The Grace Painter (The Grace Series Book 1) Read online

  Rafter snorted. “I’m a starving artist, Rose. I’ve sold six or seven paintings. And the only female in my life is you.”

  “Hush up that negative talk, Jon. I don’t want to hear one peep more. Now, I want you to brush my hair and apply my lipstick. I have a gentleman caller coming.”

  Rafter smiled. If only for today, Rose’s tired mind clicked on all cylinders. Accommodating her wishes, he retrieved a hairbrush and lipstick from her bathroom and began brushing her hair. As he groomed Rose, he noticed a hurricane warning and mandatory evacuation order appear at one corner of her TV set. “Do I know your suitor?” he asked, struggling to add style to her wispy hair.

  “I would be surprised if you did, Jon.”

  “I take it he’s not from around here?”

  “I’m afraid not. We have to maintain a long-distance relationship.”

  “Why is that?”

  “His work is based in Hollywood.”

  An eyebrow arched on Rafter’s brow. He hoped Rose hadn’t already slipped back into her dementia-altered world. “An actor, huh? Anybody rich and famous?” He applied her lipstick. It looked dreadful on her. A dark crimson gloss contrasted discordantly with her blanched skin.

  Rose shook her bony head. “My boyfriend works in anonymity. He’s a Hollywood stuntman. We met on a movie set several years back. We both had roles in a film.”

  Rafter sighed. Rose’s lucidity just left the room. “Which movie were you in? Maybe I’ve seen it.”

  “War of the Worlds. But I didn’t have any speaking parts. I worked with the stunt team. I was snatched up by a tripod.”

  “That’s interesting. I never would have guessed you for a stuntwoman,” Rafter said with a straight face. He took a step back to study his handiwork. “Well, Rose, I think it would be a felony if you were any more beautiful.” He held up a hand mirror. “Your beau will be drooling all over himself.”

  Rose took the mirror and quietly admired her reflection. An adorable grin stretched her slack-skinned face. “Thank-you, Harold. That will be all. You should leave now before Bobby arrives. He’s a jealous sort, you know. I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong impression.”

  Rafter chuckled under his breath. He picked up the file folder containing the will and tucked it under his arm. “Goodbye, Rose,” he said and left the room, knowing with absolute certainty that Rose would never recognize him again. Such a tragic demise for an elegant lady, he thought. Alzheimer’s had taken her most precious memories hostage and locked them away in an airtight vault.

  Outside the nursing home a driving rain fell at horizontal angles, creating a dangerous blizzard effect. Rafter tucked Rose’s will under his hooded slicker and entered the angry swarm. Without the slicker he’d be soaked to the skin in seconds. Splashing through standing water, he arrived at the Ford and yanked open his door.

  “Guess what, Sam?” he asked, after hopping in and slamming the door shut. “Someday soon we’ll own a defunct sugar cane plantation. What do you think about that?”

  Samson’s powerful legs shook uncontrollably.

  “I know, Sam. This weather is freaking me out, too. Let’s get my paint and your chili and skedaddle back home before we get stranded.” Rafter started the truck and drove deeper into town, oblivious to the snare coiling ever tighter around him.

  Chapter 5

  Annie Crawford sat in a Crown Victoria and peered through night-vision binoculars at a dingy mobile home. The home squatted on four wooded acres filled with junked cars. Three trucks and a broken-down backhoe sat on a gravel strip outside the residence.

  She and Special Agent Frank Cooper spent the past two hours watching the property from their brush-hidden vehicle. Their efforts so far turned up nothing. The landowner, Henri Boudreaux, topped Newton Laskey’s list of probable sympathizers who might provide refuge to Jean-Paul and Sebastian.

  A dim light shone in the eyesore mobile home, but no one had gone in or out since they’d arrived. “This is pointless, Coop,” Annie grumbled. “Nobody is foolish enough to venture outside in this weather.”

  “Can you blame them?” Cooper muttered. “The Weather Channel is predicting Vera will be worse than Katrina.” The veteran FBI man ate peanut M&Ms while reading the psychological profiles of Jean-Paul and Sebastian by penlight. Dusk hadn’t officially fallen yet, but because swollen storm clouds roiled low in the sky, an inky darkness settled over the area.

