Sinister (Shaye Archer Series Book 2)

by Jana DeLeon

  “So who was the man who attacked Hustle?”

  “Bobby Fuller. He’s done time for theft, assault, and extortion, small-time stuff mostly. Do you recognize the name?”

  She shook her head. “What about employment?”

  “The last record of employment we had was over ten years ago when he was a truck driver. Lost his license over drunk driving convictions. My guess is that didn’t stop him from driving, but it would have prevented him from driving the big rigs. Too many regulations to get around for that to happen. Companies aren’t taking those kind of risks.”

  “Extortion,” Shaye repeated. “Does that sound like anyone we know?”

  “We have no way to connect him to Johnny Rivette.”

  “We’re just getting started.”

  The waitress slid a plate of food in front of Jackson, and he tackled the sandwich like it owed him money. “No time for lunch today,” he said after he swallowed. “I didn’t even realize how hungry I was until I saw your sandwich.”

  Shaye nodded. “There’s something else that’s been bothering me.”

  “Just one thing?”

  “In this respect, yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “How did this Bobby Fuller find Hustle so quickly? I just arranged for Hustle to stay at the hotel this morning. That’s not even a full twenty-four hours.”

  “Maybe he’s one of those guys who grew up hunting everything. Maybe he’s good at tracking.”

  “So good that he followed a boy all over the French Quarter, then managed to keep up with him skateboarding at top speed, through traffic, all the way from the French Quarter to Bywater?”

  “Maybe he followed you this morning from your apartment.”

  “I was careful. I doubled back and turned off time after time before finally approaching the hotel. I promise you, if someone was following me, I would have noticed.”

  “But you wouldn’t have noticed multiple people following you. What if one was in a taxi and another in a truck with the cable company logo on it and yet another in a white economy car. When we put surveillance on someone on the move, it’s never a single vehicle.”

  Shaye frowned. “Maybe. But still. That’s taking things to a whole other level.”

  “But if someone like Johnny Rivette is pulling the strings, then given his track record, you need to adjust your expectations in regard to competence.”

  Shaye started to reply, then Jackson’s cell phone rang. He answered it, listened, then hung up.

  “That was the hospital,” he said. “Scratch is stabilized but still hasn’t regained consciousness. They’re optimistic that he will, because they didn’t find any damage other than the things the doctor already mentioned, but they have no way of knowing how long it will take for him to wake up.”

  “You have a guard on him, right?”

  “Yeah, and I talked to that park ranger. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell me anything more than what the paramedic did, but I asked him to keep it quiet for the time being. If the media get wind of another teen being pulled out of the bayou, they’ll start a storm that will make investigating much harder.”

  “Not to mention putting a spotlight on Scratch. Right now, we have to assume that whoever did that to him isn’t aware that he survived.”

  “Or the man who did it to him was Bobby Fuller.”

  Shaye poked at the remainder of her sandwich, then sighed. “What are we doing here? I feel like we should be moving, but there’s nothing to move on.”

  “The worst part of the job is waiting on information.”

  “Maybe Grayson will find something that links Fuller to Johnny Rivette.”

  “Anything is possible. But it would have to be something big to connect Johnny to the attack on Hustle. Rivette’s slick and smart and has a team of sleazy lawyers at his disposal. He’s skated on more charges than most criminals are brought up on in a lifetime.”

  Shaye knew he was right, and it was possible that Fuller was acting alone—that he was a disturbed person who had been abducting street kids and killing them. Or perhaps simply an evil person. She had no problem believing in evil. She was living proof it existed.

  Jackson’s phone rang again and Shaye pulled out her own. “I’m going to call Hustle and tell him about Scratch,” she said, and headed outside the diner in search of some fresh air. With any luck, when she returned inside, Jackson would have something for them to do.

  The call to Hustle didn’t take long. The teen still didn’t sound overly happy with his quarters for the night, but he wasn’t as sullen-sounding as he’d been when she’d left with Jackson earlier. She had no doubt Corrine had been trying to spoil him with food. Perhaps it had put him in a better mood. He was definitely encouraged to hear about Scratch’s condition and relieved that a policeman would remain outside Scratch’s room until everything could be sorted out.

  She slipped her phone into her pocket and was about to head back inside when Jackson came rushing out. “I took care of the bill,” he said. “We need to roll.”

  “Where? What’s happened?”

  They crossed the street and hurried to Jackson’s car. “That was Grayson,” Jackson said as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Fuller’s been working as a mason—at Sacred Heart Church.”

  “Father Michael!” Shaye said. “That’s the connection. Not Rivette. Where are we going now?”

  “To pay the good priest a visit.”

  * * *

  Hustle wandered across the bedroom and into the connecting bath. He hadn’t been lying earlier. The house was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Even this room—reserved only for guests—had ornate furniture and crystal bowls and vases. The bathroom was the size of his old bedroom, the one he’d lived in when his mom was still alive. He ran his hand across the marble counter and fingered the towels, so soft that they felt like tissue.

