One Blood

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Five

Before sunrise, Hurricane Isaac had been on a trajectory to make landfall in Southeastern Alabama and along the Florida panhandle. A little over six hours later, the storm had been upgraded to a Category Five and changed course. Isaac was expected to make landfall at approximately 8:00 p.m. near Baton Rouge. The National Storm Center contacted the Governor’s office advising full-scale evacuations from New Iberia to Lake City.

* * * * *

Monday

I-10 West

“Can’t yuh make this bucket go any faster?” Snake screamed at Shaw from the backseat of the Crown Victoria.

Shaw nodded, but his jaw tightened as he gripped the steering wheel.

Larry sat next to Snake and tried to diffuse the situation. “Boss, the tracking device shows her about twenty-four miles ahead of us.”

“So, step on it!”

“We’re doing almost ninety-five,” Shaw interjected.

“We’re gaining on her, Boss,” Larry added. “ She’s been sitting still for the past twenty minutes.”

“Sitting still? I feel the same way! First you dickwads take an hour to locate me. A fuckin’ hour!” Snake glared at his hapless employees. “Fuckin’ incompetence. One a yuh’s should’ve been tracking Coral, while the other got me. And I don’t wanna hear no excuses outta you, Shaw. You were the one that let her get away from yuh with the gun she shot me with. Twice!”

Snake clutched his chest, still sore and raw from Coral’s bullets. How the fuck had Lafitte’s zombie of a wife gotten the drop on them all? Thank God for Kevlar and Coral’s shitty aim. His head hurt more from Lincoln’s bashing.

He was gonna make that bitch pay. They’d had an airtight plan, and it had all gone to shit. What was most shocking was the way he’d been played by Jhonnette. He should have known better than to trust a damn woman. Women had been the downfall of great men since Adam and that cunt Eve.

“We still gaining?” Snake asked.

“Fifteen miles and closing, Boss.”

Snake nodded. Getting Coral back was the key to making Randy pay. Then he’d turn his attention back to Jhonnette.

I’m not out the game yet.

* * * * *

I-10 West

Coral was trapped in bumper to bumper traffic. The missing pieces to her son’s murder and daughter’s kidnapping were falling into place and the picture unfolding horrified her. Snake’s confession that he’d been ordered to kill her son rattled around in her mind incessantly.

Ordered by whom?

The answer was obvious. The answer was hell.

After everything that had happened and everything she’d learned, Coral found it hard, but not impossible, to believe Randy could do such a thing. Randy had a special talent for shielding his thoughts and feelings from the outside world. Shoot, he’d been keeping her in the dark for years.

Randy had never handled tragedy in a positive manner. After Kristopher died, she’d seen a side of Randy that scared her so much she’d blacked it out. But seeing him on TV and how he’d been behaving lately brought back memories of Randy locking himself in the bathroom and coming out with a rash of razor slashes all over his bare arms and chest, a terrifying blankness in his eyes.