1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Danni just called me about Devereaux,” Larue told him. “How do I connect a realtor who has been dead for twenty years with a realtor who was moving down to New Orleans? None of this really makes any sense.” Quinn couldn’t help but have the same thoughts. “There was also a mystery man at the Crescent City Sites tour office, not happy with Victoria. Danni heard them arguing before she was thrown out. She’s also convinced that it somehow goes back to men who can’t get the women they want.”

  In other words, they had a mess on their hands.

  “Hey,” Beauchamp called out. “Get down here.”

  “I’ll call you back,” Quinn said and ended the call.

  He’d been in the house with Julian. Beauchamp and Deerfield were down at the docks. Julian looked at him with alarm. Quinn brushed past him and hurried to the docks. Beauchamp had walked into the high grasses at the shoreline.

  “Third victim,” Beauchamp shouted. “Might be Byron Grayson.”

  Quinn walked to the water. There was a body in the swamp. The head was bashed in, the throat was gone. He’d been there for a while as the crabs had been busy.

  He suspected Beauchamp was right.

  And Byron Grayson wasn’t under suspicion anymore.

  “Get Doc Melloni out here,” Deerfield said.

  * * * *

  The first thing Danni became aware of when she came to was the blinding pain in her head. She was going to have a lump the size of Texas on her skull. The next thing she realized was that she was tied and gagged, lying in the trunk of a moving car. Quinn’s training came to her quickly. Kick out the back lights. She struggled and twisted and finally got her legs in position.

  She kicked hard.

  And was rewarded with the sound of broken glass.

  She’d done it.

  The car jerked to a stop.

  The trunk opened.

  “Clever little witch, aren’t you. Doesn’t matter much. We’re here.”

  He reached into the car and with a startling strength, lifted her out.

  She saw nothing but trees and bushes, but smelled the air.

  They were at a swamp.

  Honey Swamp, she imagined.

  She struggled like crazy against the man carrying her. They were leaving the dirt road, moving closer to the water.

  “Stop it,” he said. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  Really?

  He had a strange way of showing it.

  “You are the witch,” he said. “The Good Witch of Honey Swamp. They said that you were dangerous. I didn’t understand until I saw you. But it’s you. All good and noble, tempting men as if you were a naked siren on the high seas. Oh, no, I don’t want to hurt you. The rougarou has a very special plan for you.”

  The rougarou?

  He carried her to an old, dilapidated shack close to the water, hidden in a thicket of trees. He shoved open the door with a foot. There was a cot on the floor and he eased her down to it.

  “The rougarou is coming,” he told her.

  And he left, closing the door behind him.

  Then she saw it.

  Leaning against one wall.

  A cane.

  With a silver wolf’s head for the grip.

  Chapter 6

  Quinn called Larue back as Doc Melloni supervised the initial assessment of the body and had it fished from the water.

  “The poor bastard,” Larue said over the phone. “I guess I’ll get on out there. I’ve got people working on all the angles we discussed. Hey, by the way, I’ve been trying to get Danni back on the phone. Do you know where she is?”

  Quinn frowned. “When did you last speak with her?”

  “About an hour ago. Maybe a little more.”

  “I’m hanging up and going to try to reach her.”

  He did and Danni didn’t answer. He tried the shop, then Natasha and Father Ryan. Naturally, he sent them all into a panic. Something he too was beginning to feel.

  He thought back to the events of the day, searching for any red flags, and called Larue. “Get to Crescent City Sites.” It was probably nothing, but it was all they had. “Find out who that mystery man was. Drag Victoria in for questioning if you have to, but get some answers.” Fear sank in his stomach. “I can’t find Danni.”

  “I’m on it,” Larue told him.

  Quinn jumped down to the docks. Fear gripped him like a vise.

  Deerfield came over to him.

  “I can’t find Danni Cafferty,” he told the cop. “And I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “You don’t have to stay here. Get back to the city.”

