Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(22)

“Yeah…okay, I got some light in here and I’m peeking through the top of the trunk. What the hell…I don’t know…Are you sure I can’t pull this stuff out for a better look?”

Raissa bit her lip, wondering if it was worth the risk, when Maryse grabbed her sleeve and pointed. “Lights! Someone is awake and coming down the stairs.”

“Shit! Helena, close the closet door and make sure everything is perfect. Someone’s coming downstairs.”

Raissa heard the squeak of the closet door and held her breath, hoping the lights in the house continued in the direction of the kitchen and not the office. Seconds later, a light beamed on at the opposite end of the house, and Raissa let her breath out in a whoosh. “They’re in the kitchen. It’s probably Sonny. He has problems sleeping.”

“You think?” Maryse grumbled.

“Helena, I think you should get out of there. Unless things have changed enormously, Sonny will grab something to eat and go to his office. I know he can’t see you, but I’d really feel better if you were out of there before he gets in.”

“No problem. I’m leaving now. Okay, I’m in the hall. Holy shit, Sonny Hebert is walking down the hall toward me. Crap, crap, crap.”

“Don’t panic. He can’t see you.”

“But it’s Sonny Hebert. How the hell can I not panic?”

“Breathe in and out and ease by him.”

“This is not good,” Maryse said. “When Helena panics, things tend to go very wrong. Maybe I should start the car. Hey, maybe we should just leave now. She can find her way home.”

“Sit tight,” Raissa said, trying not to let Maryse and Helena’s nerves affect her own. “Everything will be fine.”

And that’s when a crash echoed through the laptop.

“What the f*ck!” Sonny Hebert’s voice boomed.

“Damn it to hell,” Helena said. “I hit that table and the vase and oh, shit, here he comes. Think fast, something to do, think fast, the cat—” There was a piercing wail, and more cussing from Sonny, but no clear indication of what was happening in the house.

Maryse sat frozen in her seat, and the thought flashed through Raissa’s mind that her friend might have had a heart attack right where she sat. “Get the hell out of there,” Raissa said to Helena, and grabbed Maryse’s shoulder with her hand and shook her friend.

Maryse seemed to leap into consciousness and started the car just as Helena burst through the front wall of the house and ran across the lawn as fast as hot pants, motorcycle boots, and sixty pounds of excess, ghostly flesh allowed. Lights flashed on all over the mansion, and Raissa knew it was only a matter of minutes before the house, grounds, and street were covered with Sonny’s men.

Helena jumped through the car door and crashed into the backseat as Maryse pulled away from the curb. “Don’t speed,” Raissa cautioned. “Make it look like we were just passing by. Don’t draw attention.”

Maryse’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel as she eased the car down the block and around the corner. When she’d made it another block away, she took a hard left and floored the accelerator, pushing the car onto the freeway as fast as she could possibly go.

“What happened?” Raissa asked.

Helena huffed and wheezed in the backseat, far more than someone who was already dead should. “When I get nervous, sometimes I touch things when I don’t mean to. It’s a pain in the ass, I tell you. Normally I have to concentrate to touch stuff, but when I need to be transparent, it just happens.”

“I tried to tell you,” Maryse said. “When it comes to being a ghost, Helena is an amateur.”

Raissa shook her head, trying to absorb the concept of a ghost having to learn how to be a ghost. “Okay. That’s weird and something I’ll definitely remember going forward, but it will have to wait. What happened, Helena?”

“I hit a table in the hallway and it had a vase on it. The whole thing crashed to the ground, and Sonny was getting closer. Then I saw a cat in the bedroom next to the table, so I grabbed the cat and threw it at Sonny.”

A clear mental picture of what had happened flashed through Raissa’s mind and she began to laugh. “Oh, my God. You threw a cat at him? The biggest mob boss in the state, and you attacked him with his own cat. Priceless.”

“Well, I figured he’d think the cat did it all,” Helena defended as Maryse began to chuckle along with Raissa.

“Oh, it was a brilliant move,” Raissa agreed, “but just not the normal plan of attack for someone like Sonny.”

Helena pouted for a couple seconds more, then started to grin. “Okay, so it might have been a little funny. Well, a lot funny. If you could have seen the look on his face.”

Raissa tapped on her laptop. “We can at least hear it.”

She hit a key and Sonny’s voice resounded through the speakers, “That f*cking cat! I swear to God, if my wife didn’t love that animal, I’d kill it now.”

“You’re sure it was the cat?” one of Sonny’s men asked.

“Yeah, the alarm is on, and nothing’s out of place, except the vase, which I never liked anyway.”

“So maybe the cat did you a favor.”

“Yeah, maybe. But still. Damn cat usually spends all its time sleeping. I can’t imagine what got into it.”