A Storm Front Novel

Panic hit.

She had to get away.

She needed to get some medical help and figure out what to do next. But she knew Lance well enough to know that he would be behind her at every move. She could take Susan’s car and drive into Bordelaise. Someone there would help her. She could—

She stopped and moaned, blinded by a sudden pain from the deep wound in her head. She needed to regroup first. No need making accusations against Lance that she would never be able to back up. Lance might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. Whatever she said, he would just chalk it up to her head wound. And now that he knew she’d seen him, there was no way he would bury that body where he’d been digging. He would move it, of that she was certain. And until she could figure out where, she needed to keep herself and her accusations under wraps.

She started toward the car when her legs suddenly went out from under her. She fell only a few feet away from Susan’s body. It took every ounce of strength she had left to get back on her feet, and as she did, found herself looking down at Susan again.

They’d been born to twin sisters and within a month of each other. They had grown up like sisters, their features so similar that people had often mistaken them for twins, as well. They even wore their thick dark hair in the same casual style. At that moment, a thought occurred. It was daring, if not crazy, but it might give her the space and time she needed.

Susan’s facial features were forever altered by whatever had killed her. But she was wearing jeans and black shoes like Cari’s, as well as a white T-shirt. The only difference was Cari’s dark green, three-quarter-length all-weather coat. If she put the coat on Susan’s body and got away before anyone saw her, whoever eventually found the bodies out here would quite naturally assume Susan was Cari. Especially Lance, who’d been the last person to see her alive.

And better yet, even though Susan was known in Bordelaise, no one knew she’d driven over from Baton Rouge to spend the night, so no one would suspect anything. Convinced this was the answer she needed, Cari took off her coat and, without looking at the wreck of Susan’s face, knelt down and managed to put it on her by rolling her first one way, then the other.

Shaken and sick at heart, she finally crawled to her feet, then stopped and looked down. As she did, she shuddered. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought she was looking at her own dead body.

Suddenly afraid she would be caught before she could get away, she headed for Susan’s car as fast as she could go, stumbling once and falling yet again before she managed to get behind the wheel.

Her hands were sore from the splinters, and sticky with the same blood that was all over her clothes, but she couldn’t let it matter. With every ounce of strength she had left, she started the car and put it into gear. The only thing she could think of was getting herself to Baton Rouge and, under the guise of her cousin’s identity, getting some medical attention. She’d been to Susan’s town house countless times and knew the way almost as well as she’d known the way home from the woods.

It wasn’t that far.

All she had to do was get there.

Lance had been only vaguely aware of the thunderstorm while he’d been inside the cave burying Austin Ball, but when he got back to where he’d left the rental car, he was shocked by the devastation. Trees were uprooted. Bits and pieces of sheet iron and lumber were scattered about, and the car was nowhere in sight.

At first he’d thought someone must have stolen it. But the farther he ran toward home, the more certain he was that it had become a casualty of what must have been a tornado. He began to panic, fearing Morgan’s Reach might have been hit, but when he reached the back of the property just beyond the stables and saw the familiar roofline, he started shaking from relief. There was evidence of damage, but nothing drastic, and nothing that couldn’t easily be repaired. Some corrals were down, and there was a portion of roof missing off the barn, but the house seemed intact.

He ran through the mud and then to the back door, taking off his shoes at the stoop before going inside. Too many years of not bringing in mud on his shoes had been drummed into his consciousness to do it now—even if he was the one in charge.

He made a quick run through the house, checking for further damage. The electricity was off, but he still checked the laundry to make sure all the blood had washed out of the clothes he’d tossed in earlier. It had.

Unable to use the dryer, he took the clothes out and spread them over the washer and dryer to air-dry. No time like the present to put his world back in order. Except for a broken windowpane and some missing shingles he’d seen earlier, the house seemed solid, although he couldn’t bring himself to do more than glance into the library where he’d committed the murder.

