Page 4 of Rowe

“We don’t have a choice. Let’s get the rest of them to the other slab. No one will hear them or see them. By the time the storm is done, they’ll just be trash in the swamp.”

Mara woke to wind whipping around her face, her hair matted and stinging her own cheeks as the storm acted as if it were trying to tear it from the roots.

“Wh-where am I?” she asked no one. She looked around and realized exactly where she was. Or almost. It was the swamp. There were chains around her wrists and around a pipe digging into the concrete slab.

“No. No, no, no!” she cried out. “Help me! Someone help me!”

She screamed until she had no voice. She’d lived in the area long enough to know that there was no one in the bayou who would be out during the storm. No one. She was going to die.

“Please,” she whispered as she curled into a ball, trying to protect herself. “Please just let Kiera be alright. Please God.”

The storm seemed never-ending. Wind, rain, debris constantly attacking her body. She’d worn just shorts and a t-shirt that morning to training. They were told they could dress casually. She regretted it. If she’d worn jeans at least her legs wouldn’t be so cut up.

By day three, she knew she was beginning to shut down. The bayou water was okay to drink but with the chains, she couldn’t reach it. Lying on her back, she opened her mouth, hoping to catch enough rain to satisfy her dehydrated body.

Twice, an alligator swam by and she stilled. He seemed to be staring at her. Waiting.

“Please don’t eat me,” she whispered. “I’m a good person.”

As the water continued to rise above the concrete slab, Mara knew she would be gone soon. She thought of the other girls who had protested just like she had. She thought of her niece who would have no one now.

Twenty-seven years old. No husband. No boyfriend. No prospects. Just she and her niece. Now, her life would be over.

CHAPTER THREE

Hurricane Irene had left a path of destruction unlike most had ever seen. Homes gone. People gone. Businesses gone. The structures could be replaced. The sentimental things, the wedding and christening gowns, the photographs, could not.

Clean up would take months and the team was prepared for that. What they had not been prepared for was finding six women chained to a concrete slab in the middle of the bayou.

They were all dead. All young. And all had worked for Pelican Insurance.

Now, according to Alvin, their only source and he was a good one, there was another woman. Another slab of concrete and no time.

Even the team had a hard time getting through the bayou at night. Alvin struggled with direction just like they did. His own markers were gone, trees were no longer where they once stood but his huge body skimmed over the water, searching for the woman.

They used the smaller boats, two to three men on each following Alvin’s tail.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” said Rowe. “I wasn’t raised in a place where there were hurricanes. Tornadoes now and then but definitely not hurricanes.”

“We were lucky,” said Grayson. “Fortunately, the Robicheaux’s, especially Matthew, knew what to do. There are a lot of folks that will still need help though.”

“Ham said that Nutt and the boys are out around the most flooded areas helping folks clean up. That was a surprise I wasn’t ready for,” smirked Rowe.

“They’re a good group of men,” said Grayson continuing to steer the boat around the twists and bends of the bayou. There were dozens of remote cabins and shacks that most likely hadn’t survived. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t people out here.

“Keep an eye out for survivors in small boats,” said Iggy. “Matthew said folks would have used what they had so it could be anything. It doesn’t mean Alvin’s is the only one we’ll find.”

Grayson stayed close to the shore, trying to peer into the wooded area. Cypress trees, once full of moss were now bare, looking like dead sentinels in the distance.

“What is that?” asked Rowe.

“What?” asked Grayson, slowing the boat to a crawl. The men turned the flood lights in the direction that Rowe was pointing.

“Over there. It looks like the foundation of an old cabin. There’s someone there.” Alvin climbed onto the slab and stopped, staying a respectful distance from the prone body.

Grayson stopped, staring in the direction of Rowe’s finger. It took him a moment and then he saw it at the same time it became clear to Rowe.

“Holy fuck.”