Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series)

by Jana DeLeon

  Jadyn shook her head. “I don’t like it, but it makes sense.” She blew out a breath. “If Vines never made it off that boat, the search tomorrow will be a complete waste of time.”

  “Maybe,” Colt agreed, “but we don’t know for certain what happened. Until we do, we have to proceed with this as a search-and-rescue mission. In the meantime, I don’t think you should stay at the hotel. Whoever spiked that bottle knew enough about the hotel and you to enter without being seen and go straight to your room.”

  “No,” Mildred protested. “There’s nowhere else to stay in town. I’m on high alert now. The hotel is safer than anywhere else.”

  Colt shook his head. “It’s not safer than my house.”

  “What?” Jadyn whirled around and stared at him. “No, I can’t stay with you.”

  “I have a guest room, an excellent security system, and an arsenal of weapons. Anyone who attempts to get to you at my place will be on the receiving end of doom.”

  “I…but…” Jadyn glanced over at Maryse and Mildred, as if expecting to them to offer some sort of argument against his plan, but both women were strangely silent. Colt took that as agreement.

  “Just until we figure this out,” Colt said. “If he’s smart, he won’t make another attempt here. We could use my place to draw him out.”

  “He makes a good point,” Maryse said. “Colt’s place is fairly remote. Someone would make the mistake of thinking it was easier to make a move on.”

  He could tell that Jadyn understood the wisdom of what he proposed, but her uncertainty was clear. Was she worried about the potential for another attack, or was her uncertainty due to being alone with him?

  Colt looked at Maryse. “I assume you still have some of the contaminated water? I’ll need my lab to run tests.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Maryse said and pulled out a sealed plastic bag with the water bottle inside. “My fingerprints and Jadyn’s will both be on there. I figure he was wearing gloves, but you never know.”

  Colt took the bag. “Thanks. I have both your prints on file, so I’ll be able to eliminate them.”

  Jadyn took a deep breath and blew it out. “Then I guess I better go pack a bag.” She hurried out of the room and Colt could hear her running up the stairs.

  Mildred locked her gaze on him. “What is happening to this town?”

  Colt knew exactly what Mildred was asking. The past year had been an odd and extreme one for the previously quiet Mudbug. “I don’t know.” He knew it wasn’t what Mildred wanted to hear, but the reality was he didn’t have a good answer.

  Maryse frowned. “It’s like Helena Henry’s death was a sort of hurricane. Things that have been long buried are starting to surface.”

  Colt nodded. He wasn’t sure what the catalyst was, or if there even was one. But he agreed with Maryse’s sentiment. Things were definitely surfacing in Mudbug. And not for the better.

  ###

  Jadyn packed her toiletries into a small bag and shoved it and some clothes into her duffel along with spare ammo, her binoculars, and her phone charger. It wasn’t much, but she could make do for a day or two before needing more clothes.

  He probably has a washer and dryer.

  She shook her head. Doing laundry at Colt’s house felt entirely too domestic. Even packing her bag to stay there, despite the completely logical reason for doing so, made her feel a little like a participant in something illicit. She was about to zip the duffel when she realized she hadn’t included something to sleep in. In the hotel, she usually wore a T-shirt and underwear, but that would hardly be appropriate at Colt’s house.

  Or maybe it will be.

  Her mind flashed back to the scene at the cove, when she’d fallen on top of him. His words echoed through her mind as if he were standing right there beside her and saying them for the first time.

  Most of the positions I imaged were more, um…comfortable…and with a lot less clothes.

  A flash of heat ran through her and she grabbed a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from the dresser and shoved them into the bag.

  “I hope you’re packing something skimpy and lacy.” Maryse’s voice sounded in the doorway and Jadyn whirled around.

  “Sorry,” Maryse said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Jadyn said. “I was a million miles away.”

  Maryse nodded. “Entirely too much to think about for one day. I get it. I’ve lived it. Still am, a little, although my situation now isn’t personal like the stuff that happened before.”

  “I find it all unnerving, then I get frustrated with myself for feeling that way, because I’ve always known that part of my job was the potential for danger.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you never thought about the carnal kind of danger. I saw your face when Colt suggested you stay with him. It freaked you out a little. Are you afraid that if you take things further and change your mind, it might be uncomfortable?”

  Jadyn sighed, embarrassed that Maryse had been able to tap directly into her biggest worry. “I’m afraid that if I take things further I will want to run full speed and he won’t. Colt hasn’t exactly been consistent where I’m concerned. He flirts with me, then he’s all business. He kisses me, then acts as if it never happened.”

  Jadyn couldn’t bring herself to tell Maryse about what had happened at the cove. She still wasn’t sure what she thought about it and wasn’t comfortable trying to translate it to her cousin.

