Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(12)

“What about your family, Raissa?” Mildred asked. “Do they know where you are?”

“My parents are both dead, and we weren’t really tight with any relatives. So there’s no one missing me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Mildred nodded and studied her for a couple of seconds. Finally, she sighed. “You’re not going to bow out until you find that missing girl, are you? It’s somehow tied in to your past and the Heberts’.”

“I think so,” Raissa said, “but I’ve never had any proof.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “There have been others…other little girls that were taken?”

“There were others before Melissa.”

Mildred swallowed, then cleared her throat. “What happened to them?”

“They were returned a week later without a mark on them and no memory of what happened to them after their abduction. There’s a very narrow window of opportunity to catch this guy and stop this from happening again.” Raissa rose from her chair, already mentally packing a bag of necessities for her stay in Mudbug. “I have to go home and get some things. One of my conditions for staying here is that you let me rig the hotel with security. It can all be done with fingernail-size lenses and infrared. I won’t install anything in the guest rooms, except for my own, but I insist on rigging at least the outside of your quarters, Mildred, or I won’t stay here at all.”

Mildred nodded. “What ever you think is best.”

“Good,” Raissa said, “because as much as I want to find out what happened to those girls, I’d prefer it not be firsthand. Abduction is not on my list of things to do, and it’s doubtful I’d come back without a mark on me…if I came back at all.”

Mildred narrowed her eyes at Raissa. “I don’t suppose you really are psychic, right? I mean, not that I wouldn’t find that a bit creepy, but, well, we already have a ghost. I guess I’m willing to consider any edge we might have, even the strange ones.”

“I wish I were,” Raissa said, “but it’s all a very clever front. Or at least, I used to think it was.”

“But all those things you knew…How did you guess all those things and get them right? No one’s that lucky.”

Raissa smiled. “It was never luck. I’m a highly skilled computer hacker and an expert at surveillance. Someone asks me what’s wrong with their marriage, I follow the husband and find the girlfriend, or the doctor’s office. Then I hack the girlfriend’s computer, since usually women don’t destroy the evidence, like mushy e-mails, that the cheating husband asks them to. Or I hack the doctor’s office and find out what he’s being treated for. I feed them enough information to sound like a vision but send them off on the right track for exposing whatever is going on.”

“No shit.” Helena stared at Raissa in admiration. “That whole psychic gig is a genius way to use those skills. I take back every time I called you a nutbag.”

Raissa laughed. “Thanks, Helena. Coming from you that means…well, damned near nothing, but I’ll take it anyway.” Raissa rose from her chair. “Are we done here? Everyone satisfied with the master plan?”

Mildred looked over at Helena who nodded. “I’m as satisfied as I’m getting,” Mildred said. “But I really wish you’d reconsider staying here full-time.”

“No can do, Mildred. I’m not trying to upset anyone, but this whole thing is far bigger than just me.”

Mildred straightened up in her chair and stared at Raissa, her eyes wide. “You’re going to try to catch that guy, aren’t you? You have no intention of lying low or leaving this to the cops.”

“This may be my last chance,” Raissa said. “Think about those girls. Think about their mothers. And then tell me what I should do.”

Mildred was silent for a couple of seconds, and Raissa knew her mind was racing to find an argument, anything that would hold up to Raissa’s logic. Raissa also knew that Maryse and Sabine, Mildred’s surrogate daughters, would be lodged in her mind, too. Finally, Mildred slumped back in her chair and nodded. “I don’t like it, but I shouldn’t expect anything less from you.” She rose from her chair and surprised Raissa by giving her a hug.

“I don’t even know if you have any family or if they even know you’re alive,” Mildred said as she released her, “but I want you to know that I consider you my family, another one of my girls. I’m not going to ask you to promise not to do anything dangerous, but I am going to make you promise not to die on us.”

Raissa’s eyes moistened and she rubbed her nose with one finger, sniffling. “That’s a promise I’ll be happy to make.” She gave Mildred’s hand a squeeze, then hurried out of the hotel before she embarrassed herself by becoming just another weepy woman.





Chapter Four


At two thirty P.M., Raissa closed the door to her shop after her last appointment and put the CLOSED sign in the window. There were a million things that had to be done before she could commence her part-time-living adventures in the Mudbug Hotel, but one absolutely couldn’t wait.

She entered her upstairs apartment and opened the closet, scrutinizing her choices. This excursion wasn’t exactly a jeans-and-T-shirt sort of call, not unless she wanted to stick out by a mile. She made her selections, then began a midafternoon transformation.