Mischief in Mudbug (8 page)

The family’s attorney had been short and dismissive when he’d first contacted the man the day before. Not that Beau blamed him. Based on his research, the family was quite wealthy and probably always had their share of nuts trying to get a piece of their money. Beau expected he’d have to contact the man again, but first thing that morning the attorney called asking for a photo of Sabine and the particulars of her upbringing. Less than an hour later, he’d called again, the incredulity in his voice apparent, stating that the family would like to meet Sabine at her earliest convenience.

No request for DNA testing, birth records, or any of the other hoops Beau had expected them to ask Sabine to jump through. Which bothered him even more. They knew something they weren’t telling. No wealthy family accepted a long-lost granddaughter without some proof. It had to be something about Sabine’s father. Aside from his driver’s license, which didn’t reflect his real name, no other form of ID was ever found in his car or in the apartment the couple was renting in New Orleans.

Supposedly, he was the oldest son of one of the wealthiest families in the parish. Yet he lived like a
pauper with no past? People who abandoned their inheritance without looking back were running from the people who controlled the money. But why? What had those people done that was so horrible that an eighteen-year-old left the comfort of his family’s estate and took a job working on the docks for minimum wage with a wife and infant daughter to support?

It couldn’t possibly be anything good.

Shit. He’d been putting off the call to Sabine for hours. He couldn’t put it off forever. Now that the family was aware of her existence, there was nothing to stop them from contacting her directly if they felt he wasn’t moving fast enough for them. He started to press her number into the cell phone, then changed his mind. He scrolled through his call list and found the number he was looking for. He pressed the Talk button and waited for the woman to answer.

“Raissa? This is Beau Villeneuve. I need to talk to you about the research you hired me for. Can you meet me this afternoon?”

Thirty minutes later, Beau slid into a booth in a bar across the street from Raissa’s shop. He gave the psychic a nod. “I really appreciate you meeting me.” He gave Raissa the basics of his search and explained his current dilemma of how to approach meeting the family.

Raissa listened intently and when he was finished said, “I’m glad you called. I can see why you’re not comfortable with this.”

“I’m sorry to put you in the middle, but I didn’t know who else to talk to. I mean, I’ve met Maryse, but she and Sabine seemed a little close for Maryse to be objective and, well…”

“And you didn’t want to panic Maryse given the recent events in her own life.” Raissa smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Villeneuve. You’re a detective—former FBI. You’d be remiss if you didn’t check the background of everyone Sabine is close to.”

Beau nodded. “Please call me Beau. And you’re right, of course.”

“Well, Beau, I further deduce that once you started reading up on Maryse you were probably far too interested to stop at the surface level. She’s had an amazing past month.”

“Amazing is one way of putting it—so is frightening, overwhelming, and beyond statistically fortunate.”

“It’s certainly no secret that Maryse is lucky to be alive. The things that happened to her were fantastic but some of them could have been prevented. That entire situation still vexes me. I should have been more on top of it from the beginning. I knew something wasn’t right—beyond the obvious. I could feel it in my bones.”

Beau studied Raissa for a moment. “In your bones? No visions, no ghostly warnings?”

“The phenomenon doesn’t work that way. It’s usually very obscure, unplanned, and certainly not scheduled. To make matters worse, the dead are often confused and even when trying to help they can give mixed signals or the wrong information entirely. It’s not an exact science.”

“Some would argue that it’s not a science at all.”

Raissa inclined her head and studied him. “Some would also argue that the Holocaust didn’t happen and that we never landed on the moon.”

“Touché.”

“Regardless of its fantastic nature, I still feel I should have picked up on something before things got that out of control for Maryse.”

“How? Who would have thought those kind of things were going on in such a quiet little place? Who would ever have believed that such hideous secrets were hidden in a small town? Easier to hide in a crowded city where everyone isn’t constantly in your business.”

