At Risk (17 page)

“He didn’t listen to me last time.”

Bennett broke into the discussion again. “Please. I promise to keep away from you.”

She fixed her gaze on him.
“You’re going to sit down and write a confession, which Rafe will witness. And you will give a ten thousand-dollar contribution to a charity that helps disadvantaged children in the city.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Eugenia will want a letter from the charity stating the contribution,” Rafe added.

“Yes.
I can ask them for that,” he agreed immediately.

“Write down that you ordered the muggings and that you tried to burn the restaurant down,” Rafe said.

“No. I was just setting her trash on fire.”

“Okay, write that.”

Bennett sat down at the table against the wall, and Eugenia brought over pen and paper. When he was finished, they both read what he’d written, and Rafe witnessed it.

“Now get out of here,” he growled.

Bennett beat a fast retreat, and Rafe turned to Eugenia. “I hope we’re not making a mistake.”

“He’s family.”

“He’s a snake.”

She sighed.
“But I feel sorry for him.”

oOo

Rafe shrugged. If she was determined to take this course, he wasn’t going to waste his breath on arguing.

Besides, they had more important things to discuss.

She beat him to it by saying, “You put up cameras without telling me? Why?”

“I wasn’t going to leave you unprotected.”

“Okay.” She was silent for several seconds. “It looks like you solved the problem I hired Decorah Security to investigate.”

As he heard those words, his heart stopped, then started to pound in double time. Was she telling him it was all over between them again?

He began to speak so quickly that it took a moment for his brain to catch up with his mouth. “There’s still Cumberland’s investigation hanging over us. He’s still trying to prove we conspired to kill Villars.”

“That’s crazy.”

“That hasn’t stopped him.”

She closed her eyes for a moment.
“What can we do about it?”

“We can figure out who really killed him.”

“How?”

“I want to get into his house and go through his stuff.
But I can’t do it if Holly is home. Can you get her out of the house?”

“How?”

“Well, you do feel bad about what happened to her husband. Is there somewhere you can offer to take her?”

Eugenia thought about it.
“You talked about her husband’s antique business. I can ask her out for coffee and tell her I’m looking for some new restaurant furnishings—and would she come with me to some of the shops on Royal Street.” She made a snorting sound. “Not that I could afford anything in any of those places.”

“But if you can get her to go with you, I can search the house in town.”

He pressed his hands against his sides, wondering what he was going to do or say now. Maybe he had to be content that she still wanted to work with him.

“When should I call her?”

“As soon as possible. You’re free during the day, right?”

“Except for cooking.”

“Well, can your sous-chef handle most of that for one day?”

She nodded, then looked at her watch.
“It’s too late to call Holly now.”

“Do it tomorrow morning, and let me know what you set up.”

She cleared her throat. “I didn’t thank you for catching Bennett.”

“No problem,” he answered, thinking there would be a very nice way to thank him and trying to get the thought of kissing her out of his mind.

Chapter Sixteen

The call from Eugenia came at ten a.m.
“I’m picking Holly up and going to a café on Royal Street. We should be out for about an hour and a half.”

“Great.”
He thought for a moment. “I’ll have my phone on vibrate. If she wants to come home earlier, call me.”

“Okay.”

Rafe had come prepared. He’d studied the Google Earth image of the house so that he knew the exterior layout. He had found an old magazine article online that showed pictures of the interior. To complete the preparations, he was wearing a uniform similar to that of the New Orleans meter readers, which he’d picked up at a shop not far from where he’d used to live.

Rafe drove to the Villars mansion in the Garden District and arrived before Eugenia.
He was lurking around the corner when he saw the two women leave.

After waiting five minutes to make sure the coast was clear, he strolled up the block and into the manicured yard.
He paused near the meter, pretending to take a reading, then made his way around the back of the house, which was screened from the neighbors by bougainvillea trained up the fence.

He put on a pair of gloves, got out his lock picks and opened the back door.
He was inside within two minutes and thinking that maybe Eugenia should suggest to the widow that she needed better security.

He got his bearings from the pictures he’d seen, then started with Martin Villars’ home office, looking for evidence that would give someone a motive to murder the man.

oOo

As they drove to the French Quarter, Eugenia said to Holly, “I’m so glad you could come out with me. It must be strange not having Marin around after all these years.”

“It is.”

