“Why?” Sabine asked. “We’ve got the books.”
“I forgot something,” Helena said. “What does it matter? Remember that whole ‘rule’ discussion we had?”
Sabine sighed and motioned for Maryse to pull into the drive. Maryse shook her head and muttered, “This feels way too familiar.”
Helena rolled her eyes and jumped out of the car as soon as Maryse stopped. “Back in a minute,” she said as she started off across the lawn to the huge home next to her own estate.
Sabine sat us straight in her seat. “Where’s she going? That’s not her house, or her garage, or her boat house.”
“You think I don’t know this?” Maryse shot back. “That’s Lois Cormier’s house.”
“What could Helena possibly want there?”
“I don’t know but I’m positive it’s not going to be good.”
Ten minutes later, Helena still hadn’t emerged from the house. Sabine looked over at Maryse, who was alternating between looking at the house and checking her mirrors for visitors. “I think we should leave,” Sabine said. “We have the books and Helena can find her own way to the hotel.”
“You’re right,” Maryse agreed and started the car.
“Wait!” Sabine said before Maryse could put the car in gear. “I think the front door’s opening.”
“Oh, no,” Maryse whispered. “I hope the alarm isn’t on.”
“Get out of here. Now!”
Maryse put the car in reverse just as the front door of the house flew open and Helena came running out dragging an enormous garbage bag, stuffed to the brim. “Hurry up!” Helena yelled. “That alarm is going to go off any second.”
“Crap, crap, crap,” Maryse said as she threw the car in drive and floored it. “I thought I was done with this nonsense.”
“Just leave her,” Sabine said as she scanned the neighborhood, hoping to God no one had seen them yet.
“That will only make things worse, trust me,” Maryse said as she screeched to a stop next to Helena. The ghost yanked open the car door and lifted the bag just high enough to get it onto the floorboard before she jumped in herself, slammed the door, and collapsed on the backseat. Maryse floored the car and they were pulling out of the driveway before the alarm went off.
Sabine glanced over at Maryse, who was slumped as far down in the driver’s seat as she could be and still see over the steering wheel. If dealing with Helena wasn’t
so aggravating, it might have been funny. Maryse had been driving the same rental car ever since she and her truck had taken an unexpected dip in the bayou weeks before. Everyone in Mudbug knew it was her just by seeing the car, so unless she was planning on reporting it stolen, hiding while driving wasn’t really going to get her anywhere.
They pulled onto the highway and were a good mile down the road before a cop car came racing past in the opposite direction. Maryse let out a huge breath that she’d probably been holding for the last two miles and sat up a little straighter in her seat.
“Helena!” Sabine yelled at the ghost, who was laid out on the back seat like she was having a heart attack. “What in the world was so important that you risked getting us arrested? And it better be good.”
“It’s a surprise,” Helena said, but the guilty look on her face gave her away.
Sabine reached over the seat and grabbed the trash bag, which was surprisingly heavy. She yanked the bag over the car seat, its contents clanking and rattling. “What did you steal? Their silver?” She opened the bag and looked inside, then groaned.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Maryse said.
“It’s food! She broke into someone’s house to raid their pantry.” Sabine looked back at Helena. “This is low, even for you. How could you justify stealing food when you don’t even need to eat?”
Helena sat up in the seat. “Lois is on a cruise for the next two weeks. The food would have gone bad and been thrown away. What’s the big deal?”
Sabine reached into the bag and pulled out a can of sweet potatoes. “This expires two years from now.”
“Oh, sorry. I must have accidentally picked up that can.”
“Bull, Helena. You went through that woman’s pantry and took whatever you wanted. You have an eating disorder and need to get help.” Sabine clutched her head with both hands. “Oh, God, I cannot believe I just said that to a dead person.”
“I can,” Maryse said. “I gave up on logic weeks ago.”
Helena glared at Sabine. “Have you seen Lois Cormier’s ass? Trust me, I’m doing her a favor.”
