Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(45)

“No wind today. Figures.”

“No matter.” Maryse reached into the box and pulled out a shotgun and a box of shells.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Rubber bullets,” Maryse explained. “I have to have them for the job. Not supposed to kill the critters, you know. They won’t tear anything up, but it will be more than enough punch to open that door.” Maryse grabbed the tie line for her boat and pulled it along the edge of the bank until it rested behind an overhang. “Better stand back,” Maryse said as she loaded the gun. “I know nothing can touch you, but this might be scary if you’re right about that guy.”

Helena hesitated for a millisecond, then hopped into the boat next to Maryse. They stood on one side and peered over the edge of the bank. Satisfied with their position, Maryse lifted the shotgun over the bank and aimed it at the front door.

“You ready?” she asked Helena.

Helena covered her ears with both hands and nodded.

“Here goes,” Maryse said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot seemed to happen in slow motion, although it couldn’t have taken more than a second for the bullet to hit the door. The instant they heard the smack of the rubber on the wood, the door flung open, giving them a clear view of the inside of the cabin. Maryse was certain neither of them moved, or breathed, or even blinked, but as the seconds passed, only dead silence remained.

Maryse was just about to give the entire thing up as Helena’s overactive imagination when the cabin exploded.

Maryse ducked behind the ledge and flattened herself against the dirt wall as flat as possible. If she hadn’t been so frightened, she might have been amused to see Helena crouched there next to her as pieces of glass and wood flew everywhere—some hitting Maryse on her hands which covered her head, and some landing in the bayou behind them.

It took only seconds for the rain of glass and wood to stop, but it felt like forever. When the last piece of debris plopped into the water, Maryse waited another five seconds, then peeked over the bank and sucked in a breath at what she saw.

The cabin was completely leveled. Not a single wall remained, and even the bathtub was nowhere to be seen. That had her wondering for a moment since it was an old cast iron tub and had to weigh a ridiculous amount. She stared in stunned silence at the degree of damage, unable to make out anything, not even a wall. Absolutely everything had been torn apart by the blast.

Maryse swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to hold back tears when she caught a glimpse of something shiny hanging from one of the cypress trees. She strained her eyes to make out the object and realized with a jolt that it was a picture frame. Even with the metal twisted and black, she knew exactly what picture had hung in that frame.

Suddenly, Maryse’s sadness and loss shifted to anger. Two years worth of anger, all bubbling forth at this exact moment. She screamed at the top of her lungs and pounded the embankment with her fists. Helena stepped back in surprise and fell off the back of the boat and onto the bayou where she rested on top of the water, rising and falling with the waves.

“This is all your fault!” Maryse shouted at Helena. “Like producing that sorry excuse for a human being you call a son wasn’t enough—you had to rise from the dead, visible only to me, the person who probably despises you most, and then have the nerve to make me a moving target by leaving me some piece of land I was much better off without!”

Helena stared at her a moment, then looked down at the bayou, not saying a word.

“Look at this,” Maryse cried, and waved an arm over the embankment at the disaster that used to be her home. “I have nothing left because of you. Everything I owned was in that house. And don’t even talk to me about insurance because I don’t want to hear it. How is insurance going to replace my mom and dad’s wedding photo? How is insurance going to replace the Dr. Seuss books my mom read to me when I was a baby?”

Maryse bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears of anger that threatened to fall. “The only memory I have of her is reading those books. You’ve taken everything from me and given me nothing but trouble in return. I never thought I could hate you more than I did when I was paying Hank’s debts, but I was wrong.” She stared at Helena, but the ghost wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

Disgusted, she started her boat and pulled away from the embankment, leaving Helena sitting on top of the bayou. Maryse’s life was ruined. She had nothing left, not even the photos of her parents. She felt as if they were being erased from existence, all proof of her and her world being swept away. And even worse, obviously someone wanted her swept away with her memories.

Unless you beat the odds.

The thought ran through her head with a jolt. All of her anger at Helena and the situation with the will, at Hank for running out on her, at her mom for dying too soon, and her dad for following behind her mother with his stubbornness, came together in one instant, and she felt a sudden clarity run through her. There was one way to fix this. One way to make everything right.

Stay alive and keep that damned land.

Her resolution made, she shoved the throttle down on her boat and it leapt out of the water. Whoever had tried to kill her had made a fatal mistake in not getting the job done the first time, because now she was mad.

A mad scientist.


Luc had just pulled away from the dock when the explosion burst into the sky. “What the hell!” He raced down the bayou toward Maryse’s cabin. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You should have followed her more closely.