Showdown in Mudbug Read online

  “Yeah, but he was wearing one of those hooded shirts and sunglasses. Coulda been anyone.”

  “And the woman?”

  The bus driver shook his head. “Didn’t see no one but you.”

  Raissa motioned to the street. “You had to have seen her. The woman who pulled me out of the street.”

  The bus driver studied her for a moment. “Ma’am, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there weren’t no other woman anywhere on this street. I gotta have perfect vision to drive this bus, and that’s what I got.” He looked around the street, then back at Raissa. “Maybe you should pay a visit to the Lord’s house sometime soon. That’s the only explanation I got.”

  Raissa nodded. “Thank you, Mr…”

  “Cormier. Been driving for going on thirty years and ain’t killed no one yet. I’m glad that didn’t change today. You going to be all right? I can call nine-one-one or something.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Cormier. I’ll be fine.”

  The bus driver nodded. “Well, if you need anything, you can find me through the bus company. Like I say, I didn’t get a good look at that man or nothing, but I’d be happy to talk to the police, if they was asking.”

  “I appreciate it, Mr. Cormier, but at this point, I think there’s little the police could do.”

  “You’re probably right. You be careful, miss.” He climbed back onto the bus and gave her a wave as he pulled away from the corner.

  Raissa lifted a hand in response, then hurried across the street to her car. She slid into the driver’s seat and looked over at her uninvited passenger. “I’m going to die, right?”

  The ghost in her passenger seat frowned at Raissa. “Crap.”

  Raissa stared at Helena Henry, feeling her pulse race. Of course, she’d known the ghost was around. Maryse and Sabine could both see her and had told Raissa about her. But knowing her friends were telling the truth and seeing the truth in her car were two totally different things. Then there was that small matter of Maryse’s theory on Helena’s appearances.

  “This isn’t good, is it?” Raissa finally asked. “Maryse says every time you’re visible to someone, their life is in danger.”

  Helena sighed. “I wish I could argue, but I’m afraid my track record speaks for itself.”

  “It was you who pulled me out of the street, wasn’t it?”

  Helena nodded.

  “But why are you here? At the street corner? In my car?”

  “Well, I was…I thought…you see…Oh, hell, I just had this feeling that you were in trouble, so I’ve been following you around.”

  “A feeling?”

  Helena waved one hand in dismissal. “I know. Now I sound like all the rest of you nutbags with your spirits and tarot cards and psychic visions, but damn it, I don’t know how else to explain it. You were on my mind for days and no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it, so finally I got Maryse to drop me off at your shop.”

  “Maryse knew about this and didn’t tell me?”

  “She didn’t want to worry you. She said if you saw me, then we’d rally the troops. Otherwise, she was putting it down to my overactive imagination. Well, that and the fact that I started a diet last week.”

  Raissa’s head began to spin. “This is too much to process right now. I’d love nothing better than to drive home and pour myself a glass of the strongest thing I have in my apartment and mull this over, but I’ve got something urgent to do.”

  Helena shrugged. “Unless you plan on drinking the Drano under your sink, I don’t think you’re going to figure it out today anyway. But I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine, and maybe a slice of that cheesecake you bought today at lunch. Just don’t tell Maryse. She’s picking me up in an hour.”

  Raissa started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I thought you were on a diet.”

  “Hey, I just saved your life. Are you going to deny me a little piece of pie?”

  “Helena, I’ll buy you pies for the rest of your life if I manage to stay alive like the others.”

  “Cool!” Helena smiled. “That will show that skinny bitch Maryse. She keeps harping on me about my diet, but I think she’s just jealous that I don’t gain weight.”

  “Then why are you on a diet?”

  “Maryse and Sabine refuse to keep feeding someone they can’t take as a tax deduction, especially as I don’t need to eat in the first place. And it’s not like I can walk into a grocery store or diner and load up. It was getting a bit exhausting trying to steal when it has to be in my pockets or it’s visible to everyone, and I feel guilty about the stealing part, unless it’s someone I really don’t like.” Helena looked down the street at the police station, then back at Raissa. “Hey, you went to the police about that little girl that’s missing, didn’t you? Did you get a vision or something?”

  “I got something.”

  Helena stared at her for a couple of seconds. “You’re not really psychic, are you?”

  Chapter Two

  Raissa strolled into the Internet café across town, her laptop tucked under her arm. Her normally casual look had been replaced with a loud pink blouse, skintight black pants, and a wig with long red curls. As she waited in line for a latte, she pulled a mirror from her purse and studied the ceiling edge around the room while pretending to check her lipstick. She closed the mirror and tucked it back into a huge silver bag. She’d been right—no security cameras.

  She placed her order and received a compliment from the clerk on her long turquoise nails with purple dolphins, then collected her coffee and took a table on the patio outside that offered her the best view of the street corner. Placing the laptop on the table, she gave the street the once-over, her eyes safely hidden behind the polarized lenses of her sunglasses. After a quick glance back inside the shop, she peeled the dolphin nails off her fingertips, satisfied that no one would ever think that the dolphin-nail-wearing woman and Raissa Bordeaux were the same person.

