sifted through the rest of the smaller debris, including some clear cellophane candy wrappers with white printing on the sides.
“I saw some of those in Bridger’s apartment,” Claire said, looking down at the table.
“Now that you mention it, so did I. Guy must have a real sweet tooth.”
Ben picked up one of the empty squares of cellophane, read the name of the candy. “Mud Bugs.” He looked at the ingredients. “Chocolate, caramel and pecans.”
“A little like pralines.”
“Yeah.” He read the rest of what was printed on the wrapper. “‘Homemade Mud Bugs. Catahoula Candy Makers, Egansville, Louisiana.’”
“You know where that is?”
“No, but it’s one more indication he’s heading for Louisiana.”
“Back to his family.”
“Yeah. I’ll have Sol check it out. Come on, let’s go. It’s another ninety miles to Converse. We’ll do a little digging once we get there, maybe spend the night.”
“I don’t want to get my hopes too high, but I feel like we’re getting close.”
But close only counted in horseshoes. Taking Claire’s hand, Ben led her out of the sheriff’s office.
* * *
Converse, Louisiana, was a tiny village south of Shreveport with a couple of stoplights and a population of a little over four hundred. The residents were mostly white, typically Southern and not too happy the Aryan Nations was planning to build a compound ten miles out of town.
Their first stop was the mayor’s house, a little gray-and-white dwelling that conveniently had a sign reading Mayor’s Office in the yard out front.
“The group’s not even really located here,” the mayor told them, a little disgruntled. “All they’ve got is a post office box. Anyone can have a post office box. Pastor Gulett lives over the Sabine line in DeSoto Parish. And we are more than happy he does.”
Pastor Morris Gulett, the self-declared leader of the Nations, owned a twenty-acre parcel he intended to use for the compound, the mayor said. Still, Converse was the closest thing to a town in the area. Ben flashed the mayor the photo he had of Bridger with his two brothers and one of Bridger with Laura.
“Never seen any of them before,” the mayor said with a shake of his head.
Since the Aryan Nations was part of the Church of Jesus Christ–Christian and heavily based its white-supremacist doctrine on their version of the Bible, they dropped into each of the several churches in the area, names like Hickory Grove, Bear Creek and Beech Grove Baptist.
None of the pastors recognized any of the men in the photos, none were happy the group was claiming Converse as its home. The owner of the tiny local grocery was no help. No one at the nearest gas station had seen the men before.
By the end of the day, Ben was sure they had made a wrong turn and Converse wasn’t Bridger’s final destination. He was fairly sure their white-supremacist theory had led them on a wild-goose chase.
As he started the engine on the Denali, he ran a hand wearily over the roughness along his jaw. “It’s getting late. Let’s get something to eat and find a motel room.”
“We’re a long ways from nowhere. I looked on my iPad earlier and the closest motel is up near Mansfield. It’s more than thirty miles away.” Claire sounded as disheartened as he was. They needed something, anything that would help them locate Bridger.
“Good a place as any, I guess.” Especially since he had no idea where they would be going from there.
They made the drive in silence, pulled into a motel called the Country Inn off Highway 171. All the place had were rooms with two double beds, which reminded him of the first time he and Claire had made love. He’d needed her that night. He needed her now.
Ben set his jaw. He didn’t need anyone, he reminded himself. He was who he was, and that wasn’t going to change.
“There’s a café next door,” he said as he carried their bags into the room. Typical cheap motel decor: old flowered bedspreads, curtains drooping a little at the windows. But the room and bathroom were clean, and the mattresses weren’t sagging.
He tossed his overnight duffel on one of the beds. “You hungry?” he asked, though his appetite had waned as his mood sank from glum to completely sour.
“I’m not very hungry, but I guess I could eat a bowl of soup or something.”
Ben took her carry-on and tossed it up next to his duffel. “Maybe we can bring something back here, and get to bed early.”
Claire walked over and slid