Sabine threw her hands in the air and turned back around in her seat. “I give up. You know, I thought a time or two that if you weren’t already dead, I would take on the job. Now, I’m just wondering if it’s not safer and a heck of a lot more peaceful if whoever’s trying to kill me is successful. Whatever afterlife there is has to be less aggravating than this.”
Maryse shook her head. “I thought that, too, but then I was afraid if the killer was successful but didn’t get caught, that I’d just be stuck in limbo with Helena.”
Sabine shuddered. “Oh, God, you’re right.”
“Maybe you should just leave town,” Maryse suggested.
“For how long?” Sabine shook her head. “We have no idea why someone is after me. Leaving will most likely only postpone the inevitable.”
Maryse sighed. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” She looked over at Sabine. “Well, look at the bright side—at least we’ve got plenty to snack on while we try to sort all this out.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Helena said. “And I figured while we were having a snack, Maryse could
tell me what she figured out from my family’s medical files. You’ve looked at them, right?”
Maryse looked at Sabine, waiting for a cue, and Sabine nodded. Now was as good a time as any to deliver the news. “Okay,” Maryse said. “We’ll talk as soon as we get back to the hotel.”
Fifteen minutes later they were ensconced in Sabine’s hotel room, Sabine perched on the dresser, Maryse pacing all five steps that was the length of the room, and Helena sitting on the end of the bed, stuffing her face with truffles and apparently completely oblivious to Maryse’s discomfort.
“So shoot,” Helena said. “Let me have it.”
Maryse stopped pacing and looked down at Helena. “I don’t know how to tell you this any other way, Helena, so I’m just going to put it all out there.”
“Go for it.”
“You had cancer, Helena, advanced. Even if someone hadn’t murdered you, I don’t think you could have made it a year.”
Helena dropped her truffle and stared. “But…how…I didn’t feel…I mean, I was a little more tired than usual, but I was getting old, so I thought…but that’s not what killed me?”
“No,” Maryse said, “but unfortunately, the autopsy didn’t find anything, either.”
“What?” Helena shook her head. “I’m not crazy. There’s no way my death was natural. I was there…I ought to know.”
“No one’s giving up on this, Helena. Sabine and I want you to know that.”
Helena sighed. “I know you are doing your best, and I appreciate it all. Cancer, huh? I guess that gives me
something else to think on.” Helena rose from the bed. “I’m going to take a walk and sort this out, okay, guys? I’ll check in later.”
“We understand,” Sabine said and watched Helena leave through the wall. When she was certain the ghost was gone, she looked over at Maryse. “You left something out. I can tell by your face.”
“I know, but she was already struggling with the other stuff. I guess I figured we should give her a little time to adjust before we hit her with the rest.”
“What else is there?” Sabine asked.
Maryse looked at Sabine, a pained expression on her face. “Based on the medical files, there’s no way Hank is Helena’s son.”
It was almost eight o’clock before Beau made it back to Mudbug. After his conversation with the garage manager, he’d called a buddy who knew something about explosives and had agreed to come immediately and take a look at the car. His friend verified the manager’s assessment of the situation, but poking around the engine for a while and studying some of the pieces recovered from the blast, he concluded that whoever had constructed the bomb was no expert.
Damn internet.
All you needed was an ISP and Google and information of all sorts was at your fingertips. Beau parked in front of the hotel and rushed inside. He knew Maryse had been with Sabine the entire time, but ever since he’d found out about the bomb, he’d been counting the seconds until he could see Sabine with his own two eyes. The peanut oil had been clever and could have been deemed an accident, but strapping a bomb to
someone’s car was an act of desperation, and that wasn’t a good sign at all.
Beau hurried up the stairs and knocked on Sabine’s door. Maryse gave him a brief quiz, then unlocked the door and let him into the room. He paused for a moment as he stepped inside, not sure what to think of the display. There was food everywhere—canned goods, boxes of crackers, chips, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, three different varieties of cookies, and he couldn’t even count how many pieces of chocolate candies.
Sabine sat cross-legged on the bed, a stack of photo albums and discarded chocolate candy wrappers in front of her. She looked up at him and smiled.
