Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series) (41 page)

Tebo put a warning hand on her shoulder. “I’m the man of this family, and I say it’s time to settle this. Didi, the law ain’t gonna give you squat. I can’t make you stop fighting these people, but I can tell you that I think keeping it up would be a waste of money that you ain’t got. Get your stuff and go. I’m going to do the same. And I think you’d better go far, because if you put a foot down wrong in this parish, that man is going to make you pay.”

He nodded at Benoit, who gave Tebo a wolfish grin that scared Faye a little.

Tebo nodded at Joe and then at Faye, saying, “The little girl’s always been worth more than the rest of us put together. You people take good care of her.”

“We’ll bring her to see you,” Faye began, but he interrupted her.

“The reason for sending her off to live with you people is to give her a good influence, and I ain’t one. I imagine she’ll keep in touch with Manny, and he’ll let me know how she’s gettin’ along.” He turned a shy eye on Amande. “Ain’t that right, honey?”

***

After the meeting to decide Amande’s fate dispersed, Jodi and Bobby lingered long enough to show Faye the humongous Longchamp family diamond that Bobby had put on Jodi’s left ring finger.

“Do you people have any of those rocks lying around that a distant relative could wear now and then?”

“Maybe. I’ll ask my father.”

“She’d just get it all dirty, digging in the dirt,” Joe pointed out.

This was true, so Faye gave up her piratelike lust for gemstones and gold.

“I brought you something,” Bobby said, holding out a rolled-up piece of parchment.

“A map?” Faye asked, reaching for it and spreading it across the table.

“See for yourself.”

It was a detailed genealogy, hand-lettered in beautiful calligraphy and reaching back many generations.

“You made this?”

Bobby inclined his head with a little modesty, but not much.

Faye spotted her name in one corner. Amande’s name was lurking far across the page in the other corner. Unless she missed her guess, this piece of paper said that they were fifth cousins, once removed.

“Is this true?” she squeaked.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s not true. When you told me that you were lying to the cops about being Amande’s distant relative, I just…made it so. I like it when you’re not in jail for perjury.”

“Me too,” Joe said, slipping an arm around her waist.

Bobby pointed to a name near the top of the page. “You and Amande both have ancestors named Taylor…here…and there are about a billion Taylors in the world, so I did some creative fact finding and…abracadabra! Your Taylors were magically related to her Taylors. If someone examines this document closely enough, and if they’re anal-retentive enough to check every last item on it, then that person will find the little seam where I sewed your two families together. But can you imagine anybody looking that hard? Anyway, it doesn’t look like you’re going to need to prove that you and Amande are blood relatives after all, but I thought you might want this as a souvenir.”

“You’re at your best when you’re not burdened by the truth, Bobby.”

“I like to think so.”

***

Amande knew that Faye had sent her alone to the marina to return the rental boat for a reason. She had wanted her to have a private moment to say good-bye to Manny.

Handing him the keys, Amande took the receipt, folding it neatly and putting it in her pocket so that Faye could file it with her taxes. “Thank you, Manny. For letting me follow you around ever since I was a stupid little girl and for teaching me to use a computer and for keeping the drunks from bothering me and for…oh, for everything.”

Oh, crap. She was going to cry.

“You were never stupid, not in your whole life.”

Now she thought he was going to cry. That was way worse.

She held her hand next to his, and their golden-brown skin tones weren’t so different. “I used to think maybe you were my father. Then I did the math, and I figured you weren’t old enough.”

“Well, I guess I could’ve been your father, but I’d have had to start really early and try really hard. It might’ve been fun.”

That made her laugh, which helped with the tears. Then he added, “But I wish I’d been your father. He’s not nearly good enough for you.”

That did it. The tears were rolling. Probably it was the stupid tears that kept her from realizing what Manny had said for a full five seconds.

“You know my father?”

“Yes, I do, and no. I’m not telling you who he is. He’s trouble, Amande.”

“Of course he is. He’s related to me. Do I know him?”

“No. He went west before you were born. Last time I heard, he was—” He stopped. “No, I’m not even telling you what state he lives in. I taught you how to use the Internet, so I know what you can do. With that much information, you’d be on the man’s doorstep by dinnertime tomorrow.”

He was right. She absolutely would.

“I have a right to know who my father is.”

Manny studied her for a moment, then he said. “You’re right. You do. But not until you’re older. Then maybe you can deal with the shit he dishes out. Excuse my French.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and eyeballed her some more. “When you’re eighteen…no, that’s too soon. Come back here when you’re twenty-one. I’ll pour you your first drink, and I’ll tell you everything I know about your father.”

She stuck out her hand and he shook it. “It’s a deal.”

***

Amande’s clothes were packed in the new suitcase Joe had found at the Walmart down the road. Michael had decided that nothing in the world was more fun than pushing that suitcase around Amande’s tiny bedroom. Faye could feel three new bruises on her shins, so far.

It was time for the last task before they hit the road. Faye and Amande were carefully boxing her artifacts so that they would travel safely. As each box was packed, Joe took it to the car, even though they were so small that he could have waited and carried all of them at once. Nervously padding around the room in his moccasins, then disappearing to the car every time they packed one little box—these were his ways to hurry them along.

