Page 99 of Going Once

“What about the Stormchaser? Did you kill him? Did he get away again?”

“This is yours,” Tate said to Wade. “I’m going in the ambulance with Nola. Come get me later.”

They loaded up and left the scene as Wade began fielding the reporters’ questions.

“What happened to the Stormchaser?” someone yelled out.

He went into agent mode and answered as briefly as possible without giving anything away.

“The boat he was in blew up as he was making his escape.”

“How did that happen?”

“He was shooting at us. We returned fire.”

“Did you recover the body? Do you know his identity?”

“We did not recover the body and at this point have not made a positive identification, although that will come in time.”

“Why didn’t you look for the body?”

Wade frowned. “We did look, but there were alligators in the water around the wreck, and we had Miss Landry’s welfare to consider. She was unconscious and had stopped breathing when we pulled her out of the water. She was resuscitated on scene and transported here.”

“Who’s the man with you?”

They were pointing at Justin Beaudine.

“He’s the real hero of the moment,” Wade said. “He’s the man you need to be talking to. If it wasn’t for his help, we would never have been able to catch up to the killer or save Miss Landry.”

When the crews began focusing their attention on Justin, Wade waved and grinned. Justin looked a little nervous but willingly answered their questions.

Everybody deserves their fifteen minutes of fame, Wade thought, and headed to the hospital.

* * *

Nola came to again in the ambulance and mistook the siren for the roar of the outboard motor and the straps holding her onto the gurney as the cords she’d been bound with, and began fighting to get free.

A paramedic was trying to calm her as Tate quickly grabbed her hands.

“Nola! You’re okay. You’re on the way to the hospital, baby.”

She heard his voice but couldn’t see him.

“Tate?”

“I’m here,” he said, and leaned over from behind her so she could see his face.

“Is he dead?”

“We think so.”

She moaned. “But you don’t know?”

Like her, he longed for proof.

“Not yet. The boat he was in blew up. There was fire, and gators all over the place. I don’t see how anyone could live through it.”

“He was crazy like you said. He was intending to take me back to where he made a mistake by leaving me alive. He kept talking to someone named Louise, like he could hear her voice and was having an argument with her. His name is Hershel, but he said he was Billy Carter at the gym.”

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