  He couldn’t imagine living like this. How hard had it been for Shaye, with everything that had happened, to accept that this was her life now as long as she wanted it? But then, when Shaye had come to live with Corrine, she’d had far bigger things to dwell on than the opulence of the guest room towels.

  He walked back into the bedroom and flopped backward onto the bed. As much as he appreciated Shaye’s trying to protect him and Corrine’s making sure he was fed and comfortable—and he definitely appreciated the dinner—he couldn’t control his impatience. It was great news that Scratch was stable and the doctors thought he’d wake up. But Jinx was still out there and he was sitting inside this palace doing nothing.

  He pulled out his phone and looked at the picture of the man who’d attacked him again. Shaye had sent him a text with the name, Bobby Fuller, but that didn’t mean any more to him than the man’s face did. He had never seen him before and he’d never heard that name before. He sighed and tossed the phone onto the bed beside him. He’d been thinking about both attacks since he’d come upstairs, physically unable to stop them from rolling through his mind over and over again.

  Something bothered him about them, and not for the obvious reasons. Something subtle that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that he knew was there. But what? He went through the attacks again—the dimly lit streets, the abandoned buildings, the feeling that he was being watched but only right at the end, the man who burst quietly out of nowhere, and whom he’d barely managed to overpower the first time and wouldn’t have the second time.

  And then it hit him.

  He jumped up from the bed and stood stock still, focusing his mind on his attacker’s arm. That was it. The arm. It was all wrong.

  The man who had attacked him the first time held the needle in his left hand, but the man who’d been killed tonight had been holding it in his right. And their positioning when they’d tried to stab him was different, one held high and the other lower and at an angle.

  It was two different guys!

  That meant the first guy was still out there, maybe making his move on another street kid. An
d then he remembered something…something that might mean nothing, but might mean everything.

  He grabbed his phone and stuffed it back into his pocket, then headed downstairs. Corrine and Eleonore were still in the kitchen, and they stopped talking the moment he entered the room.

  “I was thinking I could use some air,” he said. “Is it all right if I go out back?”

  Corrine didn’t look happy with the idea, but she apparently knew a caged animal when she saw one. “Sure,” she said. “There’s a nice place to sit on the right side of the pool. Comfortable chairs, and that area usually has a breeze, although it’s not really the time of year that you can hope to get one.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Corrine disarmed the alarm system and let him outside. “Knock when you want back in. I’m going to rearm it so that no one can enter another way.”

  “Cool.” He headed outside, closing the patio door behind him, and walked off to the right, hoping Corrine thought he was taking her advice about the chairs. He found the area and while he agreed that it looked like a nice place to sit, that wasn’t what he had in mind. He scanned the well-lit yard, first to make sure that the armed guards weren’t patrolling back here, then to find the perfect place for his plan. He spotted it just beyond the sitting area, then grabbed one of the comfortable chairs and headed for the brick wall.

  One short run and a good jump, and he was scrambling up the top of the wall. He lowered himself as far as possible on the other side, then dropped. His ankle smarted a little from the drop but it was good enough to get him where he was going. He half walked, half jogged a couple blocks away, to make sure the cops guarding the house wouldn’t see him, then called for a cab. It wasn’t what Shaye had in mind when she’d given him the money, but it was definitely going to come in handy.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jinx felt the water creeping up her shin, and the boat’s speed grew slower and slower. They had made it maybe another fifty yards down the bayou, but hadn’t seen any other sign of life except for the glowing eyes of the swamp creatures. Soon, they were going to have to abandon the boat and keep going on foot. Spider had moved onto the bench and held a piece of a torn life jacket against the bullet hole in his shoulder.

  “We don’t have much longer,” Jinx said.

  “I know. You better head toward the bank or we’ll be swimming. It’s filling up fast.”

  Jinx directed the boat toward the opposite bank from where the men lived. At least that left water separating them. She pulled up close to a low spot and stopped. “Get out,” she told Spider.

  He stepped out onto the bank, then turned around, waiting for her to follow. But Jinx had other plans. She started the engine again and directed the boat toward the center of the bayou. The water was over halfway and the boat barely inched forward a tiny bit at a time.

  “What are you doing?” Spider’s panicked voice sounded from the bank. “Come back. It’s going to sink.”

  “That’s exactly what I want. If we let it sink on the bank, they’ll know where we went ashore.”

  Jinx grabbed a tattered life jacket from under the bench, cut the engine, then bailed into the bayou and set off for the shore. The moonlight faded in and out, barely leaving her enough light to see the bank, then as if someone had blown it out, the sky went completely black.

  “Say something,” Jinx said. “I can swim toward your voice.”

  “Uh, okay. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”

  Jinx turned slightly to the left and started kicking again, reciting the prayer along with Spider. His voice grew louder with every thrust of her feet. She had to be close.

  A huge splash nearby made her stop kicking. “What was that?” she asked. Had Spider gotten too close to the bank and fallen in? She couldn’t hear his voice any longer.

  “Jinx?” Spider called, and she could hear the terror in his voice. “It’s an alligator. Swim. Swim fast!”