Raissa nodded. “There is some truth to that, of course. And people often migrate to large cities to ‘disappear,’ but in a small town, if you’ve very good, you can disappear in plain sight.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the small town I grew up in, there was a drunk. He was upper forties to early fifties and everyone called him Walker because he was usually so drunk he couldn’t even find his car keys, much less operate his car, so he walked everywhere he went. His house was at the end of an otherwise tidy little street of bungalows. But Walker’s house was rundown—the roof sagging on one end, paint peeling from every square inch of wood. He didn’t do much—picked up odd construction jobs from time to time, when he was sober enough. Then he usually went on a bender after that. Left town for a couple of days and came back snookered as ever.”

Beau shrugged. “Okay, so almost every town has a drunk like Walker. Nothing special about that.”

Raissa smiled. “No one in the town thought so either, until the day he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“His mail started piling up and people began to re
alize that no one had seen him for a while, although no one could put their finger on exactly when. A group of people went to his house and knocked on the doors and windows, but he never answered. His car was in the driveway, so he wasn’t off on a bender. Finally, they called the fire department and had them break down the door, afraid he was dead.”

“But he wasn’t?”

“Not even close. The house inside was neat as a pin, although a layer of dust had settled over everything. There was no sign of Walker anywhere, and even more interesting, there was no sign of a bottle. The house was completely empty of booze. In fact, he didn’t even own a shot glass, a bottle opener, or a corkscrew. When they went to leave, one of the men tripped over the kitchen rug and discovered a door in the floor beneath it. You’ll never guess what they found in that makeshift basement.”

Beau leaned toward Raissa, fascinated. “Bodies?”

Raissa laughed. “Nothing so evil. No, they found a printing press. Walker had been counterfeiting money. It took a while for the local police to sort it all out, but finally the truth emerged. No one knew exactly how long Walker had been manufacturing money, but a couple of people remembered when the ‘benders’ began.”

“And they weren’t benders?”

“Not at all. Walker waited until he had a good bit of the fake money ready, then took a trip to Las Vegas to launder it through the casinos. The police finally tracked down banking records where he’d transferred large sums of money from a bank in Las Vegas to the Cayman Islands. By the time Walker had disappeared,
those transfers amounted to over three million dollars.”

“Holy shit! What a story.”

Raissa nodded. “All anyone in town saw was a drunk, and they didn’t look any further.”

“Hiding in plain sight,” Beau said, his mind whirling. “It’s brilliant.”

“And simple. If Walker had been a recluse who rarely spoke and didn’t get out among town, people would have gone poking around.”

“Instead, he invented a personality that was loud enough for people to stop looking any further. They took it at face value and left it at that.”

“Which is exactly what happened in Mudbug,” Raissa pointed out. “And if I had to guess, might be what’s happening with your search for Sabine’s family.”

Beau stared at Raissa for a couple of seconds. “You ‘guess’?” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Exactly how does that psychic thing work? I’m not saying I buy into it, but I’m not so hardheaded as to think I have all the answers, either.”

Raissa studied him for a moment, then smiled. “You’re attracted to Sabine, and you’re worried about this less-than-normal way of life she has.”

Beau sat back and put on his game face. “I didn’t say anything like that.”

“You didn’t have to. And before you think the spirits are telling your secrets, I’ll let you in on one aspect of my ability—a lot of it is simply the talent of reading people extraordinarily well, then putting everything together in one neat little package. Logic, deduction, an innate flair for understanding the psychology of human behavior. Not all is paranormal, Beau. A lot of
what I do is no different than your FBI profilers would accomplish with the same information. It’s just that sometimes, I have a little advantage.”

“Okay, so maybe I find her interesting, and yeah, she’s definitely not hard on the eyes…something you failed to mention, I might add.”

“I wasn’t aware that was part of your job-considering criteria.”

“It’s not. It shouldn’t be. Oh, hell, I didn’t ask to be attracted to her and don’t want to be, if the truth’s told. But it’s too late to undo what’s been done and that includes finding her family.”

Raissa, who’d obviously been enjoying his flustering, sobered when he mentioned Sabine’s family. “You’re afraid they’re hiding something.”

