One Blood (30 page)

“
Like you’re lying to me right now?”

“
I know you think I’m full of crap, but I’m telling you—you’ve put your trust in the wrong people. Walter Simmons is not your father.”

“
And I’m supposed to just take your word for it?” Lincoln pulled himself into a seated position. “I’m getting out.”

“
Getting out and going where? You won’t last two hours out there.”

“
I’ll take my chances.” He grabbed the door handle.

“
Lincoln. Stop. I know why you tried to kill yourself this morning.”

“
What are you talking about?” Though he couldn’t remember exactly
why
he’d jumped off the ferry, there was no damn way he was tryin’ to commit suicide. Not when he finally had his freedom back.

“
My mother was…special. She could read minds…and tell the future. A long time ago, your real father came to her and started something. Something that has affected your entire life.”

“
You better start making sense, lady.”

“
Your father resurrected a family curse to kill his father, Joseph.”

Lincoln laughed and got out of the car. He made it four paces before her hand caressed his shoulder.

“
There are no coincidences, Lincoln. If you hear nothing else I say, hear that. Your father knew this the moment he learned Karen had been kidnapped…”

She’s lying. She’s lying.

“
He tried to ignore the curse even after his father, and then his son, succumbed…”

No!

“
I had to come save you before Randy found out about you, Lincoln…”

No!

Lincoln grabbed Jhonnette by the throat and slammed her against the Jeep. He resisted the urge to crush her larnyx, to stop her from uttering these lies. Her words were impossible.

“
Stop it, Lincoln!” Jhonnette screamed. “You’re hurting me!”

Lincoln let go. They stared at each other, each out of breath.

Jhonnette broke the silence. “Lincoln, three days after a member of the Lafitte family turns eighteen, someone dies. You have Lafitte blood in your veins. If you want to live, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

Lincoln felt like he was going to faint. “And how do you know all this?”

“
Your mother wasn’t the only woman ruined by Randy Lafitte’s ruthless ambition. He ruined my mother as well, and I’ve committed my life to making him pay. I uncovered the truth about you during my research.”

Lincoln stared ahead in stunned silence.
Could this be true?

“
If you don’t believe me, that’s on you,” Jhonnette continued. “But the fact remains Karen Lafitte turned eighteen two days ago.”

“
So?”

“
So, Karen’s birthday started the clock. And Lincoln, things have changed. The curse has gained strength. Normally, one person’s death is enough, but not this time. It’s being fed by someone.”

“
Who?”

Jhonnette looked away. “That’s what I don’t know. What I do know is that Moses didn’t come to Angola for you.”

“
You’re not making any sense!”

“
You can run away from your destiny, Lincoln, but if you do nothing, a lot of people are going to die today.”

“
I don’t give a damn about that family. Let them all die.”

“
That family is your family too, Lincoln. Don’t you understand? You are at risk as well.”

Lincoln examined Jhonnette carefully. She sounded crazy, but if she was telling the truth, it changed everything.

Kris was my…brother?

It was too much for Lincoln to handle. His mind was closing. “Even if I did believe you, it’s too late to do anything now, right?”

“
Focus, Lincoln. Seventy-two hours after a family member reaches eighteen, someone has to die. That leaves us with you, Karen, and your father. Unfortunately, it’s not your choice who lives or dies, but if Karen survives, then either you or Randy will meet death.”

Lincoln looked at her with resolve. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“
You sure about that? You’ve been shot and nearly drowned already. Karen must be doing pretty well for herself. I can’t speak for the Governor.”

A part of Lincoln always knew it would come down to this.

It’s either him or me.

“
Tell me what I need to do.”

“
Well, you can’t face your father in this shape. You need proper medical attention.”

“
I don’t have time for that!”

“
Well, we’re going to have to make time. You have to trust me now, Lincoln. We’re on the same side here. Now get in.”

Lincoln gazed at her for a long while, trying to gauge whether she could possibly be telling the truth. He thought of Kris Lafitte trying to kill himself and remembered Kris’s warnings. He needed to get to the bottom of this, and Jhonnette Deveaux offered a path to the answers. Deciding to play this out, he got back in the Jeep.

“
Okay,” he said. “Where to now?”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Monday

Lake City, LA

Bill Edwards slammed the phone back in its cradle. He should have exerted the same force when talking to Randy, but passive aggressive was about as aggressive as he got where the Governor was concerned.

“
Keep things quiet for me, Bill,”
Randy had said in that subtle Machiavellian way of his.
“Keep things quiet and reap the rewards for your loyalty.”

That was Randy’s standard line whenever he needed one of his “favors,” and Bill had definitely been compensated well for his discretion over the years. This time, however, the risk was not worth the reward.

“
Today is going to be a day of tests for all of us, Bill... Can I count on you?”

Bill paced the length of his modest office contemplating the answer to this question as the phone rang and rang. Every now and then it would stop ringing abruptly, only to start again a few seconds later. He had to tread carefully so as not to pull a serious C.L.M.—Career Limiting Move. Bill had not gotten as far as he had by pulling C.L.M.’s. He was smarter than that.

The phone rang again.

