Bayou Bodyguard

by Jana DeLeon

  Brian narrowed his eyes. “Once the security system is in place, that shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll carry a remote alarm sensor on me. It will let me know if there’s a security breach. I won’t be very far away.”

  “And this security system will be rigged to do what, exactly?”

  “Let us know if anyone enters or exits this house or the rental, either through a door or a window.”

  “So I can’t leave either house without setting off an alarm? That’s sorta like prison, don’t you think?” Justine could feel a flush rising up her neck and she struggled to remain calm. “Look, I know I’m here to do research, but I jog every morning. I spend too much time sitting in a chair to ignore exercising. This job is no different.”

  Brian nodded. “Give me a time and I’ll go with you. I’m used to jogging myself.”

  Justine bristled. Jogging was her personal time. Granted, she spent most of her time alone, but jogging was when she centered herself for the day ahead and cleansed her mind of everything cluttering it. “I jog alone.”

  “Not here you don’t. This swamp is full of things that can kill you.”

  “You think I can’t handle myself? I grew up in these swamps. I probably know the sounds and tracks of predators better than you.”

  Brian locked his eyes on hers. “Including human ones?”

  Justine stared. “You’re serious?”

  “Alligators didn’t trap Olivia in that tunnel and neither did ghosts. For all we know, Wheeler may not have been behind some of the other things, either. We still haven’t figured out how he got to the estate with no one seeing him, and with him dead, there’s no way of asking. Could be, whoever else was involved may not be any happier with you here than they were with Olivia.”

  “Maybe it was kids who locked Olivia in the tunnel.” Justine refused to consider the other possibilities.

  “You think kids broke into a house that locals fear as haunted to play a practical joke on a stranger?”

  “It’s not impossible,” Justine said, but even as the words left her mouth she knew it wasn’t very plausible, either.

  “Look,” Brian said, “this is the bottom line—John feels something was going on here besides the stuff Wheeler did. I’ve known John Landry most of my life, and if there’s one thing he’s got, it’s instincts. If he says something’s going on here, then there is. And I’m damned well going to find out what it is.”

  Justine crossed her arms in front of her, a trickle of fear beginning at the back of her mind. “Is that why Olivia was so anxious to leave?”

  “Maybe. A lot of bad things happened in this house—to Olivia and to those who lived here before her—and she’s seen it all, either in real life or in her dreams. I don’t blame her for not wanting to spend another minute here.”

  Justine stared at him, a bit surprised. “You really believe Olivia saw Marilyn Borque’s murder in her dreams? That everything she dreamed was real?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Justine tried to wrap her mind around such a disciplined personality completely buying into the paranormal. “But if the spirit of Marilyn Borque was trying to get something besides vindication, why did the dreams stop after Wheeler’s death?”

  “Who says they did?”

  Brian grabbed his duffel bag from the floor. “Your room is the second on the left. I’m in the first. We should get settled in before the storm hits and the power goes out.” He glanced at the black, swirling sky outside, then left the library.

  Who says they did?

  Justine felt a chill run through her. She didn’t want to believe in the old ways, but what was happening at laMalediction seemed grounded in them. No wonder Olivia wanted to leave. If she was still having the dreams, then whatever malevolent force held laMalediction in its grip wasn’t gone.

  It was awakened.

  Chapter Two

  Justine sat her suitcase on the end of the bed, pulled out her nine millimeter and checked the clip. She set the gun on the bed and reached for a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. They weren’t what she normally slept in, but she wanted to be prepared for anything, including late-night intruders. The last thing she wanted was to chase an intruder through the house, armed with a nine and wearing G-string underwear, like in some cheap B horror movie.

  She heard the door close in the next room and glanced over at the adjoining door. Having a cop, especially one from her past, on the other side of that door didn’t set well with her, but Olivia had left her no options. Somewhere in the records she was hired to research, she hoped to find the answers she was seeking. Answers that could change her life. For that possibility, she was willing to endure practically anything.

  So far, Brian hadn’t given any indication that he knew who she was, and with any luck, he wouldn’t find out until they were long gone from Cypriere. A knock on the adjoining door brought her out of her thoughts and she shoved her gun back into the suitcase before calling for him to enter. When he stepped into the room, the walls seemed to close in around his large frame. She sucked in a breath. If Brian Marcentel didn’t scare an intruder away, she wasn’t sure what it would take.

  “You okay in here?” Brian asked as he surveyed the room, probably memorizing every square inch.

  Justine nodded. “Just getting set up for the ghosts.”

  Brian stared. “You’re doing what?”

  Justine pulled a box of salt from her suitcase and began to sprinkle it around items sitting on the dresser. “You put salt around things so that in the morning, you can see if they moved.”

  “And you think things are going to move on the dresser?”

  “I hope not! But if someone is in here besides me or you, I want to know about it.”

  Brian narrowed his eyes. “So then, how would you know if it was ghosts or people?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Justine replied. “I don’t want either of them in my room.”

  “People are more dangerous.”