Now that he knew his home and property were in basic order, focus immediately shifted to Carolina North. This situation needed a lot of damage control, and the more time that passed, the harder it would be. He grabbed the keys to his truck and headed out the door, intent on a quick visit to his nearest neighbor.

His heart was pounding as he pulled out of the driveway and started down the blacktop toward the North property. He’d driven this road countless times during his life. With his brother, Joe, on their way to deliver Christmas gifts from one family to the other, then later, when he and Cari had been engaged. He knew and cared for the Norths almost as much as he’d cared for his own parents. And four years ago, when his parents died in a car wreck, Cari and her parents had been the first ones to arrive and the last to leave, long after everyone else was gone.

The closer he got to the turnoff to the North property, the sicker he became. He didn’t know what lay ahead of him and wasn’t sure if he had the stomach for what needed to be done. It had been one thing to stop a stranger from taking Morgan’s Reach. It was another thing altogether to kill someone he knew in order to keep his secret.

Two

Every fear Lance had of facing Cari and her parents came to a halt as he drove up on the scene of devastation.

“Oh my God,” he gasped, as he stomped the brake and killed the engine. The urgency of his situation had suddenly changed.

Every structure on the North property was gone.

The house, the barn, even the corrals.

A tree had fallen over on Frank and Maggie’s vehicle, and Cari’s car was upside down in the pasture beyond. He could see the dead carcasses of some of Frank’s cattle, but most of the wreckage the storm had left behind was impossible to identify.

He jumped out of the truck and started toward the debris with his heart in his throat. Would there be survivors? If he found them, how would he be able to tell if Cari had already told them what she’d seen? If they were alive, what was he going to do? Finish them off—or get them to a doctor?

“Hello! Hello! Can anybody hear me?” he yelled, as he frantically started his search. “Mrs. North…Maggie…it’s me, Lance! Can you hear me?”

Something shifted in the debris off to his right, then fell with a thud. He jumped, then ran in that direction, thinking someone might be trying to get his attention. But when he got there, his search was futile. No bodies. No survivors.

“Frank! Frank! It’s me, Lance. Can you hear me? Are you here?”

His anxiety level was rising as he dashed throughout the rubble. He stumbled over a pile of lumber and shattered drywall, then pulled up short. The leg and shoe sticking out from beneath the rubble were horribly familiar.

“Maggie! Oh my God… Maggie!” he cried, and dropped to his knees.

When he got the debris away and saw her face, frozen in a death mask of terror, he rocked back on his heels. The first thing that went through his mind was the molasses cookies she used to bake for him. His eyes filled with tears. If Cari had already told her, it no longer mattered. Finding her dead meant that was one decision he wouldn’t have to make.

He backed away quickly, then stood up, brushing at the mud on his knees as he sidestepped an upturned sofa and more drywall. A few moments later, he found Frank.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, then quickly looked away.

He found the family dog within moments of finding Frank, but still no Cari. Just as he was beginning to fear that she hadn’t come home after all but was probably already in Bordelaise and talking to the authorities, he saw her.

It was the dark green, all-weather coat she’d been wearing that caught his eye. From this distance, he could tell she wasn’t moving, but she wasn’t lying in the midst of any debris. What if she was still alive? Could he finish her off and lay the blame on the twister?

His fingers curled into fists. His belly knotted. This was turning into the worst day of his life. He genuinely cared for all of the Norths, but especially Cari. That his life had come down to this was sickening.

He took a deep breath and then started forward. His legs were shaking; his vision blurred. Then he saw her face—or what was left of it—and froze. Still a good fifteen yards away, he dropped to his knees again, this time weeping from the relief of knowing he’d just been given a second chance. The only witness to the fact that he’d committed murder was dead.

After he pulled himself together enough to walk, he stumbled back to his truck and grabbed the cell phone from the seat. He tried to call the parish police but couldn’t get a signal. It occurred to him then that the North property might not be the only scene of disaster.

Still shaking, he crawled up into the truck seat and started the engine. When he pulled back onto the main road and turned toward Bordelaise to notify the authorities about what he’d found, he had to remind himself that it was grief he would be expressing and not relief.