  All the air in Jinx’s lungs came out in a whoosh as panic shot through every inch of her body. She started swimming again, kicking as hard and as fast as she could, clutching the life jacket with one arm and using the other to paddle.

  “This way,” Spider said. “I can see you. You’re only fifteen feet from me.”

  “Alligator?” Jinx asked and sucked in a huge mouthful of nasty swamp water. She choked, spitting it out, but never slowed.

  “I can’t see it. It must have gone under.”

  Jinx had heard the myth that alligators didn’t attack underwater, but she knew it wasn’t true. The creatures were just as capable of killing below the surface as above, and her kicking would draw it right to her.

  Something solid brushed against her leg and she choked back a scream. It was large and moving. It had to be the gator. She heard the water splash behind her and spun around. At that moment, the clouds parted and the moonlight illuminated the open mouth of the gator, just inches from her face.

  She yelled and shoved the life jacket right into the creature’s open mouth, then spun around again and swam as fast as she could for the bank. Her limbs burned and her heart pounded so hard she thought her chest would break. She heard the gator thrashing around behind her and prayed that the life jacket would keep him occupied.

  Or that he didn’t have a friend nearby.

  “Hurry!” Spider said. “He’s moving again.”

  Jinx looked up and saw the bank about five feet away. She pushed her body as hard as she could and the moment she felt the bottom, she shoved her feet down and propelled herself out of the bayou and onto the bank. As soon as she hit the bank, she jumped up and ran to the tree right in front of her, where Spider sat on a low limb. She scrambled up behind him and turned around to see the alligator launch up the bank, still shaking the life jacket in its powerful jaws.

  “Holy shit!” Spider said. “Look at the size of that sucker. He’s got to be ten feet at least.”

  “Twelve,” Jinx said, still choking on swamp water.

  Spider whacked her on the back, then cried out and clutched his shoulder again.

  “Don’t move your arm any more than you have to,” Jinx said. “I just need to catch my breath.”

  The alligator stopped shaking the life jacket and tossed it to one side. He remained in place for a while and Jinx could swear he was looking straight at them. Then he finally turned and slid back into the bayou, his long tail disappearing beneath the surface of the murky water.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and jumped off the branch.

  She grabbed what was left of the life jacket and hid it in the brush. Between the swim and the panic, her body was almost spent, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were still in the swamp and their captors were hunting them. They hadn’t gotten far enough away in the boat, and she had no idea how long it would take to reach help. The one thing she did know was that their only chance was to keep moving.

  * * *

  Jackson rapped on the door to Father Michael’s apartment. It was part of one of the older church buildings, and Shaye could see the brickwork being done on the outside walls. Brickwork that Bobby Fuller was doing. It was close to midnight and all the lights in the apartment were out. Jackson waited about ten seconds, then knocked again, stronger this time.

  A light inside the apartment came on, illuminating the blue curtains on the window beside the door. A couple seconds later, the door opened and Father Michael peered out at them, half awake and a hundred percent confused. Jackson flashed his badge.

  “We need to have a word with you, Father,” Jackson said.

  Father Michael’s eyes widened, but he stepped back and allowed them inside. As he shut the door, he looked at Shaye. “You’re the private investigator that I spoke to Sunday.”

  Shaye nodded but didn’t offer him any information.

  “I apologize for the mess,” he said, waving his hand at the stacks of paper and books on the couch and coffee table. “I was doing some research before bed. We can sit at the table if
you’d like. At least the chairs are empty.”

  They stepped over into the nook off the kitchen and took seats at the tiny kitchen table. Father Michael shoved files and books to one side and looked down at them. “Can I make some coffee?”

  “No thank you,” Jackson said. “We’re in a time-critical situation.”

  “Okay,” he said, looking back and forth between them. “How can I help?”

  “Do you know Bobby Fuller?” Jackson asked.

  “Bobby? Yes. He’s doing the brickwork on the building.”

  “How well do you know him?” Jackson asked.

  “Not well at all. He’s been doing the work here for several months, but he was never much of a talker, and I’m not present much during the day. I have my street ministry that takes up most of the daylight hours.”

  “Did he appear to be a violent man?” Jackson asked.

  “What? No!”

  Jackson narrowed his eyes at the priest. “Then it would surprise you to hear that he attempted to kill a teen tonight. One of the street teens that skates at the dock. I think you know the place.”

  Father Michael looked back and forth between them, his expression one of disbelief. As if he were waiting for the punch line. When none was forthcoming, he took a deep breath and blew it out. “Is the child all right? Was he injured?”

  “He’s shaken up, but he’ll be fine,” Jackson said.

  “If what you say is true,” Father Michael said, “it’s highly disturbing. You’re sure it was Bobby? The child couldn’t have been mistaken about his identity?”

  “The child isn’t the one who identified him. The medical examiner did. Bobby’s on a slab in the morgue. A good citizen saw him attacking the boy and put a bullet through his chest.”

  Father Michael paled. “A bullet…” He made the sign of the cross. “That poor man.”

  “Which one?” Jackson asked.