“This here is Taft Glass.There’s a fellow out here by my place who done went and had hisself a bad wreck.I found him myself when I went out this mornin’ to check my trot lines.Looks like he’d been there all night.He’s pinned in this big white car and all, and they’re workin’ to get him out, but he keeps callin’ out your name.I told them medics I’d come up here to the bait and tackle shop and give you a call.”
All the blood drained from Casey’s face.She gripped the phone in desperation.Oh my God, she thought.I lay in bed and slept last night while Ryder was alone and hurt and crying out for help.Her hand started to shake and she gripped the phone tighter.This was why he hadn’t come home.
She reached for paper and pen.“Give me the directions to the scene of the accident,” she demanded, and wrote at a furious pace as Taft Glass continued to speak.
She grabbed for her purse at the same time she disconnected.Her legs were shaking and she wanted to cry, but this was no time for her to be weak.Ryder’s well-being was all that counted.
Halfway to the door, she thought of the wallet she’d tossed in the desk drawer this morning and raced back to get it.She reached in and grabbed, getting a handful of pens along with the small leather case.Without taking time to sift through the mess, she tossed it all in her handbag and dashed out the door.
“Nola Sue, cancel all of my appointments.I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call.My husband has been injured in a wreck.”
Nola Sue was still registering shock as the door slammed shut behind Casey’s exit.
* * *
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Casey muttered, glancing down again at her hastily written map, as she had more than once during the last half hour.
This part of the countryside was one she’d never been in.She was deep in the Mississippi marshlands and hadn’t seen a house since she’d turn off the last gravel road.
She took the upcoming curve at a high rate of speed, skidding slightly as the road suddenly straightened.Suddenly, her nerves went on alert.A few hundred yards up ahead she could see a cluster of parked vehicles.She’d found them!
It didn’t occur to her to wonder why there were no police cars in sight, and no medical units trying to get Ryder free.All she saw was the front half of a white car buried in a bayou and the back half sticking up in the air, like an awkward straw in a giant cup of thick, soupy mud.
Fear for Ryder made her miss the fact that the buried car was a ‘59 Ford and that it had certainly been in the water longer than overnight.Fact was, it had been there closer to a year, and it was still there because the owner had moved away soon after, leaving it stuck the same way he’d left owing rent.
But to Casey, the sight was appalling.Her heart nearly stopped.Dear Lord, the man hadn’t told her the car had gone off into water.She couldn’t bring herself to think about Ryder not being alive.She had to explain to him about the investigation.He had to understand that she’d done it because she loved him, not because she didn’t trust him.In a panic, she braked to a skidding halt, unable to contemplate the idea of growing old without him.
A heavyset man separated himself from the cluster of vehicles and started toward her, while another man, tall and skinny with long, graying hair, watched from the tailgate of his truck.The man coming toward her was short and his T-shirted belly had a tendency to laze over the waistband of his faded blue jeans.The baseball cap he wore scrunched over his ears accentuated the fact that he was in dire need of a haircut.Unruly blond wisps stuck out from beneath the rim of the cap like greasy duck feathers.
A niggle of warning ticked off in Casey’s head.This wasn’t what she’d been expecting.When he leaned in the window and leered, she knew something wasn’t right.
“Miz Justice?”
“Yes, I’m Casey Justice.
Bernie Pike grinned and yanked her out of the car.“Damn, lady.It took you long enough to get here.”
Panic shafted through her as she struggled to pull herself free.
“Where’s Ryder?Where’s my husband?”
He laughed.“Now, that’s probably about what he’s going to be asking himself when you don’t show up tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
He slapped a rag on her face.It smelled of hospital corridors and science classes she thought she’d forgotten.
“Consider yourself kidnapped, honey, and hope that someone in your family thinks you’re worth the price it’s gonna take to get you back home.”
She screamed and fought, tearing the cloth from her eyes and kicking off her shoes as she tried to run.Something sharp pierced her arm, then the world opened up and swallowed her whole.
* * *
Ryder got as far as the edge of town and knew he couldn’t wait any longer to see his wife.Night was too far away.In spite of the fact that he looked as if he’d slept in his clothes, which he had, he needed to see Casey now.He parked in front of the Ruban Building and told himself they would find a way to make things right.
Nola Sue gasped as Ryder walked into the office.“Mr.Justice, thank goodness you’re all right!”
Casey’s secretary wasn’t making much sense.“What do you mean?”