Cari drove the thirty miles from the family farm to Baton Rouge on autopilot. She had to stop twice to vomit and guessed she was probably concussed. The blood had dried on her clothes and in her hair, and the palms of her hands were beginning to swell from the splinters under the skin. She could only imagine what she looked like, but she couldn’t let that stop her. Getting to safety, then getting medical attention, was paramount. She wouldn’t let herself think of what she’d left behind—or that the bodies of her loved ones were lying exposed to the elements. They were beyond help and would have been the first to understand. If she was going to save herself, she needed to get well.

There was money in Susan’s purse on the seat beside her. Inside were her driver’s license, and insurance and credit cards, as well as a card stating her blood type, which they also shared. Cari should be able to get in and out of a hospital emergency room without complications. The fact that her claims would technically be fraudulent was nothing compared to being tracked down and killed to hide a murder.

When she finally reached the city limits of Baton Rouge, her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold on to the steering wheel. She didn’t see the shocked expressions on the faces of other drivers as they passed her, or of the people at the crosswalks as she stopped for lights. She was too focused on not passing out and keeping the car in the proper lane.

She glanced up at a street sign as she braked for another red light. The words kept blurring and running together, but if she wasn’t mistaken, the hospital was just a couple of blocks down on her right. She turned on her signal. Just as the light went green, she felt herself fading.

“God, help me,” she whispered, and jammed the shift into Park just before she passed out.

“Susan! Susan Blackwell! Can you hear me? Open your eyes, Susan. You’re in a hospital.”

Cari moaned. Someone was yelling. Didn’t they know enough to speak softer? Her head was killing her.

She could feel someone taking off her clothes, which didn’t make sense. It wasn’t time for bed.

“Susan? You’re in a hospital. My name is Dr. Samuels. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

Images moved through Cari’s mind in disjointed flashes. Something red on the leaves on the forest floor. Wind whipping through the trees. Panic! Why panic? Running. The sky turning dark. Mother screaming. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. They’re gone.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, then heard a woman’s voice near her ear. “Susan, my name is Amy Niehues. I’m a nurse. Do you hurt anywhere besides your head? How did you get all these splinters in your hands?”

Cari inhaled slowly. Everything hurt, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around the words long enough to answer before she lost consciousness again. The next time she came to, she was aware enough to realize she was in a hospital. A momentary swell of relief rushed through her. She’d made it. She was safe. On the heels of that emotion came the memory of what had happened. The tornado. Her family. Everyone gone.

Breath caught in the back of her throat. She would never hear their voices again. Never feel their arms around her. Never laugh with them. Never have her father walk her down the aisle. She might be a grown woman, but she’d just been orphaned.

Tears welled. A sob burned at the back of her throat. She covered her face with her hands, but the images from the storm were seared into her brain. What started out as a simple sigh of defeat turned into a scream. And once she started screaming, it didn’t feel like she could stop.

Amy Niehues came running, as did several of her coworkers. Cari’s room quickly filled as they began frantically trying to find the source of her discomfort. They kept asking her if she was in pain. They didn’t know, and Cari couldn’t tell them, that the pain wasn’t fixable. There were no pills or treatments that would make what she was feeling go away. She didn’t notice when Amy shot a sedative into her IV, but in a few minutes she closed her eyes and the room fell silent.

A doctor stood at the foot of her bed, studying her chart. He looked at her, then over to the nurse beside him.

“Amy…has anyone been able to locate her parents?”

“They’ve been dead for several years.”

“What about extended family?”

“We’re not sure,” Amy said. “Someone contacted her place of employment, and we’re just waiting for someone to get back to us.”

The doctor handed the chart back to the nurse, gave Cari one last glance, then left the room.

Mike Boudreaux was in his office, pacing between the windows and his desk as he spoke to his assistant on the other end of the line.