“Barely legal teens don’t usually run away from millions in inheritance to live in squalor.”

Raissa sighed. “And people who have millions to leave in inheritance should have been able to find a missing teenager with relative ease—especially as he was less than a hundred miles from his hometown.”

Beau nodded. “There’s something else. It’s Sabine. She’s hiding something.”

Raissa waved a hand in dismissal. “We’re all hiding something.”

“You know what it is, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know some of Sabine’s secrets. Do I know the particular one you’ve picked up on? I have no idea.”

“And if these secrets are relevant to the case?”

“Then I would have already told you what I knew. I’m not a fool. I’d break a confidence if I thought Sabine was at risk from the things I knew.”

Beau clenched his jaw, then released. He didn’t like it but knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of Raissa. “Okay. You know what’s at stake. Knowing Sabine, how do you think I ought to proceed?”

“There’s no going back now. Everything’s already been set in motion.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

Raissa lifted her wine glass and swirled the red liquid around inside. She gazed at it as if in a trance, or looking for some magical sign. Hell, for all Beau knew, she might have been doing just that. Finally she frowned, sat the glass down, then looked him straight in the eyes. “Then I guess, unwanted attraction or no, you’re going to have to keep an eye on Sabine for a while. You and Maryse are the only people they wouldn’t question being part of the family reunion process, and you’re much better equipped to handle what is likely to come than Maryse.”

Beau narrowed his eyes at Raissa. “Exactly what did you see in that wine glass?”

“Nothing in particular. It’s just that it suddenly struck me how much the color resembled recently spilled blood.”

Beau walked from the pub to the parking lot, still uneasy from his conversation with Raissa. Everything the woman had said made sense, yet he was still hesitating over doing the one thing he knew had to be done. He passed the parking lot and kept walking, circling once around the block, his mind whirling with all the possibilities, most of them not good.

Finally, unable to come up with a good reason to delay any further, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket
and pressed in Sabine’s number. Maybe she wouldn’t answer. Maybe she’d be watching a movie or painting her toenails and this entire conversation could wait until he was ready. Like maybe 2056.

But she answered on the second ring.

“Sabine,” he said, “it’s Beau.”

“Hi, Beau,” she said. “How are you today?”

“Er, fine. I’m fine. Um, Sabine, I have some news for you.”

“Oh.” Her previously pleasant voice took on a somewhat fearful tone. “What is it?”

“I think I’ve found your family,” he pressed forward before he could change his mind.

He heard the sharp intake of breath and waited for her response.

“Oh my God,” she said finally. “So fast? I mean, I’m glad, but I can’t believe it. I guess I never really thought you’d find anything…after all these years, you know?”

“I understand. Sometimes you just need a fresh eye and a stroke of luck,” he said, mentally cursing the television special on war criminals.

“I guess so. So what now? I mean, what am I supposed to do? Do I write to them, call them? I know I can’t show up on someone’s doorstep and expect them to be happy about it.”

“That’s all been taken care of for you,” Beau explained. “The family is quite wealthy, and I was certain they’d want all contact made through their attorney. I’ve spoken to him already and provided him with the information I had. He’s spoken to the family and apprised them of the situation.”

“So what do I do now?”

“They want to meet you. If you’d like, I can set up
the meeting and go with you if that would make you more comfortable. I know this is very scary, and awkward, so please let me know how I can best help you.”

“Yes…I, um, yes, that would be fine. I mean, set up the meeting and let me know what they say.”

Beau felt his jaw clench involuntarily. “All right then. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” He flipped the phone shut and shoved it in his pocket, trying to convince himself that everything had already been set in motion before his phone call. That call hadn’t changed anything.

At least that’s what he was going to keep telling himself.

Beau looked over to the passenger’s seat and studied Sabine. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Sabine stared at the enormous iron gate and swallowed. Somewhere on the other side of the ten-foot stone fence was an estate, just forty-five minutes from Mudbug, where her family lived. Living, breathing relatives. Her dad’s people. It all seemed like a blur. Twenty-odd years of searching with absolutely no results and now she had an entire family…grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, maybe even a dog. It was more than overwhelming. It was like waking up into a whole new existence.

