to the couch and peeked out the corner of the small window.  Fortune’s Jeep sat in the road with the headlights still on and the driver’s door open.  The RV door vibrated as a loud banging came from the side of the camper.

“Madison, get up.  We need your dog,” Fortune shouted.  She was smart enough not to stand right in front of the door.

I jumped up and stepped over Shiner to get to the door.

Fortune didn’t wait for me to get it all the way open. “Gertie and Jayne are missing.” 

“What?”

“Gertie sent me a text and said they were on their way to my house.” Fortune half pulled me out of the camper.  “They never made it and now she’s not answering our texts.”

I looked toward the Jeep and saw Ida Belle riding shotgun.  “Do you have an idea where they were last seen?”

“Gertie’s text said they’d just gotten back from the hospital.” Fortune followed me back inside the camper. “I assume they were in her garage because her car is still there.” 

“Let’s have Shiner do a search from the garage,” I said and pulled out the kitchenette drawer to retrieve some plastic gallon storage bags. I hoped I would be able to get Jayne to our destination in one piece.  It had been one thing after another on this entire trip.

Shiner’s ears shot up when he heard the word ‘search’.  He’d been given that command many times over the past seven years during team training and search missions for lost people of all different ages.

I stuck my hand in one of the plastic bags and used it as a glove to grab Jayne’s pillow case. Then I turned the bag right side out with the pillowcase inside.  This way I had her scent article without contaminating it with my own scent.  I zipped up the bag and grabbed my search and rescue hip pack.  It had all the supplies I would need for both me and the dog.  Shiner and I followed Fortune to the Jeep and jumped in the back seat.

I instructed Fortune and Ida Belle to stay in the Jeep when we got to Gertie’s place and let Shiner and me do our thing with the least amount of distraction.  When we rolled up on the scene I noticed that Gertie’s garage door was open, along with the door on the passenger side of the car.

Shiner sat at attention at the corner of the garage and I opened the baggie in front of his nose to give him a quick whiff of Jayne’s pillowcase.  He bobbed his head as he gathered the scent information, turned and raced into the garage and dove in the passenger seat of the car.

“Good boy,” I said and backed away from the garage.  “Find her.”

Shiner tore through the yard and eventually put his head toward the ground and followed the path of the scent out of Gerties property and into the back yard of another house.  Fortune and Ida Belle got out of the Jeep and followed behind us at a distance.

“This is my house,” Fortune said as she watched my dog work.  “Do you think that trail could be older scent?  Jayne and Gertie stopped by here the other day.”

“Not with the way he’s working with such intensity,” I said as I kept close watch on Shiner. “He’s in fresh scent.”  I knew my dog’s every motion and nuance.

Shiner ended up at the water’s edge, stretched his neck out toward the water and lifted his nose in the air.  His head bobbed up and down while his body faced out toward the water.

“Good boy, Shiner,” I said and called him back to me.  I had no idea where the gators hung out in Sinful, but I wasn’t about to risk my dog accidently stepping on one.  I’d already seen the damage a gator could do in just an instant.

Shiner ignored me for a second, stepped into the edge of the water and grabbed ahold of a floating object, then ran directly to me.  He skidded to a stop at my feet and dropped a brown Croc shoe.

“Good job,” I said and tossed his toy into the yard as a reward.

Fortune and Ida Belle gave each other a quick look.

“Their scent leads out over the water,” I said and picked up the brown Croc.  “And this is Jayne’s shoe.”

Ida Belle’s phone buzzed and she yanked it out in front of her with surprising speed.

“It’s from Gertie’s phone.”

“Well, what’s it say?” Fortune asked. 

“CAPTURED. SHACK BAYOU.  It’s in all capital letters.”

“That’s probably, Jayne.  She always writes everything in capitals,” I said as I leaned over to inspect the message for myself.

“There’s a half million shacks out in the bayou,” Ida Belle said as a partial text message came through.

“DIAMO”

“Diamo?” Ida Belle squinted at the phone then looked at me. “Do you know anyone named Diamo?”

“Never heard of him, but if he’s got them in a shack we need to find them.”

“Fast,” Fortune said.

“If you can find us a flat bottomed boat so Shiner can get his nose close enough to the water, we can ride along the rows of shacks and see what he comes up with.”  I said and tossed Shiner’s toy in the air to calm my nerves.

“That’s doable,” Fortune said and pulled out her phone.

“Try to text Gertie’s phone and tell them to get a window open if possible.” I looked at the two ladies with all seriousness.  “It will let their scent spread from the building out over the water.”

“Got it,” Fortune said and started texting.

“We better call Carter,” I added.

Fortune and Ida Belle glanced at each other.

“Not yet.  Let’s see what we have first,” Fortune said.

Something deep inside told me to trust her instincts.

Ida Belle’s thumbs flew on her phone.  “I’ll have a boat here in less than fifteen minutes.”

I looked out over the moonlit water and hoped it would be fast enough.

Chapter 9

Shiner bolted toward the water and dove into the boat before Fortune even got it all the way up to land.  I wasn’t a bit surprised.  That dog had always gotten hyped up when it was time for a water search. My main concern was that our boat work had always involved looking for a dead body and this time we were looking for live people.  At least I hoped they were still alive.