Free Altar of Eden by James Rollins

judge. His family, though, had never forgiven her.
    “She seemed like such a nice girl,” his father mumbled around his pipe.
    “They were just kids,” Jack offered lamely. He had promised never to tell anyone other than the judge the truth.
    For both their sakes.
    His father stared at Jack. The shine in those eyes suggested his father suspected there was more to the story.
    A call from the other end of the house shattered the awkward moment. “Jack!” his mother shouted. “Where are you? I packed a cooler for you and the boys. Got a basket full of cracklin’s and boudin, too!”
    “Be right there!”
    His father’s heavy gaze tracked him as he left the study. He let out a sigh as he reached the hall. As he stepped out his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Glad for the distraction, he brought the phone to his ear.
    It was Scott Nester, his second-in-command with the CBP. “We found someone who saw that damned cat.”
    “Who? Where?”
    “A kid in a boat. He took potshots at one of our search helicopters to get its attention.”
    “Are you sure it’s our target?”
    “Oh yeah. Described a big white cat with big teeth. Says the cat killed his father. We’ve got a search team looking for the body.”
    Jack’s fingers tightened on the phone. “Did the boy see where the target was headed?”
    “North, he thinks. Toward the Mississippi.”
    “Where exactly was the boy found?”
    “You got a map?”
    “I can get one.”
    Scott passed him the coordinates. After a few more instructions, Jack hung up and hurried over to where his brother stored a set of nautical charts in a cupboard near the back door. It was crammed full of fishing gear, tackle boxes, and all manner of hand-tied lures. He stabbed his thumb on a stray hook as he dug out a map of the delta.
    With chart in hand, he pinched away the stubborn lure and wiped the blood on his shirt. He crossed to a table, unfolded the map, and used a pencil to mark the location where the boy in the boat was rescued—or as best he could with the old chart. A couple years of shifting sands and repeated flooding blurred the details of even the region’s best maps. Still he was also able to pick out the island where the trawler had gone aground. He drew a straight line between the shipwreck and where the boy was found.
    The path aimed due north. The same direction the cat had been headed. Jack extended a dashed line north from the boy’s location. He ran it all the way until he reached the Mississippi. The line ended at the small river town named Port Sulphur. He marked an X on the map. He knew the town. It’d been almost entirely wiped out by Katrina. Some homes had been washed a hundred feet off their foundations.
    Leaning back, Jack studied the map.
    Randy pushed through the back door and joined him. “T-Bob and Peeyot just got here in their canoe.” He pointed to the X drawn on the map. “That where we’re going?”
    “That’s where we’re starting. We’ll gather everyone in Port Sulphur and head south into the bayou.” He stared at the dotted line. The saber-toothed cat had to be hiding somewhere along that path.
    “So what’s holding us up?” his brother asked and clapped him on the shoulder. “ Laissez les bons temps router!”
    Jack folded the map. Before he could follow his brother’s advice and “let the good times roll,” he had one more thing to do, to honor a grudging promise.
    “I have someone to pick up first.”

Chapter 11
    Lorna never got back to raking her yard after the storm.
    By the time she climbed the stone steps to her home in the Garden District, it was late. The sun hovered near the horizon, casting heavy shadows off the magnolias and towering oaks. Storm-swept leaves and crinkled blossoms formed a Jackson Pollock painting across her overgrown lawn, along with a few broken tiles blown from the roof. A dry stone fountain topped by a moss-frosted angel stood in the center of the yard.
    She sighed at the sorry state of the