Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series) (3 page)

If she were a normal girl, she’d have a group of crafty girlfriends with clever ideas, just like the ones she saw on television shows. They’d be able to draw Colt’s feelings out of him without him even knowing and with no exposure for Jadyn. But she was far from normal. And although she could quite happily—and surprisingly—claim a group of girlfriends, she wouldn’t put Mildred, Maryse, and Helena in the “crafty” club, especially when it came to men.
 

Which left her with sticking her neck out or waiting. Patience had never been one of her strong suits, but then neither had volunteering for a beheading. She sighed again as she pulled in front of the café. She didn’t have to make a decision right now. In fact, the worst time to make a decision was before you’d had coffee.
 

As she hopped out of her Jeep, Maryse bounded up the sidewalk waving and looking more like a teenager than the brainy scientist she was. Jadyn couldn’t help but smile. As a botanist, Maryse was a serious professional, but once she left the lab, she exhibited a tiny bit of immaturity that translated to playful and passionate. With most women, it would be an annoying combination, but with Maryse, it was sort of charming. Probably because it was genuine.

“Jadyn!” Maryse called. “Are you going to have breakfast? I desperately need a cinnamon roll, or I may not make it through the day.”

Jadyn smiled. Sometimes Maryse and Helena were more alike than either of them would be willing to admit. “I’m definitely having breakfast, but I’ll leave the life-changing cinnamon rolls to you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still watching what you eat.” Maryse rolled her eyes as they walked into the café. “I can’t think of anything more depressing than counting calories.”

“That’s because you’re blessed with one of those fat-repellent bodies,” Jadyn said, a bit grudgingly. Since she’d arrived in Mudbug, Jadyn had watched Maryse consume more calories in one sitting than a lumberjack did in a week, and yet not a single extra pound ever appeared on her.

Maryse grinned as they slid into their regular booth in the back corner and gave their breakfast order to the waitress. “Luc says I talk it all off.”

“Maybe when he gets home, but you’re alone all those hours in the lab.”

“I sing. Loudly. And I dance. Last week, the pest control guy caught me doing the samba with a push broom.”

Jadyn laughed. “I would have liked to see the look on his face.”

“Oh, it was classic, especially after I told him I’d been this way since the last time he sprayed.”

“That’s awful! And hilarious. Did you give him a heart attack?”

“He got all flustered and started assuring me the chemicals they use aren’t toxic.”

“So what did you say?”

“Nothing. I straddled the broom and started riding it around the lab like it was a stick horse. I swear he might have made two squirts of that stuff before leaving.”

A clear mental picture of Maryse riding the push broom flashed through Jadyn’s mind, and she couldn’t help but envy her cousin’s spirit. “I bet you were hell when you were a kid.”

Maryse sobered and shook her head. “Not at all. I was mostly a drag. My mom’s dying shook me up. I mean, I had Mildred and Sabine, but…”

A waved of sympathy washed through Jadyn. “They weren’t your mother.”

“No. And then I hooked up with Hank—biggest mistake of my life, but I guess I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t married him. Helena couldn’t have left me the land, giving me enough income to fund my own lab, and Luc would have never come to Mudbug, and I would have missed out on the best part of my life.”

The expression on her cousin’s face when she spoke about Luc never ceased to tug at Jadyn’s heart. Her cousin and the sexy DEA agent were so obviously enamored with and completely perfect for each other that it was almost depressing. No matter how hard she tried, Jadyn couldn’t imagine herself in that level of bliss with a man. Perhaps it was a state of existence limited to only a few lucky ones.

“I’m really happy for you,” Jadyn said. “God knows, you’ve gone through a rash of crap to get to where you are now.”

“Did someone call me?” Helena popped through the café wall and into the booth next to Maryse.

Maryse nodded. “Jadyn said ‘rash of crap.’ That must be what tipped you off.”

“Cute,” Helena said. “You two aren’t going to rag on me the entire time I’m here, are you?”