  When her fingers were free of the long nails, she opened her laptop and started working. It took only minutes to get to the files she’d come for, even with the added time of diverting the FBI firewall security, but then she hadn’t been known as the best hacker at the bureau for nothing. She inserted a flash drive and began the download of every case file she could think of that might be relevant, every possible angle she could come up with that might keep her alive. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and the screen scrolled with page after page of downloading data. She looked at the time and checked the street again. A minute, maybe two, was all she had left before they closed in on her.

  She opened the last log she wanted to check and scanned the list. The second-to-last entry was the one she expected to find. Mission completed, she pocketed the flash drive and deposited the laptop in the trash-can before she left the cafe. A block from the café, she slipped into the alley and pulled a large trash bag from her purse. She shoved the sunglasses, wig, and purse inside, along with the fake nails she’d removed earlier, then buried the bag in a Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. As she exited the alley, she peeled the wax off her fingertips, scattering the remains on the sidewalk as she went.

  She had a moment of regret at the thought of the laptop crushed alongside latte remnants, but the reality was, it was marked. If she used it to access the Internet again, the trace would begin automatically. Still, it always killed her to sacrifice good computer equipment, which is why she always picked up old systems at garage sales and secondhand stores. With minimal tinkering she could upgrade them to suit her purposes.

  She glanced at her watch as she hopped into her car. Despite his obvious disdain and disbelief of her profession and the “evidence” she’d given him, Detective Blanchard had run the case through the bureau—just ten minutes before. She knew it would take at least forty-five minutes for him to get clearance approval and for the information to queue. She figured that gave her about an hour to double-check that everything was in order at her shop before the surly detective paid her
an “unoffi cial” visit.

  That meant an hour to ensure that the outside of every door and window of her shop was free of fingerprints, just in case she’d properly read the serious and quick-thinking Detective Blanchard. Once he realized Raissa was right on all counts, the logical thing to do would be to scrutinize the source. And since the source in this case didn’t want her fingerprints run through a national database, at least not until she’d had an opportunity to come up with plan B, an unscheduled date with Windex was in order. She smiled. How unlucky for Detective Blanchard that Raissa had nine years of experience in remaining out of sight.

  Zach scrolled down the screen, scanning the result of the FBI database search he’d done earlier. His pulse quickened as the screen scrolled, child after child. All six years old. All blonde with blue eyes. All missing from a locked house with frantic parents who had been cleared of any involvement. All had been returned a week later, and medical examinations had revealed no injury or abuse. None of the cases had ever yielded a decent set of clues, much less been solved.

  And every single child had claimed she’d been abducted by aliens.

  Shit.

  He scrolled back to the top of the page and checked the cities—Tallahassee, Orlando, Gulfport, Jackson, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn. Son of a bitch. That psychic had nailed it.

  Damn it! How in the world was he supposed to explain to his captain that a psychic had tipped him off? And that the chief suspect was apparently a character from The X-Files. He shook his head. The answer was simple—he didn’t explain. They would have run the case through the FBI database eventually. Zach could just claim that the odd aspects of the crime made him decide to do it sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t even mention the alien thing. The captain could just read that himself.

  But there was also a whole other issue to deal with.

  Zach didn’t believe for one second that the woman he’d met was really psychic. Zach didn’t believe in psychics at all. Which meant that Raissa Bordeaux had come about that information some other way than through spirits or tea leaves. And the only way that came to mind was that she knew who had kidnapped those girls.

  Or had done it herself.

  Zach combed the printouts of everything he could find on Raissa Bordeaux, which was next to nothing. A mere two pages. A ten-year-old would have a file bigger than this woman. Raissa—no middle name—Bordeaux had appeared in New Orleans nine years ago. She’d worked as a waitress at a bar downtown for about a year, and then she’d opened her little shop of paranormal tricks. Her driver’s license was nine years old, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t been issued one prior to then. Her Social Security number showed only her waitress income and the business, and beyond that, Raissa Bordeaux didn’t exist.

  No arrests, no credit history, not even a parking ticket. It was as if the woman had appeared out of thin air nine years ago.

  Zach frowned and tapped his pencil on the desk. Women who abducted children usually did so because they wanted their own, or they were involved in a baby-selling ring. But these missing girls had been too old to sell to couples wanting an infant. It was more likely Raissa Bordeaux knew so much because she was somehow involved with the man who had taken the girls. Zach wasn’t buying that “vision” nonsense for a moment, but fronting for some guy running drugs, prostitution, kiddie porn, whatever—that he’d buy.

  It was a shame that all the real lookers hooked up with piece-of-shit men. As long as he lived, Zach was certain he’d never understand the attraction. But there was really no other explanation. Either Raissa Bordeaux liked little girls and was playing a game with the police, or she knew a man who liked little girls and she wanted out of whatever she’d gotten herself into.

  Zach was banking on the latter.

  He rose from his chair and grabbed his keys off the desktop. It was time to pay Ms. Bordeaux a visit. And maybe try to pick up a random fingerprint while he was there. She might be able to change her driver’s license and Social Security card, but fingerprints are forever.

