recalled. Rich, too. Met her in Paris, the captain had said.
Pat laughed in the night, remembering how theyâd all gotten drunk together after the successful mission.
He wondered whatever happened to Lyle Simmons.
Pat relit his pipe and puffed contentedly, as memories of his ex-wife drifted into his sober brain.
He felt no malice toward her; never did, really, he recalled back over the years. She was marrying a war hero, a famousâor infamousâmercenary . . . and she felt that would bring her no small degree of fame. Pat tried to tell her differently.
âWar heroes donât mean much to young Americans,â he had tried to warn her. âAnd Americans donât understand mercenaries. Donât think marrying me is going to bring you lots of fame and glory. âCause itâs not going to happen.â
She had not believed him.
With the marriage deteriorating almost from the start, Pat began turning to the bottle and the brawls. Now, sober, he looked out into the darkness.
âFive years gone,â he muttered. âFive years lost and I canât remember, clearly, a year of it.â
But, he promised, Iâm going to do better from now on.
He was still wondering why this sudden change had swept over him as he went to bed.
He dreamed of the rescue mission, bringing back Captain Simmons. And he dreamed of Simmonsâ wife. But he could not put a name to her, or a face to her body.
Chapter Six
It was as if a sudden pall had fallen on the small town of Joyeux. Nothing tangible; no horrible tragedies occurring. But it seemed to Sheriff Vallot that the spirit had gone out of many of the townâs residents.
Not so much the young people, Edan thought, as he sat in his office, boots up on his desk, gazing out the window at the main street of townâalthough some of them did seem unusually listless and surlyâbut the older residents of Joyeux, almost to a person, seemed depressed.
Why? he pondered.
And petty crime had increased while church attendance was down . . . at all the churches. And married people seemed to be having an undue amount of problems: family disturbances were on the increase. Nothing major, just a lot of little things that kept his people on the run and the small local police department as well.
Why?
And those damned sightings of monsters roaming around the edge of town and in the swamps. But it was far too early for them, so why were they cropping up now?
Unanswered questions.
Edan looked at the leather pouch on his desk, sighed, and shook his head. He picked up the bag and tucked it in his pocket as he walked out the door of his office to his patrol car.
The heat hit him in the face like a hot, damp rag and he hurried to his car, quickly turning on the air conditioning. He drove the main street of the parish seat. One of the largest parishes in the state, but with the smallest population because so much of Ducros was swampland and bayous. Rice, sugar cane, and beans planted on the good land. Four towns in the parish, Joyeux the largest. Population: five thousand. Parish population: eight thousand. And it was a mixed population: Indians, blacks, Creoles, Redbones, Cajuns, four Jews, and a bunch of plain old WASPs.
Ducros was an old parish; one of the first settled inland, and much of the land had been in the same family for two hundred years. No industry. Some abject, dire poverty, and a handful of people worth millions. A few oil wells.
Edan Vallot drove the parish roads, his mind racing, nibbling at . . . He cursed. Whatever in the hell was wrong in Joyeux?
He passed Eddie Guilbeauâs fishing lodge. The entrance had a chain across it and there was no sign of life in or around the camp. Something was wrong, Edan thought. He slowed the car and turned around, heading back to the camp. He honked the horn at the chained drive.
No reply.
Sheriff Vallot got out of the car and climbed the chain, walking up to the lodge, a feeling of alarm building
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley