about looking for a guy.”
“He lives around here. The bartender at Buzzard’s Wet Bar told me about him.”
“Buzz’s? You were at Buzz’s?”
Sonny shrugged. “I just wanted to see what it was like in there.”
“If someone squeals on you, Angel’s going to take you apart. It’s gonna be ugly.” Aaron made a circle, searching for something familiar, anything that would steer them out of there.
“We gotta concentrate,” Sonny said. “That broken dock where I stopped? Back there on the bayou? That was the marker for us to head into the trees. His place is around here and we’re going to stumble right over it any second now.”
“Liar,” Aaron said. “Ecosystems.”
“They said I wouldn’t do it,” Sonny said. “I’m gonna show them. Wait till I prove it to them tomorrow. There’s no such thing as voodoo. Or a root doctor.”
Aaron moaned. “A root doctor? You’re off your head. If one of those guys was around here—and he isn’t—I sure as hell wouldn’t be stopping by for a visit. I’m calling Matt Boudreaux.”
“The police chief?” Sonny’s voice squeaked. “For crissakes, let’s move. All I want to do is see where this guy lives and get me a memento.”
Aaron looked up through the trees. They weren’t dense but they were all he could see in any direction. Cypress, their feet in standing water. Moss hanging like grey-green slime. Broken stumps scattered. “A frickin’minefield,” he muttered. “If there…whatever you’re looking for, how will you prove you saw it?”
“If I take a bit of wood back and say it’s from his house, they’ll have to believe it. Maybe I’ll haul along a dead rat, too.”
“You don’t know a thing about this place,” Aaron said. “Okay, we’ve got to choose. Back the way we came or straight on.”
“Straight on,” Sonny said, frowning now. “We’ll get out to an old logging road eventually. I just want to see his house and—hey, we can ask him how to get out of here.”
“Our bikes,” Aaron said. “We’ve got to find them or we’ll never get home. That’s it.” He gritted his teeth and dialed 911.
“Don’t,” Sonny whispered. “Please don’t do that. You know I’m supposed to behave while I’m here. That’s why I’m here. Uncle Angel’s—”
Aaron held up a palm. “No signal,” he said. His skin felt tight. Just like he’d been expecting, raindrops began tunneling down through the trees.
He heard a sound that didn’t fit. One look at Sonny showed he had heard it, too. With a finger to his mouth he got to Aaron, took his arm and backed him into the nearest cover—three tall stumps crowded together.
The sound came again and again, then turned into a steady splashing and stumbling racket.
“If that’s your root doctor, there’s no use hiding. He already knows where we are.” Aaron spoke softly through barely moving lips.
“And if it’s somebody else?” Sonny said against his ear. “Give me the voodoo man over some others it could be.”
“What d’you mean?”
Sonny’s features weren’t as clear anymore. The light was just about all sucked out. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to try running to that tree, the really big one there. If we split up, we’re more difficult to catch. That’s if there’s someone planning to catch us. If it was Angel, he’d be calling our names.”
“I wish it was him.” Aaron twisted the neck of Sonny’s black sweater and hung on. “You’re not going. We stay together.”
The splashing, the cracking of branches stopped abruptly.
“We can take him,” Aaron murmured.
“Not if he’s got a gun.”
Aaron felt puzzled and said, “Root doctors don’t carry guns.”
“You know any of ’em well?”
“Never met one.”
Only the creaking of winter-pale tree limbs and the slapping of raindrops broke the silence, these and the critters on their way home. Those raindrops whirled, catching what light came from above.
The splashing started again, then stopped—then started.
Sonny put his mouth to Aaron’s ear again. “He doesn’t know where we are for sure. He may not be looking for us at all. Hang on. I think he’ll go away.”
Aaron nodded and held his breath. With his body so quiet, his heart slammed at his eardrums. He took another breath. “Nothing now,” he murmured. They were in big-time trouble. Getting out of there was all that mattered—as long as they could do it alive.
He pulled way back between two trunks and inched around, looking for any movement. The cracks through the stumps weren’t big enough to see through. He worked slowly sideways until the fingers of his left hand touched the smooth edge of a cypress.
Sonny caught at Aaron’s right shoulder but he shrugged him away.
A loud click, a crack, a flash of light, and Aaron could have sworn he felt the bullet slice through the air close to his face.
“God.” He froze in complete panic for a moment, then rolled back the way he had come. He and Sonny didn’t speak. The time for that was over.
They were trapped with a shooter who was just waiting for them to make a tiny move.
“Strangers a-coming!” A man’s full, deep voice sang out the words and Aaron squeezed his eyes shut. He felt light-headed.
“Strangers a-coming!” Louder, even richer this time. “What they want? Who break the peace? You be sor-ry!” The laugh that followed started with a gurgle and hurtled up the scale.
“That’s not the guy with the gun,” Aaron said. “He’s behind and to the right. This one’s…” He wasn’t sure where the guy who had shouted was, but there were two men out there.
Sonny put his fingers in his ears. He didn’t look gutsy and fearless anymore.
Aaron gripped his arm. “I think the screamer’s way over to our left now. Maybe he’s trying to help us.” He let out a yell and ran toward the big voice.
Air burned his throat and his eyes. But he shouted and screeched louder and louder.
He saw a searing flash, just like the other one. It definitely didn’t come from the same direction as the mouthy guy.
A thud into Aaron’s back, way to the left side, spun him around. “I’m shot!”
There was pain. Dull pain. Then numbness, heaviness.
He hit the scummy water, face-first,
