Trouble In Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  Helena glared. “Now that I’m dressed as boring as you, can we get on with this?”

  Maryse got control of herself and nodded. Luc took one final look at Helena and climbed back into the car, shaking his head. Maryse glanced around the parking lot, ensuring no one had witnessed her lapse in self-control, and was relieved to find the parking lot still clear. She gave Helena one final look, just to make sure she hadn’t thrown in anything on the sly, like buttless slacks or a tear-off top with pasties, then started creeping toward the hospital.

  “You know, it would have done us a lot more good if you’d learned how to touch things instead of change clothes. Then you could have gotten the file yourself,” Maryse whispered as they snuck down the side of the building toward the employee entrance. “And I do not dress boring.”

  “Sure you do,” Helena said. “I saw two decent outfits the whole time I’ve been hanging around and only one pair of spiffy shoes. According to the Fashion Today show I caught when I was hanging out at the beauty shop, you should be wearing those spiky heels everywhere, even to bed.”

  Maryse shook her head. “Do you really think I can tromp through the marsh in a pair of stilettos? The state would check me into the nearest mental institution if they caught me in something that stupid. Not to mention that outrunning an alligator might be a little difficult with those spiked heels in bayou mud.”

  Helena shrugged. “Okay, so maybe you can’t wear them all the time, but you could when you’re not working. If I could balance on the damned things, I’d wear them myself. I saw a real spiffy pair with a titanium heel advertised last night. You ought to get those. Very sexy.”

  Maryse stopped at the employee entrance and stared at Helena. “And just who do I need to look sexy for? My eligible doctor turned out to be a closet pedophile, literally on the closet part. Besides, I’m still married to your son, the disappearing idiot. And someone is trying to kill me. Lots of men would have a problem with all that, you know.”

  Helena gave her a smug smile. “Doesn’t look like it bothers Luc.”

  Maryse stiffened. “Luc and I are friends. Sorta. That’s it.”

  “Hmmpf. Didn’t look like friends the way he kissed you back at the hotel. I could feel the heat off you two from twenty feet away.”

  Damn. She’d thought Helena was long gone before Luc had kissed her senseless. Maryse pulled the keys from her pocket and turned to the door. “You imagined it.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. You might start to believe it, but no one else is going to.”

  Maryse found the right key and eased open the side door designated for employees. “I am not listening to you, Helena,” she hissed. “I have enough on my plate right now, and God knows, a man has never been the answer to my problems. They’ve usually been the cause. After all, I wouldn’t be saddled with you if I hadn’t married Hank.”

  Helena didn’t look convinced but finally gave up her argument and followed Maryse down a dim hallway to the main corridor. “Where’s the records room?” Maryse asked as they crept down the hallway.

  “We turn left at the end of the main hall, and it’s the last room on the left.” Helena looked behind her, then ahead toward the corridor. “You know, this is sort of ironic. Walking down this hallway has the look of one of those near-death experiences you always hear about. Long white hallway, light at the end.”

  Maryse smiled wryly. “Did you see anything like this when you died?”

  Helena frowned. “No. Not a thing. When I woke in that casket, I thought someone was playing a horribly cruel joke. It never occurred to me that I was dead, even after I yelled at everyone in the church and they didn’t respond. Well, except you. But you passed out, so that wasn’t exactly a help.”

  Maryse considered for a moment what kind of shock that must have been. “So what did you do after that?”

  “I walked downtown, hoping someone would see me, say something to me, but everyone passed right by as if I wasn’t there. I stopped in front of that big plate-glass window at the café and stood there, trying to see my reflection in the glass, but all that showed was the pickup truck behind me.” She sighed. “It took me an hour to walk to your place. I cried the whole way. Not much else to do.”

  Maryse took a minute to absorb this and couldn’t help but feel bad. What a nightmare. She couldn’t possibly imagine how awful it must have been, but Maryse was certain of one thing—an hour of crying wouldn’t have been enough for her. She’d probably still be wailing.

  “Well,” Maryse said finally, “let’s get this over with and maybe we can see about getting you on to where you belong.”

  Helena nodded and stepped out into the lighted corridor. “It looks clear, but let me check at the end to make sure, then I’ll yell for you. No use you sticking your head out or anything. You should be able to hear me yell from the end of the hall.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Maryse agreed. She could probably hear Helena yelling from the next building.

  Helena disappeared around the corner, and Maryse leaned against the wall and waited for the yell to come. Her hands were sweating like mad between her anxiety over what she was about to do and the latex gloves that Luc had insisted she wear. It was a minute or so later when she heard Helena yell.

  “All’s clear!”

  Maryse took a deep breath, stepped around the corner, and set off down the hall. Helena stood at the end of the hall next to a door with the words Medical Records stenciled on it in clear black letters. Maryse flipped to the first key on the ring, making sure she held the others tight to avoid any noise, and tried it in the latch.

  No luck.

