LITMIR.BIZ

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      To Aaron Clark, my late cousin, and his widow, Glenda Clark. There are lessons in life, both dark and bright. Sometimes the dark ones teach us what we most need to know.

      Aaron, you have blazed bright with love.

       You have taught me about courage. You have taught me that it is never too late to begin anew. You have become everything and more than you ever dreamed. You are one of my real-life heroes.

      To Glenda, who taught me more about real love than almost anyone I know.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Epilogue

      Coming Next Month

      Prologue

      Get the hell out of here, you half-wild, no-good bastard!

      The van swerved off the asphalt. A rumble of bumps and rattles jolted the prisoner on the floorboards back to queasy consciousness. Murky, gray light filtered through his blindfold.

      He saw his father’s face, mottled with rage.

      You’re damn sure no son of mine!

      He’d turned away, knowing what he’d always felt deep down, that he was nothing. He’d gotten his start in the gutter. That’s where he should have stayed.

      The stench of dank air made him shudder.

      God, he was scared. So scared.

      They were in the swamp now, in that eerie, primeval kingdom of cypress trees, stagnant brown bayous, knobby-headed gators and mud deep enough to swallow a man whole.

      Cajun music whined through bursts of static. He was bound hand and foot, sprawled on top of smelly fast-food boxes, Styrofoam cups and candy wrappers.

      The waxy-faced driver with the spider tattoo was driving faster than he had in New Orleans. “You’re gonna be gator food, boy.”

      A surge of fresh fear shook the captive.

      Another voice. “You know what gators do, don’t you, no?”

      A boot nudged the prisoner’s hip. “They’ll drag you to some underground hole, stuff you inside, yes, and tear off little bits of you for days.”

      A strange terror gripped the blindfolded man. When he shifted on top of the garbage, something squished against his clean-shaven face. Only yesterday he’d sat with his father in the best restaurant in the French Quarter. He swallowed carefully against the gag, fighting not to choke on the oily rag in his mouth and the coppery flavor of his own blood. He tried not to breathe because every tortured breath made weird, gargling noises in his broken nose.

      His assailants’ mood was quiet, tense, electric.

      The road got bumpier, wetter; the pungent odor of still, dark waters and rotting vegetation stronger.

      Big tires sloshed to a standstill.

      “Let’s dump him. Sack him up, throw those concrete blocks in. Haul him out deep so he sinks.”

      The back doors were thrown open. His fine Italian loafers came off when they grasped him around the ankles and pulled him roughly over garbage, tools, and bits of wood. They flung him onto the muddy ground, and his head struck a rotten log. When he regained consciousness, they were waist deep, pushing him under.

      He fought to stand up in the gummy mud, but a boot sent him reeling in the warm, soupy water. Panic surged through him when big hands clamped around his shoulders and pressed him deeper.

      He fought. His lungs burned with the fierce will to breathe. He pushed harder and was stunned when their grip on his neck miraculously loosened. His head broke the surface, and he choked on watery breaths as a shell was racked into a chamber. A shotgun blast exploded. Then everything got quiet.

      He reeled backwards, flopping helplessly as the weights pulled him under. Strangely, as he began to sink, dying, his terror subsided.

      All was peace and darkness.

      Was this how she’d felt when her alarm went off and she couldn’t get up?

      Again he was a frightened, guilt-stricken boy shivering in wet pajamas. Bear tucked under his arm, he’d padded into his mother’s dark bedroom. Bright sunshine lit her black, tangled hair. Lost in shadows her body was a slovenly heap, half on, half off the bed.

      Her alarm kept ringing. He’d lain for hours, listening to that ringing till it had become a roar in his head. She was mean most mornings. Mean every night. How he lived for those rare moments when she tried to be nice, when she read to him from the books Miss Ancil loaned him from the library.

      As always her bedroom stank of booze and cigarettes.

      “Mommy! I—I’s sorry, so sorry…I wet….”

      He’d called her name after this confession and promised the way he did every morning never ever to do it again.

      Only she hadn’t cussed him. Nor had she gathered him into her arms and clung to him as if he were very dear which she sometimes did. She’d just lain there.

      Finally, he’d gone to her and shaken her. “Open your eyes. Please, Mommy.” He’d touched her cheek. She’d felt so stiff and cold…like his frosted window-pane in winter. Her alarm clock kept ringing.

      He hadn’t thought of that morning in years. Then here it was, his last thought on earth.

      After her funeral his aunts had marched him over to his father’s house. A man with black hair and blazing silver eyes had thrown open the door. His aunts had pushed him forward just as the door had slammed.

      He’d been shuffled among distant kinfolk who had too many kids of their own. He’d done time in foster homes with other throwaways like himself, gotten in trouble at school. Then, miraculously, his father had had a change of heart and adopted him. He’d done everything in the world to please his father, eventually, even going into business with him.

      Then one night he’d worked late and without warning opened the wrong file on a computer.

      A gush of water soaked his gag, slid down his throat, up his nostrils, burning, strangling. He was dying when brutal hands manacled his waist, maneuvered his head forcefully to the surface, dragged him out of the water and flung him onto the muddy bank.

      A rough voice cursed him in Cajun French. Gnarled fingers tore off his soggy blindfold, ripped at the duct tape over his mouth, then yanked the gag out.

      “Jesus.” His rescuer’s breath stank of gin and tobacco as he pounded his back. Water trickled out of the drowning man’s lips in spurts.

      “Damn it,” he pleaded.

      The hard palm froze. “Ha! So! You’re alive!”

      He was rolled over and a flashlight jammed under his chin. “You don’t look too good.”

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