She realized she hadn’t answered and looked over at Beau. “I think so. I don’t know. Maybe not?” She covered her face with both hands. “I’m sorry. You must wish you were anywhere but here with me.”

Beau gently pulled her hands down and placed his hand on top of hers. “There’s nowhere else I
need
to be. That’s all that matters.”

Sabine looked up at him. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this. I should have waited until Maryse could come.”

“But that would have been another two days, right?”

Sabine nodded. “Yes. She would have cancelled her
plans, but the man she is speaking with is a scientist and could have information leading to the break she’s been looking for in her own research. He’s only going to be in the country a couple more days, and going to Houston was the only opportunity Maryse had to talk to him.”

Beau didn’t look completely convinced that the reason was good enough to dump her best friend on the eve of discovering her long-lost family, but Sabine couldn’t help that. What she couldn’t say was that Maryse’s research had led her to a medication that could possibly eliminate the side effects of radiation treatment.

A medication Sabine herself would most likely benefit from in the very near future.

The truth was, Maryse had begged Sabine to put off this meeting until she could be there, but Sabine had already waited for so many years that even another two days felt like a lifetime. Besides, she had the rest of her life to introduce Maryse to her family. However long that turned out to be.

“They know I’m coming?” Sabine asked.

“Yes.”

“And they know why?”

“I told their attorney everything,” Beau assured her. “He spoke with the family and they asked him to arrange this meeting. There shouldn’t be any surprises. At least not on their end.”

Sabine caught the tone of his voice as he delivered the last sentence. It had been a sticking point between them, but other than the bare minimum, Sabine had insisted that Beau hold off giving her any detailed information about her family. She wanted to get a clear
impression of them without the bias of any information Beau had uncovered during his investigation.

No surprises. Yeah right.
She took in a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“You’re sure?”

Sabine nodded. “I’m sure.”

Beau squeezed her hand, then lowered the truck window and pressed a button on a speaker mounted in front of the gate. A man’s voice sounded over the speaker, asking his name. Beau gave the man the information and a couple of seconds later, the gate began to open. Beau put the truck in gear and pulled through the gate and into an enormous courtyard. Acre after acre of sculpted hedges, row after row of beautiful flowers—a palette of color set against a lush lawn.

Beau guided the truck around a bend in the drive and the house came into view. Sabine gasped. It looked like something out of
Gone with the Wind
. A front porch complete with white columns reaching from the ground to the roof spanned the width of the main house. Wings stretched out from both sides of the main structure, making the entire thing at least the length of a football field.

Sabine finally found her voice. “Oh, my God. I know you told me the family was wealthy, but I had no idea…”

Beau stared in awe. “I had no idea either. I mean, there’s wealth and then there’s this. I haven’t ever come in direct contact with this before.”

Sabine swallowed. “Me either. Not even close.” She said a silent prayer of thanks that she’d forgone her normal eclectic dress and decided on her navy pantsuit, a splurge at a designer shop having a good sale.

Beau circled a twenty-foot fountain and parked in front of the house. A middle-aged man wearing a brown suit came out to meet them. “I’m Martin Alford, the Fortescues’ attorney.”

“Beau Villeneuve,” Beau said and shook the man’s hand, “and this is Sabine LeVeche.”

The man turned to Sabine and studied her for a moment. “Ms. LeVeche. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I was very surprised when I got Mr. Villeneuve’s phone call. We’d given up hope of ever hearing anything about Adam.”

Adam Fortescue. Her father, although that wasn’t the name that had been on the driver’s license he carried in his wallet the day of the accident. It had been two days since Beau had given her the news that he’d located her father’s family and she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“I’d given up myself,” Sabine said.

The attorney nodded. “I can imagine this has been a shock for you as well…to find your family has been so close all these years.”

“A huge one,” Sabine agreed.

