"Hi, I'm Amber Fox." I held out my hand to shake hers. "This is my assistant, Tia."
Nicole took my hand in hers and then placed her other one over the top, grasping tightly. "Oh, thank you so much for coming. I don't know what to do."
Her hands were warm. Hot, almost. When she removed them to shake Tia's I could still feel her palms against mine.
"I'm so happy to meet you again. Last year you gave me a message from my mother," Tia gushed, then seemed to remember the situation and slapped a hand over her mouth to avoid blurting out anything else.
Nicole managed a smile, patting her hand. "I'm so glad I could help you."
Tia's sealed mouth didn't last for long. "You see, I'm psychic, too, and I wanted to return the favor for you if I can."
Nicole grasped her hand tighter. "Are you getting any kind of feeling? Do you know what's happened to Chantal?" Nicole's eyes glistened with tears. "I can't seem to see anything spiritually or psychically that will help."
Tia shook her head sadly. "Not yet, I'm afraid. Sorry."
Nicole deflated, her shoulders slumping. After wiping her eyes, she composed herself again. "Where are my manners? Would you like some coffee?"
I nodded and smiled. "Coffee would be good."
As long as you don't put any animal blood in it.
More French to the maid, who nodded and disappeared, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Nicole gestured to an embroidered gold sofa. "Please, have a seat." She perched on the edge of an ornate gold chair opposite.
"I understand Chantal has gone missing," I said. "Can you tell me what happened?" I pulled out a pad and pen from my rucksack, ready to take notes.
She took a deep breath. "Five days ago she just disappeared. She's never done this before, just left without a word. I know something's happened to her. I can feel it. Inside my heart." A hand flew to her chest. "She'd been staying with James and me for the last few months. She has an apartment in town but she's been"—she searched for a word—"well, very withdrawn lately. You see, six months ago her best friend Liza Bennet disappeared. The police have never found out what happened to her." She took a deep breath, blowing it out through her nose as if trying to calm herself. "Liza's disappearance affected Chantal deeply, and she was becoming very depressed. I was concerned about her and asked her to move back in with us until she was feeling more like herself again. That way I could keep an eye on her and try to help her. Chantal couldn't sleep; she couldn't concentrate on anything except trying to find out what happened to Liza. She kept asking the police if they had any leads but they always said no."
"So Liza has never been found?" I asked.
Nicole shook her head. "It's so sad. Her parents are devastated."
I let that sink in for a moment. Two girls missing in the past six months. Could it be just a case of a spoilt little rich girl running off with her friend, searching for some adventure, or was there something far more sinister going on? My mind wandered through all the possibilities I'd come across while investigating missing persons as a police officer. "Was Chantal on antidepressants or any other medication?"
"No. She didn't want to take antidepressants. I tried to get her to talk to our family doctor, but she refused."
"Did Chantal take anything with her? Clothes, passport, money?"
"I don't know about clothes. She has so many clothes at her apartment I can't keep track of them. She could easily have taken some. Her passport is still there. And as for money, she works for my husband so he pays her wages into her bank account. The bank won't tell me if she's taken anything out."
That wouldn't be a problem to find out. I'd yet to meet a computer system Hacker couldn't get into.
"But she has a trust fund set up that pays her three million pounds when she reaches twenty-six. James and I set it up when she was a little girl." She rubbed at her sternum, as if she were in pain.
"And when's her twenty-sixth birthday?" I asked.
"In ten days," Nicole replied.
Tia gasped. I glared at her to keep quiet.
Hmmm. Interesting. "I hate to ask this, but I need to know who the money goes to if something happens to her." That could be one big reason for Chantal's disappearance right there.
"It reverts to James and me."
Maybe not so interesting, then. If they were the ones who set it up in the first place, what would they have to gain now if she was dead? "What can you tell me about the day she disappeared?" I asked as the maid returned with a silver tray bearing a jug of coffee, cream, and assorted biscuits.
"It was a Friday. She'd been at home in the morning, even though it was a workday. Chantal hasn't been at work much lately because she can't seem to concentrate on anything since Liza disappeared."
