Page 64 of Cursed
“Morgan, what’s wrong?” he asked as soon as he heard the panic in her voice.
“My client, Andre Gascon, has been arrested. We need a lawyer down here.”
“My first choice would be Dan Cassidy. But I’ll have to check his schedule.”
“Get him to clear it. This is an emergency. Andre will be in a completely hostile environment.” She went on to describe what had happened, and Zane promised to get Dan down to Louisiana as soon as humanly possible. She was about to hang up when Jonah Raider came on the line.
“I’ve researched the maps you faxed.”
Morgan wanted to shout that she wasn’t interested in the damn maps right now. But she knew she’d just sit here brooding. “He found something interesting?” she asked.
“As we guessed, they’re part of a geological survey. If they’re accurate, the Belle Vista property is sitting on a huge reservoir of oil. Enough oil to make someone very rich, Jonah says.”
Morgan whistled through her teeth. Oil. And Andre had said someone was trying to get him off his land. Could that be the reason why?
“When was the survey done?” she asked.
“Last July.”
“About six months before Andre had started having problems with the town,” she mused. “Who commissioned the survey?”
“I haven’t found that out yet.”
“I have to know if it was Andre—or someone else.”
“I’ll tell you as soon as we know. And legal help will be there ASAP.”
That was good to know. But it didn’t calm her fears as she hung up the phone.
“What survey? What are you talking about?” Janet asked.
Could she trust the housekeeper? Morgan wasn’t absolutely sure. Watching the woman carefully, she said, “Apparently, there’s a large deposit of oil on the Belle Vista property.”
Janet looked startled.
“Do you think that’s why someone in town wants Andre out of here?”
“Andre can’t leave,” Janet whispered. “He … he can’t spend the night away from here.”
“Right. The curse!” Morgan swore. All roads led back to the curse. “You think the curse got him arrested?”
“Yes,” Janet answered.
“We’ll break it,” Morgan snapped.
Janet looked at her with such undisguised hope in her eyes that Morgan had to turn away.
In the back of the police car, Andre silently stared at the scenery passing outside the window. This was the familiar landscape of his life, but he saw it only in a blur of green and brown. Then a heron took flight from the bank of a shallow pond and flapped across the marsh, soaring away from the speeding car.
Andre watched it disappear into a clump of marsh grass. It was free. He was in the back of a police car, speeding toward his doom. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Or was there?
Despite what the town thought of him, he’d never broken the law. Strange as it seemed, he’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. But now he began making desperate plans.
His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would break through the wall of his chest. All he knew was that he couldn’t let them lock him up. And he could think of only one alternative. A risky alternative.
In the next few minutes, he could end up dead. And if he did, maybe that was for the best.
