It was almost eleven p.m. before Raissa finished her business and headed back to her apartment. The street from the parking lot to her shop was dimly lit, and Raissa stayed alert, knowing that anything was possible on a dark New Orleans street. Normally, she tried to limit her nightly excursions, but the people she needed to see didn’t do daytime. Unfortunately, her investigative trip hadn’t yielded her the information she’d hoped for.
She was certain she knew who had taken those girls but had never been able to prove it. She’d been close, so close, to the answer—or so she believed—when everything had fallen apart. She’d tried for years to shut those bright blue eyes from her mind, but in her dreams they still haunted her. Why were they taken, and what horrible things had happened to them that they couldn’t remember?
But even though Melissa Franco’s disappearance was exactly the same as the others, no one had seen the man she suspected. Not for at least six months, best she could figure, which troubled Raissa more than she wanted to admit. Granted, New Orleans wasn’t his territory, but he had family here and was the lead man in Baton Rouge for Louisiana’s most notorious mobster. Sonny Hebert valued trust above everything else. If no one had seen Monk in six months, then what did that mean? She could think of only one possibility, and it involved a trash bag, rocks, and the Mississippi River.
She was half a block from her shop when she saw a shadow move in front of the alley. She stopped for a moment and studied the street, looking for another sign of movement in the shadows, listening for a sound that might tell her whether it had been animal or human.
There was nothing but silence.
You’re overly alert. But even thinking it didn’t alleviate the uneasy feeling she had as she studied the alley. And since that uneasy feeling had saved her butt more times than she could count, she wasn’t about to start ignoring it now.
She slipped her pistol from the holster on her ankle and edged closer to the building, silently creeping toward the alley. It seemed even her breathing echoed in the stale night air, and she paused just long enough to control her breaths. Five more steps.
She eased up to the corner and studied the shadows that stretched out onto the sidewalk in front of the opening. No movement. Then she focused all her attention on listening, trying to decipher any noise that might indicate the threat her body so clearly felt was there. She waited five seconds, six seconds, seven—and then she heard it. The tiny shuffle of feet on the cement. Barely a whisper. But unmistakable.
She gripped her pistol with both hands and lifted it to her shoulder. Taking one deep, silent breath, she whirled around the corner and came pistol to face with a man.
He threw his hands in the air as soon as he saw her gun, and the sheer terror on his face made Raissa wonder if she’d mistaken a simple bum for a professional killer. But a quick glance disqualified the bum theory. Blue jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes weren’t exactly a tuxedo, but they were clean and the man’s hair was short, his face completely shaven. This was no bum.
He stared at her, his eyes wide, and finally tried to speak. “Raissa? Raissa Bordeaux…right?”
She studied him for a moment. Something about him looked familiar, but she was certain she’d never met him before. She never forgot a face. “Who are you and how do you know my name?”
The man’s eyes widened even more and he swallowed. “My name’s Hank. Hank Henry.”
And suddenly Raissa realized that she’d seen a picture of him in the Mudbug newspaper. Hank Henry—the disappearing ex-husband of her friend Maryse and son of the recently risen Helena Henry—was a legend in Mudbug. Mostly for being a coward and an idiot, not exactly the sort of legacy most people wanted to leave behind. Good-looking, smooth talking, and utterly useless was exactly how Maryse had described her ex, and taking a closer look at him, Raissa decided she’d probably agree with the “good-looking” assessment, but the smooth talking was nowhere in sight.
Apparently pistols pointed at his head gave Hank stage fright.
But then, given his propensity for activities that were not necessarily legal and his never-ending shortage of cash, Raissa wasn’t convinced that his lurking in the alley was benign. After all, he’d been hiding out for years, and his mother’s death had only profited charities and not her wayward son. Why show up now? “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you. It’s important. I…well, I…I think you might be in danger.”
Raissa narrowed her eyes at him. “From who?”
Hank’s gaze darted between the gun and Raissa. He swallowed again and looked at her. “Sonny Hebert,” he whispered.