“Please tell me this did not come from either of your houses,” he said.
“No,” Sabine reassured him. “It was a, uh, wellmeaning friend.”
Beau glanced around at the grocery store display. “She kinda overdid it, huh?”
Sabine grimaced. “She tends to overdo everything.”
“Did you find out anything about the car?” Maryse asked.
Beau paused, not wanting to tell them about the bomb until he knew more about the device used and who had the ability to design it. His buddy had promised him that information as soon as possible. “Something caused the fuel line to catch fire,” he said finally, “but the manager’s still looking into it. We should know more by tomorrow.”
Maryse rose from the chair in the corner and picked up a stack of papers sitting on top of the scanner Raissa had loaned Sabine. “Looks like my shift is over.” Sabine rose from the bed and Maryse gave her a hug.
“I’ve got to go feed the cat, and I’ll take a look at all of this tonight.” She looked at Beau. “Unless you need me to stay here tonight.”
“No,” Beau said. “I moved to the room with the adjoining door. That way Sabine can still have her space and I can indulge my paranoid, overprotective tendencies.”
Maryse grinned. “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.” She stepped out of room and gave Sabine a wave. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said and closed the door before Sabine could even formulate a reply.
“I should really get new friends,” Sabine said.
Beau laughed. “I like her. The way she goes after life full speed, she probably doesn’t have a lot of regrets.”
“Ha. Before you start heralding all her living-life-with-gusto qualities, I’m going to inform you that prior to drawing the short end of the someone’s-trying-to-murder-me stick, Maryse was one of the worst introverts ever.”
“No way. Really?”
“She used to live in this two-room cabin on the bayou. You couldn’t even get to it without a boat, unless you wanted to swim with the gators. If she ran out of food, she’d go fishing before she’d drive into town to the general store. It was nothing for me to go a month without seeing her, unless Mildred and I ganged up on her.”
Beau stared at Sabine. “I never would have guessed any of that. What changed?”
“Well, someone trying to kill you tends to force you to take a closer look at your life, although I never really understood how much until now. And there was Luc.”
“So the handsome hero clinched the deal.” Beau reached over to the dresser and grabbed a bottle of water, looking for any distraction from the fact that he was in a hotel, with Sabine, alone.
Sabine smiled. “A storybook ending.”
Beau nodded. “Not bad considering it was a horror story.”
Sabine sobered. “Speaking of which, I know I’m working on a sequel, so why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you didn’t want to say in front of Maryse.”
Beau struggled to maintain his composure. “What makes you think I’m hiding anything?”
Sabine shrugged. “I just know.”
“So now you’re psychic?”
“No,” Sabine said and frowned. “I just know you weren’t giving us the whole story. As much as I’ve been trying to avoid it, I’m drawn to you in a way I’ve never felt before and can’t explain given the length of our relationship. It’s like we’re connected on some different level.” She laughed. “I know that’s probably all too woo-woo for you, but if I had a more scientific explanation, I’d give it to you.”
Beau couldn’t put his feelings into words, either. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, and I don’t have an explanation either, scientific or otherwise.”
“So you’re going to tell me about the car.”
Seeing no other way around it, Beau nodded. “It was a bomb.”
Sabine’s eyes grew round and she sucked in a breath. “A bomb. Oh my God. I mean, I was expecting something, but a bomb is so…evil. I know that sounds melodramatic—”
“No,” Beau cut her off. “It doesn’t. I believe evil is
alive and well and flourishing in a society that wants to excuse away abhorrent behaviors. I sometimes think some people are just born bad.”
Sabine moved closer to Beau and placed her hand on his arm. “I’m glad you’re here with me. There’s an inner peace I have when I’m with you that I don’t otherwise.”
“You just feel safe.”
“No. It’s more than that. I can’t explain it.”
“Then don’t.” Beau leaned forward and brushed his lips against Sabine’s. He waited for her to pull away, and when she didn’t, he moved closer to her and pressed his lips to hers.