“How are you doing?”

The widow sighed. “As well as can be expected. There are so many details to take care of. You’d think the authorities would make it easy on a widow, but they really don’t. I had to find our marriage certificate and Martin’s birth certificate. And I need multiple copies of his death certificate.”

“It sounds like a lot to pile on top of you. I’m so sorry that my restaurant was involved in his death.”

“Oh, that’s not your fault.”

Eugenia thought about the poison that had showed up in the autopsy but wasn’t going to mention it.
And really, it
wasn’t
her fault.

“I hope we can have a few relaxing hours together,” she said.

“It was kind of you to ask me out. But don’t you have work to do?”

“Nothing I have to take care of immediately.”

Eugenia found a parking space near one end of “antique row,” and they both got out and headed for the charming little coffee shop with an interior courtyard that she’d discovered a few years ago.

oOo

Rafe turned on Villars’ computer and was easily able to get into his files, since the man had used his birthday for a password. He did a rapid search of various folders and downloaded financial information that he could read later.

Next he started searching the office, looking behind books in the shelves, feeling along the baseboards, turning back the Oriental rug to look underneath.

He’d been at it for half an hour when he turned back a corner of the rug in the Villars bedroom and found a loose floorboard. Carefully, he pried it up and reached inside, wondering what he was going to find. It turned out to be a wide flat book.

Pulling it out, he saw that it was a photograph album.
And when he began leafing through the pages, his breath caught.

Each section was devoted to a different girl—some white and some light-skinned African Americans.
All of them were pretty, with good bodies, and all of them looked to be between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. There were several pictures of each young woman, most of them naked and all of them in what were clearly bondage and S and M poses.

Many had been photographed naked, spread eagle on a brass bed.
The bed in this room, Rafe noted as he looked up from the book. Another room was featured in several photos, and Rafe suspected that it was at the Villars vacation house. No wonder the man had wanted to keep his activities out there private. Did he and the caretaker do some of this stuff together?

He went back to the book.
Sometimes the girl was standing shackled with her hands above her head, and there might be clear lash marks on her back or breasts. Or she might be sitting in a chair with her legs spread, perhaps masturbating. One girl was wearing only high heels and leaning over a table with a dildo sticking out of her rear.

Sometimes the subject might be wearing a garter belt or a bra designed to leave the nipples exposed.
Sometimes her breasts were bound. In one shot, the girl was posed with a hood over her face and a riding crop handle poking at her sex.

There were some pictures that featured two girls, one whipping or fondling the other.
It seemed that Villars had forced a lot of interesting activities on young women he had under his control.

Rafe turned the pages and stopped, the breath catching in his lungs.
He knew one of the girls. It was a much younger Calista Lacoste, in a number of the poses similar to what he’d already seen. And in one picture, she was on her knees in front of a man, sucking his cock. The man in the picture was clearly Villars. Either he’d used a timer to get into position to take the shot or Fortuna had taken it.

Rafe had just seen that picture when his phone vibrated.
Eugenia and Holly must be on their way back—early.

Christ!
Did he have time to get out the back door, or did he need to use a window, he wondered as he stuffed the album under the back of his shirt and into his waistband so he’d have both hands free.

oOo

“I’m sorry I pooped out on you,” Holly said as Eugenia pulled into her driveway. “It’s just that I don’t seem to have the energy I used to. Or maybe it’s that I’m not sleeping so well, now that the other side of the bed is empty.”

“I understand,” Eugenia answered, hoping that Rafe had felt the phone vibrate and had the time to get out of the house. “Do you need any help?”

“No thank you. But I do appreciate your thinking of me.”

“We’ll have to do this again soon.”

Eugenia watched the older woman climb her porch steps, open the door and disappear inside.

Was Rafe still in there?
Eugenia didn’t see him, but she didn’t think he could have already left.

oOo

Rafe had raised the window to the porch roof when he heard the front door open. With a silent curse, he climbed out.

He could hear someone coming rapidly upstairs.
Presumably Holly. Did she suspect that he might have been here?

He quietly closed the window, then flattened himself on the roof.

Looking out toward the street, he saw Eugenia standing beside her car, staring at him.

She pressed a hand to her mouth, then reversed directions and hurried back toward the house, where she rang the front bell.

The footsteps that had been heading toward the window stopped.