“Well,” the attorney said, “are you ready to meet them?”

Sabine took a deep breath and looked over at Beau, who nodded. “I’m ready.”

The attorney smiled. “This way, then. They’re anxious, too, if it makes you feel any better.” He turned and motioned them toward the house.

Beau stepped close to Sabine and took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. She looked over at him, grateful for the strength his presence gave her. She took the first step following the attorney. Then another. And
before she knew it they entered the mansion through a set of hand-carved doors.

Sabine tried not to gawk as they stepped inside, but the interior of the home was even more impressive than its exterior. She didn’t know much about art and antiques, but one look at the paintings hanging in perfectly placed picture frame molding and the decorative tables nestled in front of them with beautiful ornate vases and crystal bowls screamed rare and expensive. The ceiling in this front room was vaulted all the way to the second floor and had an enormous crystal chandelier hanging in the center. Huge staircases spiraled on each side of the room, forming a balcony on the far wall.

“They’re in the library,” the attorney said and motioned to the hallway on the left.

Sabine followed slowly, trying to clear her mind, focus on the event she’d been wanting for over twenty years. She felt like she was in a dream and any minute she’d wake up back in her apartment, just as frustrated and alone as she’d always been. Her feet connected with the wood floor, her heels resounding on the handscraped wood, but she didn’t feel the connection at all. It was almost as if she were gliding, floating in a forward motion. Surreal, that was the word for it.

The attorney opened a door at the end of the hallway and motioned for her to enter. She felt Beau give her hand one last squeeze. Then she took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway and looked at her family for the first time. A regal woman with silver hair stood next to the fireplace, holding a glass of wine. Her cream linen suit was obviously custom tailored and the diamonds surrounding her neck sparkled in the bright
light. A man in a gray smoking jacket and black slacks stood beside her and Sabine stared, her breath catching in her throat. He was a perfectly aged re-creation of the image Helena had produced. Any shred of doubt she had that maybe Beau had made a mistake, that this wasn’t her family, disappeared in an instant.

A woman sitting at the long table in the center of the room gasped. She had the same eyes and bone structure of the silver-haired woman, but that was where the similarities ended. The woman was probably in her fifties but the lines on her face belied the opulence surrounding them. Maybe living in such a state of presumed grace wasn’t everything it was cut out to be. The woman rose from her chair and walked over to stand in front of Sabine. She reached up with one hand and touched Sabine’s face, an amazed and somewhat fearful look on her face. The flat gray of her suit made her skin seem sallow. Her eyes were dull and lifeless.

“You look just like him,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to believe, but it’s true.”

Sabine froze, not certain what to do. The woman stared at her without blinking and somewhere deep in her gaze, Sabine saw something that didn’t look right…didn’t look stable.

The older woman stepped over to them and gently removed the younger woman. “You have to excuse Frances. She’s a bit overwhelmed with all of this. She was very close to Adam when they were children, as twins often are.”

Sabine snapped her attention to the older woman she presumed was her grandmother. “They were twins?” Surely that wasn’t right. Sabine’s father was only eighteen when he died. That would make him
forty-six now. Frances looked at least ten years older than that.

“Yes,” the older woman said. “A difficult birth but a blessed one as I got a boy and girl in one shot. Twins run in the family. It’s something to keep in mind when you decide to start a family yourself.” She smiled at Sabine. “I’m your grandmother, Catherine.”

Sabine smiled back, but it felt weak. This was all so much more overwhelming than she’d ever imagined. Her vision blurred and she saw a distorted Catherine staring at her.

“Sit,” Catherine said and guided her into a chair. “Hand me that glass of water,” she directed Alford.

“Sabine?” She could hear Beau’s voice next to her but couldn’t force herself to turn and look.

“Poor dear,” Catherine said, “this has all been a shock to you, too, hasn’t it?” She placed a glass in Sabine’s hands and helped guide it to her lips.

Sabine took a sip, then a deep breath in and out. Her vision sharpened and she looked over at Catherine and nodded. “I guess it has been a shock. I didn’t realize…”

“I should have,” Beau said and squeezed her arm. “Do you want to finish this another time?”