  Annie brought the binoculars down from her face and rubbed her tired eyes. “I’m thinking we should just go up there and knock on the door. We have search and arrest warrants. Why not use them?”

  Cooper threw a large handful of the M&Ms into his mouth. “Be my guest, Annie,” he said airily between crunches. “Just realize you’ll be taking a big risk.”

  “A risk of what?”

  “An ambush, dope. There may be a dozen Cajuns in there armed to the teeth with shotguns and deer rifles.”

  “And that’s precisely what I want to find out,” Annie said testily. “Newton promised us he’d send out a rescue team and a negotiator as soon as he receives word we found the perps. This waiting around is killing me, Coop. I keep thinking of Gabby. She may be in there. And Sebastian may have picked up some deviant sex habits during his stay in prison.”

  “I know what you mean, Annie. But according to his profile, Jean-Paul may be the one more apt to be a pedophile. He was charged with statutory rape five years ago, but was never convicted because inconsistencies wrecked the fourteen-year-old girl’s testimony.”

  “Too bad they didn’t convict the creep anyway. Maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here in this swamp growing mold on our butts,” Annie groused. Once again she lifted the binoculars up to her eyes. Even with the high-power magnification and night-vision illumination, she couldn’t see much. The wind-driven rain blurred the timbered geography hemming in the trailer. Oaks and tupelos jostled each other about on the small acreage surrounded on three sides by water.

  Using a methodical technique, Annie carefully examined each junked car on the property, looking for anomalies and kidnappers possibly hiding in the rusting relics.

  Cooper looked up from his reading material. “I’ve never seen you so uptight, Annie. It’s like you’re taking this case personal. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Annie gripped the binoculars tighter. She briefly considered spilling her guts to Cooper. She often wondered how people would treat her if they were to know the truth. As it stood now, only Newton Laskey knew about her carefully guarded past. And even he didn’t know everything. Only her former psychiatrist knew the full story, and she preferred to keep it that way. She often thought confessing the truth might turn her into a spectacle. Unlike other women, she hated attention.

  “I guess I’m just miffed at having my vacation interrupted,” Annie lied, using the binoculars to hide her emotions. “If the judge had followed the jury’s recommendations, Sebastian would have received a lethal injection like his father. For the life of me I can’t understand why America coddles undeserving criminals.”

  Cooper sighed. “It’s indeed a shame, Annie. Somewhere along the line justice became diluted. Probably about the same time when political correctness came into vogue,” Cooper speculated. “Say, whatever happened to the little McAllister girl? I know her old man, Clayton McAllister, ate a bullet when his petroleum company went belly-up. The ransom money sucked up all his liquid assets.”

  “Well, considering the trauma inflicted on her, she’s probably institutionalized,” Annie ventured softly.

  “You’re probably right. Poor kid. Heck, she’d be a grown woman by now. The abduction took place twenty years ago.”

  “It seems like only yesterday when it happened.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? I can still remember the news coverage. The media sensationalized their reporting so much that you eventually couldn’t distinguish the victim from the perpetrator.”

  “I’m not surprised. They’re awfully good at twisting the truth,”
Annie said.

  “You’re probably too young to remember the sordid details,” Cooper continued. “But supposedly Annie McAllister was abducted because her daddy fired Claude Boudreaux just a day before he would have been eligible for medical insurance.

  “Legend has it the oil man shafted his employees every chance he got. He actually had the audacity to call Claude at home to give him the bad news. So the very next day an inebriated Claude returns to the worksite for his belongings and trips over a discarded drill string pipe. The fall shattered his right knee to smithereens. And with no medical insurance to pay for an operation, Claude essentially became a cripple for the remainder of his life.”

  “I admit Boudreaux got a raw deal. But that’s still no excuse to kidnap a little girl and lock her up in a closet for several weeks. Any chance to live a normal life went by the wayside.”

  “Hey, I’m with you, Annie. The whole thing could have been avoided. But two bullheaded men couldn’t find a way to compromise. Besides scarring a child, the standoff ultimately destroyed both men.”