“Holly?” Eugenia called.

“Just a moment.” Mrs. Villars walked back into the hall and started downstairs. Making a quick calculation, Rafe pushed himself to the side of the roof, and dived into a crepe myrtle tree, making the slender branches bounce and sway. When the tree stopped shaking, he swung down, made it to the ground and ducked into the bushes as the front door opened.

“Yes?” he heard Holly ask.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but did you happen to see what I did with my umbrella?” Eugenia asked.

“I don’t remember seeing it. Are you sure you had it with you?”

“Maybe you’re right. I may not have had it at all. Sorry to bother you.”

“I do need to rest,” Holly said.

“Sorry,” Eugenia repeated.

When the front door had closed, she turned toward the street, then stopped short when she heard Rafe rustling in the bushes.

He shook his head. “Go on; I’ll meet you,” he mouthed.

She gave a little nod and hurried back to her car.

oOo

Rafe waited for several minutes to make sure he was in the clear.
Finally he crawled across the lawn, using as many bushes for cover as he could.

Praying that Holly had done what she’d said and lain down, he made it to the street and kept walking around the corner at a normal pace.
He was wearing a uniform and a cap, he told himself. There was really no way of recognizing him from the back. He hoped.

He made it to Eugenia’s apartment a few minutes after she did.

The look of relief on her face when she opened the door made his heart turn over. They might be at odds, but he knew that she cared about him.

He sat down heavily on the couch, and she studied his face.
“You scratched yourself.”

“In the crepe myrtle tree.”

“Let me put something on it.”

“Okay.”

She disappeared down the hall and came back with a wash cloth and a bottle of antiseptic. She sat down beside him, closer than she’d been since they’d made love.

He tried not to think about that as she washed off the scratches.

“The second time you’re patching me up,” he said in a thick voice.

“Yes,” she murmured. “This may sting.”

“Better than getting an infection.”

When she opened the bottle and poured some of the liquid onto a sterile pad, he smelled the pungent odor.
And when she swiped it on one of the scratches, he winced.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She finished up the first aid and recapped the bottle.
She was so close, her eyes on his lips. He wanted to kiss her. Maybe she wanted it too. But he had business to discuss with her.

“Thanks for going back and distracting Holly.
She was right inside that room where I’d flopped onto the porch.”

“Was it worth it? Did you find anything?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Something that might be a motive for murder?”

“It might be.”

She made an exasperated sound. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“It’s kind of disturbing.”

“You brought it?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to beg to see it?”

He sighed and pulled the photo album out from under his shirt and held it in his lap.

“What’s that?”

“Martin Villars’ little hobby.”

“What?”

He swallowed. “He liked to get into S and M scenes with teenage girls.

“You’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately, no.” He shifted in his seat. “This book is full of the very graphic pictures he took of them. In poses that aren’t very nice.”

“Can I see them?”

“In a minute. I want to explain one more thing.”

She waited.

“One of the girls is a much younger Calista Lacoste.”

Her eyes widened.
“Oh my God. Let me see.”

He handed over the book, and she drew in a sharp breath as she took in the first picture.
Then she began flipping through the pages, obviously not looking at the photos in detail until she came to Calista. She sucked in a breath as she looked at the voodoo priestess.

“She looks like she’s around sixteen.”

“Yeah.”

“How did she hook up with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would she murder him for this?”

He shook his head. “This was twelve years ago. Why wait so long?”

Eugenia reached for the book and flipped back to one of the pictures—of Calista and another girl, kissing and fondling each other.

“That other girl looks familiar.”

Rafe studied the picture.
“You think you know who she is?”

Eugenia kept looking at the photo.
“I’m trying to imagine her with a different hairstyle. Shorter. Blonder. And without glasses.”

When he heard her breath hitch, he said, “You know who she is?”

“Jillian Hargrave.”

“She was at the funeral home—and the voodoo service.
Had she come to Voodoo Night before?”

“Yes.”

“So she and Calista could have cooked something up together.”

“Yes.”

“What if he was blackmailing one or both of them?”

“That could be it.”
He laughed. “You’d think it might be the other way around.”

“Calista’s getting more known in the city.
She might not want anyone to see the pictures. And what about Jillian?”

“She’s a systems administrator at Tulane.
I interviewed her there.”

“How did she seem when you talked to her?”