If he’d been the kind of man who wore a wristwatch, Joe would have been tapping it. They needed to go. Every day, even every hour, of delay gave the oil slick more time to reach Joyeuse and wreak havoc on their home.

Amande’s artifact collection was complete again. Her Spanish coins had returned home, left behind on the table by Dane when Steve had come to kidnap them. He’d left his own treasure coins, as well, which Faye had offered to his parents. They hadn’t even wanted to look at them, and she couldn’t blame them. They were stored safely with Amande’s coins now.

As they finished, Amande stooped to pick up the broken pieces of the guardian doll that her grandmother had made for her. She stroked its raffia hair and said, “I guess she worked. I came through everything in one piece, even if she didn’t. Maybe I learned enough about weaving straw from Grandmère to fix her.”

The doll was too big to be easy to carry. Amande wrapped one arm around its body and hugged its head to her chest with the other. Looking down through the torn neck opening, she said, “Hey! There’s something in there.”

Faye helped her retrieve a folded piece of paper that had been placed in the doll’s head while it was being made. Written in an uneven cursive hand was this message:

To the spirits who guard young women and watch over children,

The spirits my mother knows so well,

I charge you this—

Take care of my little Amande.

And it was signed
Justine Marie Landreneau.

Faye was fumbling for her phone. This was going to delay their departure yet again. Her dear husband was going to be oh-so-happy.

Joe was not over her brush with death yet, although even he’d had no answer when she asked him, “What would you have had me do? Leave the child alone in the hands of a killer because I was afraid to go after her?”

He had no answer, because he knew she was right. This didn’t mean that she didn’t wake up every night to find that he’d hauled Michael into bed with them. And it didn’t mean that she didn’t wake up dreaming about being crushed by an anaconda, because Joe had one long musclebound arm wrapped securely around her, with the other wrapped around their little boy. It would take them both a long time to get over the terror of that day. And now, today, he was going to have to get over his impatience with her inability to leave this place and go home, because she had a call to make and an errand to run.

Reuss really needed to see this note, because the handwriting on it did not in any way match the signature on the will that Steve had come to town brandishing. If Steve had forged that will, then Justine had died without one, meaning that all her worldly goods went straight to her only heir. Amande. Even more important to a girl who’d been far more wounded by her mother’s absence than she would ever confess…if the will was a fake, then Justine did not try to deprive Amande of her inheritance. She’d abandoned her, yes, and she hadn’t even come back to make amends when she learned she was dying, but the coldblooded act of cutting Amande out of her will had simply never happened.

When they’d last spoken, Reuss had told Amande that buying Steve’s relatives out of their interest in the houseboat and island would mean cashing in every last share of the oil company stock. If Justine’s will was invalid, then Steve had inherited nothing. There was no one left to buy out. Not even Didi, since the paperwork was already in process for her to sell her share of the houseboat to Amande.

With no man to take care of her and no skills and no ability to drain Amande’s inheritance, Didi was now living in a precarious situation she had built for herself. When Didi finished drinking her beauty away, her life would be grim indeed.

Amande, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be a wealthy woman the day she turned eighteen and gained control of her affairs, but the inheritance passed down from her mother and grandfather would give her a solid start. Until then, she would have safe and loving homes, first with Bobby and Jodi, then at Joyeuse with Faye, Joe, and Michael. And she would have loving parents. Faye could guarantee that.

She stopped dialing Reuss long enough to watch the girl set Michael atop her new suitcase and wheel the giggling boy around her childhood bedroom. Joe came back from packing the car and decided that there wasn’t enough turmoil in the little room. Michael needed to fly. So he picked up the other end of the suitcase, and he and Amande swooped out the door with Michael balanced between them like a little genie on a magic carpet.

Something told Faye that her life was about to get even more interesting.

Episode 4 of “The Podcast I Never Intend to Broadcast,” Part 2

by Amande Marie Landreneau

Grandmère always hinted that there was some connection between Gola George and Henry the Mutineer and our family. Knowing what I think I know about Henry, I doubt that he had any descendants, unless you count all those children he saved and all their children and all their children, all the way through the centuries. The stories say that they lived and died right here in this area.

Henry taught them all to be the best navigators of their time. He built a settlement near Head of Passes, where the river forks and heads to sea in three directions. Few things are more valuable at Head of Passes than navigation skills. Henry hired himself out as a river pilot and, as the children came of age, they all took up the trade. Lately, the old sextant has become my favorite artifact, because it might have passed through some of their hands.

So were my grandmother’s stories true? Does my family descend from the people in Grandmère’s tales? I just can’t see any way to track back through all those generations of people since then who couldn’t read or write, and who surely never had a birth certificate. I don’t even think Faye’s Cousin Bobby could do it, so I’m not going to try. Probably.

If Henry the Navigator never had children, which seems likely, Grandmère’s belief that we are his descendants is only wishful thinking. I guess there’s a decent chance we’re descended from one or more of those children he and Marisol saved. Our family has lived in these parts forever, and those genes had to go somewhere. That would make us descended from Gola George.