Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(23)

“Maybe something spooked it. We’ll take a look around, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s a good idea.”

Raissa clicked on the laptop and the voices stopped. “Cool. It’s coming through great.”

Maryse glanced over at her. “How are you getting a signal this far away?”

“I put a receiver in the abandoned building across the street this afternoon. It’s recording everything and I can stream the audio anywhere I can get a decent satellite connection.”

Maryse shook her head. “I’m not sure if I was more impressed with your alleged psychic ability or your computer genius.”

“Ultimately, it’s all the same thing.” Raissa turned in her seat to look at Helena. “Were you able to see anything in the trunk?”

Helena shrugged. “Yeah, sorta. I mean, I guess. Hell, I saw something, but I don’t think I saw it right. It doesn’t make sense.”

Raissa’s skin began to tingle. “Tell me.”

Helena frowned. “That fancy trunk and high-tech lock, and all that was inside was a broken crucifix necklace and a Halloween costume. A gray alien suit.”





Zach stared out of his windshield and shook his head. Almost midnight. Four hours outside Raissa’s shop and no sign of the voodoo princess. Oh, but he’d seen plenty of signs of Agent Fields. If the FBI’s finest had been trained at the art of surveillance, it certainly didn’t show. Agent Fields had parked his car directly in front of Raissa’s shop hours ago, and every fifteen minutes or so, he got out of his car and banged on the shop door.

Stupid. Raissa knew Zach would run her print as soon as he could get it done, so he seriously doubted she was out on a hot date or tossing back beignets and coffee. No, if he had to guess, Raissa had flown the coop—whether permanently or temporarily remained to be seen—but he wasn’t going to waste any more time watching Agent Fields doing nothing.

Zach tapped the keyboard on his laptop once more and got the name he was looking for—the owner of Raissa’s building. He entered the name into the police database and finally came up with a phone number for the man. He was obviously asleep when Zach called but woke right up when Zach identified himself and asked about his building. It took him a couple of minutes to assure the man that the building was fine, and as far as he knew the tenant was fine, but she was a possible witness to a crime and he needed to speak with her as soon as possible.

The owner was only too happy to provide him with Raissa’s emergency contact—Sabine LaVeche.

Zach hesitated for a moment, then told the owner that there was a bum outside Raissa’s shop banging on the door, and if he moved a bit to the left, the owner might end up replacing that plateglass window. He hung up before the owner could ask for details.

A few more minutes of laptop whirling and one more rather enjoyable round of watching Agent Fields make yet another pass on assaulting Raissa’s door, and he had the information he was looking for. Sabine LaVeche, Mudbug, Louisiana. And unlike her friend, Sabine had pages and pages of information. He scanned the info for anything that might be able to help him find Raissa, even if it was only something he could threaten Sabine with.

Another psychic. Great.

And apparently a psychic with a death wish, he decided as he read the police report on what had to be one of the strangest and most convoluted cases he’d ever heard of. Faked deaths and war crimes and crazy aunts and people buried in the backyard of some of the wealthiest people in the parish. Zach would bet anything that Sabine regretted the day she’d decided to go on a manhunt for her family. He imagined that all the inheritance in the world wasn’t going to erase that trauma from her mind.

He continued to scan the screen, hoping for a weak link, something he could use to his advantage. The last couple of sentences made him groan. Cancer. Jesus H. Christ! How was he supposed to strong-arm a dying woman who’d discovered dead bodies in her newly found family’s backyard? That was a level of * even he wasn’t going to be able to manage.

He shut the laptop and took one final look at Agent Fields pacing the sidewalk and yelling at someone on his cell phone. Enough of this. Cancer and dead-body-finding aside, he was going to locate Sabine LaVeche and tell her he had an emergency. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

A little less than an hour later, he pulled into the town of Mudbug, what there was of it. It was tiny, just a single row of buildings and a neighborhood that stretched in front of the bayou, the houses there the sort that only old money could buy. He had no trouble locating Sabine’s shop and parked in front. The building was dark, but then that hardly surprised him, as midnight had come and gone over an hour before.

He peeked in the store window, but all he saw was a replica of Raissa’s store in New Orleans. This building had been listed as her home address, so he pressed the doorbell, hoping if she was asleep upstairs she’d hear it. He waited for a while, staring up at the second story to see if a light came on, but the building remained black and silent. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and was just about to dial Sabine’s home phone when a car turned onto Main Street, tires squealing as it rounded the corner.

The car slid to a stop in front of the hotel, and the driver jumped out, looking frightened and frustrated all at the same time. Zach felt his skin tingle and ducked behind his car, peering over the roof. The passenger finally stepped out, and he smiled. He knew it—Raissa Bordeaux. And whatever her middle-of-the-night adventure had been, it apparently required a laptop and an unhappy getaway driver.