The Helena Diaries - Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Series Novellas) (8 page)

Even more surprising, Harold swore up and down he hadn’t tried to shoot Maryse. I guess I shouldn’t have really been surprised. Shooting someone required direct action, and Harold had always been a coward. Poison was far more his style.

Then Hank blew my entire cover.

As Harold raged at him for never divorcing Maryse, leaving her eligible to inherit the land, Hank finally blurted out the secret I’d been keeping from everyone—that I’d been paying him to stay away.

Yeah, it was probably a crappy thing to do. Okay, it was definitely a crappy thing to do. But as long as Maryse and I were still related by marriage, I had every right to leave her the land. If she and Hank had divorced, Hank would have been my only option. Granted, it wasn’t the best idea, and I swear, I’d never planned on forcing Maryse to remain married to my son forever. But she was young and had plenty of time to get married and all that. Besides, until Dr. Disaster, she hadn’t shown any interest in dating. How was I to know that she wanted another relationship?

I guess what I really wanted was to give Hank some time to grow up, so I’d sent him to rehab, and based on reports, I’d thought he was doing better. But if he’d been in on everything with Harold, then I’d been wrong once again. Hank hadn’t changed at all.

It only took a second for everything to sink in with Maryse. I swear, if she could have killed me all over again, she would have. I hauled butt out of the hospital while I still had a butt to haul. I had a feeling most of it would be chewed out later, and I really couldn’t blame her.
 

I’d bungled this up badly.

I headed straight for the police station after I left the hospital. I knew what had happened from the perspective of the victims, and I believed Harold when he said he wasn’t the culprit—this time, anyway—but that meant someone else was gunning for Maryse. Attempting to shoot her in broad daylight in the middle of Main Street could only mean one thing.

He was getting desperate.

Unfortunately, the police were behind the eight ball. They had Harold pegged as the guilty party, and all resources were directed at finding him and building a case against him. I screamed and yelled that they were wasting their time and the real killer was still out there scot-free and probably preparing his next strike, but all my yelling fell on deaf ears.
 

Even after Maryse showed up and played them the recording from the hospital, they still didn’t appear convinced that Harold was off the suspect pool. I hid in a storage closet—so as not to set her off track—but I could easily hear her raging through the thin wall. But since no one could come up with a better option, the police were hell-bent on beating the dead horse Harold.

I listened long enough to realize Maryse would never get anywhere, then headed out for the hotel. I wanted to check around and see if I could figure out where the shots were fired from. And I wanted to make sure no one was tucked away in an attic, closet, or manhole. It would take a while, but I would ensure no one near the hotel was a threat to Maryse.
 

She needed to be safe when she returned from the hospital.

The hotel and the surrounding area appeared secure, but I am not an expert, so if anyone died tonight, it wasn’t on me. Well, maybe since the entire situation was my fault, it was still on me. But I did everything I could to help.
 

Maryse was back in her hotel room by the time I got back to the hotel. Since she’d already learned some of the truth about me, I decided to tell her about all of it—my friendship with her mother, my promise to her mother to see that she was taken care of, my funding the scholarship that paid her tuition, my sending Hank away because I thought he would ruin her life, my making her pay Hank’s bills to test her character—when I let it all out, it made sense in a logical sort of way, but it was cold and mean in a human sort of way.

I’ve never felt so low.
 

I had promised to take care of a wonderful woman’s daughter and instead, I’d made her a target before she ever hit her thirtieth birthday.

Despite the shitstorm I’d caused, Maryse understood my flawed reasoning and forgave me. But she still wasn’t happy with me, and honestly, her forgiveness made me feel even worse. I didn’t deserve it. Not with the mess I’d made of everything.
 

Intentions only went so far when you’d gotten good people marked for murder.

Wherein Helena is back on patrol

Before my chat with Maryse, I’d completed a very thorough search of the hotel. Every closet, shower, bathtub…under every bed…no one was hiding. The only people in the hotel that night were Maryse, Mildred, and the salesmen who were already registered and had all been accounted for elsewhere at the time of the shooting. It was highly unlikely any of them were involved.

Surprisingly, Luc was in short supply. I’d seen him rushing into the hospital when I left, but I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him ever since. It was a huge glaring oversight that no one seemed to be talking about, which led me to believe he and Maryse had had some sort of falling-out. Still, I would have thought he could get over whatever pettiness they’d cooked up between them and stay on the job.
 

But then, maybe I’d been wrong about my assumption that Luc was interested in more than merely helping Maryse out of a bad situation. Lately, I seemed to be nothing BUT wrong.

Since I’d cleared the inside of the hotel, I concentrated my security guard efforts on the outside and started my shark circling routine again. If the threat wasn’t already inside, it would have to come from the outside.
 

I was on my second round when I realized that I recognized a car parked a couple of buildings down. It belonged to Luc. Because I knew he could see me, I headed down the alley and crept up behind the car to peek inside. Sure enough, Luc was crouched down in the driver’s seat, his gaze firmly fixed on the hotel.
 

Whatever had happened between him and Maryse, it didn’t appear as if Luc was giving up easily. That made me smile. And I felt better knowing a second set of eyes and a useful pair of hands were close by.

A useful pair of hands that could see and hear ghosts.

Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Eighteen

Wherein Helena saves the day. Finally

I was pretty sure I walked the soles off the Nikes and was absolutely certain that despite the fact that I was dead, my legs would be sore for days. But I trudged on and made what had to be my hundredth trip around the hotel. It had been a long night, with nothing but the occasional spooked alley cat for distraction, and I was beyond bored and tired. Surely, if someone were going to come after Maryse, they would have done so by now.