  “That’s what I’ve got you for, right?”

  “Yeah, but I won’t be with you every second. Do you have your nine with you?”

  Justine froze and set the salt on the dresser.

  “I know you have a nine millimeter registered,” Brian continued. “You had to know they’d check you out.”

  Justine blew out a breath. Of course they would. Olivia had been held hostage by a crazy man and almost killed. They had proof that someone aside from Wheeler was contributing to the problems at laMalediction and Olivia was married to a cop. It would be foolish to think she’d get involved with anyone concerning laMalediction without her fiancé running a thorough background check.

  Which meant Brian knew everything about her, too. At least, everything they’d found. How deeply had they looked? Past her name change and into her childhood? Could they even access those records? Olivia hadn’t seemed to know anything about her mother when she’d mentioned her earlier. Maybe no one had made the connection to the person she was for the first eighteen years of her life.

  “I have my gun,” Justine finally replied.

  “Do you know how to use it? And I don’t mean just the basics.”

  Justine nodded. “I took lessons at the shooting range, and I practice twice a month. I’m not going to win an Olympic event, but I can take a man down if necessary, and I’m not interested in shooting to injure.”

  The hint of a smile crossed Brian’s face. “I’ll make sure I announce myself before entering rooms.”

  Justine waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, I promise to look before I shoot—for a second, anyway.”

  Brian took another look at the salt and frowned. “Well, if you don’t need me for anything, I’m going to unload the security equipment from my Jeep before that storms gets going.” He pointed to the lantern on the nightstand next to her bed. “I understand the electricity around here is a temporary thing, especially in storms. There are matches in the nightstand drawer for when you need them.”

  Justine glanced outside at
the ever-darkening sky. “Thanks.”

  Brian gave her a single nod and left the room. Justine watched as he closed the adjoining door then stepped over to the window. The black clouds swirled above the estate like angry pillars of smoke. Justine had seen those clouds often enough to know a heat thunderstorm was on the way and it was going to be a doozy. They were common this time of year, and usually nothing to worry about.

  Until now.

  Now, she was closed up in a creepy house with a hulking policeman, and in no time she would certainly be without electricity. She watched as Brian pulled a box out of the back of his Jeep, placed it on the front porch then went back for another. Rental houses, security systems, a bodyguard from her past…it was more than she’d bargained for, that was for sure, but then she hadn’t expected to feel so edgy, either.

  She could blame the feeling on sharing close quarters with a cop, or on the fear that he’d remember her, but that wouldn’t be completely true. One thing Justine never did was lie to herself. Like it or not, her uneasiness came from knowing that Wheeler hadn’t been the lone gunman. That someone else had access to laMalediction and could still enter undetected.

  And more importantly, that Olivia’s dreams continued.

  She heard a creaking sound outside the bedroom door and stiffened. A single glance out the window confirmed that Brian was still unloading boxes. It could just be the house settling, but every instinct inside her screamed that it wasn’t. Silently, she eased her gun from the suitcase and crept to the door.

  She peered into the hallway, but it was empty. Then at the end of the hallway, a shadow slid out of an open doorway. Tightening her grip on her pistol, she slipped into the hallway and inched toward the doorway. The shadow lengthened for a second, then disappeared back into the room. All thoughts of safety aside, she sprinted down the hallway and burst into the room, but there was no one in sight.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. A quick survey of the room told her nothing. A couple of cardboard boxes and a small table lined the far wall, but otherwise, the room was empty. She crossed the room and took a closer look at the boxes, even shifted the top one of the stack, but all she found was a thick layer of dust that caused her to sneeze.

  She slowly walked around the room, feeling the walls, looking for an entry point, but the plastered walls looked seamless in every aspect. The single window in the room was closed and locked, and when she attempted to open it, it held fast, glued into place by ancient paint. Frustrated, she blew out a breath. Building construction and hidden passageways were not her forte. Justine had never set foot in a place so grand that it housed servants, much less provided them hidden passageways to conduct their daily work while remaining invisible to visitors. Still, for someone to have disappeared so quickly, shouldn’t she see a sign somewhere?

  She walked back to her bedroom, trying to put this latest occurrence into perspective. Maybe something blowing in the wind had passed the window in the room, casting a shadow into the hall. Okay, so the window was at the completely wrong angle and there hadn’t been even a breath of wind when she looked outside, but wasn’t that just as plausible as a disappearing person, or even worse, a ghost?

  Or maybe her overactive imagination played a trick on her. She wasn’t given to fancy, but it wasn’t impossible. A lot was riding on her work at laMalediction. That, coupled with Olivia’s unnerving behavior earlier and the unwanted introduction from her past, was certainly enough to put her on edge.

  She crossed her bedroom and looked out the window in time to see Brian locking his Jeep. He didn’t look even remotely disturbed or alerted to anything out of order. Sighing, she slipped her gun back into her suitcase, disgusted that she’d allowed herself to be so easily spooked.

  And that’s when she noticed the piece of folded paper on the nightstand.

