Missing in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law #5)(12)

“You’re letting me read your case files?” She seemed pleased but a bit surprised.

“Sometimes a second set of eyes sees something different. And that’s especially true in your case as you won’t have preconceived notions about most of the people in those files.”

Jadyn sat back in the chair and opened the first file. Colt reached for the top of his stack but before he could pick up the file, Shirley sounded over his intercom.

“Burton Foster is on line two and he sounds stressed.”

Colt frowned as he reached for the phone. The last time Colt could recall Burton, who was retired military, being even remotely perturbed was the day he’d had a heart attack while eating a slice of blackberry pie. And the heart attack wasn’t what got him riled. It was the fact that the paramedics wouldn’t let him take the rest with him in the ambulance. Rumor had it that Burton had even had fun in the Vietnam conflict. Colt tended to believe the rumors.

“What can I do for you?” Colt asked as he answered.

“There’s a boat done sank at the front of Boudreaux’s Pond,” Burton said. “It’s blocking the whole entrance, and red snapper are biting.”

Colt held in a sigh. Really? All that worry over fish?

“Damn thing is just under the surface,” Burton continued. “I would have tore up my boat something awful if I’d gone through there at my normal clip. Funny thing, too, the top of it’s black. Who paints their boat black?”

Colt stiffened and clenched the phone. “Stay right there. I’m on my way.”

He dropped the phone back in the cradle and jumped out of his seat. “Come on.”

Jadyn popped up out of her chair and put the files on his desk. “What’s wrong?”

He opened the cabinet behind him and pulled out scuba gear. “There’s something with a black top submerged in Boudreaux’s Pond.”

Jadyn sucked in a breath.

“Don’t assume anything,” he said as he caught her expression. “Until we know differently, we proceed as if someone painted his boat black.”

She gave him a single nod and took one of the tanks. He hurried out of his office, striding past Shirley so fast she jumped up from her desk.

“Unless it’s an emergency,” he said as he reached for the front door, “hold all my calls.”

He rushed outside, Jadyn following close behind.

As he pulled away from the sheriff’s department, he tried to come up with another explanation for what he was on his way to see. Any explanation that didn’t include Raissa in that car at the bottom of Boudreaux’s Pond.

But no matter how hard he tried, nothing reasonable came.

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Jadyn held the scuba mask with one hand and clutched her seat belt with the other as Colt’s truck bounced down what could most charitably be called a trail. This was one of the few times she would have welcomed a million thoughts running through her mind, but instead, she had only one. A really bad one.

Colt stared straight ahead, his hands clenching the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. He’d been completely silent the entire ten minutes of the drive and Jadyn wished he’d say something…anything. Hell, at this point, she’d even settle for a sneeze to break the uncomfortable silence.

“Does this road go all the way to the pond?” she asked.

“It ends about twenty yards short of the place we want, so if it is a car, then it went off-roading for a good clip. But driving there is quicker than taking the boat. That pond isn’t exactly a direct shot down the channels.”

“How will we get the…umm, submerged object out?”

“We won’t. At least not yet. I want to assess the situation underwater first, then I’ll see what kind of equipment we can get back there. I haven’t been there in quite some time. I’m not sure what the undergrowth looks like or if the channel has narrowed.”

Assess the situation underwater.

The words repeated over and over in her head. They sounded so innocuous, but the literal translation went more like “We need to see if it’s a car and if there’s a body in it.”

He looked over at her. “I just assumed you know how to dive?”

“I do. You never know…”

In north Louisiana she hadn’t covered near the span of water that she did in Mudbug, but the need for water recovery was always a possibility, so she’d gotten her certification years ago. Several times, she’d dove on vacation—beautiful, tropical waters with brightly striped fish and coral reefs that looked like a coloring box.

This would be her first dive as part of her job.

Colt slowed and she scanned the brush in front of them. No sign of the trail remained, but Jadyn’s chest tightened when she saw the broken trees and scattered brush with two clear tire tracks running through it. Colt’s gaze immediately locked on the tire tracks and he frowned.

One question answered, but not the answer they were hoping for.

Colt rolled to a stop at the end of the trail, and they grabbed their gear.

“This way,” he said.

She fell in step behind him as he pushed a broken sapling aside and hurried into the brush.

Jadyn expected the density of the foliage to decline as they approached the water and was surprised when she stepped out of the thick underbrush and found herself standing right at the edge of the bayou.