“That depends,” Maryse said, “on how long you’re staying. And are you wearing…is that Hello Kitty pajamas?”

It took Jadyn a couple seconds to figure out that Maryse was right. The fabric was stretched so tightly across Helena’s more than ample body that it had been too distorted for her to recognize, but now that she looked closely, that burst of pink was indeed a bow.

“Can’t you at least make them the right size?” Maryse asked.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Helena groused. “I practiced for hours last night, but never could get them in a larger size.”

“Maybe they don’t exist in a larger size in real life,” Jadyn suggested, “so you can’t make them appear.”

Helena frowned. “Hmmmm. That’s an interesting thought. I’m going to have to test that theory later.”

Maryse stared at her in dismay. “I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble that will bring.”

“You’re ragging again,” Helena said.

“And I’m not done,” Maryse said. “What the hell were you thinking, stealing meat and putting a deer head in someone’s bed? That’s awful, Helena, even for you.”

“I just spent the last thirty minutes paying for it by doing laundry and scrubbing the bathtub with bleach. The fumes almost made me pass out.”

“Ha,” Maryse said. “If only it were that easy.”

“I don’t know why everyone is being so pissy about it,” Helena groused. “He was a lousy cheater anyway, just like Harold.”

Maryse’s expression softened a little, and Jadyn remembered what her cousin had told her about Harold Henry. Helena’s husband had made a career out of banging cheap women in even cheaper motels, causing Helena to adjust her will and leave him one single item of inheritance—the fleabag motel where he’d spent most of his cheating time. A prenuptial agreement prevented Helena from divorcing him without paying him a fortune, and she had been determined that he get nothing, even if it meant dying before he did just to insult him.
 

Jadyn figured, even if Helena had long since ceased caring about Harold, it had to cut pretty deep that the person you married had that much disrespect for you. So she guessed a little sympathy was in order. If she’d been in Helena’s situation, she might have been tempted to do the same thing. Not saying she would have, but she understood the temptation.
 

“Okay,” Maryse said, “I’ll give you a pass on this one, but only because he was a lying, cheating bastard and she was a floozy. But Mildred gets to make up her own mind on this.”

“Fair enough,” Helena said. “So what’s up?”

“Nothing you’d understand with me,” Maryse said. “How’s the swamp holding up, Jadyn?”

“The swamp appears to be fine, but it may have claimed a victim. A fisherman found a shrimp boat washed up in one of the coves this morning, probably from the storm last night. The planking with the boat name is torn off and no sign of the boat captain, but we’re hoping he bailed and hiked it home.”

Maryse frowned. “I know most every boat around here. We could go to the cove after breakfast and I could take a look.”

“You’re not supposed to be in the swamp unless absolutely necessary,” Jadyn pointed out.
 

“I know.” Maryse sighed. “But this is getting old really fast. All my research is delayed because I can’t get fresh specimens. I’m practically unemployed until I can get back in the bayou.”
 

For the past couple weeks, Maryse had been working out of two rooms at the hotel, in an attempt to ease Luc’s mind. One of the drug-runners he’d taken down was out of prison and gunning for the men who’d sent him there. He’d already made one personal attack on a DEA agent’s family, so Luc had asked Maryse to limit her work to well-lit, occupied places. Jadyn knew being housebound, or hotel-bound, was putting a serious crimp in Maryse’s usual routine. Until she’d met Luc, her cousin had lived alone in a tiny cabin on the bayou that could be reached only by boat. For Maryse, being in the swamp wasn’t just part of her work. It was therapeutic.
 

“All that aside,” Jadyn said, “I’m having Marty tow the boat to his shop, assuming it’s possible, of course. If you wouldn’t mind taking a look at it there, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Maryse said, perking up a bit.
 

Jadyn knew the restlessness her cousin felt. Even something as small as looking at a boat could make the difference between feeling as if you’d done something relevant that day or feeling as if you’d wandered around accomplishing nothing.
 

