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CHAPTERFIVE
Hallie crouched beside a large tree and grabbed her camera. She was close to where she had seen Rev before, but now, there was no sight of him. It was silly for her to have hoped that she would have spotted him immediately and struck up some sort of conversation with him in the first five minutes of returning to Bayou Rouge.
Hours had passed as she sat there waiting to catch a single glimpse of Rev. Her legs were numb, her ass had fallen asleep, and she was covered in mosquito bites despite marinating in bug spray. The humidity and heat from the bayou were different beasts altogether.
Her long hair clung to her as if she had just stepped out of the shower. Searching her pocket for a tie for her hair, she heard a twig snap off in the distance and gave up on any hopes of finding something to pull her hair back with. The sound renewed her hope, both for her research and her personal life.
Hallie held her breath as she awaited the animal to come into her line of sight. Readying her camera, she wanted to be sure she captured whatever animal it was that was soon to stroll by. Maybe it would be one of the large cats she had been tracking. The very ones who the locals spun fantastical tales about.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” Hallie whispered, hoping to finally see the animals she had been stalking.
A small tabby cat hopped out of the brush a few seconds later. “Seriously!” Hallie laughed and clicked the button on her camera, capturing the tiny beast in his natural habitat.
“Meow.” The cat looked up at her, flicked his tail, and continued on his way.
“Just my luck.” Hallie sighed. Her hopes were dashed once again.
Thunder rumbled off in the distance just as her phone chirped with a weather alert. There was a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, but it was forecast to land along the Texas shore far from Bayou Rouge. She wasn’t worried about it.
She pulled a bottle of water and a protein bar from her backpack and made herself comfortable, waiting for some sort of wildlife to pass by. She had positioned herself near where she saw Rev the first time, yet far enough away that she could feign innocence if she stumbled upon him.
The longer she sat there, the more she started to feel like some sort of crazy-ass stalker.
“What the hell am I even doing out here?” Hallie asked herself. At first, she tried to justify her presence as dual purpose. She could easily work on her research while keeping an eye out for Rev, just as she and Gerri had discussed.
Now, it felt wrong. Like she was doing something skeevy. She tried walking in Rev’s shoes, so to speak. She asked herself how she would feel if some strange dude was stalking her.
“Yeah. It’s time to go. There has to be another way to do this that doesn’t make me feel like a creep.” Hallie gathered her equipment, placing everything in its respective case. It took her longer than she expected to hike back to where she left her Jeep, especially when she was bogged down with all her gear.
Her Jeep was nowhere in sight when a spatter of raindrops started to fall on her. She glanced up at the sky, expecting to see a few rain clouds above her. Instead, she saw an ominous wall of angry, black clouds moving in. The wind picked up suddenly, the sky lit up with bright flashes of lightning, and a loud boom of thunder clapped above her head.
“Shit,” Hallie said, picking up her pace as the clouds opened up and a torrent of rain was unleashed.
The dirt trail she jogged along quickly turned to mud, slowing her pace. She finally made it to her Jeep and threw her equipment and bag in the back, then hurried around and climbed into the driver’s seat. She grabbed a towel from the seat and used it to dry her hair and face. Looking into the mirror, she had to concede she looked like a drowned river rat. Her hair stuck to her face, shoulders, and back. The makeup she had started out with washed halfway down her face.
“Ugh! This is just my luck.” She rolled down her window to wet a corner of the towel in the downpour. She dabbed and wiped at her cheeks and under her eyes, hoping to clear up the streaks of mascara.
A white bolt of lightning shot across the sky and landed behind her, hitting a large tree, causing it to crash across the road. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. “Right. I think it’s time to get my ass out of here.” Hallie put her Jeep into gear and stepped on the gas pedal. The tires spun in the mud. She pressed the pedal harder, hoping to free her vehicle. When that didn’t happen, she clicked the dial to engage the four-wheel drive. “Come on, baby. Please,” she begged, stepping on the gas pedal once again. This time the Jeep crawled out of the mud. Slowly, she bounced down the now-flooded dirt road.
“This was an epically bad idea. Probably one of my worst.” She flicked the windshield wipers on high and said a prayer that she would make it out of the bayou before the road washed away. The last thing she wanted was for her ass to get swept to God knew where. That would not be fun.
She inched along the road, the rut growing deeper as the water continued to rise. As she entered the section the locals called the narrows, she held her breath. The dirt road disappeared. The only thing she could see was the water covering the road. There was no other way she could go. She had to pass through the narrows if she intended on getting out of the bayou before the storm got any worse.
“Please, Lord, let me make it through here,” she prayed, and she continued forward at a slow and steady pace. Within seconds of entering the narrows, her jeep came to a sudden halt. The water continued to rise around her, washing over the hood of her vehicle.
