Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(34)

“I have a plan. I need you to be ready to read the license plate off the other car.”

Helena sat up and glanced in the passenger-side mirror. “There’s no plate on the front.”

“I know that. I’m hoping there’s one in the back. Are you ready?”

Helena looked completely confused but nodded. “Go for it.”

Raissa lowered the driver’s side window and shifted her pistol to her left hand. She watched in the rearview mirror as the car built up speed behind her for another hit. Just before the car reached her, Raissa yanked the wheel to the left and slammed on the brakes. The other car shot by them on the right side. Raissa strained to see the driver, but the windows were tinted so dark, she could barely make out a silhouette inside.

Before the other driver got any bright ideas, like braking himself, Raissa held her gun out the window and fired a shot into the trunk of the other car. The driver swerved, but managed to maintain control. Raissa waited a couple of seconds to see what the driver would do. She prayed he’d take the warning and move on. The shot had been a warning. If she had to kill the man, things would get really sticky, and she couldn’t afford to waste time sitting in a jail cell.

“Shoot him again!” Helena yelled. “Make it count this time.”

The other driver, apparently realizing his mistake, leaped forward. Raissa pressed the accelerator as far down as it would go, but the other car kept inching away from them. Her finger twitched on her pistol, and she warred with herself over shooting out the tires. But then she’d be on the hook for whatever happened afterward. Damn it!

Raissa’s chest and stomach hurt from the seat belt, and she brought her hand in the window, placed the gun in her lap, and loosened the belt. She took a deep breath, trying to control her racing heart.

“You’re letting him get away,” Helena complained.

“I’m not letting him. His car is a lot faster. There’s a V-8 engine in that Cadillac.”

“It’s still not as fast as a bullet.”

“I know. But I couldn’t afford to waste a day or two in jail explaining myself to the police, and the FBI would be right there ready to expedite things as long as I agreed to be on the first bus out of here.”

“Yeah, okay,” Helena groused. “I guess I see your point, but I don’t have to like it.”

“I don’t like it, either. I would much rather have put a bullet through his head. Did you get a look at the back of the car?”

“There was no plate on the back, either,” Helena said, huffing like a freight train.

Raissa looked over at Helena, who was struggling to loosen her seat belt. “Are things supposed to hurt ghosts?” Helena asked. “Because this seat belt is killing me. What the hell?”

Raissa watched as the black car disappeared over the next rise in the highway. What the hell? was a really good question.





Working on her best pout, Helena sat in a secluded corner of Starbucks across from Raissa. “I can’t believe you’re going to drink that caramel, whippy-doodle thingie in front of me.”

“You can’t exactly drink one in here,” Raissa whispered. “I’ll get you one when we leave.”

“Promise?”

“God, you’re worse than a three-year-old. Don’t worry. You’ll have your coffee in twenty minutes or less. That whole run-in on the way here has made me change my plans. I don’t have time for the hacking I had planned, and it might not be the best idea, when I can convince someone else to do it for me.”

Helena winked. “Must be nice having a cop on the side.”

Raissa laughed and pressed in some numbers on her cell phone. “Zach, I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Can you track down the other missing girls? I thought that if we could find where they are now, we might be able to ask if they’ve remembered anything about their kidnapping, or if anything’s happened to them since.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Zach said. “Just let me run it by the captain. He’s been watching us like a hawk. We’re not supposed to do anything unless it advances the investigation.”

“Great. And, um, there’s one other little thing.”

“What kind of thing?” The suspicion was evident in his voice.

“Well, I got into a little trouble, and I was hoping you could—”

Zach didn’t even let her finish. “What the hell happened now?”

“A car followed me from Mudbug and tried to run me off the road. I might have taken a shot at them in a Top Gun sort of maneuver.”

“Damn it! I told you to stay put.”

“Yes, but I had things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like get a coffee. So can you help me do a DMV search or not?”

He sighed.

“Now, see, this is exactly what the captain doesn’t want us running off on,” he said. Then after a pause, “Did you get the plate number?”

“No plates, but I have a make and model. Black Cadillac DTS—current year.”

“You want me to do a search for every Black Cadillac DTS in New Orleans? Seriously?”

“It’s a sixty-thousand-dollar car. There can’t be that many.”