Bayou Bodyguard

by Jana DeLeon

  Justine immediately lifted a worn plastic menu up to hide her face. “Wow. I guess we should have called ahead and warned them we were coming.”

  “I think we could have held a parade and gotten the same response. I’m sure everyone in town knows we’re here and why.”

  “Guess they’re not happy about it.”

  Brian looked to the side and the patrons all averted their eyes, except one. He was young, maybe in his twenties, wearing jeans, a red ball cap and a T-shirt with smears of motor oil on it. He stared directly at Brian, as if challenging him to say something. Brian stared right back until the guy looked away. Best to let them know up front that he wouldn’t be intimidated.

  “This sorta puts a damper on my research,” Justine said and sighed.

  “You were planning on doing interviews?” It had never occurred to Brian that Justine would talk to the locals.

  “I still am, even though it might be hard to get information from them.”

  “What kind of information do you think they have?”

  “Tales mostly. Stories handed down among the generations.”

  Brian nodded. “I see. You’re figuring that the campfire tales and stories used to scare kids might contain an element of truth.”

  “They usually do.”

  “That’s smart of you and something I never would have thought of.”

  “Really? I thought cops used rumor and gossip to get leads.”

  She made an attempt to say it lightly, but Brian caught the underlying animosity and sarcasm in Justine’s words. Interesting. Maybe her problem wasn’t just with strangers or men, but only with cops. He logged that tidbit for future pondering.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. “It’s all hearsay and it’s never quite correct, but it’s usually enough to send us in the right direction.” He was about to ask another question about Justine’s research methods, hoping to learn more about his new roommate, when the waitress stepped up to the table.

  She was probably in her thirties, but the years of sun and bayou air had weathered her skin, making her look older. Her long, dark hair was piled on top of her head and she looked down at them, brown eyes full of suspicion. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’ll have sweet tea,” Justine said. “My name’s Justine and this is Brian.”

  Justine’s introduction clearly surprised the waitress and she bit her bottom lip, the indecision on her face clear as day. “I’m Deedee,” she said finally, but Brian could tell she had given the information grudgingly.

  “What would you like to drink, sir?” she asked Brian, her eyes fixed on her order pad.

  “Sweet tea for me, too.”

  “Did you want anything to eat?” Deedee asked.

  Justine ordered chicken-fried steak and Brian put in an order for a burger and fries. Deedee barely nodded and scurried away from the table, without so much as a glance back. Justine gave Brian a wry smile. “You should really work on your technique. You’re scaring all the women away.”

  Brian saw the cook stop Deedee and ask her a question. Deedee shook her head and started to fill two tall glasses with tea. Her hands shook as she poured the tea from the pitcher into the glasses. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the waitress’s discomfort because when she finished pouring, the cook took the glasses and directed Deedee to make more coffee.

  Brian sized the man up as he made his way from behind the counter and across the café to their table. He was a big guy, probably in his fifties, and looked as if he could handle most anything life dealt him. He studied them carefully as he walked up to the table, but the fear that Brian saw in the waitress wasn’t present in this man.

  “Two sweet teas,” the cook said and placed the glasses in front of them. “You must be the people that’s here to research that house of the damned.”

  Brian blinked at his rather abrupt, albeit accurate, description. “Yes,” he replied and stuck out his hand. “I’m Brian. This is Justine.”

  “Tom Breaux,” the cook said and shook his hand. “I own the café.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and handed them to Brian. “These are for you. Sammy’s house is on the street behind the café, about fifty yards east. Has yellow siding and white trim.”

  “Thanks,” Brian said, and took the keys.

  Tom looked at Justine. “What kind of research are you doing?”

  “Family stuff mostly,” Justine relayed the cover story she and Olivia had agreed upon, “and furniture cataloging. Antiques are a specialty of mine.”

  Tom nodded then fixed his gaze back on Brian, narrowing his eyes. “Pardon me if I say so, but you don’t look like some brainy researcher.” He inclined his head at Justine. “Not that you do either, ma’am.”

  “I’m not a researcher,” Brian said, certain the man had already heard about the sheriff’s visit and was fishing for information. It was the setup Brian had been looking for. “I’m more of the freelance security sort.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows. “Seems a strange place to freelance.”

  “I’m a friend of Olivia’s. She asked me to watch over the repair people she has scheduled, and make sure Justine’s work follows an uncomplicated path.”

  Tom gave a single laugh. “Yeah, well, it’s gonna take more than muscle and a keen eye for shooting to best what’s going on at that house. You can’t shoot or wrestle haunts.”

  Justine leaned across the table toward Tom. “You really believe the house is haunted?”

  “I know it for a fact. Things has gone on out there as long as I lived and a hundred years before. Ain’t no human been out there causing trouble for over a hundred years. The place is cursed. I told your friend Olivia the same thing, but she didn’t listen. And look what it got her—almost killed by a madman.”

  “But a human madman,” Justine pointed out.

  Tom shook his head. “The man was cursed. Cursed by the spirits in that house.”

