Chapter Seven
Maryse stomped across the hotel lobby for the hundredth time that morning and flopped onto the lobby couch. “What good is a day off if you’re held hostage?”
Mildred looked over the counter, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t see any handcuffs from where I sit, but if you keep throwing yourself onto my lobby furniture, I might find a pair.”
“If you’re looking for something to do,” Helena said, “one of the cooks at the diner pulled a blackberry cobbler out of the oven about ten minutes ago. I wouldn’t mind eating a blackberry cobbler.”
“You mean a slice of cobbler?” Mildred asked.
“No, I meant the whole thing, but you and Maryse are welcome to a slice…a small one. That is if Maryse will go buy the cobbler.”
“I’m not buying you a cobbler,” Maryse said. “After what you made me do to my daddy’s urn, I’d see you starve to death first...or whatever happens when you’re already dead and starving.”
Helena threw her hands in the air. “How many times do I have to apologize for that? Hardly anyone can see me, so I didn’t think about how the outfit would look to you. And I’d forgotten that you’re not a very good shot.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’d been a real person, those bullets would have hit you center mass.”
Helena stuck her lower lip out. “I am a real person.”
“A real live person.”
“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
Helena glared. “If that’s how you’re going to be, I’ll just head upstairs and see if that FBI agent who stayed behind is talking to anyone on the phone.” A couple seconds later, she stomped up the stairs.
Mildred shook her head. “It’s like having two five-year-olds. If you two are going to snipe at each other all day, can you at least take it to the kitchen, or even better, I’ll give you my biggest suite. You can bitch ’til the cows come home and it will be out of my earshot.”
Maryse gave Mildred an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to drive you crazy.”
“I know you’re not, but you’re managing to do a good job of it anyway.”
“I just hate sitting here. What’s so wrong with riding in a boat with Jadyn and Colt? Both of them are great shots.”
“Yes,” Mildred agreed, “but did you ever stop to think that if Luc is worried about you, then going into the bayou means you might bring trouble with you? That might put Jadyn and Colt in a position they would never be in without you along. They’re already facing the possibility of running up on the kidnappers. Do you really want to add another element of danger to that mix?”
Maryse crossed her arms across her chest and frowned. She knew Mildred was right. Had already thought of that herself, although she would have never admitted it. But that didn’t mean she had to like it, and by God, she didn’t.
“I offered to go by myself,” Maryse said. “Remember?”
“Yes, you did. And I’m not saying you should have done it, but if that’s really what you wanted, you should have just headed out in your boat and sent someone a text message that you were going. The way you did it put Jadyn and Colt in the position of getting between you and Luc. No one in their right mind is going to get in the middle of a marital fray.”
Maryse sighed. “You’re right. I know you’re right—”
“Wheeeeeeee!”
Helena squealed and Maryse looked over to see her sliding down the stair rail. She cringed as the large mass reached the bottom post, but Helena turned transparent and shot off the end. Unfortunately, her transparency didn’t last long enough to land.
She hit the floor with a bang and rolled backward into the wall, shaking it to the foundations. A picture hanging above her rattled off and crashed onto the top of her head, splintering the picture from the frame.
Mildred stood up, hands on her hips, and glared at Helena. “What if someone had been at the front desk when you pulled that stunt?”
“But no one’s here.”
“Did you check to make sure no one was here before you relived your childhood?”
Helena looked guilty.
“I didn’t think so,” Mildred said. “The last thing I need is a reputation as a haunted hotel.”
“But you are a haunted hotel,” Helena pointed out as she brushed glass off her jeans.
“That’s beside the point. People around here are superstitious. If word gets out I have a ghost, business would go to hell in a handbasket. Then you would have nowhere to live and I would have no money to feed you.”
Helena frowned. “I guess I didn’t think that one through.”
“Shocking,” Maryse said. “Did you get anything from that stiff upstairs?”
Helena climbed up from the floor and flopped into one of the lobby chairs, breathing as if she’d just run a marathon. “Yeah. He even had the phone on speaker, so I could hear that butthead Agent Ross, too.”
“So what’s going on?”
Helena grinned. “Well, the funny part is that Agent Stiff was left behind because he’s supposed to follow Jadyn when she leaves the hotel.”
“He’s about two hours late for that one,” Mildred said.
Helena nodded. “The idiot even called her lazy because he thinks she’s still asleep.”
“Ha!” Maryse laughed. “I can’t wait to tell her that. Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah, Agent Butthead Ross said they were about to pull the car out of the pond. He’s going to have it transported to the garage here in Mudbug, and he’s going to do an inspection himself to make sure the car belongs to Raissa. If the car is Raissa’s, then he’ll call the forensics team who will process the car, looking for evidence related to Raissa and Zach’s cases.”
Maryse frowned. “I thought Ross told Colt that the FBI didn’t think their work had anything to do with this.”
Helena rolled her eyes. “And you believe the feds are telling the truth?”
“I have to agree,” Mildred said. “No offense to Luc, of course. But the FBI is not going to give up anything they consider confidential. Not even to family, much less friends, and certainly not to what they’d consider competing law enforcement.”
“That’s crap,” Maryse said. “By not telling us everything, they limit our ability to help.”
“I think that’s the point,” Mildred said.
Maryse stared at the painting of the bayou that hung over the lobby fireplace. “I wish we could find out what they’re looking for in that car.” She looked over at Helena. “I don’t suppose—”
“No way,” Helena interrupted. “That’s at least fifteen miles’ walk from here. By the time I got there, Ross would be retired.”
“Who said you had to walk?”
“I took that part for granted. Mildred won’t have any part of it because she’s too smart to go there, you’re grounded, and I can’t exactly drive there myself. Well, I could, but that might cause some concern.”
Maryse jumped off the couch. “I’m not grounded.”
Mildred shook her head. “No way. There’s only one road that leads to that pond and it’s a dead end. You have nowhere to go if the FBI catches sight of you.”
“There’s a path about a mile from the end. I can pull off on it and hide the truck with some brush in case anyone passes by.”
“Oh no,” Helena said. “I’m not walking a mile unless there’s blackberry cobbler in it for me.”
“You get me something that helps this investigation,” Maryse said, “and I’ll buy you a slice.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Done. Whoohoo! Blackberry cobbler.”
Mildred gave them both a look of dismay. “I don’t know which one of you is worse.”
Instantly, Maryse sobered. “You’re not going to tell Luc, are you?”
“Not unless he asks me directly. I’m not about to voluntarily unleash that can of worms.”
“Thank God,” Maryse muttered.
“But I won’t lie for you, either. So you either get in and out without incident, or you better get a speech prepared.”
“Don’t worry,” Maryse said. “We will be incident-free.”
Mildred raised her eyebrows, clearly not convinced that anything involving Helena could be incident-free.
For that matter, neither was she.