Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(81)

She heard Helena yelling at her to hurry, when she felt the bullet rip through her thigh. She stumbled and tried to brace herself, but her head hit the side of a metal filing cabinet. The last thing she remembered seeing was Zach’s horrified expression as he looked back at her, and then everything went black.





Chapter Twenty-two


Raissa awakened to a burning pain in her leg and voices arguing above her. She opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. Finally, things sharpened a bit, and she saw Helena hovering right over her face, looking down anxiously at her.

“Are you all right?” Helena asked. “Say something if you are. Anything.”

“I think so,” Raissa said, a whisper all she could manage with her aching head.

“The emergency-room staff is on their way, although I have no idea how Zach is going to explain this mess.” Helena said. “And those two have been going at it ever since Sonny dropped Dr. Breaux.” Helena moved to the side and Raissa looked up at Sonny and Zach, squared off and equally pissed.

“I didn’t shoot her,” Sonny argued. “I was only firing at the doctor. And I’m not going to apologize for killing the bastard who messes with kids.”

“Your guy kidnapped those kids,” Zach pointed out.

“I suspected Monk was up to something, but I could never prove it until Raissa blew her cover. I got all over Monk and he told me some of it, but he said he didn’t do another job for them after I found out. I didn’t figure out the rest until today, after talking with Susannah Franco. Those doctor *s convinced him to take that first girl by telling him she was going to die and they could save her. Monk said if they didn’t return the girl to her parents, he’d blow the lid off everything. Monk thought he was helping the girls, the dumb son-of-a-bitch. He never should have gotten involved, and he damn sure shouldn’t have gotten his cousin involved, especially after he’d been out of it for years.”

Raissa sucked in a breath. Finally, things were making sense. After the years spent trying to heal his dying daughter, Sonny would be the last man alive to intentionally hurt a child, despite his many other destructive ways.

“What are you even doing here, Sonny?” Zach asked.

“I came to talk to Hank, then saw you two and figured you were here for the same reason. You went off a different direction, so I waited a bit, then saw that doctor go the same way. I could see the outline of his pistol in his pocket, so I followed. I heard everything that sick f*cker said.”

Zach shook his head. “This whole thing is unbelievable. Why in the world would Susannah Franco want to have a baby she knew would get cancer?”

“Monk told me the doctors said they’d fixed the problem,” Sonny said. “My guess is that Monk never even told Susannah about the illness. I think they were just using Melissa as a last test case before cutting out to another country. When Melissa got sick, Monk knew they’d lied. He confronted Spencer and Breaux, and they killed him.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Zach asked.

“I don’t give a shit what you believe. I know what I know. I just couldn’t do anything about it until I knew for sure Melissa was going to be all right. I’ve waited years to finally understand this, but it’s over. Melissa is the last of them, so there’s no longer a use for Dr. Mengele. Besides, he shot at me first.”

“He barely nicked you. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t just nick your girlfriend. I’d think you’d be thanking me instead of complaining.”

Raissa struggled up to a sitting position, distracting the two men from their conversation.

Zach dropped down beside her. “Don’t move. You hit your head and we need to make sure there’s no damage. The nurse is coming with a gurney.”

Raissa looked at Zach, his expression filled with worry and anger and love, and she felt her chest constrict. He really cared for her, and as much as she’d tried not to, she’d fallen for the surly detective in a big way.

The door to the office flew open and two nurses rushed in with a gurney. Zach barked orders, and the nurses made quick work of securing her to the gurney. As they wheeled her out of the office, Raissa looked back at the man who wanted to protect her, then at the other man, the one who wanted to kill her, and was suddenly overwhelmed with the hopelessness of it all.





Zach pulled out his cell phone and dialed Captain Saucier. This was one time his boss wouldn’t mind having to get out of bed. He told the captain everything he and Raissa had discovered about the girls, and the captain started making things happen. A quick real-estate search turned up a warehouse in New Orleans owned by Dr. Breaux, and thirty minutes later, Zach got word that Melissa was alive and well and on her way to a hospital.

Susannah Franco broke down when questioned by the police and gave up everything she knew about Monk, the experiment, and the other kidnappings. The mayor had caught her in a lie the day of the kidnapping and she’d confessed everything to him. In a typical move, the mayor had kept it all quiet in the guise of protecting his son and granddaughter, but Zach suspected he just wanted to increase his popularity.

Zach, Sonny, and the two policemen the captain had sent relocated to an exam room just off the lobby of the hospital. The police officers were trying to get everything Sonny knew on record, but kept double-checking with Zach. Not that he blamed them. Sonny’s story sounded more far-fetched than a Hollywood movie.