The touch of Beau’s lips on hers sent Sabine’s body into overdrive. Her skin tingled as if she’d never been touched before, and in a way, it was true. Certainly, she’d never been touched before like
this
. Beau was different, special, and even though she knew the last thing in the world she should be doing is kissing him back, that’s exactly what she did. As their kiss deepened, he pulled her body close to his.
He was hard and ready, and Sabine moaned as he pressed his hips into hers. He broke off their kiss and began trailing kisses down her neck until he was at the sensitive flesh just at the vee of her blouse. Sabine sucked in a breath, then gasped as he pulled her blouse aside and lowered her lacy bra just enough to take one hardened nipple into his mouth. He slowly swirled his tongue, sending her into fits of pleasure.
Knowing there was no going back now, Sabine slid her hand across the front of Beau’s jeans, stroking the long, hard length of him through the denim. He paused for a moment, his breathing irregular. Then with one swift motion, he lifted her off the floor and gently laid her on the bed. He unbuttoned her blouse and expertly removed her bra, then lowered himself to continue his erotic assault of her breasts. As his mouth worked its magic, he unbuttoned her pants and slid one hand inside.
For the first time in weeks, Sabine thanked God she didn’t wear underwear.
He found her sensitive spot and swirled his fingers around it, matching the pace of his tongue on her nipple. Sabine felt the pleasure building in her until she was afraid she would explode. She placed her hand over his and gasped. “Wait. I want it to be together.”
Beau nodded and leaned down to kiss her deeply, his tongue dancing with hers. Then he rose from the bed and shrugged off his clothes. Sabine sucked in a breath when she looked at him, so hard and hot and so totally male. She reached out with one hand and circled the length of him, then ran her hand up and down, squeezing slightly every time she approached the tip. Beau closed his eyes and groaned, and she increased the pace.
Mere seconds later, he moved her hand away and rolled on protection, then rose over her on the bed. He leaned down to kiss her, then entered her in a single stroke. Sabine gasped with pleasure and clutched his back, digging her nails into his skin. She thrust her hips up to match his strokes. As they found their natural rhythm, she felt the pressure building in her.
“Now, Beau,” she whispered, “I can’t hold it any longer.”
“Yes,” Beau said as he moved with increased intensity. Suddenly his body stiffened. “Now.”
The orgasm crashed over her like a tidal wave, every nerve ending in her body responding. They cried out at the same time and Sabine clutched his back, pulling him deep inside her as the pleasure rolled over her again and again.
Beau leaned back in the bed against the stack of pillows and Sabine lay against him. He wrapped his arms around her, trying to control his warring emotions. He couldn’t lose her and knew his only chance was to convince her to give up her newfound family and anything that went along with them.
“Sabine,” he said quietly, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
Sabine shifted a bit so that she could look up at him. “What is it?”
Beau took a breath, trying to decide how to begin, how to end, how to explain the horror, the heartache, the devastation. Finally, he decided to start at the beginning. “I was raised by a foster family. When I was two years old, my mother gave me to nuns at a church in New Orleans and left.”
Sabine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why?”
“The nuns didn’t know why. She’d only said she couldn’t take care of me and asked them to give me to someone that could. Then she left. The nuns tried to locate her or my father, but she didn’t give them any name. She didn’t tell them where she was from or where she was going. She simply gave me to the nuns and disappeared.”
“So the nuns raised you?”
“No, they gave me to a couple from the church who couldn’t have children. They were thrilled to take me and were wonderful parents. I will always be grateful to them.”
“But you wanted to know.”
Beau nodded. “I had to know why a woman would raise a child for two years, then abandon him to strangers. Why she would never come back to get him. What
kind of person could do that, and why? When I joined the FBI, I chose to specialize in missing persons. Every single day, I tried to find people who had vanished, and every night I applied my new skills to finding the answer to my own private mystery.”
“And did you ever find them?”