  Quinn stood. “No. If he’s got her, he’s going to bring her out here, somewhere.”

  “Maybe you’re panicking unnecessarily.”

  He shook his head. “Danni wouldn’t be unreachable if she were all right.” She carried her phone at all times. “He’s got her and she’s out here. And I’m going to find her.”

  “This swamp is enormous. We’ll have to call out every officer we have.”

  Quinn looked at the police cruiser. “I need your boat.”

  “You got it. What are you going to do? I’ll go with you.”

  “You stay here. I’ll take the boat.”

  “I’ll get Beauchamp out searching, too.”

  “There’s one person I have to talk to, and I will get answers from her,” Quinn said.

  He left Deerfield and the commotion with the body and headed out. Selena Duarte must have heard the boat returning. She stuck her head out and then disappeared, slamming the door.

  Quinn’s phone rang as he jumped up on the dock.

  It was Larue.

  “Found her car, Quinn, parked by the river. Her cell phone was on the asphalt by the driver’s side.” Only years of training kept him from total panic.

  “What about Victoria Miller and that boyfriend of hers?” Quinn asked.

  Larue seemed to hesitate a moment.

  “We can’t find them, Quinn. The business is all locked up. I’ve got every cop in the city looking for them.”

  Quinn raced toward Selena Duarte’s front door and banged on it. “You can answer the door or I’ll break it down.”

  “They’ll fire you,” she called back.

  “I’m not a cop, and I don’t give a damn if they arrest me. You will let me in right now. And you will tell me what’s going on out here.”

  No reply.

  He slammed his shoulder hard against the door.

  Wood reverberated.

  Two more times and he’d have the damn thing open.

  “Stop,” Selena called out from inside.

  The door opened and she stood there with a shotgun in her hand.

  “Put that damned gun down,” Quinn said.

  She stared at him a moment and then lowered the weapon. “Ain’t no shells in it anyway. Or maybe I would’ve shot ya.”

  “I need your help,” he told her.

  “I’m not the rougarou,” she said.

  His phone rang.

  Larue.

  No choice, he had to answer.

  “Where are you?” Larue asked.

  “Getting answers,” Quinn said.

  “I spoke to those two young girls again, the ones who saw the rougarou on their balcony. Jane Eagle and Lana Adair. I asked them about men being inappropriate, urging them to go out. Seems some young guy at a bar on Bourbon Street got really obnoxious. He insisted that they come with him. The bouncer at the bar is a huge guy, a friend of the cops in the Quarter. The girls came to him, but before he could do anything the guy disappeared.”

  “Thanks,” Quinn said. “Gotta go. Doesn’t matter too much who it is now. I’ve just got to find Danni.”

  “We’ve got officers streaming into the swamp, Quinn.”

  “They won’t be in time. I’ve got to go.”

  He hung up. “Selena, talk to me. Time is running out.”

  “I don’t help the rougarou. I just know that it’s out there.”

 
“Whoever, whatever it is, it has a friend of mine. And I will kill or die in the process, but I will do everything I can to find her. Now, are you going to help me?”

  * * * *

  Danni worked as hard as she could at the ropes that were binding her. She managed to free the gag from her mouth, but doubted screaming was going to do her any good. She had to stay calm and collected, which was difficult. At any moment, someone could walk in, bash her head in, then rip her throat out. Quinn was out here, but Honey Swamp was twenty miles long and seven miles wide, one of the most pristine river swamps in the country. Lots of isolated places. It was so crazy. The man who’d taken her was definitely crazy. But he wasn’t the rougarou. Instead, someone else was coming. And why had her captor seen her as Melissa DeVane? Because of the shop? Because of what she and Quinn did, searching down objects? And there was the cane across the shack. Refurbished, certainly. Its length appeared to be ebony, making the silver of the wolf’s head all the more shiny. She winced, thinking that the head of the cane might have been the object used to smash in the victims’ heads.