  “I almost never gave in to Luc,” Maryse said. “And then when I finally decided he was actually into me and not just looking for another notch in his belt, all hell broke loose and I found out he’d been lying to me the entire time about who he really was. After everything that happened with Hank, it was a huge blow.”

  “I can’t even imagine how you must have felt.” Maryse’s first husband, Hank, had all but turned her against relationships, so finding out that Luc had completely misrepresented himself must have been an enormous blow, especially with everything else happening to her at the time.

  “It sucked hard,” Maryse said. “But when the emotional shitstorm in my head cleared enough for me to see things as they really were, I knew there was no malice behind his actions. He was just doing his job and felt horrible for the way things went down. He teased me in the beginning, thinking he’d romance my secrets out of me. He was as surprised and as scared as I was when everything got real.”

  Jadyn frowned. “You think Colt is afraid of something? That’s the reason for the back and forth?”

  Maryse shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s certainly a possibility. Colt doesn’t talk much about his time in New Orleans. Granted, he’s not exactly a gossip, but it’s still strange that he doesn’t share detective war stories. I’ve always wondered if there was a woman there—someone he didn’t want to remember.”

  “Another cop?”

  “Maybe. It might explain why he doesn’t volunteer anything about his work there.”

  What Maryse said made a lot of sense. More sense than anything she’d come up with. But if Colt was fighting some memory of the one who got away, did she want to take up with him on any level? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until he was sure that the past was really in the past? It was a big decision to make based on speculation, but Jadyn had a feeling she might need to make up her mind soon…like in the next couple of hours.

  “What would you do?” Jadyn asked.

  Maryse smiled. “If you’d asked me that question a year ago, I would have said run far, far away from temptation.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’d tell you that you can heal a broken heart, but you can’t heal regret.”

  “So you’d roll the dice?”

  “For Colt Bertrand? I think I would.”

  Jadyn smiled at her cousin. “Thanks. I know neither of us is good at the whole girlie thing, but I want you to know that I love that I can talk to you about this stuff. I’ve never had that before.”

  Maryse threw
her arms around Jadyn and squeezed. “Promise me you won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  Surprised and moved by her cousin’s burst of emotion, Jadyn hugged Maryse and said, “I promise.”

  Maryse released her and sniffed. “You’re in good hands with Colt…however you choose to use them.” She winked and hurried off down the hall.

  Jadyn grabbed her duffel bag and headed downstairs. It had been a long day, and she had a feeling it was going to be an even longer night.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Colt started his truck as Jadyn tossed her duffel bag in the backseat, then climbed inside the cab. Maryse’s discovery had thrown a huge curve into an already-confusing mix, and he was having trouble deciding what direction to take next.

  “I know we’re both exhausted,” he said, finally making up his mind, “but would you mind if we stop by the sheriff’s department before heading to my place? Given the new circumstances, I’d like to know everything we can about Clifton Vines as soon as we can get the information.”

  Jadyn looked almost relieved at his suggestion. “I would really appreciate that. This entire thing has sorta thrown me for a loop.”

  “Yeah, this one surprised me too. And I don’t guess I have to tell you how much I hate being surprised.”

  “Not on my list of favorites either.” She smiled, as if remembering something.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just remembering the one and only time my mother decided to throw me a surprise birthday party. I was twelve and she’d been completely clueless about anything I liked for years already.”

  “I take it the party was not the success your mother expected?”

  “You could say that. When I walked into our house after riding lessons, a clown jumped out from behind the couch and everyone yelled. Before I could even formulate a thought, I clocked the clown with a solid right hook and sent him sprawling backward over the couch. I’m pretty sure he sued.”

  Colt laughed. Every time Jadyn revealed something about herself, he found more things to like about her. “I would have loved to have seen that.”

  “I’m sure my mother would have gladly traded places with you. She punished me for embarrassing her.”

  “No offense, but your mother sounds like a real piece of work.” It wasn’t exactly what he was thinking. Based on the little she had revealed about her mother, Colt knew for certain he didn’t like her one bit, but he didn’t want to come right out and call her the first name that had come to mind.

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Do you talk to her much now?”

  “Not unless I have to. Every conversation begins with her trying to push me into marrying one of the eligible bachelors she’s selected for me to help ‘improve my status.’”

  He bristled at the thought of a parent trying to force someone on their child as a means to make them somehow “better.” Jadyn didn’t need a man to make her something. She was already more than her mother would ever give her credit for.

  “Sounds to me like you’d be improving their status,” he said. “Not the other way around.”

  “Thanks,” she said and dropped her gaze to the floorboard.

