“We have to figure that Maryse wasn’t the first target. Her mother-in-law had to be first, and Breaux was her doctor. If anyone would know how to bump off Helena Henry and get her buried without an autopsy, it would be her doctor.”
“I don’t suppose I have to tell you how he paid for medical school, right?”
“The military. Jesus, Brian,” Luc said, and shook his head. “How do I get myself mixed up in this shit?”
Brian looked up at him and cocked his head to the side. “You know, I would say it’s the white-knight syndrome—that whole damsel-in-distress thing, but this time it’s different.”
Luc shoved his hands in his pockets and avoided his buddy’s gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is hardly the first woman I’ve helped out of a tough spot.”
“Yeah, but it’s the first one you’ve fallen for.” Brian smiled. “Unbelievable, LeJeune. I never thought I’d see the day. This botanist must be something else to have you so wound up.”
Disappearing husband, exploding cabin, killer inheritance, a dead mother-in-law who hadn’t quite left this world, and let’s not forget trying to save the world from one of the worst diseases known to man. “Yes, she’s something else all right,” Luc agreed.
Brian grinned and opened his mouth, probably to rib Luc some more, but the door to the lab flew open and the boss strode in. “Damn it, LeJeune,” he ranted. “You don’t check your messages, you don’t return calls, and now you’re standing in the office and haven’t checked in with me. I yanked you off the Mudbug assignment yesterday. Why weren’t you in the office this morning?”
Luc looked at Wilson but didn’t meet the other man’s eyes. “I have a couple of things I need to wrap up down there.”
“The hell you do! We’ve got our informant.”
Shit. “Who is it?”
“That accountant that Duhon was following. Seems the profit margin increased a little too much for his taste, and he decided he was James Bond or something. Fucker isn’t five foot two and scared of his own shadow, but he went poking his nose into things and found all the big shot’s secret files. Then he made the phone call to the DEQ, got scared they’d kill him or something, and has been trying to find a new job ever since. Dumbass.”
“Sounds like it,” Luc said, stalling until he could figure out some reason to convince Wilson to let him stay in Mudbug another couple of days.
“Anyway, I need you to work with our scared shitless Sherlock and the other agents to gather enough evidence to prosecute. We have enough information to pin down the dumping sites, so your days of dallying with that botanist are over.”
“There’s some other things I’m looking into. Just a couple of days, boss, that’s all I need.”
“No way, LeJeune. You better be in this office at ten tomorrow morning for debriefing. Otherwise, don’t bother coming in at all.” Wilson spun around and strode out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
Brian whistled. “I haven’t seen him this worked up since the Superbowl.”
Luc nodded. “Football can be very emotional.” He stared out the window for a moment, then looked back at Brian, the vaguest notion of an idea forming in his mind. “Hey, have you started mapping out the spots that informant said the dumping occurred?”
“Yeah, we’ve drawn samples from three so far.”
“Can you get me the info on the exact locations and the results of your testing?”
“Not a problem. I’ll e-mail everything as soon as I scan it all in.”
“Okay,” Luc said. “Do me another favor. E-mail me the phone number of the lab guy here who researched Maryse’s work.”
Brian narrowed his eyes. “I’ll do it, but, dude, you are gonna be in some serious shit if you don’t let this botanist thing go.”
Luc stared at the shadowy figure on the monitor. “I can’t. Not just yet.”
Sabine stared at Maryse in shock. “How did you find out? Everything was supposed to be confidential.”
“Your file was on the medical records desk when Helena and I broke into the hospital,” Maryse said. “I’m sorry, Sabine, but I had to look. You understand, right?”
Sabine sniffed and rubbed her nose with her free hand. “I guess so. I probably would have done the same thing. But, Maryse, you have to know that everything is going to be fine. This one is no different than the others. I’m sure of it.”
More than anything in the world, Maryse wanted to believe Sabine, wanted the faith of her friend’s conviction, but the scientist in her knew the reality. And the girl who’d lost both her mother and father to the same disease was scared to death. “How can you be sure? Maybe you need to see a specialist. I know a doctor in New Orleans.”
Sabine shook her head. “I’m nowhere near needing a specialist now or in the future. I’ve asked Raissa about this. She thinks I’m going to be fine.”
“She thinks?” Maryse squeezed Sabine’s hand. “That’s just not good enough, Sabine. Please, please promise me that as soon as this is over, you’ll let me take you to New Orleans and see that doctor I know. For me.”
The tears that had been hanging on the rim of Sabine’s eyelids finally spilled over, and she nodded. “Okay. I promise.” She leaned over and clutched Maryse in a hug. “If you promise to be around to take me, I’ll promise to go.”
Maryse sniffled and tried in vain to hold back her own tears. “That sounds fair.”
“Who died?” Helena’s voice cut into their moment. “Oh wait, that would be me.” The ghost grinned.
Maryse frowned at Helena and instructed Sabine to drive. “We don’t want Harold catching us parked on the side of the road or we’re busted.”
Sabine edged off the shoulder and onto the highway, then made a quick U-turn and stomped on the accelerator. Maryse waited until they were out of sight of the trail, then turned in her seat to face Helena. “Well, are you going to fill me in?”
“Hank was there,” Helena said, and frowned.
“And?”
“And what? The moron was there with his even more moronic father.”
Maryse counted to five. “What did they say, Helena?”
Helena sighed. “Harold yelled at Hank for being so useless that I didn’t leave him the land. Hank said it wasn’t his fault and he didn’t know anything about my will before the reading, which is true.”
Maryse stared at Helena, but the ghost wouldn’t meet her gaze. “What are you not telling me?”