  Annie looked over at her partner. “I’m waiting ten more minutes, and if nothing develops I’m going up there,” she declared sternly.

  “Fair enough. I’ll watch your back. Just don’t think you have to take on the world by your lonesome. I’m not a history buff, but even I know Joan of Arc didn’t live very long.”

  Annie laughed. “Don’t worry, Frank. I’m not hearing voices or having visions or leading a crusade against the English.”

  “I’m being dead serious, Annie,” Cooper said firmly. “If you always fly by your pants you’ll eventually crash hard. I’ve seen my share of maverick agents learn this lesson the hard way.”

  Annie patted her partner’s knee. “Okay, Coop, you can stop preaching. I’ll play the percentages and follow mandated procedures.”

  “Now you’re talking some sense, Annie. There may be hope for you yet.”

  Annie smiled. “Considering that’s probably the closest thing to a compliment I’ll get from you, I’ll take it.”

  Despite her best attempts at staying vigilant, Annie periodically caught herself drifting off. The rain thrumming on the Crown Victoria tranquilized her. She tried to combat her drowsiness by sipping coffee and nibbling Cooper’s M&Ms. come on, Agent Crawford, this is no time to fall asleep at the wheel, she reprimanded herself.

  Desperate to stay awake, she grabbed a couple of pencils from the console and pretended she drummed for the band White Stripes. She pounded the steering wheel with rock star fury until Cooper shot her dirty looks.

  A subtle movement entered her peripheral vision. Annie trained her binoculars in that direction and scanned the soggy terrain. But only rain and tree limbs bowing to the wind filled the binocular lenses. False alarm. Only the wind, she thought.

  She yawned and squirmed in her seat. No matter how she positioned herself she couldn’t find a comfortable spot for her aching butt. Her legs pleaded with her to stretch them outside the car. Cooper wouldn’t like it, but she couldn’t take it any longer. Stakeouts require incredible patience, and she exhausted her small allotment hours ago.

  Annie grabbed her door handle. But before she pulled the handle intuition prompted her to take one more look out her window. Her mouth gaped open.

  “Get out of the car, Cooper! Go! Go! Go!” Annie bellowed as she shoved at his shoulder with all her strength. She started to follow Cooper out the car but soon realized she still had her seat belt on. She fumbled with the buckle, keeping one eye trained on the mechanized death hurtling their way. Haste caused her normally supple fingers to become dysfunctional. As she grappled with the belt small whimpers of fear pushed their way past her lips.

  At last the intractable buckle released and the belt slid off her waist and shoulder. She clambered over the console. Cooper had already made it safely out of the car, but she had only reached the passenger door when a calamity of puncturing steel and shattering glass filled the Crown Vic’s interior.

  Hundreds of tiny glass shards imbedded her scalp. Blood trickled down her cheek. She wanted to glance back at the machine so intent on killing her, but didn’t dare risk it. She had to exit the car or die. She suddenly felt a wicked jolt against her heels. Her door ruptured inward, and a loading bucket from a Bobcat skid steer loader knocked her into the dash.

  Hurry up! Her inner-voice screeched.

  The car began to topple. For a moment her hands touched muddy ground, and she felt certain she’d be crushed. But then for whatever reason, the teetering sedan dropped back onto all four tires. Annie slithered her legs out the door and flopped to the saturated ground. She rolled several times in the muck, not stopping until she reached a safe distance from the marauding Bobcat.

  Her breath rushed out in gasps as she looked back at the Crown Victoria. The Bobcat was ravaging the Bureau car without letup.

  Pulling her Sig P-228 from her holster, Annie took careful aim from her prone position and fired a three-shot burst at the skid steer loader operator. Always a crack shot at the target range, she watched in disbelief as the bullets caromed harmlessly off the raised loading bucket. You need a better firing angle, she told herself.

  Rising to her feet, she ran several paces to her right, and then looped inward like a wide receiver running a curl pattern. She lined up her gun sights. Her finger squeezed the trigger six times. This time her shot placement improved. The rounds from her Sig penetrated the open steel cage of the Bobcat and struck their target. The driver’s head disappeared in a fuchsia mist.