“Yes. I won’t go into all the details, except to say that it took six long years of digging before I caught a break. I’d found a man who might be my father.” Beau ran one hand through his hair. “I was working in D.C. at the time, but I booked the first flight to New Orleans and drove a couple of hours to a small town north of the city. When the man opened his door, I knew at once that I’d found half of my answer. It was like looking into a mirror twenty years away.”
Sabine shifted in the bed so that she could face him, her torso propped against his chest. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything for a while. Then finally he said, ‘I guess your momma sent you.’ I told him I didn’t know my mother and that I’d been raised by a foster family. That I’d been looking for him and my mother for over six years. He invited me in and I thought that was it. I was about to get all the answers I’d been searching for. The puzzle would be complete.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. He didn’t know where my mother was. In fact, he hadn’t seen her since that very day she’d left me with the nuns. She’d been going to visit her sister in Mississippi, or at least that’s what she’d told him. He’d driven her to the bus station and bought her a ticket to Gulfport. Her sister called that night, wanting to know why we weren’t on the bus. The ticket had been collected at the exchange in New Orleans and her luggage was on
the bus when it reached Gulfport but there was no sign of my mother.”
“So something happened to her between New Orleans and Gulfport.”
“That’s what everyone thought, which is why the police didn’t even concentrate on New Orleans with their search. If there was an announcement on the news, the nuns wouldn’t have seen it, and since my parents were poor, the only photos of me were as an infant and my mother from her high school yearbook. They didn’t even have a wedding photo.”
“So no one would have recognized you from the photos, even if they’d seen a news story.”
“Not likely. The police searched every bus stop between New Orleans and Gulfport, but they never found a thing. She’d simply vanished. Finally, they assumed we’d been taken by a person or persons unknown and the file was shoved to the back of the cabinet in favor of others that had more evidence and might be possible to solve.”
“So you had to give up?”
“No. I talked extensively to my father about my mother’s behavior before that trip. Something could have happened to her, certainly, but her leaving me with the nuns was deliberate. My father spoke of her erratic behavior—drinking, paranoia, said she always felt like someone was watching her. It sounded like a mental breakdown to me. And I figured that’s what she meant when she told the nuns she wasn’t fit to take care of me. So I started looking at mental health facilities around Louisiana.”
“Smart,” Sabine said. “And the perfect explanation for why she never returned.”
Beau nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. It took
another two weeks before I came up with anything, but finally, I found a nurse that had worked at a facility in Monroe. She remembered a woman who’d come to the home at around the time I was asking about. The woman couldn’t remember her name and had no identification. A full medical exam had revealed that she’d given birth, but when they asked her about the baby, she became confused and always insisted that she didn’t have a child. Finally, they decided that the baby must have been stillborn and that perhaps that was what had sent her over the edge.”
“She didn’t remember. That’s so sad.”
“I thought so, too. The woman stayed at the home for three years. She never regained her memory. Finally, the state issued her new identification and the home assisted her with finding a job and a new place to live, as she was otherwise quite competent to take care of herself. She went to work at a local library and, as far as the nurse knew, was still working there. Only you would understand my excitement, the thrill of knowing that the thirty-year-old mystery of who I was would finally be solved.”
Sabine nodded. “I understand.”
“I couldn’t find a listing for her in the local phone book, so I called the library and found that the woman I was sure was my mother would be at work that afternoon. Four more hours and I would have all my answers. Then I called my father with the news and he was elated. I waited for her in the parking lot of the library, certain I’d recognize her, and I did. She was older, of course, and her hair was starting to gray, but I could still clearly see the woman from that high school photograph.”
Sabine put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, Beau, what a moment in time.”
Beau grimaced. “Yeah. It was a moment all right. I started walking toward her and she looked at me. I could tell by the look on her face that she knew exactly who I was. She shook her head and said ‘Please leave. Leave and pretend you never saw me.’ I knew then she’d been pretending amnesia all those years. I opened my mouth to ask why. I deserved a reason. That’s when a car squealed into the parking lot. It was my father. She looked at the car and her face went completely white, filled with fear.”
Sabine sat upright and stared at him. “Oh no!”