  She kept struggling, while thoughts raced through her mind. Who could have done all this? Was the man who’d kidnapped her the bastard child of Jacob Devereaux? If so, why isn’t he the rougarou? Wouldn’t he have taken on that role, rather than leaving it to someone else?

  There was always a reason for murder.

  Jacob Devereaux had obviously been a sick narcissist, determined to kill Genevieve LaCoste because she wanted nothing to do with him. But this time it had been a man who’d been killed first, then his girlfriend. Had someone been in love and killed his rival, then the woman who’d turned him down?

  She kept working on her bindings.

  Her hands came free.

  She sat up and drew her legs close, working desperately on the knots at her ankles, which were tight. But she was determined. She leapt to her feet, ready to reach for the cane and run.

  The door to the shack blew open.

  And there it stood.

  The rougarou.

  Immense, covered in some kind of pelt, with a giant wolf’s head.

  Before she could move, it picked up the cane.

  And came toward her.

  * * * *

  “What is it that you’ve seen, Selena? Damn it, you have to tell me,” Quinn demanded.

  “I told you, I’m not the rougarou. And if I say anything, the rougarou will kill me. I may be old, but I don’t want to go that way.”

  “Selena, I’m going to hurt you worse than any rougarou.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me. And why do you think that the rougarou will kill you for talking? How will the rougarou know that you even talked to me?”

  She was silent for an unbearable moment, gnawing on her lip. “He left me a message. In the mud. I came out to hang laundry and it was there, in the yard. A big dug-out sign that said Silence is golden. Silence is life. I know it was from the rougarou.”

  The same kind of message that had threatened David Fagin.

  He decided to try kindness and softened his tone. “You tell me what you know and I’ll see to it that you’re safe from the rougarou forever.”

  “I wish I believed you,” she said.

  “Believe me. The rougarou dies today.”

  “I know just about where he lives,” Selena said. “Or where I think he lives.”

  “Near here?”

  She hesitated. “I’ve seen him come and go. When I’ve looked through the trees, I’ve seen him. Come out with me, in back. I’ll show you where.”

  “Let’s go,” Quinn said.

  * * * *

  The rougarou picked up the cane and pointed it toward Danni.

  She stayed dead still. There was no way to escape. And the thing didn’t speak. It just stood there, impossibly tall with its giant wolf’s head, neck, and ears. A mask, of course. A man beneath.

  “You will be dead,” she said. “I swear it.”

  The man who’d taken her captive appeared from behind the rougarou. “You think you can curse the rougarou. I knew that you were the reincarnation of the witch. I knew it.”

  “I don’t curse people and I’m not a witch,” she said. “But I can tell you that Michael Quinn will be looking for me, and when he finds me, you two are going to pay.”

  She was sure that she heard the rougarou speak beneath his mask, and he seemed angry with the man who’d seized her. Seemed like threatening had bought her time, though how anyone would find her in the swamp, she didn’t know.

  She pointed at the man who’d seized her, deciding to play a hunch. “You’re the illegitimate son of a man named Jacob Devereaux, aren’t you?” Her guess got their attention, so she continued. “Why you would want to follow in the footsteps of a father who didn’t even recognize your existence, I don’t know. And why you would be subservient to another, when you’re the son of the last rougarou, that’s mind boggling.”

  “You are a witch, definitely a witch!” the man cried. “But I will be the next rougarou, whether your idiot friends hire me or not.”

  One more piece of the puzzle clicked. And with her only goal to keep him talking, she threw another accusation their way. “So is the rougarou Victoria? Did she get you to apply for a job with David and Julian so that you could find out more about what they were doing? Were you supposed to try to sabotage their tours? Guess what? You didn’t even impress them enough to remember your name.”

  “Shut up, witch! My name is Jim Novak and they damn well know it. You’re just stupid! You’re a stupid witch,” he said.