Raissa sucked in a breath, her heart pounding in her chest. She glanced behind her, then back at Hank. Whatever else Hank Henry might be, the one thing Raissa was certain about was that he wasn’t a killer. “I think you better come with me.” She tucked the gun in her waistband and motioned for Hank to follow. He gave her a nod and fell in behind her.
A couple of minutes later, Hank was seated at her tiny kitchen table, and she set two glasses of scotch on the table with the rest of the bottle between them. “I figured this wasn’t the sort of conversation that called for coffee or tea.”
Hank looked grateful but not the least bit relieved. Whatever had him hiding in a dark alley waiting to accost a woman he didn’t really know must be heavy, which was worrisome at best. The Hank Henry she’d always heard about was usually in minor trouble, but nothing of the sort that had him stalking women and looking as jumpy as a cat. “How do you know Sonny Hebert?”
Hank froze for a second, then stared down at the table. “Look, I did some stupid things in the past. Really stupid. I had a gambling problem, and I owed the wrong people money.”
“You borrowed money from the Hebert family to gamble? That’s not a problem—that’s a death wish.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But I swear, when I made the deal, I had no idea the Heberts were behind it. It was one of their cousins, different last name, and I didn’t make the connection until it was too late.”
“So all this hiding out you’ve been doing isn’t from the Mudbug police.”
“Heck, no. Spending some time in the Mudbug jail would be a relief compared to this, but I can’t get caught staying anywhere too long, especially in places I can’t walk out of. Know what I mean?”
Raissa nodded. Oh yeah, she knew exactly what Hank meant. Anyone could get caught—and in jail, you were a sitting duck.
“Another month and I’ll have all my fines in Mudbug paid, so it won’t be an issue.” Hank leaned forward a bit in his chair and looked directly at Raissa. “Ms. Bordeaux, you don’t have to believe a word I say, but I want you to know that I’m clean. Been clean for over a year. I did some time in rehab—different name, of course, and nowhere near New Orleans. I’m a changed man, and I want to live a different life, but I can’t do that with the Heberts looking for me under every cypress tree in Louisiana.”
“How much do you owe them?”
Hank raised both hands in the air. “Nothing! I swear I don’t owe them a dime. We had a deal, and I worked off my debt. Working off that debt is what sent me to rehab. I’m not a great man, and I know my morals are lacking, but I don’t have the stomach for the way those men live. I had to get clean. There wasn’t any other choice.”
Raissa frowned. “So if you don’t owe them, what do they want?”
“They keep asking me to do stuff…jobs, you know? I’ve told ’em I’m straight and I don’t want any trouble, but seems like whenever I go to one of my old haunts, there’s always one of the family hanging around.”
“There’s plenty of people who’d be happy to do Hebert’s bidding and take the paycheck. So why keep bothering you?”
Hank blew out a breath. “I think it’s because they think I know something.”
“Know what?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. But they keep asking these strange questions about people in Mudbug and stuff.”
Raissa mentally counted to five. “So they’re asking you questions, trying to get you to admit to something they think you know, but you don’t know what that something is?
Hank nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I guess I saw or heard something I wasn’t supposed to, but hell, how am I supposed to know which thing it was? These people didn’t do picnics and bowling league. It could be anything.”
Raissa tapped one finger on the table and stared at the wall behind Hank. “No, it couldn’t be anything. You were privy to the inner workings of a mob family for a while and, I’m sure, saw plenty. But whatever they’re afraid you know, I’ll bet it doesn’t have anything to do with extortion, or loan-sharking, or even murder.”
“What then?”
“Something worse, much worse.”
Hank’s eyes widened, and Raissa knew exactly what he was wondering—what’s worse than murder? If only she had an answer. “So,” Raissa continued, “you said you thought I was in danger from the Heberts. What makes you think that?”
Hank lifted his glass and downed the rest of the contents. Hand shaking, he placed the glass back down on the table. “Because they asked me to kill you.”