“I immediately knew why she’d left—why she’d given me away, and why she’d stayed hidden all that time. My father jumped out of the car and took her out with a single shot to the head, then he turned the gun on himself.”
Tears ran down Sabine’s face and she wrapped her arms around him. Beau hugged her tightly, choked with emotion. “I’ve never told anyone all of that, until now.”
Sabine pulled back a bit and looked at him. “Why did you tell me, Beau?”
“Because I need you to understand how family can hurt you. Biology doesn’t make people care. Please, Sabine, I’m begging you, let this thing with your family go. Stop all contact with them. Have an attorney draw up papers stating that you relinquish any part of the estate you might be entitled to.”
Sabine pulled away from him. “I can’t,” she whispered.
Beau rose from the bed, his heart breaking in two.
“What in the world could possibly be worth your life? Please explain to me why these people, these strangers, mean more to you than everyone who loves you?”
Sabine looked at the pain so clearly etched on Beau’s face and her mind raced trying to find a way to erase it. Right now he must think her incredibly shallow, or greedy for the possible inheritance, because from his standpoint, there simply couldn’t be a valid enough reason to keep oneself in such danger. She had to tell him the truth. Even if he was angrier at her than before. “My life,” she began, “is worth so much to me that I’m willing to risk it in order to save it.”
He stared at her for a moment. “That makes no sense.”
Sabine sighed. “It does if you need a bone marrow transplant.”
Beau’s eyes widened in surprise, and Sabine knew that of all the things he’d expected she might say, that wasn’t even on the list. He dropped back down on the bed next to her. “You have cancer?”
Sabine nodded. “Acute myeloid leukemia. I start treatment next week, but in the event that treatment isn’t effective…”
“You’ll need a bone marrow transplant,” Beau finished. “And the best possible scenario is a blood relative.” Beau wrapped his arms around her. “Oh, Jesus, Sabine, why didn’t you tell me?”
Sabine’s body responded instantly to the warmth of Beau’s embrace, and her heart broke all over again for what she knew could never be. “I didn’t even tell Mildred about it, Beau. If Maryse hadn’t snitched, she still wouldn’t know.”
“And all that time Maryse spends in labs with scientists?”
Sabine nodded. “She’s been looking for a cure for cancer for years, and all that stuff last month brought it to a head. She hasn’t found a cure, but all the experts are fairly certain she’s found a way to prevent ninety percent of the side effects from radiation treatment.”
Beau’s face cleared in understanding. “I thought it a bit strange that someone who obviously cared about you deeply was gone so often when important things were happening, but she’s trying to push the test through to get you the drug.”
“Actually,” Sabine hedged, “she kinda already gave me a round of it. She’s been prepping me for a couple of weeks before my first treatment. But she’s pushing for the grants and the tests to make sure the formula is the best she can get. She lost her mother and father to cancer…it’s pretty much been her lifelong pursuit to not lose anyone else.”
“She must be frantic, and Mildred. She dated Maryse’s dad forever, didn’t she? That’s why you didn’t tell her.”
“I didn’t want Mildred to worry as much as I didn’t want to drag you into my problems or guilt you into helping me do something you didn’t think I should be doing.”
Beau pushed back enough so that he could look at her. “But I helped you anyway.”
Sabine nodded and brushed a tear from her cheek. “I know.”
“So, in the beginning when you were pushing me away, was it that you really weren’t interested or were you afraid to get involved because of the cancer?”
Sabine closed her eyes for a moment, trying to for
mulate the right response. The response that would let him know she cared without leading him on. “I still am afraid, Beau. I have feelings for you, and I’m not going to deny that, but I can’t make you any promises when I don’t know what the future holds for me. I’m not in a position to consider anyone else but myself right now, and it’s not fair to you to keep you on hold.”
Beau dropped his hands from her and stared at her for a moment. Finally, he sighed. “I think you’re wrong, but I respect your wishes.”
Sabine’s relief warred with her guilt. She didn’t deserve this man or his protection. She placed one hand on his arm. “I am so sorry that taking my case has opened wounds in you that were better off closed.”