She glanced over at Helena and frowned. Maybe that was the ghost’s problem. Could it really be as simple as she didn’t have a purpose? Jadyn looked at the ghost. “Do you think you can check at the beauty salon and see if anyone’s talking?”

Helena’s eyes widened. “Me? You want me to help with an investigation?”

“If you don’t mind. Women talk about things that don’t necessarily make it to the police. For all I know, this guy could have a wife who thinks he ran off with the babysitter and isn’t reporting him missing.”

Helena nodded. “But she’d tell her best friend, who’d blab to someone else. That’s smart. I’ll check the beauty shop and the antiques stores—see if I can find the usual gossips. If anyone’s husband is missing, they’re sure to be talking about it.”

“Great,” Jadyn said. “Thanks.”

The ghost looked so pleased with herself that Jadyn almost felt guilty. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Mildred and Maryse had known Helena before she was murdered, when she was rich and essentially useless. She totally understood why they might not make the leap to Helena wanting to feel needed. If Jadyn had known her before, she might not have latched onto that idea either.

A loud crash in the kitchen made them all jump and swivel to look in that direction. A couple seconds later, one of the cooks came stomping out of the kitchen and behind the bar.
 

“I can’t work this way,” he said to the woman at the register. “There’s no bacon in the freezer. It’s your responsibility to place the food order, yet twice this week, I’ve run out of basic ingredients.”

Immediately, Maryse and Jadyn turned to look at Helena. The ghost stared at them for a moment, then put her hands in the air. “I swear, it wasn’t me.”

Helena was as close as one came to a professional liar, but Jadyn hadn’t known her long enough to know her tells. Maryse, on the other hand, could smell the ghost lying from another parish. She took one long look at Helena, then looked over at Jadyn and shook her head.

“I ordered five pounds of bacon,” the woman argued. “I took possession of the order yesterday and did the inventory myself. The bacon was right there in freezer number two where it belongs.”

“Well, it’s not there now. So either you’re crazy or the bacon’s walking.”

“Then the bacon’s walking. Maybe you should have this conversation with the other cooks.”

The man’s face turned red. “Are you accusing one of my employees of stealing?”

“Unless that bacon grew legs, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Figure it out, because Sally’s not going to be happy if her food cost doubles and profits don’t.”

The cook spun around and headed back into the kitchen, the swinging door flapping in a frenzy behind him.

“That was pleasant,” Jadyn said.
 

“Freda is no pushover,” Maryse said. “Willie can get as angry as he wants, but if she says that bacon was in the freezer yesterday, I guarantee you it was.”

Helena nodded. “Freda’s practically a military commander. I always thought she was scary.”

“Agreed,” Maryse said.

Jadyn stared at the kitchen door. “I wonder who took it.”

“Probably someone who works in the kitchen,” Maryse said.

“That makes the most sense, but five pounds of bacon. That’s a lot of breakfast.”

“Or fishing bait. Catfish like it.”

“Really?” Jadyn said. “You learn something new every day.”

The waitress appeared and slid their breakfast plates onto the table. Maryse had two cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. Jadyn had opted for the healthier and far less sexy egg white omelet with mozzarella and spinach. Helena took one look at Jadyn’s plate and made a face.

“You don’t have to worry about anyone stealing your food,” Helena said. “Maryse’s on the other hand…”

“Don’t even think about it,” Maryse said and held the fork above the ghost’s approaching hand.
 

“I’ll give you half of the deer steaks.”

Maryse frowned and Jadyn could see her cousin wavering.
Steak
was the magic word with Maryse.

“Half of one,” Maryse said. “But you have to take it and leave.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “Of course. What do you take me for—an idiot?”

“Don’t answer that,” Jadyn said.

Maryse cut one of the cinnamon rolls in half and put it on a napkin. Helena scooped it up and disappeared back through the wall without a sound. “Hopefully, we can finish the rest of breakfast in peace,” Maryse said.