“It doesn’t matter, Kelly. You tell them they have the only offer they’re going to get. They can either accept it—and me—or lose it all. I’m not the one who ran that company into the ground, and I’m also not the one who embezzled the entire company retirement fund. I said they could keep all the employees on the present payroll, but…the CEO is out. He didn’t know how to keep his own company safe from the accountant who embezzled all their money and ran with it. What happens to him is the state of Ohio’s problem, but no way in hell am I putting his boss in charge of a company I own.”

“Yes, boss. I’ll make sure they understand that.”

“See that you do,” Mike said, then frowned when he heard his housekeeper’s footsteps coming down the hall. She was running, and Songee Wister never ran.

Songee burst into his office carrying the house phone. He could tell from the look on her face that something was wrong.

“There’s a nurse asking for you,” she cried, as she thrust it in his hands. “Something has happened to Miss Susan.”

Mike’s heart sank as he put the phone to his ear. Susan wasn’t just an employee, she was his personal assistant, as well as a very good friend.

“Hello. This is Mike Boudreaux.”

“My name is Loretta Sawyer. I’m the public liaison at Baton Rouge General Hospital. Do you have an employee by the name of Susan Blackwell?”

“Yes, she’s my personal assistant,” he said. “What’s happened to her? Is she all right?”

“We’re not sure,” Loretta said. “She’s injured, as if she’s been in some kind of accident, although the paramedics who brought her in said there was nothing wrong with her car. It’s possible she has been the victim of a crime, but at this point, we just don’t know. We’re calling you because she has you listed as her emergency contact.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be right there,” Mike said, then realized he didn’t know which location. “Wait! Are you calling from Mid-City hospital, or the Bluebonnet location?”

“Bluebonnet, on Picardy Street,” she said.

“Okay, thanks,” Mike said, and disconnected. He was already running toward the hall to get his car keys when Songee met him at the door.

“Your keys,” she said, as he handed her the phone.

“Thank you, Songee. As always, you’re a step ahead of me.”

“Is Susan all right?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll call when I know something. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to send up one of your prayers.”

“Yes, sir,” Songee said. “I’ll make it a powerful one…just in case.”

She stood and watched until the taillights of his car disappeared down the driveway, then went back inside with praying on her mind.

Physical pain brought a rude awakening. Every heartbeat throbbed throughout her body. Her hands were stiff and bandaged, and for a moment she couldn’t remember why. Then the memories flooded back…ugly, mind-numbing memories. Struck again with overwhelming sorrow, tears were already brimming as she opened her eyes.

Then she gasped.

A stranger—a man with dark hair and angry green eyes—was leaning over her bed. His voice was soft, his words accusing.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you’re not Susan Blackwell. Talk now, or I’m calling the police.”

Cari’s stomach knotted as panic shot through her. She couldn’t be outed—not like this. Not—yet.

“You don’t understand,” she mumbled, and grabbed at his wrist. “Susan and I are cousins. I needed to—”

She heard a swiftly indrawn breath, then the man quickly stepped back. The anger on his face slowly shifted to understanding. He put a hand on her arm, as if to steady her.

“Carolina? Is your name Carolina?”

Cari shuddered on a sob as the tension eased.

“Yes, but how did you—”

“I’m Michael Boudreaux, Susan’s boss…and friend. The hospital called me when you were brought in. Susan always said you two looked alike, although it’s hard to tell beneath the bruises and bandages.”

“Oh, thank God,” Cari said. She’d heard Susan talk about him for so long that her panic shifted to hope. Maybe he could help.

Mike frowned.

“What happened, Carolina?”

“Cari…please.”

“Cari it is. Why the deceit? Why did you enter the hospital under Susan’s name?”

Cari’s eyes welled again, but this time, tears rolled. She hadn’t planned on telling on herself quite this soon, but Mike Boudreaux’s unexpected appearance gave her no choice.

The moment Mike saw the tears, he knew the answer wasn’t going to be good.

“Susan’s dead. My mother and father are dead. The storm…there was a tornado at our farm.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Mike muttered, then turned away, overcome by shock.

