AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cruz didn’t hesitate. His gun fell to the floor, landing with a sharp thud. Hands raised, he turned, and Kristi looked past him to find Reuben Montoya, both hands on the gun he had aimed at his brother, standing in the kitchen. Backlit by the light over the range, he was in silhouette.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, his gaze still centered on his brother, though he was speaking to her.
“No—yes. I don’t know.”
Cruz said, “We need an ambulance!”
“More than one from the looks of it.” Montoya’s face a mask of determination and regret, his eyes dark and somber. Still he kept the muzzle of his gun trained on his brother’s heart, and said clearly, “Cruz Montoya. You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER 40
“Iwant you to look at this footage one more time,” Bentz said to Bobby-Dean and Clive as they clustered around his Jeep at the end of the gravel road where he’d parked. Ty Wheeler had reluctantly and angrily been forced to leave with a deputy. Bentz was in the swamp with the two fishermen, his iPad balanced on the hood of his SUV. He hit play on his iPad and the drone footage began to play, footage he’d thankfully downloaded hours before so he didn’t need to depend on Wi-Fi for it to be viewed.
So now, here in the damned bayou, mosquitoes swarming, he waited, hoping beyond hope that one of the two fishermen would locate something out of the ordinary, something he’d missed.
In time.
The minutes stretched out. Bentz drummed his fingers on the hood. Finally he asked, “You see anything?”
The images had been taken in daylight, the drone riding high over the swamp to video the thick vegetation and dark water. A few cabins dotted the meandering shoreline and pelicans skimmed the water looking for fish that rose occasionally. Alligators and egrets, a deer leaping through the shadows appeared as the drone flew. Piers jutted into the water, a scattering of boats, but mainly reeds and brush, exposed roots, alligator nests, and duckweed between the tall, ghostly cypress.
Clive complained, “We’ve been over this. Like, what? Five times.”
“Take another look,” Bentz encouraged, his frustration mounting. “You know where we are, right, where we’re parked?”
“Sure.” Bobby-Dean was nodding, adjusting his cap. He pointed one finger at the screen. “That’s Old Man Ross’s cabin. I recognize his boat.”
Clive grunted his agreement. “Yep. And there”—he nodded at the screen—“that’s Dot Miller’s place. It’s just half a mile off Junebug Lane, right by Sugar Corners.”
He’d heard that much before. “And what about this?” Bentz asked, feeling a spike in his adrenaline. “Is this—Cyrus Unger’s bait shop?”
Scratching his cheek, Clive squinted. “Sure is.”
“Uh-huh.” Bobby was nodding. “Yep.”
“And what’s that?” Bentz asked, pointing to a cluster of trees at a bend in the water. Nearly covered by brush, it rose like a hill that shouldn’t be in the flat area around the swamp.
“Oh—that?” Clive scowled.
“Don’t rightly know,” Bobby-Dean said, and slapped at a mosquito that was buzzing near his face. “What you think, Clive?”
“Humph.” Clive’s lips curved down as he shook his head. “Not sure. Ain’t no hills out here. Nuh-uh. But maybe an old barn fallen down. Somethin’ like that.”
“It’s falling down all right,” Bobby agreed, studying the screen. “Something pretty big. But doesn’t look like a barn. No barn I ever seen. I don’t know.” But he was thinking, his face pulled together and creased, a hand scratching beard stubble. “Can we get a closer look somehow?”
“Sure.” Bentz zoomed in, focusing on the mound of the obviously overgrown rubble and wondering why they hadn’t seen the hillock of overgrown, mossy timbers or whatever before. It had been hidden mostly by the canopy of trees.
“Oh, I know,” Bobby said, and snapped his fingers as the light dawned in his mind. “Didn’t recognize it from here up top.” He glanced at Clive. “Ain’t that the ruins of the old monastery?”
“The what?” Clive stared at the screen. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
“A monastery?” Bentz repeated, and felt a little sizzle of adrenaline at the thought of anything Catholic and religious being here. “There’s a monastery here?”
“Nothin’ ever came of it.” Bobby looked at his friend. “Don’t you remember? There was talk of it when we was kids. The old folks laughed about it. Some rich guy donated some land to the church, years ago—maybe a hundred, like around the turn oflastcentury or so. But the deal was, the guy would only give the church the property if they agreed to build a monastery on it.”
Clive thought hard, but was nodding. “You’re right.” He leaned in closer to the screen. “The way I heard it was the rich old dude, the guy who owned that piece of property, he had a kid who was a priest or somethin’.”
“Right. That’s the way I heard it,” Bobby-Dean said. “The upshot was that the deal was struck, and the church tried like hell to build a big ol’ monastery, but couldn’t do it cuz the ground wouldn’t hold. No matter what they did, they couldn’t find bedrock out here in the swamp, so after years of plannin’ and tryin’ and frettin’, the whole kit and kaboodle was scrapped and left to rot.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “Dollars to donuts, that’s what’s left of it.”
