She hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, she’s not around anymore, so I guess it’s not too terrible to gossip.” The woman did a quick glance-around, then lowered her voice even further. “He had an affair with Elena Sharp, and then her husband kicked her out!”
I blinked. This was a far cry from the story that Elena had spun for me. “Wow.” Now it was my turn to do the furtive glance around. “And didn’t Harris’s son kill his wife and then himself?”
She sighed. “Yeah, that was awful. I mean, Harris is a bit of a sleazeball ‘playa,’ but that was a horrible thing to have happen.” I heard a bustle of women’s voices coming into the locker room, and the blonde stepped back. “Anyway,” she said, “I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into.”
I gave her a grave nod, hiding my bemusement. “I appreciate that. I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Becky. Becky Prejean.” She gave me a wink and then scuttled off in a flash of spandex and artificial breasts.
I took my shower and dressed, thankfully unaccosted, but my mind kept turning over the tidbits of information. Elena and Harris, huh? Well, she did say she was attracted to powerful men. Yet another interesting twist.
But was it true? I headed out to my car and cranked the AC up, then called the dispatcher and asked for a local address for a Becky or Rebecca Prejean, white female, approximately mid-thirties.
A few minutes later I thanked the dispatcher and hung up. Becky Prejean lived in Ruby Estates. Davis Sharp’s maid had said that a blonde came to see him after Elena left.
Coincidence? Probably. But Becky Prejean had raised my suspicions about a number of things, and I had a feeling I’d be driving to Mandeville again before all this was over.
THE REST OF my afternoon was an ambitious—and hideously necessary—combination of doing laundry, cleaning my kitchen, and scrubbing my bathroom. Usually, housework had a relaxing effect on me, but a simmering guilt plagued me throughout the day—railing at me that I wasn’t making any progress on finding what was consuming essence, and reminding me that time was running out for Tessa. I’d hoped for a relaxing Sunday and a desperately needed recharge of my mental resources, but the various worries continued to pick at me.
Four times I picked up my phone to call Ryan—twice even going so far as to start dialing his number before I stabbed at the disconnect button in frustration. I had no idea what the hell I would say. Wanna hang out? Wanna see a movie? I’m stressed out and need someone to vent to?
Right. Like Ryan needed any more proof that I was completely neurotic.
I gave up and fired up my computer. Bury myself in work … As long as I had some free time, I could check one other thing that I’d almost forgotten about—Judge Laurent had mentioned campaign contributions, with a strong implication that there was something significant to be seen there.
Campaign contributions were public record and, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, were also available online. It took me a few tries to find the right website, but once I did I was rewarded with more information than I knew what to do with on every election and every candidate.
Narrowing my search to only the contributions made by Davis Sharp was far more enlightening. Stunning, in fact. Davis Sharp had contributed significantly to Judge Roth’s campaign fund—giving the maximum allowed by law, going at least ten years back. I quickly scanned through the rest of Sharp’s contributions. He’d supported various other candidates in other elections but none as much as Harris Roth.
I shifted my search parameters to look at all of Roth’s contributors. That list was impressively long, but Sharp’s name clearly stood out as Roth’s biggest contributor.
I bookmarked the page and shut my computer down. I had an extensive financial connection between Davis Sharp and Judge Roth now. But what did it mean? Judge Laurent had implied that Sharp wanted favors in return for contributions, so I could only assume that he’d expected—and received—the same from Roth. Especially considering how much money he’d given to his campaign fund.
I was out of ideas, and it was with a nearly visceral relief that I watched the sun slip below the trees. Now I could at least assuage the part of the guilt that nagged at me about Tessa, even if the rest of my psyche remained in hopeless shambles.
I showered and changed, then headed down to my basement. This was the last stage of the call to her essence—the “arcane transponder” that would hopefully draw her back to this plane and to her body. I knew that a great deal depended on to what extent her essence had been drained during the summoning, and I knew that at some point I would have to accept the possibility that I might never get her back.