“You know what this means, right?”
I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to take the wrong guess. “Tell me.”
“We need to go to the manor and investigate the grounds ourselves.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
“Let me make some calls, and then we can go home and pack.”
“Pack?”
“How else can we thoroughly investigate the area? Spending a few hours there won’t do a damn bit of good. We’re staying the night.”
Dammit.
I wasn’t sure which was worse: staying the night in a supposed haunted house in a gator-infested bayou or staying the night with Kade.
It was like picking the lesser of two evils, and I had a hard time deciding. Either way, I had some packing to do.
5
Kade
“Think all of this will fit?” I asked the boat captain, who’d introduced himself as George.
“Of course, it can. This boat is designed to carry six-thousand pounds or more. Got anything else to load? There’s plenty of room.”
I cast Jared a look as he was rifling through a bag, before shaking my head. “No, this is it.”
“Great. Let’s get the boat loaded then so we can be on our way.”
“In a hurry?” I quipped.
“Yes.” Gone was his easy-going smile and in its place was a serious expression.
“Why?” I asked as I grabbed my backpack and a case of water.
George looked at the sky as if looking for answers to my question. “How many companies did you have to call before you got a yes from me?”
I shrugged. “A few. I figured they were all too busy, especially since I called last-minute.”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”
“And what are you telling me?” I challenged.
“That I’m not in a hurry to drop you off at Cyprus Manor. But I am in a hurry to get back here before the sun goes down.”
Well that was fucking ominous. “What happens after the sun goes down?”
George pinned me in place with his shrewd eyes. “You’ll find out.”
With those words, he snatched up one of the generators as if it weighed four pounds instead of forty-five and put it on the airboat.
“What was all that about?” Jared asked after he shouldered his bag and came closer to me.
“I wish I knew. Come on, let’s get this stuff on the boat.”
Giving that the manor was built in the late nineteenth century, and had sat empty for nearly as long, I wasn’t sure of its condition and most of the research I’d done on it had come up empty—something I found very fascinating. There were no property deeds, and aside from one article I’d found about historical homes in the area, and the few surrounding the disappearances of the girls, I couldn’t find anything. I’d spared no expense when shopping for the weekend. I’d bought portable generators, cases of bottled water, lots of food to make sandwiches or didn’t require heat to make it, a portable Wi-Fi router, and numerous packs of batteries and flashlights. We also had sleeping bags, pillows, and toiletries so I could at least brush my teeth and clean up as much as possible. The fact I remembered clothes was a miracle, but Jared had shot me a quick text to remind me—as if he knew me well enough to know I’d forget.
He also came with his own supply of items including camera equipment, his laptop computer, and a small cooler of food. We were more than prepared and had packed as if we were going to be gone for a week rather than a weekend. But considering we were going into uncharted territory it was better to be over prepared rather than under.
We quickly got the boat loaded with George’s help, and after donning the lifejackets, George turned on the fan, and then we were off. Wind whipped across my face as George navigated through the bayou, and I glanced around at the magnolias covering the surface of the water, and every so often as we’d glide by, eyes would pop through the algae. The gators weren’t too thrilled over our intrusion of their territory, but we were just passing through—not staying.
“Look over there,” Jared said excitedly.
I whipped my head in his direction and saw a large alligator sitting on one of the banks. Under the tree, it was nearly camouflaged, but with a switch of his scale-covered tail it was sliding back into the water, probably tracking its prey. I just hoped the grounds of the manor were alligator-free, otherwise Jared and I would have to take turns with Gator Watch.
“How long will it take to get there?” I called out to George; he had climbed over us to sit in the captain’s seat to steer the boat.
“Oh, at this speed, about thirty minutes or so.”
“How fast are we going?”
“About thirty-five miles per hour.”
I nodded as I thought about what Jared had told me about Theresa. How in the hell did she and her friends get out to the manor in a damn rowboat? It would’ve taken hours.
I instantly switched to PI mode, trying to calculate how much time it’d take for two men to row to the manor, and wondering if foul play was involved with her disappearance. I knew I couldn’t form an opinion based on hearsay, but things just weren’t adding up to me. I knew I needed to wait until we actually reached the manor and I had a chance to look around. Regardless of what happened to Theresa, or the other girls involved, my case was centered around Cassandra.
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Jared yelled to me.
I shrugged. “I never stop thinking.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for that when we reach the manor. Just enjoy the ride until then.”
Easy for him to say. When it came to terms of work, Jared was definitely the yin while I was the yang. He was more relaxed in terms of investigations. He preferred the research while I loved to get out in the field—and maybe that was the cop in me. So while he leaned back in his seat and tipped his head toward the sun as the wind blew through his hair and water sprayed in his face, my mind continued to churn like a hamster wheel.
The rest of the ride was quiet while George navigated the waters. My mind switched to when I’d called the other airboat companies, and the reactions when they asked where I needed to go. As soon as the words “Cyprus Manor” were past my lips, they would flat out refuse to take me. And it made me wonder what they knew that I didn’t.
I’d grown up in DuPage Parish. I’d worked as a cop there for years. I’d heard the stories over the years, and even caught a few kids trying to sneak out there a few times during my patrols. But until this investigation, I’d always thought they were just stories. They were, right? Yet, so many people had disappeared around there, and I needed to find out why. Surely, they all weren’t gator food…were they? Or maybe there was something else more dangerous in the bayou, and Jared and I were about to walk into the lion’s den. The thought brought out my protective instincts that’d lain dormant for a long time, because I knew I’d do everything in my power to protect Jared if he were ever in danger. Even if that meant wrestling an alligator with my bare hands. Something I hoped I’d never have to do.
Was I making a terrible mistake bringing us there?