Trouble in Mudbug (4 page)

“So who was your mother-in-law?” Luc asked. She could feel his breath on her neck.

Silently willing her hormones into submission, she frowned. “
Ex
-mother-in-law. And why would you want to know? You’re not from Mudbug.”

Luc shrugged. “My grandparents used to live on the bayou in the next town. They have friends in Mudbug. I figure your mother-in-law might have been someone they knew.”

“
Ex
-mother-in-law, and her name was Helena Henry.”

Luc let out a laugh. “You’re the one who married Hank Henry? Wow, that sucks. No wonder you’re not technically married. Hank’s been gone for, what, a year now?”

Maryse gritted her teeth and worked to control her voice. “Two years actually, but I’m sure that’s about to change.”

Luc studied her for a moment, then frowned. “So the wicked witch is dead. Ought to make things interesting.”

Maryse clicked on the picture she was looking for and sent it to print. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “She was filthy rich, right? Always interesting when someone with that much money dies.”

Damn. His words brought her right back around to Hank’s likely reappearance and Helena’s definitive one. She grabbed the printout from the printer and was about to shut down the computer when the office phone rang. She reached for it, but Luc got there first, sliding the headset just out of her grasp.

“Luc LeJeune,” he answered and gave her a lazy smile.

Maryse turned back to the computer, determined to ignore him, but his next words caught her attention.

“Yes, sir,” Luc said, his voice the epitome of respect. “She just walked in. Can I ask what this is concerning?”

Maryse jumped out of her chair and grabbed the phone from Luc. She covered the headset with one hand and glared at him. “When I need someone to screen my calls, I’ll hire a secretary.” She moved her hand and turned her back on Luc. “This is Maryse Robicheaux.”

“Ms. Robicheaux,” an ancient, very proper-sounding voice spoke. “My name is Randolph Wheeler. I’m the attorney for Helena Henry’s estate.”

Unbelievable. Helena was planning on collecting Hank’s debt even from the grave. Maryse gritted her teeth and tried to modulate her reply. “If you’ll give me your mailing address, Mr. Wheeler, I’ll be happy to mail the last two payments to you tomorrow.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then Maryse heard the attorney clear his throat. “I apologize, Ms. Robicheaux, but apparently there’s a misunderstanding here. I’m not calling to collect anything on behalf of the estate. Quite the contrary, actually. My call is to notify you that you’ve been named in Helena Henry’s will and your presence is requested at the reading tomorrow.”

Maryse sank into her chair, stunned. “Helena named me in her will? What the hell did she leave me—more debt?”

There was another pause and Maryse could feel the attorney’s disapproval coming across the phone line. “Ms. Robicheaux, I’ll be happy to cover all of that tomorrow. The reading will begin at one o’clock at my office in New Orleans. The street address is 115 Morgan. Do you need directions?”

“No,” Maryse said, her aggravation slowly giving way to disbelief. “I’ll be there.”

“Then I’ll see you at one o’clock.” The lawyer disconnected.

Maryse dropped the phone from her ear and sat completely still. What the hell? Life had offered her far more surprises lately than she’d ever asked for, and none of them the pleasant kind. Whatever Helena had left her couldn’t be good.

“So,” Luc said, “the old bat left you something. Cool.”

Maryse stared at Luc, momentarily surprised that she’d completely forgotten he was in the room. “I seriously doubt anything to do with Helena Henry will ever be called cool.” She reached for her mouse and closed her e-mail.

She’d been given more to worry about in this single day than a person should have in an entire lifetime, and more than anything, she needed to get out in the bayou and away from people. If there was any chance of getting a grip on her racing thoughts, the bayou was the only place it would happen.

She grabbed her printout off the desk, shut down her computer, and jumped up from her chair before Luc realized he still didn’t have access to her PC. “I’ve got work to do,” she said as she headed out the door. “We’ll settle this whole office thing tomorrow afternoon, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you.”

Luc LeJeune watched as Maryse slammed the office door shut behind her. Things hadn’t gone exactly as he’d planned. He had intended to waltz into the office, charm the woman who worked there, get the information he needed, and get the heck back to DEQ headquarters in New Orleans before he remembered why he hated small towns.

But Maryse Robicheaux might prove to be more of a problem than the Department of Environmental Quality had originally thought.

He turned to the computer, his fingers posed to start an intensive search of her personal files, when he realized the password box was flashing at him again. Damn it. She was sneaky. He’d give her that. And if he hadn’t been pressed for time on this case, he might have even been amused. He yanked his cell phone from his shirt pocket and pressed in a number.

“Wilson,” the man on the other end answered.

“Hey, boss, it’s LeJeune.”

“Yeah, LeJeune, you romance that botanist into giving up her secrets?”

“Not exactly.”

There was a pause on the other end. “What…you losing your touch?”

Luc counted to five before answering. Given his reputation among the bureau as a ladies’ man, he probably had that one coming. “No, I’m not losing my touch, but our research department needs a swift kick in the ass. This is no lonely, single scientist living like a hermit on the bayou.”

“No? What part’s wrong?”