  The rougarou slammed the cane against the man and whispered something that Danni didn’t catch.

  Novak stepped toward her. She leapt at him, striking, clawing, screaming, using all of her strength. To no avail. He gave her a head-ringing pop atop her head and the world began to spin.

  He tossed her over his shoulder and headed outside.

  She struggled as he set her down and reached for ropes.

  She was being tied to a tree.

  In the time that he’d left her before the arrival of the rougarou, Jim Novak had been preparing for her death.

  She wasn’t going to be beaten or ripped to death.

  She was going to be burned alive.

  * * * *

  Selena Duarte brought Quinn out back, to the land side of her Honey Swamp shack, and pointed far to the west.

  “Through all those trees,” she said. “When I see him, it’s in that direction. I’ve seen him there many times. I don’t know what’s back there. It’s overgrown and dense. And there are potholes and swampy land in between. All kinds of critters. Gators, snakes. They leave the rougarou alone. But you may not make it through.”

  “I’ll make it,” Quinn told her. “And Selena. Thank you.”

  He headed in the direction she’d pointed. By his reckoning, there was a lot of marshy land between Selena’s, the main swamp, and the road. But there had to be something out there. Some kind of old camp or shack. As he walked, he called Larue and told him where he was and where he was going.

  “Find out,” he said. “There has to be something around these coordinates. Get some techs on it. Maybe there’s a way for cops to get there by a road of some kind before I can make it.”

  Larue promised he was on it.

  Quinn kept walking. Grass tangled around his feet. The mud was ankle-deep. He came upon a patch of bare land by a little pool. A gator, six or seven feet long, lay half in and out of the water.

  “Brother, leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone,” Quinn said.

  He skirted the alligator and kept going. Luckily, the beast continued bathing in what remained of the sunlight. He paused, looking ahead. For a moment, he thought that he saw smoke.

  Which quickly dissipated.

  He blinked but kept going, with a landmark now.

  Toward the smoke.

  * * * *

  “You can’t kill me,” Danni said. “I’m the Good Witch
of Honey Swamp, remember? I can make it rain.”

  She so startled Jim Novak that, for a moment, he paused and looked up at the sky.

  “I call upon the rain,” she yelled, feeling ridiculous.

  But she had given him pause.

  The rougarou let out some impatient sound and Novak stepped forward again and lit the dried branches around Danni’s feet.

  She inhaled an odd smell.

  Gasoline.

  On the wood.

  “I call upon the rain,” she shouted again.

  And to her amazement, it began to rain.

  * * * *

  Quinn ran, tripping and stumbling.

  To make matters worse, it had begun to rain. Heavy. Almost blinding him. His phone rang. It nearly slipped from his fingers as he answered, still making his way through the mud and muck.

  Larue.

  “There’s an old shack out there. It’s been there for years and years. You’re not going to believe who originally held the property rights around it.”

  “Count D’Oro?” Quinn said.

  “Bingo. We’ve got a team heading there as quickly as possible.”

  “I’m almost there.”

  “Quinn, we found Victoria Miller and Gene Andre. I had them brought in. They did hire that guy, Jim Novak is his name, to harass David Fagin and Julian Henri. But they swear that’s all they did. They said that he found them and instigated it. He promised he’d find out what David and Julian were up to and that he’d do his best to make their new company miserable. Victoria paid him, but then he wanted more money. Of course, Gene says he was against it from the get-go and wanted to tell us.” The doubt was clear in Larue’s voice.

  “You have both of them?” Quinn asked.

  “In custody.”

  “Thanks. Gotta keep moving.”

  “Police are on the way.”

  “They may not be in time.”

  He hung up and renewed his efforts with a burst of speed. He was pretty sure he knew just who the rougarou might be.

  And he’d given him plenty of time.

  To set a trap.

  * * * *

  The rain doused the fire, despite the gasoline. But as the sudden deluge eased, Novak stepped forward to light it again.