“No,” Sabine said. “I’ll be fine.” She looked at Catherine, her grandmother. “I’m sorry about that. I promise to behave myself from now on.” She smiled.

Catherine smiled back. “Well, since you’re not going to hit the deck on us, I’d like you to meet your grandfather, William.” She motioned to the silverhaired man who had been hovering at the end of the table. He stepped forward, and Sabine rose to greet him.

He studied her for a minute, almost making her un
comfortable with his scrutiny, then extended his hand. “You’re the spitting image of your father.” He smiled. “A bit prettier, though.”

Sabine took his hand in hers and smiled back. “Thank you.” Sabine looked over at the attorney. “And Mr. Alford? Is he family, too?”

“Not officially,” Catherine said, “but he’s here so often that it was either make him an honorary member or catalog him with the furniture.” She smiled at her joke. Alford didn’t look nearly as amused.

Sabine turned and gestured to Beau. “This is Beau Villeneuve. He’s the private detective who solved the mystery.”

William shook hands with Beau. “Guess we owe you a huge thanks. We never knew what happened to Adam and had no idea that he had a baby. We’re sad to hear of his death, although after all these years we really didn’t expect anything different. But Sabine is a surprise, and a good one at that.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Beau said.

“Why didn’t you know?” Sabine asked, unable to hold back the question that had been stuck in her mind ever since Beau had told her that her family was in Louisiana and very well off. “Why did he leave? And why didn’t you look for him?”

Catherine shot a look at William, then looked back at Sabine. “We didn’t exactly approve of the relationship between him and your mother. Adam had plans to go to medical school. When we realized how much time he was spending with her, we were afraid he’d do something foolish and jeopardize his future. I’m afraid we forbade them to see each other, which looking back was foolish on our part, as it only made them more determined to be together.”

“We did look,” William said. “I don’t want you to think we didn’t, but it was if he’d vanished.”

“And my mother’s family?” Sabine asked.

Catherine shook her head. “She lived back in the bayou. We tried to locate her family, but no one back there would talk to us. We don’t even know if she had any here.”

William placed one hand on Catherine’s arm. “It was a hard time,” he said. “The police couldn’t assist us, as Adam was an adult and had left on his own volition. We hired private detectives but with nothing to go on, we finally gave up after six months of futility. We honestly believed that he’d contact us again. And when he didn’t, well, we were afraid the worst had happened.”

Catherine nodded. “For years, every time the doorbell rang, my heart leapt in my throat with fear that the police were there to tell me he was gone.” She sniffed and touched her nose with the back of her finger. “We didn’t even know about you, Sabine. If we’d had any idea that your mother was pregnant when we forbid Adam to see her, we wouldn’t have handled things that way. You’re our granddaughter. We would have changed our plans to ensure you had a proper home and upbringing.”

Sabine took all this in and nodded. “It must have been quite a shock when Mr. Alford told you about me.”

“Oh, well, at first, certainly,” Catherine said, “but then we were so excited, so happy that there was a piece of Adam in this world. We made a horrible mistake with our son, Sabine, and it cost us, him, you, and Mother. We’re going to do everything we can to make up for that now. That is, if you’ll allow us to.”

Sabine studied Catherine’s face, the anxiety, the sadness. “I’m certainly willing to try.”

Catherine sniffed again, then nodded. “Well, now that the uncomfortable part is taken care of, what do you say we move into the living room and have coffee and some of Adelaide’s great cookies? I happen to know she made a new batch this morning. We have so much to talk about and there’s no point in being parched or uncomfortable while doing it.”

Sabine and Beau rose and followed the family into a sprawling room filled with soft, plump leather furniture in beautifully blended earth tones. Sabine and Beau walked toward a chocolate-brown loveseat placed next to a beautiful stone fireplace, but before they could sit, an old Creole woman entered the room with a tray of cookies, a young Creole woman close behind her with coffee.