We hoofed it down the bank and Ida Belle jumped into the boat, narrowly missing Gertie, who was already in place at the bottom. I untied the line and jumped in, then leaped into my seat and grabbed the armrests as Ida Belle launched us away from the bank. About two seconds later, I started breathing again and realized I’d been holding my breath since I’d gone into the water.
Ida Belle glanced over at me and frowned, probably wondering why I was gasping for air now when it was flowing across my face at a good forty miles per hour. She pointed at the highway up ahead and I lifted the binoculars, thankful they were military grade and could take a dunking. I could hear the sirens, but with all the water and flat land surrounding us, it was difficult to pin down the direction of the noise. I hoped it was coming from the east, which meant we were in the clear to pass under the highway.
But we were never that lucky.
I spotted Carter’s truck speeding down the highway straight toward us. I hit Ida Belle’s arm and tapped the top of my head with my left hand and pointed toward Sinful. It was the motorcycle rider’s signal meaning law enforcement was ahead. Since Ida Belle had taught me that signal herself, I knew she’d get it.
She scanned the bank, looking for a hiding place, but on both sides, the trees had disappeared and made way for long stretches of marsh grass, which provided no hiding place at all. I lifted the binoculars and checked again and waved my hands, gesturing her to the bridge. If we turned around, Carter would see us. Our only chance was to make it under the bridge before he got close enough to notice us.
Ida Belle nodded and gave the boat that last bit of juice she’d been holding in reserve, and we flew toward the bridge. I could see Carter’s truck without the binoculars now but it was still a tiny blip. No way he’d be able to identify us yet, and we were almost to the bridge. There was just the small problem of stopping.
Usually stopping involved coasting to a dock or bank or occasionally, running up a bank, if the situation called for it. It wasn’t as if the boat came equipped with brakes. But even though we were drawing dangerously close to the bridge, Ida Belle showed no signs of slowing. Gertie looked back at me, her eyes wide, and I shrugged. At the rate we were moving, we were going to shoot out of from under the bridge just in time for Carter to get an excellent look at us.
I shouldn’t have underestimated Ida Belle.
When we were ten feet from the bridge, she cut the boat hard to the right, and it was all I could do to hang on to my seat. We went sliding across the top of the water sideways, and Ida Belle killed the engine just seconds before the side of the boat slammed into the bank below the bridge.
My hip crashed into the armrest and I knew I was going to have a good bruise tomorrow, but Gertie was probably going to be in worse shape than me. She slid across the bottom of the boat and banged into the side. I sucked in a breath, waiting for some indication from her that she was alive, and finally it came. In the form of a middle finger.
I heard Carter’s truck approaching and several seconds later, it roared over the bridge above us. Ida Belle waited until we couldn’t hear the engine any longer, then told me to grab the pole and push us around. I hopped off my seat and grabbed the long pole we kept in the boat for maneuvering and managed to get us turned back into the right direction. Once the pole was secured and I was back in place, we were ready to leave.
And then Ida Belle’s phone rang.
“It’s Myrtle,” she said, and answered.
She couldn’t have heard much, but she shoved the phone back in her pocket, fired up the boat, and floored it.
“Deputy Breaux is on the way to your house,” Ida Belle yelled as we barreled down the bayou.
Crap. I should have known we’d be first on the list of suspects for the blast. There was rarely an explosion or fire or even gunshots that didn’t involve one of us. The only plus was that Deputy Breaux was a lot easier to fool than Carter. I think it was because he was young and slightly afraid of all of us. And he had that whole Southern-raising, respect-your-elders thing going on with Gertie and Ida Belle.
Still, we needed to get to my house before Deputy Breaux did. If he spotted us in the boat, then Carter would assume the explosion was us and we’d be in hot water. And I might have to go back to sleeping alone some nights. Which would suck because for the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying sharing my space. Not all the time, which is why I was glad we had separate places, but sometimes it was nice.
Ida Belle knew the score, and she used every trick in her airboat sleeve to get us to my house as quickly as possible. I didn’t see any sign of Deputy Breaux when we approached my back yard which was a good thing. Ida Belle cut her speed a little but still launched the boat halfway up the bank. I jumped out of my seat and hauled Gertie up from the bottom before we’d even slid to a stop, and all of us ran away from the bank as fast as our legs would carry us.
Then I remembered I was soaking wet and stopped.
“I’m wet,” I said. “And we have scratches all over us from running through the woods. Deputy Breaux isn’t clever, but he’s not blind.”
“I got this,” Gertie said, and ran for my shed. “Turn on the water hose, Ida Belle!”
Apparently, Ida Belle understood what was going on because she ran for the hose and starting unreeling it, tossing it all into the yard. Gertie came running back with a shovel, hedge clippers, and pruning shears and handed me the clippers.
“Chop those bushes,” she said, “from behind.”
I grabbed the clippers and squeezed in between the bushes, their prickly branches scratching my arms all over again. And that’s when it all clicked. Gertie started with the pruning shears on the front side and Ida Belle watered the beds to the side of us. I hacked a bunch of small limbs off the back of the bushes and flung them around so that it looked like a lot of work had already occurred.
Not a minute later, I heard Deputy Breaux calling out for me.
“In the backyard,” Ida Belle yelled.
When I saw Deputy Breaux round the corner, I stepped out of the bushes. He looked at us, then at the bushes, and frowned.
“Why are you trimming those in the middle of the summer?” he asked.
“They’re growing too close to the house,” Gertie said. “I kept offering to do it for Marge in the winter, but you know how stubborn she could be about accepting help. They’re scratching the paint off the siding.”
Deputy Breaux nodded and focused in on me. “Why are you wet?”
“I had a bit of a time with the hose,” Ida Belle said, “and Fortune got the worst of it.”
I shrugged. “Probably did me a favor. It’s hot as heck. What can we do for you? I assume you didn’t come by to see our riveting morning of bush trimming.”
“No, ma’am,” Deputy Breaux said, and blushed. “There was, uh, a situation at Hot Rod’s place a bit earlier.”
“Hot Rod’s still in the hospital, right?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Deputy Breaux said. “It didn’t involve him. But there was gunfire and an explosion in the woods near his shop.”
My expression immediately morphed into my incredulous look. “An explosion? Of what? For what purpose?”
“Was anyone hurt?” Gertie asked.