The maid handed us all china cups of steaming black liquid. I added cream and avoided looking at the biscuits in case I ate them all.
"What kind of work does Chantal do for your husband?"
"She's an architect. She's been working on a big new project of James's—the City Park Complex. But she'd only been going in to the office lately to get the project sewn up. She hasn't even been interested in work since all this business with Liza, which is so not like her." Nicole took another deep breath and continued. "Chantal told me she was going to meet a friend in the afternoon. She left in her car about two p.m. and never came back."
"Did the police find the car?" I asked.
Nicole took a sip of coffee and nodded. "It was at the local train station. The police made enquiries, but there was no trace of her buying a train ticket to anywhere."
I made a note to find out if the CCTV cameras caught anything from the car park or surrounding areas. "What else have the police found out?"
She shrugged. "Nothing, and that's the problem. They're not going to take it very seriously until she's been missing a week, but anything could happen in that time. They've made a few preliminary enquiries but they have no leads." She reached out and clutched my arm. "I can't just sit here and wait for them to do something. I read in the newspapers that you helped Umberto Fandango and I wanted to get you involved as soon as possible." Her watery eyes pleaded with me. "If anyone can find Chantal, it's you."
I smiled and placed my hand over hers, giving it a quick squeeze. "I'm going to do everything I can to find her."
She visibly relaxed with relief. "Thank you." She let her hand fall from my arm as if now embarrassed by her display of fragility. "I spoke to all of her friends and they all said they didn't meet her that day, so I don't have any idea where she was really going. The police told me they made some enquiries in the area around the station and no one remembers seeing Chantal. It seems like she's just vanished."
I frowned. No one just vanishes. There's always a trail left somewhere, and despite my reservations about the voodoo side of things, it was up to me to find out where that trail led. "What can you tell me about Liza's disappearance?"
"Do you think it's connected to Chantal?" Her eyes widened, as if she hadn't yet considered that possibility.
"It sounds like it could be." I finished my rich coffee and set the cup back on the tray.
"Liza and Chantal have known each other since they were five years old. They went to school together and were inseparable. When Chantal went to university to study architecture, Liza was studying journalism at the same campus. They couldn't bear to be parted from each other. Of course, we knew Liza's parents extremely well, too." She sat back with a wistful look in her eyes, as if remembering happier times. "Liza's parents, Jeff and Val, always took Chantal along on family holidays with them down to Dorset, and we'd take Liza abroad with us, too. Even in the summer holidays Chantal and Liza couldn't stand six weeks of not seeing each other."
I wondered about that for a moment. If the girls were inseparable, no wonder Chantal was depressed about her disappearance. Had Chantal discovered what had happened to Liza, and if so, had it got her killed? Or was Chantal involved in Liza's disappearance somehow? It seemed unlikely, but I couldn't rule anything out. Was that why Chantal had been so withdrawn and depressed, because she'd done something to Liza? Or was she just genuinely upset because she wanted to find out what happened to her friend? The questions rattled around in my brain.
"So Liza was a journalist?" I asked.
Nicole nodded. "She worked for the
Post
."
The
Post
was a national newspaper. Lots of big exposé stories. Maybe she'd been working on a story that someone didn't want printed. "What kind of story was she working on at the time of her disappearance?"
Nicole sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief. "Apparently, no one knew what Liza was working on."
"What do you mean?"
"Liza wouldn't tell anyone what she was working on before she disappeared. Even her editor didn't know. Liza kept it a big secret."
Uh-oh. Alarm bells clanging. A secret story? "And the police haven't managed to find any clues about what happened to Liza?"
Nicole leaned forward in the chair and clutched my arm again with amazing strength. "No. Please don't let Chantal and Liza end up as some empty file on the police's cold case list." Her brown eyes darkened with emotion. "You have to find them."
"I'll do everything I can to find them, I promise," I reassured her again.
She finally released her grip and nodded. "I'm willing to offer you a one-million-pound bonus if you find her, or find out what happened to her. I don't want to be like Liza's parents, living in limbo, not knowing what's happened to their little girl. I need to know the truth."
