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.”
“Oh.”
Cari grimaced. “‘Oh’ is right. But it wasn’t until after the tornado when I found Susan that…this occurred to me. No one in Bordelaise knew she’d driven down for the night. And her car was the only one that hadn’t been damaged in the tornado. Her face was…” Cari bit her lip, struggling with her composure. “We’re the same size. Same color hair and hairstyle. And we’d both been wearing white T-shirts and jeans. Lance had seen me earlier, so when I put my coat on her body, I did it hoping she’d be identified as me. It might have been the wrong thing to do, but I was hurt and needed time to think. Lance had already killed once. He would have no problem getting rid of the only witness to his crime.”
“What a mess,” Mike muttered.
“You have no idea,” Cari said, then closed her eyes. She didn’t intend to keep them closed, but a combination of meds and exhaustion soon pulled her under.
Mike watched Carolina drifting in and out of consciousness, and was surprised by the strong connection he felt. Maybe it was because she looked so much like Susan. And maybe it was because of the courage and ingenuity she’d shown in such a dangerous situation.
Courage was something he admired.
Over the years, Michael Boudreaux had become a force to be reckoned with in business, but in his youth, he’d been just another kid on the streets of Baton Rouge. His grandparents had still been alive, clinging to former glory in their old plantation house outside of the city, while his mother and father held regular jobs. His father had worked for a manufacturing company, while his mother had been a pre-school teacher. As the “pretty boy” in his classes, he’d often had to prove his worth with his fists. As a result, he learned the true meaning of courage, and to never be the first one to quit—–at anything.
It was that attitude that made him so formidable in his own career. His parents had died within a year of each other while he was in college. His grandparents had passed a couple of years later. He’d inherited
