Sinister (Shaye Archer Series Book 2)

by Jana DeLeon

  “Thank God I found someone I know,” he said as he walked up beside her.

  Shaye smiled. “What? This isn’t your idea of fun?”

  “Hell no. I drew the short stick down at the police department, so I’m here representing New Orleans’s finest.”

  “I’m sorry. It hardly seems fair that you get stuck with Vincent during the day and this at night.”

  He nodded. “I keep wondering what I’ve done wrong. This has to be a karmic thing, but damned if I know what’s causing it. What about you? Your mother rope you into it?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “I’m a detective.”

  Shaye laughed, then sobered. “Did you get anywhere on your case?”

  “No. I talked to the parents again, but they weren’t any help. I put out feelers in the Tremé to run down the card games. Hopefully, I’ll get something I can check in the next day or two. What about you?”

  “Nothing in the square, and none of the street kids Hustle talked to have seen Joker or Jinx. Jinx wasn’t taken at the apartment she bunked down in at night. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle. But there was one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A Bible.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a lead. More people should be gone if it was the rapture, although, maybe not.”

  “Ha. Not in this group.”

  “So what’s the significance of the Bible?”

  “Hustle pointed out a priest today in the square. He said this priest spends a lot of time talking to the street kids.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I’m going to hit him up after mass tomorrow and ask him some questions.”

  “Text me his full name and anything else you get on him and I’ll run a background.”

  “I don’t want you getting busted by Vincent.”

  “For what? I can say the same thing you did—that someone told me the priest spends a lot of time talking to the street kids. I figured I’d run a cursory check to see if any alarms go off before questioning him.”

  “Okay. I appreciate it.”

  He smiled and she smiled back, then an awkward silence ensued. Shaye was just about to start a discussion on the weather or something equally banal when Eleonore stepped up.

  She looked Shaye up and down, then tilted her head back, so that she was looking at Shaye down the bridge of her nose and sniffed. “You look lovely, Ms. Archer. Is that last year’s Valentino?”

  “Actually, it’s this year’s Macy’s. You look delightful as always, Ms. Blanchet. Have you had work done?”

  Jackson looked back and forth between the two of them, clearly trying to decide whether to speak or make a break for it.

  Before he could make a move, Eleonore shifted her gaze to Jackson, studied him for several seconds, then frowned. “And who might this be?”

  Shaye waved a hand at Jackson. “This is the dashing Detective Lamotte.”

  Jackson froze, so clearly uncomfortable that Shaye decided to put him out of his misery. She giggled and Eleonore put a hand on her shoulder and leaned over, laughing.

  “I love it,” Eleonore said. “This year’s Macy’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Jackson,” Shaye said. “This is sorta a ritual we go through when we’re forced to attend these events. We greet each other mocking some of the worst of the hypocrites in the room.”

  Jackson’s expression went from confused and slightly frightened to relieved. “I thought for a moment I’d stepped into the twilight zone.”

  “Oh, you have,” Eleonore assured him. “Most of the people here aren’t really human. I would know. Did Corrine try to shove that douche bag Derrick off on you yet?”

  “You knew?” Shaye glared at Eleonore, who held her hands up in defense.

  “She didn’t say anything to me until I got here. I told her it was a really bad idea.”

  “The worst idea ever. Where does she get the idea she knows anything about men?”

  “Not from me, and if I were looking for one, this is the last place I’d do it.” Eleonore glanced at Jackson and smiled. “Present company excluded, of course. I’m just waiting for the silent auctions to open so I can bid a ridiculous amount of money on some trinket that will go straight to Goodwill and get the hell out of here.”

  Jackson laughed. “I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought this was horrible.”

  “Please,” Eleonore said, “it takes a fifth of whiskey or a lobotomy to enjoy these things. I can’t hit the bottle and I’m rather attached to my brain, so I settle for the bid-and-dash.”

  “I think they’re setting the cards out now,” Shaye said.

  “Great!” Eleonore extended her hand to Jackson. “It was a pleasure, Detective Lamotte. Hang in there, Shaye.” She whirled around and gave them a wave over her shoulder as she strode across the room.

  “Old friend of yours?” Jackson asked.

  “My mother’s best friend. My friend, too, but Eleonore’s also my psychiatrist.”

  Jackson’s eyes widened. “That was Eleonore Blanchet? Holy crap.”

  “You know her?”

  “Every cop worth his salt has heard of Eleonore Blanchet. Her expert witness testimony has put some of the worst criminals in Louisiana behind bars. She’s practically a god as far as cops are concerned.”

  Shaye laughed. “She’d love that. I’ll tell her next time I see her.”

  “Eleonore Blanchet,” Jackson said again as he watched her grab the first bid sheet on the table and scribble something. “I would love to spend a day picking her brain. She’s interviewed the highest-profile killers in the state. I bet she could tell me things that would give me nightmares.”

  Shaye took a sip of her champagne and nodded. Her own nightmares were enough to give people nightmares. She had no desire to poke into anyone else’s.

