Mischief in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #2)(28)
Beau’s expression sobered. “A personal tour of the Australian outback is exciting. What’s been going on in Mudbug lately is criminal, and that’s just dangerous.” He looked up and down the front of the shop building, then twisted the front door handle. “You sure you don’t want me to take a look around? Everything looks okay, but…”
Sabine shook her head. “I’ll be fine, but I appreciate the offer and the walk. Besides, you have a bit of a drive back to New Orleans.”
Beau stared at her for a moment, as if he was contemplating saying something, or God forbid, doing something, but finally he nodded. “All right then. Goodnight, Sabine.” He headed back down the sidewalk to his truck and Sabine let herself into the shop and made sure the new lock was turned all the way. She peeked out between the blinds and saw Beau sitting in his truck, looking at her shop. He waited a couple of seconds more before starting his truck and pulling away.
Sabine sighed. The triple threat—sexy, intelligent, and kind. Beau Villeneuve was the kind of distraction she just didn’t need, but damned if she didn’t want him anyway.
[page]
It was almost lunchtime, and Beau paced the microfiche room in the New Orleans library for at least the tenth time, holding his cell phone but not wanting to make the call. He’d verified everything he could and then spoken with the family’s attorney. He was almost positive that he’d found Sabine LeVeche’s family. After recognizing the man from Raissa’s drawing in the Vietnam war criminal files, he’d dreaded the outcome. On the upside, the war criminal was an identical twin and hadn’t been seen since the war. With any luck, the remaining brother was Sabine’s grandfather, but Beau still didn’t feel right about any of it.
The family’s attorney had been short and dismissive when he’d first contacted the man the day before. Not that Beau blamed him. Based on his research, the family was quite wealthy and probably always had their share of nuts trying to get a piece of their money. Beau expected he’d have to contact the man again, but first thing that morning the attorney called asking for a photo of Sabine and the particulars of her upbringing. Less than an hour later, he’d called again, the incredulity in his voice apparent, stating that the family would like to meet Sabine at her earliest convenience.
No request for DNA testing, birth records, or any of the other hoops Beau had expected them to ask Sabine to jump through. Which bothered him even more. They knew something they weren’t telling. No wealthy family accepted a long-lost granddaughter without some proof. It had to be something about Sabine’s father. Aside from his driver’s license, which didn’t reflect his real name, no other form of ID was ever found in his car or in the apartment the couple was renting in New Orleans.
Supposedly, he was the oldest son of one of the wealthiest families in the parish. Yet he lived like a pauper with no past? People who abandoned their inheritance without looking back were running from the people who controlled the money. But why? What had those people done that was so horrible that an eighteen-year-old left the comfort of his family’s estate and took a job working on the docks for minimum wage with a wife and infant daughter to support?
It couldn’t possibly be anything good.
Shit. He’d been putting off the call to Sabine for hours. He couldn’t put it off forever. Now that the family was aware of her existence, there was nothing to stop them from contacting her directly if they felt he wasn’t moving fast enough for them. He started to press her number into the cell phone, then changed his mind. He scrolled through his call list and found the number he was looking for. He pressed the Talk button and waited for the woman to answer.
“Raissa? This is Beau Villeneuve. I need to talk to you about the research you hired me for. Can you meet me this afternoon?”
Thirty minutes later, Beau slid into a booth in a bar across the street from Raissa’s shop. He gave the psychic a nod. “I really appreciate you meeting me.” He gave Raissa the basics of his search and explained his current dilemma of how to approach meeting the family.
Raissa listened intently and when he was finished said, “I’m glad you called. I can see why you’re not comfortable with this.”
“I’m sorry to put you in the middle, but I didn’t know who else to talk to. I mean, I’ve met Maryse, but she and Sabine seemed a little close for Maryse to be objective and, well…”
“And you didn’t want to panic Maryse given the recent events in her own life.” Raissa smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Villeneuve. You’re a detective—former FBI. You’d be remiss if you didn’t check the background of everyone Sabine is close to.”
Beau nodded. “Please call me Beau. And you’re right, of course.”
“Well, Beau, I further deduce that once you started reading up on Maryse you were probably far too interested to stop at the surface level. She’s had an amazing past month.”
“Amazing is one way of putting it—so is frightening, overwhelming, and beyond statistically fortunate.”
“It’s certainly no secret that Maryse is lucky to be alive. The things that happened to her were fantastic but some of them could have been prevented. That entire situation still vexes me. I should have been more on top of it from the beginning. I knew something wasn’t right—beyond the obvious. I could feel it in my bones.”