Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(49)

Zach grimaced. He had, after all, seen a picture of Maryse’s mother-in-law in her police file. “That was far more information than I ever needed to know.”

“All right,” Maryse said. “Show’s over, Helena. It’s time for you and me to go back to bed.” Maryse mouthed Sorry to Zach and opened the door, then glared at the air, apparently willing the ghost to leave. “No, I don’t think he’s getting naked again,” he heard her say as the door shut behind her.

Zach stared behind them, still unable to form words.

“Sorry to hit you with it like that,” Raissa said, “but there’s really no simple way to explain.”

“Yeah. I guess not.” He studied Raissa, who sat calm and collected on the edge of the dresser. “None of that bothers you?”

“No. I mean, not in the ways you might think it should. I learned a long time ago to never close my mind to possibilities. Every time I did it made a fool of me.”

“But you and Maryse can actually see her?”

“And Mildred and our friend Sabine, although I wasn’t able to until recently.”

“So you did what, exactly, to make that happen? Dance naked with lit candles…?”

“Well, Maryse has this theory that you develop the ability to see Helena when you’ve been targeted for murder. We’ve all come pretty close to biting it at some point fairly recently.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s hasn’t failed as a theory for over a month now.”

Zach ran one hand through his hair, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to make normal out of anything. “So when did you first see her?”

“The night I left the police station, after I told you about the other girls. Someone pushed me in front of a bus on the corner. Helena pulled me out of the street just in time.”

“Jesus!” Zach rose and started pacing the small room. “That means someone was following you before you ever came to the station. Your cover was already blown.”

Raissa nodded. “Yeah, I tried to dismiss it at the time, but Helena was sitting in my car across the street. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.”

Zach stopped pacing and stared at her. “Do you realize what you’re asking me to believe? In ghosts…curses…whatever you think is going on here? Damn it, Raissa, you’d already stretched my mind to the limits with your past as an agent and your undercover work, not to mention your theories on the abductions, but this…this is something I can’t buy into.”

“I’m not asking you to buy into anything,” Raissa said gently. “You know what you saw. You’re a sane, rational, intelligent man. There’s no other explanation than the one I gave you.”

Zach sat back down again with a sigh, unable to get control over his warring emotions. “I don’t know whether to be amazed, or scared, or worried.”

“I think all three is a safe bet.” She sat down next to him and placed one hand on his leg. “I know how you feel—well, maybe not exactly, but sorta. It’s going to be fine, Zach. Think of Helena as another form of weapon. She’s a pain in the rear a lot of the time, but she has her usefulness.”

“So the pictures Maryse had developed—provided by Helena, the ghost photographer?”

“I told you she had her usefulness. If she’d tucked the camera in her pocket and then managed not to get run over, the entire thing might have gone off without a hitch. You can’t always depend on Helena for the best judgment or to keep her cool.”

Zach shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around everything. “Yeah, I guess I can see that, especially after that garage escapade. That guy probably won’t sleep for a week. Which reminds me, did you recognize him?”

“No. It was too dark, and the feed wasn’t clear enough for me to make out a face. I’ll do some work on the footage and see if I can clean it up, but the most we’re probably going to get off it is height, weight, and an estimate of age based on movement.”

“I figured as much.” Zach looked over at Raissa. “So is there anything else you’re keeping from me—a husband, five kids, a cat? Because I don’t think I can take any more surprises.”

Raissa opened her mouth to answer, when one of the laptops at the end of the table started beeping. A loud, persistent, annoying beep. Raissa rushed over to the laptop and looked at the screen.

“What now?” Zach asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve set a timer to brush your teeth or paint your toenails at two A.M.”

Raissa motioned him over, so he rose from the chair and walked over to stand beside her. “There is one more little thing. This audio is from earlier tonight.”

“Oh, no.” Zach looked down at the laptop as Raissa clicked on a speaker icon. A man’s voice, yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, bellowed out of the laptop.

“I had Helena put a bug in Sonny Hebert’s office.”

Zach stared at the laptop, listening to the mob boss rant about his desire to kill his “demon” cat and bury it in the backyard. For the second time that night, Zach was totally speechless.





Raissa slid into the booth across from Dr. Breaux and signaled to the waitress for a cup of coffee. “Morning,” she said, and nodded gratefully to the waitress when she slid a mug in front of her.