Chapter 1
“It’s been a week and a half since Landry and Camille’s wedding, and Gisele hasn’t stopped talking about her cousin Holly.” Rafael Romero held the end of the jon boat steady.
Sinclaire Simon Savier, who preferred to go by Simon, not his callsign Sin, raised the face shield on his welder’s mask and lowered his torch. “Has Ms. Hazard had any more messages since her return to Bayou Mambaloa?”
Rafael shook his head. “Not so far. But then she’s only been back a short time. Whoever left the message on her mirror in Atlanta might not know she left.”
“Anyone who went to the trouble of writing a message on her mirror in her locked apartment most likely knows her every move.” Simon set the torch on the ground and pulled the hood over his head. “Where’s she staying?”
“She was staying at her grandmother’s place,” Rafael said. “It’s on an island in the bayou.”
Simon frowned. “Doesn’t that limit her ability to get a job?”
“Not if you have access to a jon boat or a pirogue. I doubt anyone would try anything as long as she’s with Bayou Mambaloa’s Voodoo Queen.”
“If they believe in that garbage.”
Rafael cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t believe in Voodoo?”
“No.” Simon turned away and set the welder’s hood on the worktable behind him.
“Don’t you believe in magic?” Rafael asked.
“No.” He’d learned that magic didn’t exist. Luck didn’t exist. What happened did so without the help of magic, curses or potions. He found it ridiculous and backward that so many people on the bayou believed in Voodoo.
Voodoo curses, gris-gris pouches and lucky rabbit’s feet didn’t affect the outcome of events.
His hand went to his pocket to feel the soft fur of Johnny Smallwood’s lucky rabbit’s foot. Memories flooded into Simon’s mind.
Bang!
Simon dropped to the dirt, his heart slamming hard against his chest, his ears ringing. Dust spread in a wave like fog, clouding his vision, filling his nostrils and choking his lungs.
“Sin? Johnny? Ringer? Mack? Talk to me,” La Blanc sounded in Simon’s ear as if from the end of a very long tunnel.
“Sin here,” Simon said, his own voice muffled in his numbed senses.
“Mack here,” his other teammate reported in.
“I can’t find Ringer,” La Blanc said, his voice tight, desperate. “Oh, Jesus.” Silence then, “I have Ringer. He’s hit. Hey, man, hang in there. We’ll get you out of here.”
Simon’s heart swelled into his throat at the hollow fear in La Banc’s tone. Ringer was La Blanc’s friend, his battle buddy. Like Johnny was Simon’s. They were all friends, teammates, members of Delta Force. They’d trained, fought and spent most of their lives together. They had each other’s backs.
“Johnny?” Simon choked out. “You hear me?” When his battle buddy didn’t respond, Simon crawled through the chunks of broken brick, searching for his friend, “Johnny!”
His hand touched something softer than the rubble of the destroyed building. A groan sounded, and a hand reached out in the haze to grasp his arm in a desperate, almost painful grip.
“Johnny. That you, buddy?” Simon coughed the dust from his throat and knelt in the rubble. “Talk to me, man. Are you hit?”
His friend’s hand squeezed his arm.
In the darkness, mired in the heavy dust filling the air, Simon ran his free hand over his teammate, searching for a wound. When his fingers skimmed across Johnny’s midsection, he encountered something warm and wet. A least one source of his friend’s injury. He yanked off the olive-drab scarf he’d wrapped around his neck and pressed it into the bloody mess, applying pressure to slow the flow. “Stay with me, Johnny.”
“Not going...any...where,” Johnny croaked and gave a brief gurgling cough. “Dude,” he wheezed, “do me...a ...favor.”
“Anything,” Simon said. “You got it.”
“In my pocket.”