  Cooper’s Beretta echoed her shots. Annie whirled in that direction to lend her support. But as her torso swiveled, a wooden ball bat collided with her forehead. She slumped to the ground.

  Pins and needles lanced her cranial nerves. From flat on her back she peered up at her towering attacker. Even through blurred vision she could distinguish the race and sex of her ski-masked attacker. Tall and heavy, he had a body large enough to make any NFL lineman jealous. Rain dripped off his crooked nose.

  Like a cornered animal, she had no place to hide. Her Sig lay in a mud puddle too far away to reach. The gun slipped from her hand when the ball bat struck her head.

  She started to sit up, but a savage kick to her sternum stopped her movement cold. Her lungs deflated in one giant exhalation. And then blow after pulverizing blow battered her torso and head. She could hear herself screaming. Her wails formed a sickening duet with the thuds of the ball bat colliding with her flesh. I’m going to die! Jesus, help me!

  She rolled onto her stomach and locked her hands across her head. She became nothing more than a punching bag that had slipped from its hook and fallen to the ground.

  Gunshots again erupted behind her. Cooper’s nine millimeter Beretta cracked several times. His cracking reports were emphatically silenced by a single shotgun blast. Immediately following the blast she heard an agonized outcry. Annie recognized Cooper’s voice.

  Fearing her own death would soon follow, she kept expecting to see a tunnel and a blinding light. But the heavenly illumination never came, which gave her hope she might actually survive the terrible onslaught.

  Instead of a warm, beckoning glow leading her into eternity, a smothering darkness enveloped her. She fought it off as long as could, but then finally succumbed. And just before complete unconsciousness settled over her, she promised herself she would not rest until she tracked down every one of her attackers.

  The Boudreauxs had bullied southern Louisiana for as long as she could remember. Their legacy of terror and lawlessness had to be stopped before it continued on in another generation. And if she had to stalk them to the ends of the Earth to deliver justice, then so be it.

  Chapter 6

  I might as well be driving blind, Rafter thought as he steered the old Ford down the rain-swamped road. Rain lashed at the truck’s windshield with such intensity he feared the glass might implode.

  Even with headlights on, he had to rely on lightning flashes to illuminate the gravel road.
On three different occasions he wandered too far to one side and flirted with becoming mired in water-filled ditches.

  Luckily his address beckoned a half-mile ahead. On a normal day he would’ve made the trip from town in five minutes. But today the foul weather conditions forced him to drastically reduce his speed. For the past two miles the pickup truck never topped an exasperating ten miles an hour. He’d performed many cockamamie stunts in his life, but venturing out in a hurricane topped the list. Samson glared contemptuously at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Sam. I know I screwed up. I should’ve heeded the governor’s order and evacuated us. But I’m only human, you know. I’m supposed to make poor decisions.”

  The Newfoundland looked away and woofed indifferently.

  “You act this way now, but I’ll bet you change your tune when we get home and I open up your chili,” Rafter said, his hands gripping the wheel like twin vise-grips.

  A bolt of lightning struck close by, and for a brief moment the murky road lit up. Rafter got his bearings and steered the Ford back into the road’s center. Until he moved to Louisiana he’d rarely had the opportunity to witness an electrical storm. About the only way to view lightning in downtown Manhattan is to work or live on a skyscraper’s upper floors, or spend summer evenings weather-watching at Central Park. Urban living offered endless conveniences and opportunities, but they came at a steep price he no longer wanted to pay.

  Another lightning flash, this one an enormous bolt with craggy tentacles spawning off in several directions, splintered the dusky sky.

  Rafter surveyed as much of the road ahead as he could before the light faded, memorizing topographical features far in the distance. Almost immediately an uneasy feeling captured his mind.

  There had been a dark spot, or possibly even a three-dimensional form lying in the road perhaps thirty yards ahead. The form’s size troubled him. He moved his head closer to the rain-streaked windshield and peered out the glass. You better stop the truck and check it out before you run over whatever it is, his inner voice suggested.