Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(4)

“No, thank you, Mr. Cormier. I’ll be fine.”

The bus driver nodded. “Well, if you need anything, you can find me through the bus company. Like I say, I didn’t get a good look at that man or nothing, but I’d be happy to talk to the police, if they was asking.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Cormier, but at this point, I think there’s little the police could do.”

“You’re probably right. You be careful, miss.” He climbed back onto the bus and gave her a wave as he pulled away from the corner.

Raissa lifted a hand in response, then hurried across the street to her car. She slid into the driver’s seat and looked over at her uninvited passenger. “I’m going to die, right?”

The ghost in her passenger seat frowned at Raissa. “Crap.”

Raissa stared at Helena Henry, feeling her pulse race. Of course, she’d known the ghost was around. Maryse and Sabine could both see her and had told Raissa about her. But knowing her friends were telling the truth and seeing the truth in her car were two totally different things. Then there was that small matter of Maryse’s theory on Helena’s appearances.

“This isn’t good, is it?” Raissa finally asked. “Maryse says every time you’re visible to someone, their life is in danger.”

Helena sighed. “I wish I could argue, but I’m afraid my track record speaks for itself.”

“It was you who pulled me out of the street, wasn’t it?”

Helena nodded.

“But why are you here? At the street corner? In my car?”

“Well, I was…I thought…you see…Oh, hell, I just had this feeling that you were in trouble, so I’ve been following you around.”

“A feeling?”

Helena waved one hand in dismissal. “I know. Now I sound like all the rest of you nutbags with your spirits and tarot cards and psychic visions, but damn it, I don’t know how else to explain it. You were on my mind for days and no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it, so finally I got Maryse to drop me off at your shop.”

“Maryse knew about this and didn’t tell me?”

“She didn’t want to worry you. She said if you saw me, then we’d rally the troops. Otherwise, she was putting it down to my overactive imagination. Well, that and the fact that I started a diet last week.”

Raissa’s head began to spin. “This is too much to process right now. I’d love nothing better than to drive home and pour myself a glass of the strongest thing I have in my apartment and mull this over, but I’ve got something urgent to do.”

Helena shrugged. “Unless you plan on drinking the Drano under your sink, I don’t think you’re going to figure it out today anyway. But I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine, and maybe a slice of that cheesecake you bought today at lunch. Just don’t tell Maryse. She’s picking me up in an hour.”

Raissa started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I thought you were on a diet.”

“Hey, I just saved your life. Are you going to deny me a little piece of pie?”

“Helena, I’ll buy you pies for the rest of your life if I manage to stay alive like the others.”

“Cool!” Helena smiled. “That will show that skinny bitch Maryse. She keeps harping on me about my diet, but I think she’s just jealous that I don’t gain weight.”

“Then why are you on a diet?”

“Maryse and Sabine refuse to keep feeding someone they can’t take as a tax deduction, especially as I don’t need to eat in the first place. And it’s not like I can walk into a grocery store or diner and load up. It was getting a bit exhausting trying to steal when it has to be in my pockets or it’s visible to everyone, and I feel guilty about the stealing part, unless it’s someone I really don’t like.” Helena looked down the street at the police station, then back at Raissa. “Hey, you went to the police about that little girl that’s missing, didn’t you? Did you get a vision or something?”

“I got something.”

Helena stared at her for a couple of seconds. “You’re not really psychic, are you?”






Chapter Two


Raissa strolled into the Internet café across town, her laptop tucked under her arm. Her normally casual look had been replaced with a loud pink blouse, skintight black pants, and a wig with long red curls. As she waited in line for a latte, she pulled a mirror from her purse and studied the ceiling edge around the room while pretending to check her lipstick. She closed the mirror and tucked it back into a huge silver bag. She’d been right—no security cameras.

She placed her order and received a compliment from the clerk on her long turquoise nails with purple dolphins, then collected her coffee and took a table on the patio outside that offered her the best view of the street corner. Placing the laptop on the table, she gave the street the once-over, her eyes safely hidden behind the polarized lenses of her sunglasses. After a quick glance back inside the shop, she peeled the dolphin nails off her fingertips, satisfied that no one would ever think that the dolphin-nail-wearing woman and Raissa Bordeaux were the same person.

When her fingers were free of the long nails, she opened her laptop and started working. It took only minutes to get to the files she’d come for, even with the added time of diverting the FBI firewall security, but then she hadn’t been known as the best hacker at the bureau for nothing. She inserted a flash drive and began the download of every case file she could think of that might be relevant, every possible angle she could come up with that might keep her alive. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and the screen scrolled with page after page of downloading data. She looked at the time and checked the street again. A minute, maybe two, was all she had left before they closed in on her.