Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(86)

Luc stared her straight in the eyes but didn’t respond, and his hesitation made her nervous. “What?” Maryse asked. “What are you not telling me?”

“We’ve already found the contaminated area,” Luc said.

“But how?”

“The agency found the informant, and he gave us some of the dumping spots. I sorta broke into your lab and copied your notebook back when I first got here. Then things got weird with your inheritance and everything else, and for awhile I totally missed the clues that were right in front of me. But when I started thinking about everything, it made sense. The illegal dumping, your cancer tests, and the recent success that Aaron reported…well, I checked your notes and compared it to the information we’d gotten through our informant.”

Maryse didn’t know whether to be happy that the contaminated area was already identified and could be cleaned up, scared to death that she’d been hanging out in it, or mad at Luc for stealing her data. And despite all that information, she still couldn’t help feeling that there was something missing from his explanation. Before she could question what, Luc sat on the couch next to her and took her hand in his.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Maryse, but your trials were a sort of false positive.”

Maryse stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t discover a plant that cured cancer. What you discovered was a plant loaded with radiation from the illegal dumping.”

Maryse’s head began to spin. It couldn’t be true. She was right there, right on the verge of the solution. “No,” she whispered.

Luc looked at her with sad eyes and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Maryse. So very sorry.”

Maryse stared at him, unable to think, unable to breath. Blooming Flower had never had a magical cure. She’d simply given her dad the radiation treatment he’d refused, courtesy of a contaminated plant. Maryse’s entire career, her whole adult life, had been a farce. There was no cure, at least not one in Mudbug Bayou, and she was no closer to saving lives that she had been before her advanced degrees and thousands of hours of extra work. And even worse, she’d unknowingly endangered everyone else in the process of trying to find a cure that didn’t even exist.

She rose from the couch, unable to face the people in the lobby, her friends, her family who had unconditionally believed in her. Believed the lie. “If you guys don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to be alone for a while.” She hurried out of the lobby without waiting for a response, not wanting to see the disappointment, the pity, that would probably line every face in the room. All she wanted was to lock herself away in her room until the disappointment was gone.

And the fear.

All this time, Maryse had thought she was right on the verge of success. It’s the only reason she hadn’t launched into panic over Sabine’s test. She thought she’d be able to help her friend if things turned out for the worse.

But it had all been a lie.


Maryse stared at the ceiling in the hotel room…but it hadn’t changed, not once in the last two hours of her looking at the same spot the painters had missed next to the fan. She sat up in bed, feeling claustrophobic and restless. She needed to get out of the hotel, away from the town and the people and out into her bayou where she felt at home. Where things made sense. But the only way out of the hotel was down the stairs and through the lobby, since setting off the alarm with the back door probably wouldn’t be a good idea given the situation.

She got out of bed and opened the window, hoping for a breeze or something to make her feel less like a caged animal, and noticed the drain pipe just outside the ledge to her room. She leaned further out the window and reached one hand over to test the strength of the pipe when Helena’s voice boomed next to her.

“What the hell are you doing? Don’t tell me you were gonna jump. After all we’ve been through, you want to end it now? And from the second floor? You’d probably only break your foot.” Maryse slid back inside the window and stared at Helena before sinking onto the bed in a huff. “I was not going to jump. And where were you? I kept expecting to see you around, and then finally I wondered if everything had finally, well, you know…”

“Made me disappear,” Helena finished. “Afraid not.” She sat on the bed and frowned. “I just figured you had enough to deal with without me hanging around the room and only you and Luc seeing me, so I sat behind the front desk and took it all in.”

“Then you heard everything?”

Helena nodded. “I heard everything.” She gave Maryse a shrewd look. “And I know what you’re thinking.”

Maryse shook her head. “You couldn’t possibly.”

“You’re thinking everything you’ve done in life was a waste because the cure wasn’t real and the only relationship you had wasn’t exactly a success.” She stared at Maryse for a moment, but Maryse wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right.

“The worst part is,” Helena continued, “there’s a grain of truth to all of that.”

Maryse sat bolt upright on the bed and glared at Helena. “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying something like that to me. You of all people.”

Helena held one hand up before she could continue her barrage. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Well, not exactly. Oh, hell, I never could get things out right. Might have made life a lot easier if I’d ever learned some tact.”