Not Well (A Camille Grace FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)

CHAPTER ONE Brittany stumbled to the front of the boat with the sounds of jumbled zydeco music blaring behind her. She’d found it enjoyable as recently as three minutes ago but right now, it sounded like a hot mess. Who the hell built an entire style of music around the accordion, anyway? She knew these weren’t her true thoughts. No, she was simply irritated and maybe even a little alarmed because there was a searing pain currently tearing through her stomach. It had not been there until very recently. At first, she thought it was nothing but gas, maybe a little indigestion from the crawfish she’d had for dinner. But it quickly escalated into something much worse. This wasn’t going to be just a visit to the bathroom with a terribly upset stomach; this was going to be a full-fledged purging of the stomach. And as this realization hit her, Brittany understood that she was going to have to make a very rough decision: rush down to the ladies’ room on the lower level of the riverboat and hope a stall was available (and that she could make it that far) or run to the front of the boat, hope the crowd was thin, and hurl over the side. The front being closer, that was the option she chose. And now, as the U-shaped rail of the riverboat came into view, she still didn’t know if she was going to make it. And wouldn’t that be something? Puking all over the bow of the Wheeler’s Delight riverboat while the rest of the wedding party she was with continued to take shots and step a little closer to the men they’d been flirting with all afternoon. But she did make it. And more than that, she was pleased to find that the front of the boat was indeed empty. The zydeco band, the happy hour prices at the bar at the back of the boat, and a buffet style dinner had drawn everyone away from the bow. So when she reached the rail and perched slightly over it, there was no one there to see the terrible display. Still, it was embarrassing, especially when it came so hard and fast. She wasn’t sure she’d ever retched so hard in her life. Fortunately, the sounds of the boat being propelled through the Mississippi River were just loud enough to cover up some of it. Brittany threw up once, then twice, and then tried for a third time. Her stomach continued to insist there was more, that she needed to keep at it, but nothing else came up. She leaned over the rail. The beauty and majesty of the Mississippi spreading out behind her as she yakked into it. Exhausted, light-headed, and with her stomach cramping, Brittany stepped away from the rail. She wanted to instantly go find some water to rinse her mouth out but figured it would probably be a smart move to stay here just a while longer. She was about to walk to the right, where a set of stairs led up to the second floor—the riverboat’s first balcony level. But as she made her way over, she saw a boy sitting on one of the stairs. She wasn’t sure how old he was—thirteen or fourteen, maybe. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and looking down at his hands. Probably because he’d just witnessed her little show. “Huh,” Brittany said. “Did you see all that?” The boy said nothing, but he did look up at her. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. His eyes looked menacing from under the hood and his hair hung in his face in a way that made him look older than he actually was. Only…was that right? Maybe he was older and she had just seen him wrong at first. She was about to say something like There’s no need to stare when the boy got to his feet. And as he came walking quickly over to her, she saw that she had been wrong at first. He wasn’t a boy. He was a fully grown man, just one of short stature. And by the time she pieced this together, he was on her, his hands coming forward. There was something in his hands and he was bringing them to her throat. Brittany opened her mouth to scream but tasted a bit of bile in the back of her throat. Christ, was she going to puke again? Now, with this creep right in front of h— Whatever it was he had in his hands came around her throat and with a set of small yet surprisingly strong hands, she was turned around quickly. “Hey…” she said—or, rather, tried to say. Her stomach buckled and she did throw up again, but she was barely aware of it. Instead, all she could focus on was the feeling of being lifted and dropped. The world swayed, pivoted, and then fell. After that, there was horrendous pain in her neck and head. She was pretty sure she hit the water at some point. It was cold, hard, but somehow also accepting. Water started to fill her mouth, her nostrils, and her lungs and sometime after that, when her frantic brain finally realized she should maybe swim for the surface and cry for help, the life went flowing out of her, as if carried away by the flow of the Mississippi River.