  When the buzzer to her apartment sounded, Raissa glanced at her watch and smiled. One hour, ten minutes. She walked over to the window and saw the unmarked police car parked at the curb across the street from her shop, just as she’d expected. She pressed the intercom button in her kitchen. “Can I help you?”

  “Ms. Bordeaux?” Zach’s voice boomed over the intercom. “It’s Detective Blanchard. I need to talk to you.”

  Raissa smiled at the formal yet agitated tone of his voice. “Certainly. I’ll be right down.”

  Detective Blanchard stood just outside the shop door, staring at the items in her display window, a look of consternation on his face. “You’re working late, Detective,” Raissa said.

  “Yes, well, given the circumstances, we all are.”

  Raissa nodded and stared at him. He stared back for a moment, obviously waiting for a question or an invitation, but Raissa wasn’t about to make it that easy. Keeping Detective Blanchard off balance was a must. She couldn’t afford for him to figure out her angle. Better he decide she was a weirdo who tracked child-kidnapping cases than know the truth.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “I had a couple of questions for you, if you have the time.”

  “Sure. Like what?”

  “I checked on similar cases, and you were right. In fact, you were too right. Every single city had a matching case file. I want to know how you got that information, Ms. Bordeaux.”

  “I already told you, Detective Blanchard. I’m psychic. It came to me in a vision.”

  Zach’s jaw clenched. “We both know that’s a load of horseshit. Now, you can either give me the answer I want here, or you can give it to me back at the station.”

  “I know nothing of the sort, and it’s particularly bad manners, even for a police officer, to refer to someone else’s livelihood as horseshit. Especially when that horseshit is most likely going to put you ahead of Detective Morrow on the captain’s list, right?”

  “This has nothing to do with Morrow or the captain.” Zach’s face began to redden. “This has to do with a child abductor that I’d damned well like to find.”

  Raissa nodded. “I’d like that, too, but I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can tell you. I don’t have any more information than what I’ve already given you.”

  “You’re lying. Either you took those girls yourself, or you know who did.” Zach blew out a breath. “Look, Ms. Bordeaux, it’s obvious to me you’re hiding from someone. There’s no record of your existence before age twenty-four. I know you’re not who you say you are, and if you push me, I’ll dig into your background until I get what I’m looking for.”

  Raissa cocked her head to one side and studied him. “You know, I believe you would. The only problem with that is then you’d be spending all your time and energy on me, which will get you no closer to finding that little girl or her abductor. You’re going to have to trust me on this, Detective. I don’t kidnap children, and if I knew who did, I would give you that information.”

  “You’re walking a thin line, Ms. Bordeaux.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “No. My past is an open book. I suggest that unless you want me to finger you for this kidnapping, you open up your own.”

  “I wish you’d concentrate on the facts you have and the things you can control. I’m not your problem, I assure you.”

  Zach shook his head. “You’re a problem all right. And your assurance means nothing. I don’t even know who you are. How am I supposed to trust anything you say?”

  Raissa shrugged. “Then don’t trust me. Waste time chasing rabbits, and he gets away with it again. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that none of those cases yielded any clues, except the extraterrestrial kind. Do you really want the mayor’s grandchild on Channel Four saying she was abducted by ET?”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know they all claimed aliens took them?”

  “Because I could read their thoughts at the time. H
ow do you think I knew about them at all?” Raissa stepped inside the shop. “If we’re done, I’d like to get ready for dinner.”

  “We’re done for now, but don’t get too comfortable with that. I’ll be back.”

  “I look forward to it, Detective,” Raissa said and closed the door behind her. She sneaked over to the far corner of the shop and waited a couple of seconds, then peeked through the blinds. Sure enough, the detective was trying to pull a fingerprint off the front door to her shop. What a shame she’d wiped that door handle clean just thirty minutes before.

  She watched as he bent over and studied the handle. An even bigger shame was that such a nice butt was wasted on such an uptight man. She dropped the blinds slat and sighed. Not that she had any business admiring butts, anyway. Men were a luxury she couldn’t afford. She’d tried the occasional fling, but too many times the man wanted to get serious, and Raissa couldn’t go there. She had been safe for a lot of years. No man was worth risking her life for—not even if the sex was absolutely fabulous.

  She grabbed her purse from behind the counter and slipped on a pair of lacy black gloves. The dead bolt on the door didn’t so much as squeak, and she thanked God again for whoever had invented WD-40. In a flash, she twisted the doorknob and flung the front door open, practically yanking the handle out of Zach’s hand.

  He jumped back as if he’d been shot, and it was all Raissa could do not to laugh. His expression went from horrified to guilty to aggravated faster than a race car shifting gears. Raissa stepped outside and stared at him, her eyes wide with faked surprise. “Why Detective! I didn’t know you were still here.” She glanced at the handle, covered with fingerprint powder, then back at Zach, who slipped his hand with the brush behind his back.

  “I appreciate the care of my door handle, but it only requires a good moisturizer. Powder really isn’t necessary.” She locked the door behind her and gave him a big smile, waving one gloved hand as she walked out into the hot summer evening.