The Reticence 1 (Nantahala River) Read online

  LEVI

  FULLER

  A Suspense Mystery Thriller

  The Reticence

  ALSO BY LEVI FULLER

  ALMA NOVELS

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Vision of Fear

  Taste of Fear

  Game of Fear

  ISLE OF BUTE NOVELLAS

  The Scent of Bones

  The Secret of Bones

  The Unburied Bones

  The Missing Bone

  Hide The Bones

  LUKE PENBER NOVELLAS

  Bend The Law 1

  Bend The Law 2

  Bend The Law 3

  Bend The Law 4

  Bend The Law 5

  Audio Book

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Copyright ©2020 by Blue Scallop Digital LLC. – All rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Blue Scallop Digital LLC. – All rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Get my book for FREE!

  Subscribe to my newsletter to receive an exclusive Mystery Suspense book just for you.

  Click here to receive a free mystery suspense book, new cover release, sneak peak, or the chance to be on the ARC list, and more.

  Follow me on social media:

  Connect with me, send me a note, tell me what you would like to read.

  Contents

  CHAPTER1

  CHAPTER2

  CHAPTER3

  CHAPTER4

  CHAPTER5

  CHAPTER6

  CHAPTER7

  About the Author

  CHAPTER1

  Marcia sprayed insect repellent along her arms. Although the scent was supposed to be pleasant, like vanilla or something floral, it was nothing like that. The smell of the chemical compound in the repellent, to keep mosquitoes and midges from feasting on her blood, overpowered everything else.

  “This stuff smells terrible,” Marcia said with a frown.

  “You’re complaining?” Margo asked. “Want to change places?”

  Marcia glanced at the fetid pond, half-covered with scum, and shook her head. “I think I’ll stick with this role.”

  “Sure, be that way,” Margo replied as she squirmed into her black wet suit to cover her bikini, made for crowded beaches and to attract stares. She wasn’t wearing the suit to stay warm. She was wearing it to keep the bacteria-infected water away from her skin. The last thing she needed was to catch some sort of infection in a Louisiana swamp.

  “Tell me again what I’m looking for?” Margo asked.

  “A car. Specifically, a ’70s Chevrolet Camaro. It’s blue with white stripes.”

  “You know, from the look of things, this pond isn’t even accessible by car. Why are we even looking?”

  “It was accessible forty years ago, and you’re not going to get out of this.”

  “Do you really think he would have ditched his car in this pond?”

  “We’ve done all the legwork. We’ve interviewed everyone still alive. We’ve combed through all the official reports. We’ve reviewed all the private detective reports. We’ve established that the Camaro disappeared at the same time Sadie did. That the car hasn’t surfaced in forty years tells us something.”

  “Yeah, that it was stolen, just like he claimed. And sent to a chop shop, where it was sold off in pieces to car shops across the country.”

  “That’s a convenient story, but it doesn’t jibe with reality. Some of those parts were stamped with serial numbers. They would have resurfaced if they were in the wild.”

  Margo zipped up her suit and stepped into yellow rubber boots to protect her feet. Marcia felt that they gave her an adventurous look.

  “What happened to the road?” Margo asked.

  “Johnston let everything grow. In fact, he moved to town and let the whole place go. Of course, the bayou has some say about that. That is, the bayou and the hurricanes. When a hurricane blows through, all sorts of roads and streams get rerouted.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Margo pulled up her long, blonde hair and grabbed a yellow rubber band to pin everything in place, making sure there were no leaks.

  “What do you think about The Bayou Killing?” Marcia asked.

  “As a title? I think we can do better. After all, we want something snappy that will leap off the page.”

  “We’ll slap on a picture of you in a bikini, the Camaro, and an alligator for some extra danger!”

  “Let’s find the car first. Then, we can worry about titles and cover art.”

  “If we don’t start thinking about it now, we’ll have nothing but arguments later. Remember The Pit and the Pirate?”

  “We argued about that one because the victim wasn’t really a pirate. He was a carjacker if I remember correctly.”

  “I know, but The Pit and the Carjacker wouldn’t have cut it as a title,” Marcia said while spreading out her long, tan legs, entirely on display in her khaki cargo shorts.

  “We’ll come up with something. We always do.” Margo grabbed her steel oxygen tank and strapped it in place. It wasn’t particularly big or bulky, as she didn’t expect having to be underwater for very long.

  “I like to be prepared. We score better deals with our publisher if we have a catchy title, you know this.”

  “The editors will want to change it, anyway. That’s their job, to take an excellent book and turn it into complete trash. Someday, I will copy out a CHAPTERfrom A Tale of Two Cities and let them take it apart. Did Dickens have an editor?”

  “I’m sure he did. The only writers I know who didn’t have any were the ones who wrote the Bible.”

  “That’s not true. The angels were the editors.”

  Margo strapped on a utility belt, packed with a hammer, flashlight, and a sharp knife.

  “You’re probably right.”

  Margo grabbed the full-face mask and put it in place. She opened the valve for the oxygen and pulled the straps tight.