  Jackson looked back at Shaye. “You really hit the lottery with Corrine, didn’t you? Not many people have the connections to get Eleonore as a personal therapist.” He’d no sooner finished the sentence than his eyes widened. “I’m sorry. That was completely crass. I didn’t mean to—”

  Shaye waved a hand in dismissal. “You haven’t offended me. Corrine is absolutely the lottery. I am positive I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. Not even halfway.”

  Jackson’s relief was apparent. “So Corrine and Eleonore are best friends. It seems a strange match, I mean, with Corrine so much younger.”

  “Eleonore was Corrine’s tutor and nanny…after Corrine’s mother died. Corrine was only twelve, and Eleonore was in medical school at the time. They’ve been friends ever since.”

  “That’s cool. Not the part where Corrine’s mom died when she was a kid. That part sucks, but it’s cool that they formed a bond that’s lasted all these years.”

  Shaye nodded. “It is.”

  Jackson studied her for several seconds. “You sound almost wistful. You don’t have a BFF? Or whatever it’s called?”

  “No. I had private tutors for high school, and I kept to myself in college. I tried a couple times with people who seemed interested in being friends, but they all turned out to be more interested in getting the inside scoop on Shaye Archer, girl with no past, than getting to know the real me.”

  “That sucks.”

  Shaye looked at Jackson and smiled. “You know, most people give me the whole sympathetic routine while the entire time I can tell they’re thinking ‘what the hell does she have to complain about?’ But you’re always sincere.”

  Jackson shrugged. “So you’re the only heir to more money than I can imagine. So what? That doesn’t in any way make up for everything else that happened to you. Nothing could. The problem with society is that most people are too comfortable in their own lives to even try to imagine the difficulty of someone else’s.”

  “If I give you a microphone, would you tell that to this group?”

  “No way. I’ve only got one spare magazine in this suit.”

  She laughed and Jackson grinned.


  “Shaye?” Corrine’s voice sounded behind her. “The bidding has started.”

  Corrine stepped up beside Shaye and realized she wasn’t alone. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Shaye said. “If you’d given me a second, I would have. This is Detective Jackson Lamotte. Jackson, this is my mother, Corrine Archer.”

  Jackson extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Archer.”

  Corrine shook his hand. “You’re the detective who helped Shaye with Emma Frederick. I should be thanking you. Lord only knows how many people you saved.”

  A flush crept up Jackson’s neck. “I was just doing my job.”

  Corrine raised one eyebrow. “I think we all know that wasn’t the case. I’m just glad you have problems with authority.”

  Jackson smiled. “Only when it’s wrong.”

  “Your mother must be exhausted,” Corrine said, and smiled back.

  “Eternally,” Jackson said, “and she never misses a chance to remind me of it.”

  “Well, it was a pleasure,” Corrine said, “but I’ve got to go place my bids. Shaye, are you ready?”

  “Yep. Go ahead and bid for me, too. I’ll come rescue you in a minute.”

  “I see,” Jackson said as Corrine headed for the auction table. “You’re here to insist she leave early because she needs to rest.”

  “You’ve caught us red-handed,” Shaye said.

  “Well, if the only interesting people in the room are all leaving, I guess I better make my rounds and slip out myself. Let me know what you get on the priest.”

  Shaye nodded as Jackson walked off for the tables. Halfway across the floor, he glanced back and Shaye shifted her gaze to the fake palm tree in the corner, embarrassed that she’d been caught staring.

  “He’s quite handsome,” Eleonore whispered as she dashed by.

  Shaye looked across the room as Jackson leaned over to place a bid for a basket of chocolates.

  Yes. He is.

  Chapter Six

  Jinx jolted awake, her arms and legs aching. The bare skin on her arms itched and she realized she was lying on straw, not the stone floor she’d been on before. She jerked upright, then grabbed her head as pain shot through it. She’d been drugged again. It must have been in the burger she’d eaten.

  Peter!

  She rose from the floor and gazed wildly around in the darkness, but couldn’t make out anything except the shadowy shapes of objects, none of them human. She inched forward until she felt a wood wall with iron bars. “Peter?” she whispered through the bars. “Are you here?”

  “We’re the only people here.”

  The male voice sounded across from her. He wasn’t young like Peter, but didn’t sound like an adult yet, either. She squinted into the darkness but couldn’t make out anything. “Who are you?” Jinx asked.

  “They call me Spider.”

  It wasn’t a name she recognized, but it sounded like a street nickname. “I’m Jinx,” she said.

  “You on the streets?”

  “Yeah. I hang in Bywater. You?”

  “Uh-huh. I mean, I was in the Tremé…before this.”

  His voice was melancholy, almost hollow. “What is this?” Jinx asked.

  “The last dance.”

  A chill ran through her. “What do you mean?”

  “This is it for us. Time’s up.”

  “You’re saying someone is going to kill us?” In the back of her mind, Jinx had always known that death was probably the closing chapter for whatever was happening to her, but voicing it made it more real.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Spider said. “Those two sick fucks that have us here—it’s some kind of game for them. They’re keeping score.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The guys who bought us.”

  “Bought us?”