Since speaking with Randy earlier, he’d called off all city patrols. He also had Dispatch routing all emergency calls directly to him so he could screen everything that came through. Dispatch packed his voicemail and he listened to call after call, writing the pertinent details down in his logbook. So far, this morning had brought in six cases of drunk and disorderly; two burglaries (one that turned out to be a dispute between two lesbian roommates up at Lake City College); ten car-related emergencies; and three fires. By themselves, these calls would have made the morning a doozy, but these were in addition to a series of other calls—the calls he’d been screening for in the first place.

One call was from Morris Fontenot, who was screaming over loud bursts of heavy artillery to report a drive-by shooting at Simmons Park. “It’s a war zone out here!”

Another call was from Evan Leday, a truck driver, reporting the spontaneous combustion of the old schoolyard. “There was a friggin’ mushroom cloud over that place, man!”

But the morning’s winner went to Ms. Beulah Boudreaux. She’d reported seeing the ghost of a white girl walking down her street wearing nothing but a Houston Rockets jersey. “One second she was floatin’ down the street and then there was this loud blast. When I looked up, the girl had disappeared into thin air.”

“
Bill, the last thing we need is one of your guys trying to play supercop on this one.”

Easy for Randy to say. He didn’t have to explain to his superiors and constituents why he was letting a group of rogue FBI agents, kidnappers, and gangbangers run wild all over the city. Which is why Bill needed to keep a lid on the chaos until things were back under control.

Regardless of what his conscience said, Bill did not have the luxury of saying no to Randy Lafitte. Ever. After all, if it wasn’t for Randy, Bill would be rotting in jail for the murder of his wife, Paula. A fact Randy
never
let him forget. When Randy made a mess, Bill reached for his broom—no questions asked.

Still, this was a mess of epic proportions. Bodies were piling up all over town. It was only a matter of time before the press got wind of it.

Right on cue, Bill’s cell phone rang. It was Captain Rick Morgan, head of Lake City’s SWAT division.

“
Chief,” Rick Morgan began in his usual grave baritone. “Big explosion over at St. Mary’s Hospital. My wife called me hysterical. She swears it was a terrorist attack.”

“
Shit!” This was going to be all over the news within the hour. “Any casualties?”

“
Four dead and two injured, but that’s not all.”

Bill swallowed. “Go on.”

“
Sheila says there’s a white girl that looks an awful lot like Karen Lafitte sitting in the hospital parking lot…”

* * * * *

Lake City, LA

“
So after the fat guy grabbed that nurse you shot him once at point blank range,” Officer Jeff Abshire said. He stared at the slack mouthed, skinny, black kid slouched over before him.

Jeff heard footsteps running down the hall and wondered what the hell else had gone wrong. It was like martial law had broken out in the city. There were barricades everywhere; cruisers and fire trucks were racing from crisis to crisis. Half the city was on fire.

This must be what it’s like to be one of those big city cops in New York City or something.

He turned his attention back to the skinny black kid they’d apprehended at the hospital. He was up to his neck in this, but hadn’t said a word. Even though there was no way the kid could possibly have been in all those places at the same time, the Chief was trying to pin all the murders on him. Sixteen and counting. Abshire had been charged with the impossible task of securing a confession, but the kid wasn’t talking.

Karen Lafitte was in the Chief’s office. They’d found the blond-haired, living skeleton in the hospital parking lot behind the apparent getaway car, crying and scratching at her biceps like a heroin addict. She wasn’t talking either.

“
Is he dead?” the kid asked, finally breaking his vow of silence.

“
You shot him from less than a foot away. What do you think? You were definitely trying to kill him. Make it easy for yourself and tell me what the hell happened out there.”

The kid grumbled again.

Jeff slammed his fist on the table. “Take the goddamn marbles out your mouth and speak the fuck up, Goddamnit!”

The kid recoiled and drew his lips tight.

Jeff sighed. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry for yelling. But you’ve got to give me something or you’re gonna leave me to draw my own conclusions.”

Their eyes met. The kid gave him a look that said,
who are you kidding, you’re gonna do that anyway
.

Jeff rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Why do I always get the shit assignments?
He was far from being the most experienced interrogator in the department. Stokes, Landry, and Boudreaux were all better choices, but they were on special assignment. The same kind of special assignment that led to so many cop deaths back at Simmons Park ten years earlier.

“
So what’s it gonna be, kid? We’re almost out of time here.”

No reaction.

“
Okay, fine. I’m gonna leave you here and check out those hospital surveillance tapes. I’m also gonna take the statements of the dozens of eyewitnesses who can place you at the scene of sixteen murders and one kidnapping. Then we’re gonna lock you up and throw away the key, and you can explain your side of the story to the other killers on the inside. I’m sure they’ll be sympathetic.”

The Chief burst in with Captain Morgan in tow. Jeff was ushered roughly into the hall as Captain Morgan approached the kid and unclipped his service revolver.

* * * * *

Monday

New Roads, LA

Monica Babineaux was getting worried. She wanted to take a smoke break, but couldn’t find Big Bertha. Nurses who reported to Big Bertha had to ask permission to pee, and this was doubly true when they were short-staffed. Because of the impending hurricane, half the nurses had called out.
I should have called out, too.

To keep her mind off her nicotine craving, she walked to the nurse’s station to check the telemetry monitors. John Doe in room 243’s monitor was off. Monica stalked toward the room with purpose. If something happened in her section she could kiss her job goodbye.

Monica reached for the door handle. Crashing and thrashing noises emanated from behind the closed door.