For a few moments all Cari saw was the stiff set of his shoulders. Panic swept through her. What was he going to do? Would he out her to the world before she had time to protect herself?

Then, all of a sudden, he turned back. His eyes were wet with tears, but his voice was steady as he lightly touched her shoulder and asked, “Is that what happened to you?”

She nodded, then wished she hadn’t, because the motion made her sick.

Mike frowned. This wasn’t making sense. “How did you get here? Why didn’t you go to Bordelaise for medical treatment? That’s where you live, right?”

Cari couldn’t stop crying. Every time she tried to answer, the words seemed to swell and choke at the back of her throat.

Mike sighed. Obviously this wasn’t a good time to push. But something was off. Unless…

“I think I understand,” Mike said. “I was told you were found unconscious at a stoplight in Baton Rouge. You were driving Susan’s car. Her stuff was in it. They assumed you were her, right? Don’t worry. I’ll straighten all this out for you.”

When he moved, Cari grabbed his wrist, then winced at the pain in her bandaged palms. “No! Don’t!” she cried. “You don’t understand.” She swiped at her tears with the edge of her sheet, then took a breath, trying to calm her thoughts. “Just before the storm hit, I walked up on a neighbor in our woods. He was…he was…oh God…just saying it aloud makes no sense.”

“What was he doing?” Mike persisted.

“Digging a grave to bury the dead man wrapped up in the rug beside him.”

“What the hell? You witnessed a murder?”

“Not the actual murder. Just the disposal of the body. He started running after me. I lost my phone while I was trying to get away. I just needed to get home. The tornado hit just as I reached the house. I lived through it. My family didn’t. It wasn’t until I found Susan’s body…her injuries were mainly to her…” Cari shuddered, then covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, oh God…to her face.” She shivered, then made herself continue. “I knew I had to hide until I figured out what to do, so I put my coat on Susan’s body, knowing she would be identified as me, and ran.”

Mike swallowed past the knot in his throat. Susan Blackwell had worked for him for seven years. He adored her and depended on her—as a friend and as his personal assistant. To know her life had ended like this was devastating. But his sorrow was obviously not on the same level as Carolina North’s losses.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and then turned away and walked toward the windows overlooking the parking lot to gather his own emotions.

Cari’s head was pounding. All of a sudden, she knew she was going to be sick—again.

“Mr. Boudreaux… Mike! I think I’m going to throw up,” Cari said.

Mike spun and rushed to her side, grabbing the wastebasket and holding it up at the side of the bed as Cari leaned over. She didn’t feel his hand on her back or see the empathy on his face. All she knew was that by the time she’d finished, her nurse was in the room, waiting with a fresh washcloth to wash her face.

Cari fell back onto the pillow with a groan. “Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re fortunate to still be alive,” Mike said.

The nurse checked Cari’s IV flow, eyed Mike curiously, then left to get something for Cari’s nausea.

Once again, Cari and Mike were alone. He spooned a couple of ice chips into her mouth, then waited for her to chew them. When he thought she could handle the questions, he started talking again.

“Why didn’t you go straight to the Bordelaise authorities?”

“And say what? That I saw my neighbor burying a body in the woods?”

“You knew the man?” Mike asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. Lance Morgan. I grew up with him…. His family’s land joins ours on two sides. Lance is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. There’s no way he buried that body there. Not after I saw him. When I realized he wasn’t still chasing me, I knew he’d gone back to move it. He would have buried it somewhere else. By the time I would have gotten to the authorities, it would be my word against his, and I’ve got a big hole in my head. He’d just claim my story was nothing more than a hallucination from the injury. His parents are dead, but he comes from an old and prominent family. Mine has been around almost as long, but it would just be my word against his. I didn’t recognize the dead man, which means he wasn’t a local, which means no missing person case to back up my claim. In fact, given our history, Lance could laugh it off and lay it all on our past.”

“How so?” Mike asked.

“A couple of years ago we were engaged, until I caught him cheating on me. I called it off. He could claim I was just trying to get back at him for what he did to me.”