  Maryse looked over at Helena, and Helena nodded, assuring her the hallway was still clear. She flipped to the second key and slipped it in the lock.

  Bingo. They were in.

  Maryse nodded to Helena and eased the door open. There was a loud squeak as she pushed, and she stopped for a moment, listening to see if anyone was coming to investigate. Helena checked both hallways and shook her head, so Maryse pushed the door open the remainder of the way and crept inside.

  The room was pitch black, and she fumbled around for a moment, trying to find something solid to hold on to. Instead, she ran face first into a bookcase. “Damn it. That hurt.” She rubbed her nose and grimaced, not even wanting to think about yet another bruise on her already battered body.

  “Why don’t you make more noise?” Helena asked. “I don’t think everyone heard you.”

  “Don’t give me any shit, Helena. Not all of us can walk through furniture.”

  “Then turn on your flashlight.”

  “I don’t want anyone to see.”

  “Including yourself? Oh hell, I’ll go back out into the hall and stand guard. Then will you turn on some damned light and stop running into everything imaginable?”

  “Yes,” Maryse hissed. “Just leave.”

  Maryse waited a minute in the inky darkness until she heard Helena call out to light things up. She pulled the small flashlight from her pocket and directed it at the bookshelf in front of her. The label at the top read “Current.” Probably not the place she needed to look. She crept carefully down the row of bookcases, using her flashlight to scan the labels, and watched carefully for a change. Current, Current, Current. Where the heck is Past?

  She turned the corner at the end of the row and shined her flashlight at the top of the next row of bookcases. “Dead Records,” it read in large letters. Dead Records? Wasn’t that a bit politically incorrect for a hospital? Maryse shook her head and ran her light across the folders jam packed on the shelves until she came to the H’s.

  “Find anything?” Helena’s voice sounded next to her, and it was all Maryse could do not to scream. She glared at the ghost, but wasn’t sure how effective it was because she wasn’t positive Helena could see in the dark either. “Are you trying to ruin this? And why aren’t you outside?”

  “I saw the light go out and came to investigate, but it was just bec
ause you moved around to this side of the bookcases. You can’t see the light now through the door.”

  Maryse swung her light toward the sound of Helena’s voice and lit her up, standing right in front of the next set of shelves. “Yeah, well, that’s great, but I can’t see through you, so would you move over to the side a bit so I can read these files?”

  Helena complied, and Maryse scanned the first row of files. Harris, Hartman, Hector…aha…Henry ! Maryse ran her flashlight over the row of files until she reached Helena then stopped the light on the shiny label on the side. “Got it,” she said, and reached for the file.

  Helena reached at the same time and her hand passed right through Maryse’s, sending a chill straight through her body. “Cut it out. You know I hate that cold, and besides, you haven’t figured out how to pick up things anyway.”

  Helena yanked her hand back in a huff. “I keep practicing. I figured, of all things, I’d be desperate enough to want that file that I’d be able to touch it.” She sighed. “Guess not.”

  “Now is not the time for you to practice ghost games,” Maryse hissed. She yanked the file from the shelf, dropped quickly to the floor, and opened it, directing her flashlight onto the papers inside. The coroner’s report was right on top, listing the death as natural causes. She scanned the page and found out that when Helena had been brought in, the attending physician was a doctor from New Orleans who had been filling in for Dr. Breaux, who was out of town that weekend for a medical convention.

  But the attending physician had gotten in touch with Dr. Breaux right away and was given all the particulars of Helena’s asthma problems and her subsequent failure to take his advice seriously. That was it. That statement alone had sealed Helena’s fate as far as an autopsy was concerned, and without any other evidence to support foul play, Helena Henry had been buried without an argument.

  But she’d come back to correct the mistake.

  “What does it say?” Helena asked, hunching over Maryse and trying to make out the tiny print.

  “It says you’re dead,” Maryse replied, trying to brush her off so she could make out the medications at the bottom of the page. “I really need a copy of all this, but I don’t want to risk running the copy machine.” Maryse rose from the floor and carried the file over to an available desk in the corner. Helena trailed behind her.

  “I’m going to write down the names of these medications and a couple of notes,” Maryse said, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen off the desktop. “Anything you were taking on a regular basis would change your reaction to certain poisons. I need to narrow down the options as much as possible if we’re going to get anywhere.”

  Helena nodded, and Maryse began to makes notes from Helena’s file. She finished quickly, snapped the file shut, and was just about to suggest they get the hell out of there when a familiar name caught her eye.

  She shined her flashlight at a file on top of the desk and drew in a breath. Sabine LaVeche. Why would Sabine’s file be out on this desk? She hadn’t been sick that Maryse was aware of. Not even a cold.

  “What’s wrong?” Helena asked. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

  Maryse pointed to the file, and Helena stared. “You shouldn’t look at it. I know how you feel about Sabine, but it’s her place to tell you if something’s wrong.”

