A million tiny bullets of blue. That’s what the bayou did to the lights atop his deputy’s patrol car—it snatched them from the air and ricocheted them through the dense canopy of cypress leaves until the entire woods looked as though it were under attack.
A herd of white-tailed deer, all does, watched from the edge of the levee as Jack eased his patrol car along the winding road. "Abandoned vehicle." It was all the information his dispatch officer had given him. But that's a deputy and a tow truck. Why am I here? A knot formed in his gut as he rounded the last curve.
A black Lincoln sat half-in and half-out of the gravel turnaround. The sight of it sitting there, surrounded by a makeshift fence of orange traffic cones and yellow caution tape doubled the size of the knot in his stomach.
On the other side of the road sat a white Cadillac with its hazard lights blinking. Behind the Cadillac was his deputy's patrol car. No tape around the Caddy and no paint on the asphalt. So it's not a wreck.
He pulled in behind the Lincoln and reached for his door handle as his deputy made a "stay" motion at a middle-aged woman in a beige pantsuit. He smiled as his deputy gave the command a second time and tilted her head in what Jack knew was supposed to be a warning. The stranger jerked her chin upward and began to brush invisible lint from her sleeves.