The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou Read online

  He raised one eyebrow and stared at her a moment. “You live here—in this abandoned house?”

  “No. I mean, I live in Johnson’s Bayou.”

  “Do you always trespass on private property, Ms. Bergeron?”

  Some of Ginny’s fear began to dissipate and was quickly replaced with agitation. Apparently, her attacker was interested only in harassing her, not hurting her, or he could have been done a long time ago. “The entire swamp is not private property, and I didn’t realize I was running toward the house. I was trying to help the child.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What child?”

  “I heard a scream. Right after I entered the swamp. It sounded like a child.”

  “You’re sure? There are plenty of creatures out in this swamp that make noise. Maybe it was one of them that you heard?”

  Ginny bristled. “Look, I’ve lived next to this swamp my entire life. I know what animals sound like, and none of them sound like a child screaming bloody murder. Why are you harassing me?”

  The man pulled the gun from his waistband, and she took a step back.

  “What direction did the scream come from?” he asked.

  Ginny stared at the gun for a second before answering. “I thought it came from here. I mean, I came in the direction of the scream and ended up at the house.”

  He nodded. “Do you know how to get back to town?”

  “Yes. It’s due east. I have a great sense of direction.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “You need to go home. Lock your doors and forget you ever saw me out here. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal.” The reply had barely left her lips before he rushed off toward the front of the house.

  Ginny watched his retreating back for a second then spun around and ran through the brush toward town. She didn’t stop running until she was upstairs in her apartment, with the doors closed, locked and dead-bolted and every blind and curtain in the apartment closed tight.

  PAUL STANTON GRIPPED his pistol in one hand and shone his flashlight around the cavernous entryway of the old house. He strained to make out a sound, any indication there was life in the dilapidated structure, but all he heard was the night air whistling through the broken stained-glass window at the top of the vaulted ceiling.

  Unbelievable! What in the world was she doing roaming around the swamp without a weapon? The blond-haired waif didn’t appear skilled enough to take on a box of kittens, much less any of the creatures she might run into in the swamp. Clearly, she was nuts. Sane people didn’t stroll through a swamp at night with nothing but a hundred-dollar spotlight. Which left him wondering whether or not she’d really heard a scream.

  With all the tales surrounding the house, he was surprised someone from town would even venture to this area of the swamp, especially after dark. In fact, he’d been counting on that fear to keep from being caught himself. Perhaps curiosity had gotten the better of her, because she didn’t seem overly confident about being there. What bothered him more than anything was that a single woman with no weapon felt compelled to wander around these woods at night. She must have a darned good reason, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was.

  He took a cursory look at the areas of the home that were easily passable, but there weren’t many. The fire had destroyed a large section of the home, supposedly where the records on the girls had been held, but even the areas that hadn’t been touched by fire had obviously had visitors. All the cabinets in the kitchen were open, the drawers pulled completely out from the frames. Furniture had been upended so that not a single piece was left upright.

  Shards of fabric hung from upholstered furniture, and piles of stuffing, covered with mold and dirt long ago, rested everywhere. Time alone would have destroyed the fabric, but it couldn’t have removed all the stuffing into neat piles. More likely, someone had slit the fabric and searched through the furniture after the fire. What were they looking for? Money? Jewels?

  Or were they like him—looking for answers?

  He couldn’t picture the spotlight waif tearing through furniture with a hunting knife, but maybe she was a good actress and had fooled him completely. Maybe she hadn’t been afraid or startled in the least and the story about the child had been designed to distract him from whatever she was doing at the house. The worst part was, it had worked.

  He walked down a long hallway and shone his light into the rooms, looking for any sign of recent entry, but he found only the same mess as he’d seen in the front room. No little girl. No intruder. No bogeyman.

  At the end of the hall, he looked out a huge picture window into the pitch-black swamp and blew out a breath. He had intended to make it to the house from the backside of the swamp during daylight. It would have been far easier to search, and no one lived anywhere near the back entrance into the swamp he’d planned to use. But work had delayed him and he’d arrived at sunset. Not willing to wait to get a first glance, he’d foolishly made the choice to approach the house entering the swamp in town, as the town was closer to the house than the back way he’d originally chosen. Now, he’d been caught by a local.

  Tomorrow morning, he needed to find out what he could about the woman, Ginny Bergeron. Make sure she wasn’t going to be a problem. Because another problem was the last thing he needed.

  GINNY PULLED HER LONG, straight hair through a ponytail holder and smoothed out the wrinkles in her café T-shirt. She’d overslept, which was rare, but then she usually didn’t spend part of her night scared out of her wits by a stranger in the swamp and then sit up for hours with every light in her apartment blazing. She’d even overcooked the roast and now had tough, leathery sandwiches to look forward to for days.

  Her mind had raced last night, even after she’d finally drifted off to sleep, and plagued her with dreams so vivid that she felt she was there. The house and a child were in her dreams, but she couldn’t see the child’s face. Now, in the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she wondered if the child in her dreams had been her. In the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she almost wondered if she’d heard the scream.