  “That man was cursed by insanity,” Brian said.

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed, “just like Franklin Borque. I heard all the stories growing up—about why he built that monstrosity in the swamp to hide all the valuables he acquired, some legally, some not—including that wife that he bought and paid for, then stuck out here to die. That attorney may have been cursed with insanity, but it came from that house. Came from the ghost of Franklin Borque.”

  Brian studied Tom’s face, figuring the man was trying to scare them away, but he saw no hint of dishonesty. Clearly Tom Breaux believed everything he’d just said.

  “Mr. Breaux,” Brian said, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to scare us with a ghost story.”

  Tom shook his head. “And that would be where you’re wrong, sir. I’m trying to warn you with a ghost story. You should already be scared.” He gave them a nod. “Your food will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

  Brian watched him walk away, then looked over at Justine. “Well, what do you make of that, Madam Researcher?”

  Justine watched Tom step behind the counter and say something to Deedee. The woman pulled a cigarette out of her apron and exited the café by the back door, looking completely unnerved. “I think he’s lived in these bayous so long, he believes the old stories.”

  Brian nodded. “That was my read, too, but I’m not willing to cross him off the list. There’s a trail behind the caretaker’s cottage that leads to a couple of cabins on the bayou that you can only reach by boat. Jake and Olivia saw Tom unloading boxes on the dock.”

  “Does he live there?”

  “According to his driver’s license, he’s got a house in town, back behind the café, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t own a cabin, too.”

  “Or he’s friends or relatives with someone who does,” Justine added. “Either way, you’re right—he’s got access to laMalediction. Is there any way to find out who owns the cabins?”

  “John and I didn’t have any luck with it. The land’s all owned by an estate, a
nd there aren’t any leases we could find. But if those cabins have been down there forever, likely no one handling the estate cares. The estate’s probably holding the land for mineral rights. A couple of cabins aren’t going to hurt anything.”

  “You didn’t tell him you were a cop, either. Still trying to make the sheriff work for his information?”

  “Just biding time, really. They can find out easily enough. But I was hoping, if they didn’t know right away, I might get some information out of them. Guess that plan failed miserably.”

  Justine frowned. “That waitress knows something.”

  “Deedee? That woman is scared of her own shadow. Even if she knew anything, you’d never get it out of her.”

  “Want to bet? Let me come to breakfast tomorrow morning alone. I’ll get something out of her.”

  Brian’s first reaction was to refuse. He didn’t like the idea of letting Justine out of yelling range, but the café was a public place, and according to Tom, not far from the rental house. He nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go shopping for supplies for the rental house and you can take a shot at Deedee.”

  He felt his neck tingle and knew someone was staring at him. Looking over at the counter, he saw Deedee standing next to the coffeepot and staring in their direction, her expression wary. For a split second, he could have sworn her expression shifted from fearful to cunning, but before he could even blink it was gone. She jerked her head away as soon as he locked eyes with her, but Brian couldn’t help but wonder if she’d understood what they were saying.

  If so, then Justine needed to be very careful when questioning the waitress, who may not be as helpless as she appeared.

  JUSTINE SCANNED THE INSIDE of the rental house with a critical eye. It was small—much smaller than she preferred to share with another person, especially Brian. Standing in the middle of the living room, she could see into every room in the house. Brian, of course, had been tickled with the layout and had immediately set about double-checking locked windows and installing sensors, making the space seem even smaller.

  Find a place to work.

  If she could get immersed in her work, she’d be able to forget that she was essentially trapped in a condo-size house with a man trained to ferret out people’s secrets. There was no desk in either of the tiny bedrooms and no place to fit one, either. The kitchen had a counter with two barstools that would be sufficient for eating but not for spreading out her research. The living room was one big room that contained both living room furniture and a decent-size dining table, so she decided to claim the dining table.

  She pulled out the set of journals she brought with her from laMalediction, and her laptop, and got everything arranged on the table so that she could work. Brian had the forethought to purchase a gallon jug of sweet tea from the café, so she poured herself a tall glass and settled into a chair. She’d barely gotten her laptop fired up when Brian came in from his outside security work.

  “Not a lot of room in here,” he said, looking over at Justine’s dining-table setup. “Will you have enough space to work?”

  “I think so. We’ll be at the house the majority of the day. I’ll just bring whatever I’m currently working on here at night. Anything that needs more research will have to wait until the next day.”

  Brian nodded. “I’ve got the security system in place. Let me know when you’re taking a break and I’ll show you how to work it. I’m going to grab a shower. Ought to be a fast one, as I had to turn on the water heater.”

  He pulled off his T-shirt as he left the room and Justine couldn’t help but notice that the body below the shirt did not fail to impress. As he rounded the corner into the hallway, she got a glimpse of a scar on his lower back, on his side, just above the waistline of his jeans. She’d seen enough hunting accidents to know it was a bullet hole, but Justine didn’t think for a minute that Brian had been foolish enough to get shot hunting. Likely, it was either his military service or being a cop that had placed that scar on his back.

