Showdown in Mudbug (3 page)

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.”

Raissa slammed her scotch glass onto the table. “They asked you to kill me?”

Hank nodded, clearly frightened. “Not you by name, exactly, but they said that friend of my ex-wife’s that was a psychic…but they were clear that it wasn’t Sabine. I told ’em no, straight out. I ain’t never killed no one, and I ain’t about to start.”

Raissa narrowed her eyes at Hank. “How did you find me?”

“I remembered Sabine saying your shop name before, so I looked it up.” His eyes widened. “Oh, shit. I led them right to you, didn’t I?” He jumped up from the table. “Jesus, I didn’t even think—How could I be so stupid?”

Raissa rose from her chair and placed her hand on Hank’s arm. “Don’t worry about it. They know about your connection to me, so they already know how to find me, I’m sure.”

Hank stared at her for a moment, still not quite buying it. Finally, he blew out a breath and sank back into the chair. “Then why come to me at all? If the Heberts want you gone, and they know who you are and where to find you, they could have already handled this. Why ask me when they already knew I wasn’t going to do it?”

Raissa sat back down and thought for a minute. “I think, given my connection to Maryse, they figured you would warn me.”

Hank still looked doubtful. “You’re saying they’re sending you a message? What message?”

Raissa’s jaw involuntarily clenched. “That if I don’t disappear on my own, they’re going to help me.”

Zach sat low in his car just down the road from Raissa’s shop. He’d seen her coming down the block and wondered why she stopped before reaching her building. When she slipped the pistol from her ankle holster, he’d been ready to bolt from the car, but something had stopped him. The ankle holster for one. Sure, plenty of people carried in New Orleans, and a single woman living in a downtown apartment would be remiss not to have some form of protection, but an ankle holster was definitely not the most common place for a woman to carry a gun.

And it was the way she moved—as if she’d been trained for exactly what she was doing.

Against his better judgment, he’d waited as she entered the alley, giving her ten seconds before he hurried to assist. When the seconds had passed and she hadn’t appeared, he cursed himself and his stupidity and eased out of the car and across the street. He crouched behind a mailbox and listened. For a moment, all he heard was the regular noises of the street—paper rustling on the sidewalk, the sound of car engines in the distance—but then it trickled down to him. The sound of voices.

So Raissa’s instincts had been right. There had been someone in the alley, but apparently that someone was more interested in talking than in something more insidious. He was just about to move closer when Raissa and a man stepped out of the alley and hurried to her building. Her pistol was tucked in the waistband of her jeans, and she didn’t seem the least bit concerned
about protecting herself from the man who followed her.

She glanced his way as she unlocked the door to her shop, and he ducked behind the mailbox, hoping she hadn’t seen him. A couple of seconds later, he heard the door click shut. He watched until he saw the light in the upstairs apartment come on. Deciding Raissa was done with whatever she was up to that night, he crept back across the street and climbed into his car.

Zach hadn’t recognized the man who had been hiding in the alley, but Raissa must have known him well enough to let him in her apartment. Which made him wonder why the man hadn’t called or simply rung her doorbell. Why lurk around the corner, running the risk of being shot?

Zach looked up at the apartment again. The light was on in the front room, and Zach could make out a silhouette of the man sitting at a table. A minute later, Raissa set glasses on the table and joined him. Surely, if the guy was a friend or boyfriend he wouldn’t have been hiding in an alley. Which left business.

He looked down at his watch.

Kinda late for a business meeting. He watched another thirty minutes and finally saw them rise from the table. A minute later, the man slipped out the front door, scanned the street, then took off in the direction of a lone truck parked at the other corner. Zach hunched down in his seat so the man wouldn’t notice him as he drove past.

He watched the rearview mirror until the man had turned the corner, then started his car and took off after him. The truck turned again at the end of the next block, and Zach pressed the accelerator. His quarry was entering the highway, which gave Zach the perfect chance to get his license plate without being made.

He followed the truck onto the highway and eased beside it in the next lane. Zach gave brief thanks that the license plate was clean and easily readable and jotted the number down before continuing on the highway past him. Two exits later, he merged right and exited the highway, heading for the police station. It should be almost empty this time of night. A great time to run a plate without someone looking over his shoulder and asking questions.