“For starters, she’s married—to the local cad, no less—and he ran out on her years ago. To top it off, the cad’s mother died recently. The woman was filthy rich, and the reading of the will is tomorrow. Which means this town is probably about to be a clusterfuck of money-grabbing relatives—the least of which is going to be the disappearing husband, since he was an only child.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is this woman is so distracted she barely noticed me, except to be angry about my being in her space. She doesn’t want me in the office and made that perfectly clear. I don’t think this is going to be as easy as we originally hoped.”

“Well, easy or not, it’s still your job. We need to know if that woman’s up to something. Do what you have to—pick locks, read diaries, whatever—just don’t put it in your report. Either she’s part of the problem or she’s not. We need that information sooner than later.”

Luc looked across the tiny office to the locked door. “There is another room here that’s locked. I guess I need to get in there and see what she finds so important that she’d deadbolt an interior door.”

“Sounds like a plan,” his boss said. “And, LeJeune, don’t take rejection so personally. Even a guy like you can’t have them all.”

Luc flipped his phone shut and glanced at a photo on the desk of Maryse and some other woman standing in front of a bar in downtown Mudbug. Her wavy brown hair was longer now, but the body was still the same—toned, tight, and tan. He knew he couldn’t have them all. Hell, he hadn’t had them all, and apparently this was going to be another one of those times.

But damned if he wasn’t going to try.

Maryse rolled out of bed the next morning wishing her life belonged to anyone but her. She fed Jasper before he started wailing for his morning tuna, then walked over to her closet and peered inside, wondering what the heck you wore to a will reading. Business, casual, formal wear? Knowing Helena, and from the pompous sound of her attorney, it was probably somewhere between business and formal. And since her only good suit was still at the dry cleaners, courtesy of cleaning the funeral home floor the day before, her choices were seriously limited.

She sighed as she flipped through T-shirt after T-shirt and realized her wardrobe needed some serious updating if she ever planned to do anything but toodle around the bayou in her boat. God forbid she ever had a date. She would be one of those women who “didn’t have a thing to wear.”

At the thought of dating, Luc LeJeune flashed to mind. Oh, no. She blocked out the thoughts of his tanned skin and muscular build and dug into the back of the closet for something, anything but ratty old jeans. No way was she allowing any thoughts of Luc LeJeune to leak in, especially while she was standing in her bedroom, half-clothed.

Luc LeJeune was the hottest guy she’d seen in forever, and her body’s reaction to him had confused and scared her. Sure, it had been a long time since she’d been with a man…okay, more like two years since there hadn’t been anyone since Hank…but that was no cause to go jumping on the first good-looking man she saw. Especially when she couldn’t afford distractions. Especially when a good-looking man was what had gotten her into the situation she was in right now.

Which brought her back to Helena.

She hadn’t seen the ghost since her visit to the cabin, and Maryse hoped things stayed that way. Maybe there was a delay in transitioning to the other side, and she’d simply gotten the raw end of Helena’s transfer. Surely God wouldn’t let Helena roam the Earth alive
and
dead. He was supposed to be benevolent.

She frowned and yanked a cocktail dress from the back of her closet. Okay, so a will reading probably didn’t rate a party dress, but she simply didn’t have anything in between. Sighing, she tossed the dress onto the bed. At least it was black. It was as close as she was going to come to business attire and would have to do. She dropped down, dug around the back of the closet floor, and pulled out a pair of shiny black satin shoes. Yuck. But the only other options with heels were her rubber boots or her funeral pumps, and they were navy.

She rose with the shoes and tossed them next to the bed, then threw on a T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. She figured she’d have just enough time to send off the samples she’d collected yesterday and still be able to rush home for a quickie shower before changing for the will reading. With any luck, Luc LeJeune would be out in the bayou studying rat droppings or whatever else he was there to do.

Ten minutes later, she was in her truck and headed to the office. She always drove just a little too fast down the windy gravel roads back in the bayou, but there were rarely other cars on this particular stretch, and the gravel certainly wasn’t going to hurt her well-worn-in truck. Usually, her speed wasn’t a problem.

Until today.

As she approached a sharp turn in the road, she pressed the brakes, but there was no response. Trying not to panic, she lifted her foot and pressed again. Nothing. The pedal just squished to the floorboard as the truck kept hurtling toward the ninety-degree turn.

Now frantic, she turned the wheel, hoping to make the turn, and threw the gear shifter into park. The truck lurched, and, despite the seatbelt, her forehead banged into the steering wheel. The truck tilted to one side at the very edge of the road, and for a moment, Maryse thought she had pulled it off. Finally inertia won out, and the truck slid off the road into the bayou.

Huge sheets of water splashed up and over the cab, making visibility nil. Maryse covered her aching head with her arms and hoped like hell this was a shallow section and not inhabited by any of the bayou’s more aggressive creatures—particularly the meat eaters.

It only took seconds for the water to clear, but it seemed like forever. Almost afraid to look, Maryse lowered her arm and surveyed the damage. The truck was submerged in the bayou almost up to the hood. From the groaning of the metal and the increasing water level, Maryse knew immediately that the truck was sinking further in the thin bayou mud.