  “Yeah. Us and another one before us called Joker. Twenty grand apiece. I heard them talking.”

  Jinx’s mind whirled with a million different thoughts. He couldn’t be right. Why would people buy someone just to kill them? That didn’t make sense.

  She bit her lower lip. “Do you know…I mean how…”

  “They turn us loose in the swamp and hunt us,” he whispered and started to cry.

  Jinx sank onto her knees, her arms loose at her sides. The thread of hope she’d been holding fast to vanished in an instant, leaving her with nothing but fear and regret.

  * * *

  Shaye studied Father Michael as he delivered mass. He was young, probably late twenties, and had an earnest look on his face as he talked religion that shifted to a smile as he spoke to parishioners after service. She kept her seat in the back of the church, waiting for the stragglers to finish talking with the priest and make their way out. Finally, the last of them headed past her with a nod and Father Michael came up the aisle.

  He stopped at her pew and smiled at her. “Did you need to speak to me?”

  “Yes, but not about my eternal soul.” Shaye rose and extended her hand. “My name is Shaye Archer. I’m a private investigator.”

  The smile disappeared from Father Michael’s face. “Oh, well, I can’t imagine what I can help you with but please, ask your question.”

  Shaye pulled her copy of Hustle’s drawing from her pocket. “Do you know this girl?”

  Father Michael studied the drawing for a moment and frowned. “She looks familiar, but in my position, I meet a lot of children.”

  “You mean with your street ministry? I assume if she was a regular parishioner, you’d know.”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Yes, of course. There are so many young people living on the streets. The numbers keep growing, but no one wants to do anything about it.”

  “Except you?”

  “I guess you could say I have a personal interest in the matter.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because a childhood friend of mine lived on the streets after his mother died and there was no one else to care for him. The system didn’t work out well, as it sometimes doesn’t. Finally, a retired gentleman who volunteered at a local shelter formed a relationship with my friend, and he and his wife took my friend in. They probably saved his life.”

  Shaye studied Father Michael’s face as he delivered his story. He appeared sincere, and if she had his friend’s name, it would be easy enough to check. “This girl goes by the name Jinx, and she’s been missing for three days.”

  Father Michael took the drawing from Shaye and pulled it closer to his face. “Jinx…yes, I remember talking to a young woman near the docks in Bywater. Skater, right?” He looked back up at Shaye and frowned. “You said she’s missing?”

  “Yes. She was supposed to meet a friend of hers on Thursday and never showed. All her personal stuff is intact in the building where she crashes, but no sign of Jinx.”

  “This friend she was supposed to meet, are they on the street as well?”

  “Yes. He is.”

  “Then how can he be certain Jinx didn’t return home? Granted, most of these kids have horrible home lives, and they left for good reasons, but some come from decent families and are rebelling against their parents’ rules. Usually a couple of weeks or months on the street cures them of the notion that home was so bad.”

  Shaye nodded. “That’s true enough. My mother is a social worker.”

  “So you understand the dynamics.”

  “Yes. But Jinx didn’t fit that scenario. Her mother was a junkie, and there’s some suspicion that she was trying to pimp Jinx for her next fix.”

  “Oh!” Father Michael’s dismay was apparent. “That’s horrible. Of course she wouldn’t elect to return to such a… How can I help you?”

  “When was the last time you saw Jinx?”

  Father Michael pulled out his smartphone and checked the calendar. “I was in Bywater giving out Bibles last Tuesday. I visit a different area every day that I have avai
lability.”

  “You gave Jinx a Bible on Tuesday?”

  “Yes. She and two others were the only ones that would accept them. Everyone took sandwiches. I always bring food when I go, and blankets and coats if I have the donations.”

  Shaye recalled the coat hanging on the wall in Jinx’s hideaway. “Did you give Jinx a coat?”

  “Not that day. I didn’t have coats, but I had a pile of them the week before and one of the secretaries here helped me hand them out. She could have gotten one then. That was in Jackson Square. It’s summer now, but come wintertime, they’ll be happy they took one.”

  Shaye nodded. “The last time you saw her, did you notice anything unusual? Anyone new hanging around? Anyone who didn’t seem to belong?”

  “I, uh…” He shook his head. “I can’t think of anything, but I’ve only been near the docks a couple of times.”

  “Were any other adults around the dock that day?”

  “Not that I recall.” He shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m not the most observant person. I spend a lot of time in my own thoughts.”

  He’s lying.

  She knew it immediately. His body language and pitch changed. It was subtle. So slight that most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Shaye was trained to pay attention to those subtleties. The question was what was he lying about? Had he seen Jinx after she went missing? Had he seen someone at the docks that he thought didn’t belong there? Or was it even more than that?

  She pulled out a business card and handed it to Father Michael. “If you think of anything else or if you hear anything while you’re working your street ministry, please give me a call.”

  “Of course.” He slipped the card into his pants pocket. “I’ll pray for Jinx and for you, Ms. Archer.”

  “I appreciate any help I can get,” Shaye said and headed out of the church. She glanced back as she closed the door and saw Father Michael, still standing where she’d left him. He was staring out the window, a worried expression on his face.