Helena looked at Maryse, her sadness evident in her expression. “Harold said Hank wouldn’t have to worry because it looked like he’d scared you into giving up the land.”
“So it was Harold who tried to kill me.” Maryse slumped back in her seat, not sure whether to be happy the mystery was solved or alarmed that Harold still walked the streets. God forbid he caught on to the fake land transfer before the week was up.
“I guess it must have been Harold,” Helena said finally, “but I still can’t believe it. Luc said those explosives were rigged by a professional. Harold was military, but I married the man, and I can tell you for certain, no one would ever let him work with explosives. Hell, he couldn’t even grill chicken without burning himself, and the television remote—forget it.”
“But according to Mildred, Harold was always bragging at Johnny’s about his special forces tour,” Maryse argued.
Helena shook her head. “I never went to Johnny’s so I can’t say, but if Mildred says so, then I guess it’s so. All I know is Harold used to tell me after he came home from a bender that it was amazing how the world ‘evened things out’ over time.”
Maryse stared at Helena. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
Helena shrugged. “I don’t know, but I always took it as some remark about his military service.”
“What’s going on?” Sabine asked.
Maryse felt instantly guilty. “I’m sorry, Sabine. I keep forgetting you can’t hear her.” She filled in the blanks of her conversation with Helena.
“I don’t like it,” Sabine said when she finished.
“Maybe Harold had help from someone else. After all, if he’s in cahoots with the oil companies, couldn’t he find someone to pay for that kind of service—especially with the amount of money on the line?”
“It’s possible,” Sabine said, “but somehow it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong place. Maybe it isn’t Harold at all.”
Maryse yanked her cell phone from her pocket and pressed in the speed dial for her attorney. “But what else is there?”
Thirty minutes later, a new stun gun in hand, Maryse took one look at Mildred’s hotel, knowing she should probably go inside. As Sabine had pointed out before, they couldn’t be certain Harold was the one gunning for Maryse, and it was much smarter for her to lie as low as possible until they were certain no one else had a hidden agenda. But the very thought of closing herself up in that tiny room, or even worse, sitting in Mildred’s office and enduring the older woman’s scrutiny, made her feel claustrophobic. And what difference did it really make in the big scheme of things? She could be inside in an interior room, hidden in a closet, and covered in Kevlar with a stun gun pointed at the door, and a bomb would still kill her.
“Maryse Robicheaux,” Mildred’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Get your skinny butt into this hotel.” Mildred stood in the doorway of the hotel, hands on her hips and a disapproving look on her face. “Why don’t you just stand in the middle of the street wearing a target on your back next time?”
As Maryse stepped onto the sidewalk, she heard the zing of something small and fast passing right by her head, then a crack of glass. She took the remaining two steps to the plate-glass window on the front of the hotel and looked eye level at a tiny hole that had pierced clean through the glass. A hole the size of a bullet.
Maryse jumped back from the window in horror as a second shot hit the brick building just above her head. In the split second she was trying to decide which way to run, someone slammed into her, half-shoving, half-carrying her into the entrance of the hotel. They landed on the hardwood floor of the hotel foyer, and Maryse struggled with the weight of the person on top of her, pummeling the attacker as much as she could given the restraint. She screamed for Mildred to call the police, when the weight lifted and she was yanked to her feet.
“Hank!” Maryse stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing?”
Her wayward husband grimaced and touched a growing red spot on his shirt, just below the chest. “I’m getting shot and beat to a pulp, that’s what.”
“Holy shit! We have to get you to the hospital.”
Before she could move, Hank grabbed her arm. “Are you stupid? Someone is shooting at you.”
Maryse’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her husband, then laughed. Hank calling her stupid was a real eye-opener.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mildred said. “I’ve already called 911.” She shot Hank a dirty look. “And the coroner, just in case I get lucky.” She motioned them to the office. “Get off my rug before you bleed on it,” she said, then stalked into her office and began yanking first-aid supplies out of a storage cabinet.
Maryse had to hand it to her—for someone who had professed the burning desire to saw Hank Henry’s balls off with a dull butter knife, Mildred showed a remarkable amount of restraint and concern. Grabbing a clean towel from the cabinet, she instructed Hank to lie on the couch. Kneeling beside him, she gently pulled his shirt away from his chest. Hank moaned in agony. Mildred placed the towel against his side to soak up the excess blood, then lifted it to assess the damage.
Maryse leaned over, almost afraid to look when Mildred sighed with obvious relief. “It’s only a surface wound,” Maryse said.
“Only?” Hank stared at them in disbelief. “Well, it hurts like death.”
Mildred folded the towel over to a clean side and pressed it back against the wound. “It’s going to hurt,” she said. “That’s a tender part of the body, and it bleeds a lot.”
“Try to calm down,” Maryse instructed. “Deep breaths. It will help slow the blood flow.”
Hank looked up at her, still not convinced he wasn’t going to die right there on the couch, but he nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. A minute later, the paramedics and the cops came storming into the hotel. The paramedics carted Hank off to the hospital, one officer riding along, and the rest of the Mudbug police department took a stance in Mildred’s office and began firing questions like a semi-automatic weapon.
When they were done, Maryse ran some water in the sink and placed the stained towel in there to soak. She didn’t know why. The towel was most certainly ruined, but the activity kept her from thinking about Hank and about how she felt finally coming face to face with him. She thought she’d hate him. She thought the sight of him would either disgust her to the point of illness or madden her to the point of homicide.
And then he’d gone and taken a bullet that was meant for her.
Shit.