  “Hear me?” Margo asked.

  Marcia tapped her earpiece. “Loud and clear.”

  Because of the murky water, Marcia had insisted on staying in contact. The last thing she wanted was to lose track of her sister.

  “All right,” Marcia said, “how many ‘gators do you see?”

  “Three,” Margo replied.

  “Correct. I’ll keep track of them, and if one slides into the water, I’ll contact you. Stay at the bottom and keep your head up. They don’t look too aggressive, but you know how it is with wild animals. You can’t assume they’re rational.”

  Marcia slipped under her jungle hat her long, black hair. Then, she grabbed the AR-15 from the ATV they had used to reach the pond. She ejected the magazine, checked the ammunition, and replaced it before she chambered a round. She was proficient with firearms of all kinds, as was her sister. While they never sought trouble, it was always better to be prepared. She shouldered the weapon and sighted the alligators. The laser scope settled on the middle one.

  “Ready?” Margo asked.

  “I’ve got them,” Marcia answered before turning and attaching the cable to Margo’s belt. In the darkness of the water, it would be easy to get lost. At least this way, Margo would be able to follow the right di
rection.

  Margo put on her gloves and fist-bumped her sister. Then, taking a deep breath, she waded into the scummy water. Marcia watched as she disappeared below the surface. Then, she trained her eyes on the ‘gators. The hum of the line leaving the spool was welcome.

  *****

  The water was warm, which didn’t help matters since Margo was already sweating inside her wet suit. The water was somewhat translucent for the first foot or two below the surface, but everything below this was dark and murky. She pulled out her flashlight, shining it ahead of her. The dark green water swallowed the beam within merely a few feet. For the first time, she wondered how alligators managed to navigate with such low visibility. She reasoned, however, that if she had been around for a few hundred thousand years, then her eyesight would’ve adjusted as well.

  She shuffled on the ground, her feet bumping into strange things that were anything but natural. There were piles of rocks, bottles rolling along the floor along with cans skittering to the side wherever she stepped. As she moved, she noticed that there were a couple of fishes swimming by. She had no idea what they were, probably carp or catfish. Bottom-feeders, surely. She should have been more worried about snakes. The bayous were crawling with snakes, weren’t they?

  Thankfully, she had the grid search locked in her head. She would move a few feet to the left, work back to the right, and then move forward. They had come in by the old road, so if there was a car in the pond, it couldn’t be too far in. The water would’ve stopped any car even if it had been going at high speed. The car couldn’t be too far away.

  “How’s it going?” Marcia asked.

  “Fine, so far,” Margo answered. “Can’t see much of anything. How are the ‘gators?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Tell me again why we didn’t use a boat and some kind of submersible?”

  “Because we need to see inside the vehicle. Obviously, we have to be a little bit nondescript since we’re trespassing. Haul a boat in here, and someone will notice.”

  “We came on an ATV.”

  “Exactly, and no one knows where we were going.”

  “I think there are catfish in here.”

  “Avoid them if you can.”

  “Gee, why didn’t I think of that...”

  “Stop gabbing and look around.”

  “Aye, aye, captain!”

  “Fair enough,” Marcia said.

  Margo had moved far enough left already, so she turned right. Her feet stirred up the bottom, which was mostly covered in sand, leaves, and dirt. All that stirring didn’t help her see anything clearer. Sweat ran down her cheeks. She had thought this would simply be another dive, but it was quickly becoming a real chore.

  Back on shore, Marcia could measure her movements by the angle of the cable. She examined it for a moment before calling out to her.

  “Time to move up and turn left,” Marcia said.

  Margo took several steps forward and moved to the left. The water was deeper and cooler here, and that helped even though it was hardly cool enough. She slipped along the bottom, feeling like a hippopotamus. She had read somewhere that hippos couldn’t swim, so they walked along the bottom of lakes and rivers. Of course, from Margo’s point of view, hippos were strange creatures. Despite how much time they spent in water, they neither swam nor ate fish. They simply grazed on the grass that they would find at night when the sun no longer burned their tender skin. It sounded crazy, but it was true.

  “Time,” Marcia said, interrupting her line of thinking.

  Margo stopped in her tracks. “Give me a minute. This is harder than it looks.”

  “If I could see you... and no, the ‘gators haven’t moved,” she replied with a chuckle.

  “Remind me again, whose idea it was to take this cold case.”

  “Yours. I voted for the missing twins in Oregon.”

  “I thought it would be fun to visit New Orleans,” Margo grumbled.

  “It is. This is the downside.”

  Margo started walking again, moving forward a few steps before turning right. She hadn’t gone far when she finally spotted the car.

  “Bingo!” Margo exclaimed.

  “A car?”

  “Yeppers.” Margo edged closer and recognized the classic shape of the car. “It’s a Camaro. Color might be blue, but it’s covered with scum.” Margo rubbed off some of it along the hood. “Reverse that; it’s blue. I’m going to try and get a look inside.”