  Her breath caught in her throat. That paper hadn’t been there before, but now it sat perched on the thin layer of salt she’d poured earlier. She knew she shouldn’t touch it. She should call for Brian. Let him do his cop thing with fingerprints and such, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for it, opening it.

  She gasped as she looked at it. Tears stung her eyes at the picture of her mother, secured in a straitjacket, locked behind bars, her face still fresh with bruises from the “helpful” law-enforcement officers who had dragged her away.

  “I know who you are.”

  The words were written just above the photo.

  She crumpled the paper and tucked it in her pocket. She’d burn it at the first opportunity.

  But no matter what, she wouldn’t be scared away from laMalediction. Whoever had left the paper was brazen, especially with the cop right outside, and that told her one of two things: he was either crazy or desperate.

  Either could work in her favor.

  BRIAN TOSSED HIS GUN and keys onto the bedroom dresser, then stepped into the tiny bathroom to turn on the water in the bath, wishing like hell someone had thought to update the antiquated bathrooms in the main house to include showers. Taking baths in a relic of a house in the middle of nowhere and babysitting angry women with a fear of cops—he’d reached an all-time low. Granted, this job gave him the opportunity to take a much-needed break from police work, and for that he was grateful, but it came with other complications that he was usually able to avoid.

  Like angry, beautiful women with a fear of cops.

  He tensed for a moment and rubbed the two-day growth on his jaw. Where had that beautiful part come from? Granted, when Olivia had told him she’d hired a historian, he’d been expecting the gray-haired-librarian sort. A dark-skinned Creole beauty with green eyes, miles of black, wavy hair and a body that was toned to perfection had never entered his mind. Not to mention there was something familiar about her. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it would come to him eventually.

  He stepped back into the bedroom and grabbed some clean clothes from his duffel bag just as a huge bolt of lightning struck outside. The lights flickered twice, then went out completely, leaving him in total darkness. He took a couple of steps to his right, trying to feel for the lantern in the inky, black room, and banged his knee on the nightstand. Mentally cursing himself for doing the very thing he’d warned Justine to be prepared for, he located the matches and lit the lantern.

  He placed the lantern on the center of the nightstand and tossed his clean clothes on the bed. It was probably a bad idea to submerge yourself in a tub of water during a thunderstorm. Pulling the heavy drapes to the side, he peered outside at the rain that poured from the sky. These blinding-heat thunderstorms that blew in off the Gulf of Mexico were nothing new to him, but while normally he could ignore the storm and go to bed, being at laMalediction spurred his thoughts to all the things a storm this bad implied.

  Communication would be nonexistent, and if there was an emergency, he wasn’t certain they’d be able to make it down the path to Cypriere, even in his Jeep. It was also far easier for someone to hide in a blinding rainstorm, both their movements and the noise they made, so he needed to be more alert than ever.

  Brian released the drapes, but as the heavy curtain slipped back into place, he saw a flash of white across the courtyard. He yanked the drape back again and focused on the area behind the fountain where he’d seen the white object, but there was nothing there.

  He waited a couple of seconds and was just about to chalk it up to debris blowing in the storm when he saw it again, this time clearer. It was a tall figure wearing a long, white robe. He couldn’t see a face, but he had no doubt the object was human. The person stood just at the edge of the woods, motionless in the storm as the white robe whipped around him.

  Brian dropped the drape and reached for his gun. No way was someone standing out in that rainstorm to bring a housewarming gift. After his conversations with John and Olivia, he’d anticipated trouble, but not necessarily so soon. He shoved his gun into the waistband of his jeans, grabbed a fla
shlight and knocked once on the connecting door before entering Justine’s room. She sat in a chair at a writing table and stiffened as he entered the room, her expression both aggravated and indignant.

  “That wasn’t much notice,” she complained. “What if I’d been dressing?”

  “There’s someone outside in the storm, standing across the courtyard. I’m going to check it out. I need you to lock both doors to your room and do not come out until I tell you it’s clear.”

  Justine’s eyes widened and she glanced out the window into the storm. “Someone’s out there in that? But that’s crazy!”

  “Exactly my point,” he said as he opened the door to her room and slipped into the hallway. “Stay put until I get back.” He pulled the door closed and rushed out of the house and into the storm.

  Chapter Three

  Justine rushed to lock doors as soon as Brian left, then pulled her gun from her suitcase and checked the clip. Placing the gun within easy reach on the writing table, she took a breath and tried to process what Brian had told her. It was so unbelievable, she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it.

  She knew that standing in front of the window during a lightning storm was a dangerous thing to do. Not only because of the lightning, but because she’d left the drapes open earlier to watch the storm, and the lantern would cast her silhouette onto the window. Even the most amateur of shooters would find that an easy target.

  Not that she had any reason to believe that someone was trying to kill her, but she had every reason to believe that someone was trying to scare her. A well-placed shot through a window would be a good way to scare someone, but could also result in disaster with the high winds of the storm. Edging across the room, she stopped just before the window and leaned over to peer outside.