Only one cop manned the front desk when he walked into the station. Zach gave him a nod and went to his own desk. It only took a minute to open the database and plug in the truck’s license plate. Another minute and he was looking at pages of information on one Hank Henry. He scanned the pages, shaking his head. This Hank was a piece of work, and stupid.

He seemed to have the uncanny ability to be involved with the wrong thing at the wrong time.

But for over a year, his record was clean as a whistle. Interesting.

He checked another database, but no prison system had a Hank Henry listed as a recent resident. So the question remained: what was a man of questionable background and character doing hiding outside Raissa’s store? And why did she invite him inside for drinks?

Questions he couldn’t answer. Not yet. But Raissa Bordeaux definitely required more looking into.

It was a bright and sunny morning in Mudbug when Raissa pushed open the door to the Mudbug Hotel. Little bells tinkled above, alerting anyone inside to her entrance. No one was at the front counter, but she’d barely stepped inside before she heard Mildred, the hotel owner, yell, “Raissa, we’re in the office. Come on back.”

Raissa stepped down the hall, wondering who “we” was. For whatever absurd reason, Helena had insisted Raissa meet her at the hotel to “discuss an action plan.”

Since Hank’s visit last night, Raissa figured she had much bigger things to deal with than forming an “action plan” with a ghost, but on second thought, she decided an invisible partner
did
come with some advantages. Raissa had assumed the ghost intended to meet her outside the hotel, but after several minutes of waiting, she decided to try inside, even though she had no good explanation for Mildred as to why she’d be visiting her hotel in Mudbug when Raissa should have been preparing to open her shop in New Orleans.

Based on Mildred’s greeting, an explanation wasn’t necessary. Which meant that Helena must have talked to Sabine or Maryse, or both, and they were waiting at the hotel to come up with a plan. At the end of the hall, she stepped through an open doorway and into Mildred’s office. The hotel owner was perched in a huge office chair behind her desk, eating a muffin and playing cards. Even more disturbing was her opponent.

Helena Henry sat across the desk from Mildred, grumbling about her hand. “I see you three doughnut holes and raise you one muffin.” Helena was dressed in a long, flowing, pink gown made of some type of gauzy material. On her head sat a wide floppy hat in the same shade of pink as the dress, with a ring of white and red roses around the top.

Mildred looked up at Raissa and smiled. “I’m making Helena earn her breakfast.”

Raissa stared for a couple of seconds, not sure what to even think—
way
beyond having anything to say. “You can see Helena?” she asked Mildred.

“Oh, yeah. She turned up like a bad penny right after my car wreck.” Mildred motioned to Raissa to take
the seat next to Helena. “Already poured you a cup of coffee. Might as well have a seat and drink a bit.”

Raissa slid into the chair, still a bit numb. “And you’re okay with this? I mean, I always got the impression you didn’t go in for anything remotely out of this world.”

“Absolutely right, but what the heck was I supposed to do? You can’t exactly refute the evidence, especially when it’s loud and eating you out of hotel and home.” She disposed of two cards and pushed some doughnut holes and a minimuffin into the stack of food in the middle of the desk. “Call.”

Raissa looked over at Helena, who studied Mildred’s face, most certainly trying to determine if her doughnut holes and muffin were now at risk. “What in the world are you wearing, Helena? Yesterday you just had on jeans and a T-shirt.”

Helena waved a hand in dismissal. “I take Mondays off.”

“Off from what?”

“From my wardrobe-through-the-ages adventures. Oh, it sounds like fun when you start, but it’s actually a lot harder than you think to come up with something creative every day. Last month, I did music through the ages MTV-style. This month is classic movies through the ages.”

Raissa started to understand, and wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or more confused. “So this is…”

“Gone with the Wind
,” Mildred supplied. “My suggestion. I wasn’t about to allow her in my hotel with what she had on before. I don’t care if no one else can see her. I can, and that’s enough.”

Raissa looked over at Helena. “What movie were you dressed like before?”

“Boogie Nights,”
Helena replied.