  Maryse glared at Helena, angry that she’d clued right in on her current ethical problem. “Oh, yeah. And just when do you think she should have taken the time to tell me about any crisis in her life—after my truck wreck or after my cabin exploded? Maybe she doesn’t want to cause me any more worry than I’ve already got.”

  “Exactly. All the more reason not to look at it now.”

  Maryse looked back at the file and tapped her fingers on the desk. Surely Sabine would tell her if it was something serious, right? Even if things were a little weird right now. But there was that niggling doubt in the back of her mind. What if she didn’t? What if something was seriously wrong and Sabine didn’t want to tell her at all? In fact, if it wasn’t serious, why hadn’t she mentioned anything?

  Maryse sucked in a breath as the one thing that Sabine would withhold from her came to the forefront of her mind. She grabbed the file up from the desk, yanked the cover open, and stared at the contents. Holding in a cry, she stared at the pristine white paper with those horrible words that confirmed her worse fear.

  Sabine was being tested for cancer.

  * * *

  Maryse ignored the icy fear in her stomach and tried to slam down the cover on the file before Helena could see the horrible word on the test sheets. But she wasn’t fast enough. Helena sucked in a breath and looked at her, her eyes wide.

  “Oh my God,” Helena said finally, her voice barely a whisper. “I thought maybe an unexpected pregnancy or some other nonsense that your generation is usually up to. I never thought for a minute…”

  Maryse opened the file again and began to scan every page. The pages were all crisp, clean, and neat—so passive resting there, totally belying the information they contained.

  “Are the results there?” Helena asked.

  Maryse finished looking through the file and closed it. “No, only the request for the tests. But that wasn’t the first one. There have been four others, all over the last three years.”

  Helena gave her a shrewd look. “But the others turned out okay, right? That’s probably why Sabine never told you anything. She probably figured this one would be the same as the others.”

  Maryse looked over at Helena, her mind racing with the awful thought of a life without her best friend. “But what if she’s wrong? What if this time is the one? More than once a year is an awful lot of times to think someone might have cancer. Doctors don’t usually jump to that conclusion. And why now, right when I feel like I’m so close to discovering the secret and can’t even get into the bayou to work?” She gave Helena a determined look. “This changes everything. My life isn’t the only one at stake anymore.”

  Helena gave her a solemn look. “I promise, Maryse, I will do everything within my power to see that this turns out all right for everyone.”

  Maryse nodded, not even wanting to think about Helena’s meager power. If only she could make Helena visible to the bad guys, maybe she could distract them with her wild wardrobe changes.

  Maryse sighed. The earnest look on Helena’s face let her know right away that she was sincere in her promise, if not entirely adequate to do the job, and Maryse didn’t have the heart to point out her shortcomings. Not at that moment, anyway. “Let’s get out of here,” Maryse said. “We’ve already pushed our luck far enough.”

  Maryse had just replaced Helena’s file when she heard a jangle of keys outside the record’s room door. “Holy shit,” she hissed, and Helena stared at her in alarm. “Don’t just stand there,” Maryse said, waving her arms at Helena. “Figure out a way to stop them from coming in here.”

  “How?” Helena’s eyes were wide with fright.

  “I don’t know,” Maryse said, and dove under the desk. “But you need to come up with something in a hurry.”

  Maryse peered through a narrow crack in one side of the desk, watching Helena hustle toward the door just as it swung open and someone entered. A second later, the lights came on and Maryse squinted, trying to focus in the bright glare. As her eyes adjusted, Maryse made out a nurse walking across the room toward the desk.

  Helena vainly tried to knock items over in her path and finally resorted to jumping in front of her, but the nurse passed right through her continuing on her task. And it looked like that task was taking her, straight to Maryse’s hiding place. When the nurse was a foot or so from the desk, Helena really turned up the volume. Only problem was, no one could hear her but Maryse.

  Wailing like a banshee, Helena pummeled the nurse with invisible fists and feet that never connected with their mark. Oh, but she’d managed another costume change and was now wearing long, bright purple boxing shorts with a neon green muscle shirt and swinging a
t the nurse with a pair of black boxing gloves. Apparently, something had gone wrong in the change, however, and instead of the new Nikes, she was back in the old pink pumps.

  Maryse shook her head and almost hoped she’d get caught. Jail had to be better than this. Just as she thought the nurse would swing around the desk and discover her hiding spot, the woman turned and walked down a row of the shelves. Maryse let out a breath and sucked it back in again until the nurse returned from the row and made her way back out of the room, securing the door behind her.

  “Are you still breathing?” Helena leaned down to look underneath the desk.

  “I’m not sure,” Maryse said as she crawled out from her hiding spot. “Ask me again in a minute.” Maryse brushed some dust off her pants legs and looked back at Helena, who was still wearing the boxing outfit. “What’s up with the shoes?”

  Helena threw up her gloves in exasperation. “Hell if I know. I hope this isn’t going to happen often. I’d hate to see a mixed combination of everything I’ve worn since my death each time I try to change clothes.”