  She shook her head. No, she wasn’t crazy. The scream had been real, but many things had stopped her from picking up the phone last night and calling the police. No proof. Everyone in town looking at her strangely again. The list went on and on, and there was no time to cover it all now.

  She locked the apartment door behind her and hurried down the stairs. Today was the first day of the town’s annual Fall Festival and the café would be crowded early so that everyone could get to the town square and set up their booths. If a little girl was missing, Ginny would be certain to hear about it during breakfast service. Then she’d go to the police. If no one was missing, she would have to admit that her imagination had played tricks on her and figure out how she felt about that.

  In the meantime, she was almost late for work, and the last thing she needed was to give her mother any indication that her life was not calm and, if not perfect, at least boring. Madelaine looked up from her bowl of pancake mix as Ginny exited the stairwell into the kitchen. She gave her a critical once-over, then went back to mixing the batter.

  “Thought maybe you were calling in sick,” Madelaine said.

  “No, sorry. Just overslept. I stayed up too late working on jewelry,” Ginny lied.

  The bit of worry in Madelaine’s face relaxed. Her mother knew better than anyone how time could escape Ginny when she was making jewelry. “I thought you had everything ready for the festival already?”

  “I did…do…just a last-minute thought.” Ginny tied an apron around her waist and slipped an order pad into one of the front pockets. She glanced down at her watch. “Is the coffee on out front?”

  Madelaine nodded. “Did it first thing. Turned on the two pots in here, as well. Gonna be busy this morning.”

  “Praise God and bring the customers,” Ginny said, quoting one of Madelaine’s favorite sayings.

  Madelaine grinned. “If business goes well this week, we might
even close for a bit. Go up to New Orleans and have somebody paint our toenails pink.”

  Ginny laughed, a feeling of normalcy returning to her in a rush. “That sounds wonderful.” She glanced at the front of the café, where a crowd was already gathering outside. “It’s a couple minutes till, but I think I’ll take pity and let them in.”

  Madelaine nodded and Ginny opened the front door of the café at 5:49 a.m. to a happy roar of locals.

  Two hours later, the last of the townspeople had completed the breakfast rush and Ginny slumped in a chair in the kitchen. Madelaine handed her a glass of iced tea and took a seat on a stool in front of the giant double sink teaming full of dishes.

  “Busy one,” Madelaine said as Ginny took a huge drink of the cold tea.

  “I think the good weather’s bringing everyone out.”

  Madelaine nodded. “Should be a good turnout for the festival. Maybe some more New Orleans stores will see your jewelry and want to stock it.”

  “I’ve got my fingers crossed. It’s doing well at Sarah’s shop, but I’d love to have more distribution.”

  Madelaine opened her mouth to reply, but the dinging of the bell on the front door stopped her. She motioned to Ginny, who was already rising from her chair. “You take a break for a minute. I’ll get the order. You can deliver the food.”

  Ginny sank back down, grateful for the reprieve, no matter how slight. A couple of minutes later, Madelaine hustled back into the kitchen, scooped a huge cinnamon roll onto a plate and handed it to Ginny.

  “That’s it?”

  “No. He wants an omelet but asked to have this out first. And he’ll likely need a coffee refill, the way he was downing the first cup.”

  “Who is it?” Ginny asked as she started toward the kitchen door.

  Madelaine shrugged as she cracked eggs on the skillet. “Probably here for the festival.”

  This early? The thought flashed through Ginny’s mind and just as quickly, a second thought hit her and she sucked in a breath. Surely not.

  She pushed open the kitchen door just enough to scan the café without being seen. It was empty except for one booth on the far end from the door occupied by the man who, unfortunately, had his back to Ginny. You’re being foolish. What are the odds?

  She pushed the door completely open and stepped into the café. She was only a couple of feet from the man’s table when he turned slightly to look up at her.

  It was him. The man from the swamp.

  Her heart rate spiked and she dropped her gaze to her hands, clutching the plate so hard, she thought it would snap. It took every ounce of control for her to set the plate in front of him. She forced herself to raise her head and meet his gaze, and she was surprised to notice he seemed out of sorts as well. He was older than she’d originally thought, maybe early thirties, but then her eyes had been on his gun last night and not him. His dark brown hair was a little long and lay in natural waves. Green eyes studied her as she reached for the coffeepot on the counter station and refilled his empty cup.

  “Your omelet will be ready in a couple of minutes,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  He shook his head, but Ginny got the impression there was something he wanted to say but didn’t. She took that as her cue to exit, but as she turned to walk away, he grabbed her arm. She looked down at his hand, wrapped around her wrist, and wondered why this man made her feel so nervous, so off-balance.

  “I probably owe you an apology,” he said and drew his hand back from her arm. “I didn’t mean to scare you last night, but you surprised me. I didn’t expect to find anyone out in the swamp at that time of night.”

  “Neither did I.”

  He gave her an uneasy chuckle. “Yeah, I guess not. So anyway, sorry I grabbed you.”

  “It’s okay.” Ginny was more than ready to end the uncomfortable conversation, but she took a breath then blurted out, “Did you find the child?”