  She heard the shower fire up in the bathroom and a couple of seconds later, a yowl from Brian, which made her smile. She’d definitely wait a couple of hours for the water heater to do its magic. Her mind flashed momentarily to a vision of Brian, minus the jeans, standing beneath the stream of water, and she forced it to change channels. The very last thing she could afford to do was let her guard down around the one person who had the best opportunity to blow her cover. She’d already lapsed into a level of comfort with him too easily on several occasions.

  Picking up the journal on the top of her stack, she focused her attention back on her work. Somewhere in those diaries had to be information on the identity of Marilyn’s lover—the man she suspected was her mother’s great-great grandfather. All Justine’s attempts to locate her mother’s family had resulted in dead ends, leaving only this one angle left to investigate. It was the reason she’d jumped at the job when Olivia offered it, and likely her one chance to figure out if the horrible mental illness that consumed her mother was something that had been passed from generation to generation.

  Despite Tom Breaux’s dire predictions, Justine didn’t fear a spirit taking over her body. Her biggest fear was a hereditary mental disorder taking away her sanity. Without knowing if her mother’s illness was an isolated case in the family tree, Justine would always live with the fear that under the right circumstances she’d break from reality like her mother did. That fear had kept her isolated, afraid to form close bonds with others. Afraid of the hurt she could inflict on anyone who cared.

  She flipped through the pages, looking for an indication of the child and how it came to be, when a passage in Sissy’s journal caught her eye.

  April 15, 1863

  The master returned unexpected last night. He’d been shot in the leg and given a discharge. He limps some, but the leg didn’t slow him down any, once he saw what the missus had done. I came to her this morning as I always do. She had already taken all manner of care with her face, but it still didn’t hide the master’s work.

  Justine compared the date with her earlier notes on Marilyn’s journals to confirm that both journals referred to Franklin’s return from the war. The time lines were the same. Justine knew that Franklin murdered Marilyn only months after his return, so she must have had the child before his return. It was odd though, that Marilyn had never mentioned the child in her own journals.

  She scanned a couple more pages in Sissy’s journal and her eyes locked on one dated several weeks later.

  May 18, 1863

  The master told her the child had to go. She tried to pass him off as a servant’s, but the child’s green eyes are a perfect match for the mistress and give away her betrayal. The master can’t stand the sight of the baby, and truth be, I fear for the child’s life. The mistress is beside herself but can’t continue to take the beatings. I think she knows he’s capable of turning his anger on the child. He was a mean man before, but since his return, he seems to have lapsed further into madness.

  I promised the mistress I will send word for my sister in New Orleans to take the child. He has the dark color of the Creoles and the mistress wants him raised among his kind.

  I will write my sister tomorrow and hope word reaches her in time.

  Justine felt her pulse increase as she read the passage again. Despite her mistress’s lack of mention of the child in her own journals, Sissy hadn’t seemed to have a problem recording what was going on. At first, Justine had thought Marilyn avoided mentioning the child because she was afraid Franklin would find the journals and discover her secret, but according to Sissy, Franklin had likely known of Marilyn’s betrayal from the moment he saw the child.

  Maybe it was superstition. That would make sense, given Marilyn’s foray into learning voodoo. She might have believed that writing about her son would somehow curse him.

  Justine shook her head in frustration. The old ways claimed mystical power, but really seemed to control through fear. Justine’s mother was
the most fearful person she’d ever known, even in her lucid times. And what about Marilyn’s lover? She’d made no mention of him in her journals after the passage that they’d reunited, but if the child was in danger, why not send him to his father?

  She reread the passage one last time then made a quick note to pull the next set of Sissy’s journals first thing in the morning. It was getting late and she was exhausted. First thing tomorrow morning, she’d pull everything she could about Sissy’s sister and Marilyn’s lover in order to locate the child…possibly the only link to the rest of her family.

  THE INTRUDER WATCHED from the edge of the swamp as the lights in the rental house went off. The attack on the woman apparently hadn’t changed their mind about staying. That writer woman had been a big enough nuisance, but he’d thought the crazy attorney had handled that problem for him. Now he had a second woman on his hands, and apparently, one just as stubborn as the first, which was both frustrating and unfortunate.

  Frustrating for the intruder because his carefully laid plans were beginning to unravel.

  Unfortunate for the woman and the man who wouldn’t leave.

  Chapter Six

  In the middle of the night, the sound of a car alarm sent Brian bolting out of bed for the front door, pistol ready. Justine ran out of her bedroom, right behind him and suitably armed.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Brian put his finger to his lips and pointed to the front door. “It’s the alarm on my Jeep,” he whispered. “Position yourself behind the kitchen counter, and if anyone walks through that door besides me, open fire.”

  Justine’s eyes widened but she nodded and slipped into the kitchen, crouching so that only the top of her head and eyes were visible over the counter. Brian pulled back the curtain covering the window in the front door and peered out into the darkness. He couldn’t see anything moving, but that wasn’t a surprise in the inky black.