I rounded the side of the hotel where Maryse’s room was located and froze. A man was climbing a ladder placed directly below Maryse’s room.
 

I ran into the hotel and upstairs to Maryse’s room. I whispered to her, trying to wake her quietly so that the intruder didn’t hear her leaving. Maryse was in a dead sleep when I entered the room, but she caught on to the danger quickly. She rolled out of the bed, crawled to the door, and sneaked into the hallway.

The sound of glass breaking ripped through the night air and I yelled at her to run. She stumbled for a second, then bolted downstairs faster than I’d ever seen her move before. I hoped she’d head straight to Mildred’s room, as I was certain the hotel owner slept with a loaded gun, but Saint Maryse went barreling out the back door, obviously not wanting to risk anyone else’s safety.
 

I respected the girl, but her damned code of ethics made it really hard to protect her.

I whirled around and assumed a linebacker position in front of the back door, but the killer ran right through me and barreled out the door and after Maryse. I stood in complete and utter shock.
 

Johnny was the killer!

Maryse’s daddy’s best friend. Why on earth would he want Maryse dead? And more importantly, what was I going to do to stop it?

It hit me in an instant and I whirled around and ran through the front of the hotel and down the street. A wave of relief passed over me when I saw that Luc’s car was still parked at the curb. I knew I’d never get there in time running, so I started waving my hands and screaming at the top of my lungs.

I must have pretty damned good lungs because Luc jumped out of his car a second after I let out my wail and came running toward me. I managed to get out a couple of choked words, and he tore off for the alley behind the hotel.

I slumped to the ground and lay sprawled in the middle of the street. Between the running and the screaming, I didn’t have an ounce of breath left in me.

When I heard the shot, I jumped up and started running again.

Hell, I didn’t need to breathe dead.

I was praying like I’d never prayed before as I rounded the corner to the alley. What I saw stopped me in my tracks.
 

Luc had a very-alive and sobbing Maryse wrapped in his arms. Johnny lay dead on the ground behind them. My relief was so strong that I felt dizzy and staggered backward to lean against the hotel wall. Police sirens sounded on Main Street. I took one final look at Maryse, just to make sure she was okay, then slipped silently around the corner. They had enough to deal with without having me in the mix.

The paramedics rushed past me and I smiled.

I’d never been this happy in my entire life.

Wherein Helena gives good advice, for a change

I stayed out of sight for the rest of the fray, and it took most of the night. The paramedics, police, DEA, and an assortment of hotel patrons trailed through the hotel, taking statements, asking questions, and handing out hugs and advice. It was a bit overwhelming for me, and I was hiding in the next room listening through the wall. I could only imagine how Maryse must feel. For someone who preferred to live alone in a remote part of the bayou, all the people pawing at her had to have her feeling claustrophobic.
 

I stayed on the other side of the wall and took it all in—Maryse’s insistence that I’d been murdered and Harold had not been the culprit, Luc’s announcement that Hank had fled the hospital, leaving behind only signed divorce documents for Maryse but no note, Mildred’s hovering, Sabine’s relief. It was a lot to absorb.

And then the bomb dropped—Luc told Maryse that her potential cure for cancer had actually been the result of illegal dumping. Between that and having her father’s best friend try to kill her, I figured she had been given more to grieve in a short span of time than most people had in a decade.

That was the final straw for Maryse.
 

The thing that sent her upstairs to be alone.

I gave Maryse a couple of hours to process everything, but I knew I couldn’t stay away forever. Finally, I made my way upstairs to talk to her.

Maryse looked a bit surprised to see me. She’d thought since I hadn’t shown up before that the whole mess might have caused me to ascend, or whatever. She appeared a bit aggrieved that it hadn’t. I couldn’t really blame her. I’d brought nothing but trouble into her life, and trouble at a level most people never experienced.
 

But none of that stopped me from having my say.

I told her things I’d never shared with another person—about my miserable childhood and my son-of-a-bitch father. How marrying Harold was my coward’s way out as I knew I’d never love him, and how I’d closed myself off from people because all they’d ever seemed to want from me was money.

Then I told her that refusing to live was the worst mistake I’d ever made, and it was the one that I would never have a chance to correct. I told her that I was saying all of this to prevent her from making the same mistakes.

She was already headed down that path—choosing the kind of men who didn’t make permanent attachments, living in a cabin away from other people—hell, she was already one stray cat on her way to being the cat lady.

When she started crying, I knew she got it—all of it—and what it meant, then I hit her with my final blow.

That Luc LeJeune was her future.

Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Nineteen

Wherein Helena does a good deed

Okay, so I admit I followed Maryse out of the hotel. I had set the big finish in motion and really wanted to see her run into Luc’s arms and hear them pledge their undying love. Deep down, I’m a romantic. It was news to me as well, but if I could handle it, everyone else could too.
 

Then she took a detour into Sabine’s shop.

Stonewalled!

I slipped behind the counter and listened in. Sabine was back to full nutbag mode, wearing a purple robe and praying over a crystal ball.
 

And I thought Maryse had issues.
 

Maryse told Sabine about our conversation and challenged her friend to let go of the one thing holding her back from life—searching into the afterlife for her parents.

Suddenly, Sabine’s obsession with the paranormal made sense, and I felt guilty for judging her so harshly. Left with no other earthly options to locate her family, Sabine had turned to the last place she thought she might find answers. But Maryse was right—Sabine’s search kept her grounded in the past instead of moving forward.