  He stared at her for a moment, the indecision in his eyes apparent. Finally, he shook his head. “No. I looked around, but I didn’t see any trace that someone else had been near the house, and I didn’t hear anything.”

  She bit her lower lip, knowing she should just return to the kitchen and forget she’d ever been traipsing around the swamp. “Nothing at all?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and gave her a sympathetic look.

  She gave him a brief nod and walked back toward the kitchen. Great, now he thinks I’m crazy and feels sorry for me.

  Hell, who was she kidding? Despite her certainty last night, maybe she was crazy. There hadn’t been so much as a whisper about a missing child in the café all morning, and that kind of story would have been huge news in Johnson’s Bayou. Maybe she’d imagined the scream. That’s what she got for letting something build for so long without addressing it. She should have stalked straight to that house the first time her mind latched on it. Instead, she’d put it off for so long that her imagination had run wild.

  Before she slipped into the kitchen, she glanced back at the man. She noticed he hadn’t bothered to explain what he’d been doing in the swamp at night, and she hadn’t wanted to ask. But she wondered. Now, he sat at an angle in the booth, talking on his cell phone, and from the look on his face, he didn’t like what he’d just heard.

  Chapter Three

  Paul gripped the phone, anxious for the information Mike, his partner at their New Orleans detective agency, was about to provide. “You’ve found something?”

  “I may have a line on something, but I can’t be positive. The information on that case is so sketchy.”

  “You thinking cover-up?”

  “Not necessarily. It may have just been a case of inexperienced cops with a situation far beyond what they were qualified to handle. The whole thing is pretty weird. I mean, all those kids dying but no one coming to claim them. It reeks all the way around, Paul.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s an avenue I have to check. So what did you find?”

  “One student survived, for sure, but the bodies of one other student and the headmistress were never recovered. Then this is where it gets weird. The day after the fire, a girl walked out of the swamp and into town, but no one could identify her as a student. No one in the town, even the locals who worked at the home, had ever laid eyes on her.”

  “Well, who did she say she was?”

  “She didn’t know. Total amnesia.”

  “Great. The best witness I might have and she doesn’t remember anything. Any idea where the girls are now?”

  “I tracked the girl rescued from the house as far as a hospital in New Orleans, but the trail went cold after that. You’ll probably have to speak to people off the record. The hospital’s not likely to give you anything without a court order.”

  Paul blew out a breath, knowing his partner was right, and that as things stood right now, he had no legal grounds to gain such a document. “And the other? The mystery girl?”

  “That one’s a little trickier. There’s nothing in the police records. No follow-up at all, so the best I can do is a rumor from an old aunt of mine that lives down that way. She heard that the girl was adopted by someone in town. Thinks the woman who adopted her might own a restaurant or something.”

  Paul clutched the phone and shot a glance toward the kitchen. Could it possibly be the café waif was looking for answers in the swamp, as well? “You’re sure?”

  “No, I’m not sure about any of it, but my aunt is certain that’s what she heard. It may be something. It may not.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll check out a few things here today and be in touch tonight.” Paul set the cell phone on the table and looked out the glass front of the café into the swamp. Ginny couldn’t be the child he was searching for. She was the right age, but the child he sought had brown eyes, something she’d always complained about. Ginny’s eyes were bright blue.

  But if Ginny was the child who had wandered out of the swamp, maybe she remember
ed something. After all these years, surely some memory, even if seemingly insignificant, had returned. She was the only potential witness to a horrible crime, if you believed the rumors that the fire had been set. That might explain why she was out in the swamp after dark. Maybe her memory was returning.

  “Here you go.” The older woman who’d taken his order slid a plate with an omelet and toast on the table in front of him. Paul looked up, momentarily disappointed that Ginny wasn’t delivering his food, but then, he could hardly force her to sit in the booth and tell all her secrets. She’d seemed nervous when he apologized earlier, and the last thing he wanted to do was alienate himself from the one lead he had. What he needed to do was find out more about Ginny, and then maybe he’d be able to design an approach.

  “It looks great,” he said and glanced around the café. “Is it always so quiet in here?”

  “Oh, no, not usually. But most of the locals have booths at the festival, so they’ve already been in and out. Is that what you’re here for?”

  “Yes,” Paul lied, figuring the festival would make a good cover, at least for a couple of days. “I’d heard a bit about it and thought I’d check it out. Maybe get in some fishing afterward. I just didn’t realize it started this early.”

  “The official kickoff is at noon, but setup takes a while for those with a lot of merchandise. I just sent my daughter off to set up her booth. I’ll likely close everything up once you’re done and head to the festival myself to help people out.”

  “That sounds great. What does your daughter sell?”

  “Handcrafted jewelry. She even fashions some of her own metal,” she said, her voice full of pride. “A store in New Orleans is selling some pieces already.”

  Paul smiled. “My aunt has a boutique in Baton Rouge. I’ll take some pictures and maybe buy a few samples of your daughter’s work. She loves featuring items by Louisiana designers.”

  The woman beamed. “That would be fantastic. Well, my name’s Madelaine, and my daughter’s Ginny. I’m gonna get out of here and let you finish your breakfast.”