Raissa laughed. “
Boogie Nights
is a classic?”

Helena huffed. “It is if you’ve watched the last scene.”

Raissa grinned and looked over at Mildred, who was frowning at Helena. “I can see where the problem might have come in.”

“So,” Helena went on, “that’s why I’m wearing the pink flying-nun dress. I wouldn’t want to offend Mildred’s delicate sensibilities, even though those traveling salesmen she rents rooms to watch stuff that make
Boogie Nights
look like
Scooby-Doo
.”

Mildred shook her head. “Well, since I’m not walking through walls and spying on customers when they darned well think they’re alone, I don’t have issues with what they do in their rooms, as long as I don’t know about it. Sophia bleaches the sheets when people leave anyway.”

“Gross,” Raissa said. “I think I’d rather talk about my impending doom.”

Mildred laid down her cards and nodded. “That’s why we asked you here. I’ve spoken to Sabine and Maryse. They both had other obligations that kept them from being here this morning, but we all agree—you’ve got trouble coming. No one sees Helena who doesn’t live to regret it, but the good news is, so far, everyone’s
lived
.”

Raissa sat back in her chair and sighed. “Only by the skin of their teeth. You were all very lucky.”

“Yes, that’s true, but we also heeded the warning—the Helena kind—and we took care to know that something serious was in the making, even if none of us could understand it all at the time.”

“I know you took precautions,” Raissa agreed, “but the reality is, if someone wants to kill you, they most
likely will. The only way to stop that train is to either eliminate the killer or the reason he wants you dead.”

Mildred nodded. “Exactly. So that’s what we’re gonna do. With Sabine and Maryse, it was harder to pin down because they weren’t even aware of some of the things they’d gotten into. So we were off looking for an enemy without a clear view of the situation from the beginning.”

Raissa looked at Mildred. “And you think somehow that’s different with me?”

“Well, yeah. At least that’s what we’re hoping. I mean, after everything that happened last month and your involvement with it all, Maryse, Sabine, and I thought maybe Helena should shadow you for a bit and make sure you couldn’t see her. We were just starting to think we’d gotten it all wrong when someone shoved you in front of a bus.”

“And then I could see Helena,” Raissa finished.

“Right,” Mildred said. “But the only thing in your life that changed from that moment to an hour before was you talking to the police about that missing girl. Helena was there when you talked to that detective, but you couldn’t see her then. So we know it has something to do with the missing girl and your talking to the police. We just need you to tell us what.”

“What makes you think I know?” Raissa asked.

Mildred glanced over at Helena, then back at Raissa. “I’ve always known you were hiding from something. I figured it was an abusive husband or the like, which is why I never pressed you for answers. But after knowing you as long as I have, I’ve decided you’re too strong to have been abused. Which means that whatever you’re hiding from is a lot worse than one angry, vindictive man.”

Raissa nodded. “You’re right. It’s not one man.”

Mildred narrowed her eyes at Raissa. “You were a cop, weren’t you?”

Raissa felt a wave of anxiety pass over her. She shifted in her chair and looked down at the floor, millions of denials already forming in her mind. Finally, she looked back up at Mildred and in an instant, she knew.

It was time.

Time to stop running. Stop hiding from her past. From the truth.

“I was an FBI agent.”

Helena sucked in a breath and stared at her, wide-eyed. “Holy shit! You were a supercop. No wonder nothing fazes you. You’ve got balls of steel.”

“Ha!” Raissa spit out that single word. “If I had balls of steel, I wouldn’t have spent the last nine years hiding behind scented candles and tarot cards. If I had balls of steel, I’d have taken out the entire Hebert family so I could have my life back.”

Mildred put one hand over her mouth. “The Hebert family…as in Sonny Hebert, the Don Corleone of southern Louisiana?”

“Yeah. As in, not one man—but a ‘family.’ ”

“Holy shit,” Mildred repeated Helena’s words, then downed her entire cup of coffee. “Okay, this is far worse than I had imagined.”

Helena nodded. “That’s not the kind of family that does barbecues and beer.”

“No,” Raissa agreed. “They’re more into extortion, and money laundering, and God knows what else.”