"A reward isn't necessary," I started, but she cut me off with a raised hand.
"What good is money to me if my daughter is missing?" She laughed, but there was no joy in it. "The police couldn't find out what happened to Liza. I don't want it to be the same with Chantal. You're the only one who can help me find her, I just know it."
I nodded. "I understand you're a well-respected voodoo mambo. Can you explain how that works?" I asked. "It may have a bearing on what's happened to Chantal."
Her eyebrows raised in surprise for a moment. "You've done your research already."
I smiled. "It's my job."
"Plus, I told her about your psychic TV show," Tia piped up. "And Hacker's from Haiti so he knew about—"
I glared at Tia to shut her up.
Tia bit her lip and clamped her mouth shut.
"It's true, I am a mambo
,
but voodoo is not sinister or disturbing like it's portrayed in the movies. It's actually very misunderstood. We worship spirits like any other religion. And these spirits guide us in the physical journey of life. Voodoo is much like Christianity, in that we both believe one god created the earth. But since we cannot communicate directly with our god we must communicate through lesser spirits we call loa. Not all loa are good, of course. If a certain loa is treated with disrespect or ignored, they can inflict illness or pain or cause bad things to happen. This is why we must keep the spirits happy, to stop bad things happening in the world. As a mambo, I use my power for good. I perform rituals, spells, potions, and healing for people so the spirits will guide and protect them. I hold religious ceremonies to invoke the spirits. And, as in my TV show, I let the spirits possess me so they can pass over messages or guidance to their loved ones. In voodoo, death is a substantial part of the religion, which is why it may be so misunderstood. We communicate with the spirits of our dead ancestors or leaders, too, for comfort and guidance. We believe signs of death shouldn't be feared but cherished for the protection they give us, and we want to honor them." She paused. "We have many different spirits that control the universe. Spirits for love, war, healing, rivers, agriculture, forests, everything."
"Is there much call for a voodoo priestess in the UK?" I asked her skeptically. I mean, obviously Nicole wasn't short of a few quid, but was that from her husband's money or hers? Tia had said her TV show had been top of the ratings a few years ago.
"Around sixty million people in the world practice voodoo. Obviously, the United Kingdom is a melting pot of cultures, so there are voodoo worshippers here. But most of my clients don't necessarily believe in voodoo, they believe in healing and protection, and that is what I give them, along with advice about love, relationships, health, work—anything that affects people's daily lives. I also do voodoo readings to predict the future with spirit guidance, and I connect with people's dead ancestors for them. I have some very high-profile clients."
"It's not that different from people having their tarot cards read and seeing a medium," Tia said to me. "And look how many people do that."
Okay, yes, she had a good point. "But what about left-handed voodoo or black magic?"
"I don't practice that." She shook her head hard, her eyes darkening with emotion.
"I know that, but your sister Marie does, doesn't she?" I asked.
Nicole's forehead crinkled with despair. "Do you think Chantal's disappearance has something to do with Marie?"
Definitely no Botox going on.
"I don't know yet, but I have to look at every possible angle."
"I haven't spoken to Marie for about twenty-six years because she decided to use her powers for evil instead of good." She leaned forward in her chair. "I met James before he started his business. He was taking a year off to travel the world after he finished university. He's always been fascinated by different cultures, and when he came to Haiti, he was interested in the voodoo religion and the role of high priestesses. Because Marie and I were the most sought-after mambos, he wanted to meet us, and…well, it was a whirlwind romance, and the rest is history. We fell in love, I moved here, and we got married. Marie and I were always close, so when I left Haiti, we missed each other, and she decided to start a new life here as well. She met a man and had a brief fling and a son. Both of us carried on with our mambo rituals here, but she became tempted by the bad things that left-handed voodoo could give her—money and power. When she became involved in the darker side of our religion, I couldn't bear to have anything to do with her." Nicole sighed. "I know the evil things left-handed voodoo can do, and I didn't want any part of it. I cut off all ties with her back then, which was just before Chantal was born. Marie never even met Chantal so I can't see how she has anything to do with this." Her voice came out forceful.