  She moved to the passenger side of the car and rubbed a hand vigorously along the window. She then pointed her flashlight inside and gasped.

  “What is it?” Marcia asked.

  “A skeleton,” Margo answered in a shaky voice. “That’s all I can tell you. It’s a human skeleton.”

  “That pretty much seals it,” Marcia said. “Attach the cable and come out. Great job.”

  Margo took the cable off her belt and wrapped it around the rear bumper. She made sure the cable was secure before she started walking back toward her sister. Things were looking up. They had found what could be the vehicle they had been searching for.

  “Oops,” Marcia said.

  “What do you mean, oops?” Margo asked, instantly feeling on edge.

  Marcia replied in a rush, “One of our leathery friends just slipped into the water.”

  “You do have your rifle, correct?”

  “Exactly. Right now, he’s on the surface. So, get moving.”

  “I’m working here, boss.”

  *****

  Marcia felt her heart jump when the ‘gator slipped into the water. She tried to remain calm for her sister’s sake, but she felt real fear coursing through her veins. The ‘gator was more than big enough to go after her. For the ‘gator, Margo was nothing else but free food.

  Marcia would have been tempted to talk to herself to keep her cool under any other circumstances, but she didn’t want to broadcast her thoughts to Margo. Instead, Marcia drummed her fingers on the AR-15, maintaining trigger finger protocol. She wouldn’t touch the trigger unless she fired. Firearms didn’t go off by themselves. They needed someone to pull the trigger.

  “No problems?” Marcia asked.

  “Not yet.”

  The ‘gator slipped below the surface.

  “Crap,” Marcia said.

  “Crap, what?”

  “It just went under. Can you walk backwards?”

  “Backwards? Why?”

  “Use the cable. Walking backwards might fool the ‘gator. It will think it’s attacking something with its back to it.”

  “Lovely. Nothing like a sneak attack.”

  “You might want to pull your knife out. Just in case.”

  “Just in case I have to stab an alligator in the eye, you mean? You’re not making me feel confident here.”

  “I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Oregon was the better choice.”

  “You know I don’t like working with twins. It’s too easy to mistake one for the other. Didn’t royal families kill off one of their twins when they were born?”

  Marcia’s fingers danced up and down the firearm. Where was that stinking alligator?

  “I believe you’re right,” Marcia said. “Twins always presented a problem to the line of succession. After all, who was to say which twin would be needed by the realm.”

  Marcia stared hard at the water, looking for her sister before she swore that she could see the back of Margo’s yellow head inching towards her. Margo was walking backwards, slowly.

  “Come on, come on,” Marcia whispered to herself.

  “What?” Margo asked.

  “Nothing. Just keep going. You’re almost home.”

  Margo had mostly emerged from the water when Marcia spotted the alligator, moving fast and looking to be on the attack. Marcia didn’t have time to think. She pointed the laser beam at the alligator’s head and started firing. Jumping at the sight, Margo turned and lunged for the bank, landing on her stomach.

  The ‘gator slow
ed in its tracks.

  Marcia fired a couple more rounds as the ‘gator slowly turned away. The water around him turned pink with blood. It swam away, despite its mortal wound. Margo looked across the pond, and the other two ‘gators weren’t there.

  “Are you all right?” Marcia asked.

  Margo stripped off her mask and panted. “I’m fine. Next time, remind me to listen.”

  Away from the shore, the wounded alligator thrashed in the water before the other alligators attacked him mercilessly. Marcia hadn’t given him much of a chance to escape. The bayou was now filled with blood and the sound of chomping jaws. Marcia turned away from the gruesome sight and helped Margo to her feet.

  “Thanks,” Margo said as she unstrapped her tank and belt. “That was closer than I wanted.

  “Think of how it will play in the book,” Marcia said. “Brave Margo stabs the ‘gator in the eye, even as brave Marcia fires multiple rounds into the beast, barely missing her struggling sister.”

  “I didn’t stab anything,” Margo deadpanned.

  “Don’t spoil a good moment. Wait till they make it into a movie.”

  “Poetic license?”

  “In the heat of the fight, who’s to say you didn’t stab the alligator?”

  Margo stripped off her wet suit. “Embellishment is permitted, I believe.”

  “Exactly.”

  With her suit now off, Margo held out her arms for a hug. It had been a close call.

  “Next time, we use a submersible,” Marcia said.

  “Roger that,” Margo replied. “Do you want to call the sheriff, or do you want me to do it?”

  “You,” Marcia said. “You were the one who saw the Camaro and the... skeleton.”

  “Justice. Justice will be served.”

  “We hope.”

  “We always hope.”

  Hours later, after briefing the sheriff and handing over the vehicle's exact location, the sisters settled down in a jazz bar in the French Quarter. They lifted their beers for a toast.

  “To another solved cold case,” Marcia said.

  “That was pretty hot at the end.”

  They sipped their drinks and smiled at each other.

  “Have another lead?” Margo asked.

  “I do,” Marcia said. “But first, we have to go home and write something about this case.”