  He’d noticed that when he complimented her, she blushed or looked away. Was it because she was unused to compliments? He couldn’t really believe that was the case. She was an amazing woman. Surely others had said so. Selfishly, he hoped she blushed only when he complimented her, because that would mean she was into him as much as he was into her. Unless he’d completely misread her responses to his sporadic advances.

  That would suck.

  Shifting his mind back to the case, he pulled his truck in front of the sheriff’s department and they headed inside. Eugenia, the night dispatcher, was at the front desk, sorting through a stack of paper. She looked relieved when she saw them walk inside.

  “I was just about to call you,” she said.

  “Did we get anything on Vines?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  Colt pulled a couple of chairs in front of her desk. “Show me.”

  “Well, we can start with identification. Clifton Vines owns the house you searched, a shrimp boat, and a 2004 Dodge pickup truck. His driver’s license history puts him at the same address for the last twenty-eight years.”

  “And before that?” Jadyn asked.

  “That’s the ‘sort of’ part of the equation. Before that, the only Clifton Vines that existed died in 1975.”

  “Maybe he came from another state,” Colt suggested.

  Eugenia nodded. “Shirley thought about that and set to running the name in the national database. Records exist for three Clifton Vines. Our dead guy, a pensioner in Maryland, and a college student in New Mexico.”

  “You checked on the pensioner?” Jadyn asked.

  “Yep. He’s in his wheelchair in Foster Assisted Living Center and hasn’t left the place for the last six years.”

  Colt looked at Jadyn. “Please tell me he isn’t the missing husband.”

  She shook her head. “It would be the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard of, but based on this information, we can’t eliminate the possibility.”

  “But you don’t really think he could be, do you?”

  “No. Even if the missing husband was knocked out and never remembered who he was, at some point, he would have been issued an identity by the state, right?”

  “Yes,” Colt said, “and there would be a record.”

  “So for now, our assumption has to be that Clifton Vines began life as someone else and acquired his current identity around thirty years ago.”

  “I wish I knew why.”

  “Me too,” she agreed, “but twenty bucks says it wasn’t for any good reason.”

  “Should we tell Taylor what we’ve discovered?”

  “I think so. It’s her choice whether or not to tell her client now or wait until she has more information.”

  He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Jadyn pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “I’ll give her a call.”

  ###

  Taylor hung up the phone and flopped back on the bed. Never in her life had she been so exhausted by a conversation. It was a total drama fest.

  You shouldn’t have called her.

  “Shut up,” she said. As if she needed a reminder from herself that she’d made the decision to update Sophia with the information she’d gotten from Jadyn. She could have left it alone—should have left it alone until they knew more—but nooooooooo, that horrible thing called her conscience has reared its ugly head and she’d spouted off everything.

  One of these days, she’d learn and hopefully cultivate the ability to lie by omission. It would certainly make her life easier on both personal and professional fronts. Sophia had been a crazy woman, crying one moment, then demanding that the entire US Navy be sent out to search for the missing fisherman. Taylor did her best to talk the woman back into sanity, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Sophia wasn’t currently on the phone with the Navy, Coast Guard, or any other agency with a fleet of ships, demanding they all get into the bayou.

  She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. She’d originally thought this case would be a whole lot of nothing, but it was turning into something she hadn’t expected or had a plan for. Damned empathy. It totally eclipsed her better judgment every time.

  Why do you waste time on others instead of bettering yourself?

  Her mother’s words echoed through her mind and Taylor clenched her teeth. As though caring about other people was somehow a crime. Maybe to her mother it was. She certainly hadn’t shown any care for Taylor, and she was her daughter. Caring for someone she hadn’t carried for nine months and birthed herself was probably such a far-fetched idea that it had never crossed her mother’s mind.

  To hell with her.

  Taylor rose from the bed and headed for the shower.

  Exactly. To hell with her.

  ###

  Jadyn hesitated
a second before stepping into Colt’s house. She knew leaving the hotel was the right thing to do, but wished there had been another option. Granted, Colt hadn’t downplayed the security system he’d installed, and given the remote location of his house, she was happy he’d gone to such lengths even though he probably never thought he’d need it.

  “I can give you the grand tour,” Colt said, “or I can point to everything standing right here.”

  Jadyn smiled as she glanced around the small but neat living room, which was open to a kitchen with a breakfast nook. Large windows graced the walls of both rooms. She figured it was probably quite bright and cheerful when the sunlight was streaming in on the cool blue wall paint in the living room and the bright yellow of the kitchen.

  “It’s very nice,” she said.

  “You sound a bit surprised.”

  “I, uh, most guys’ places don’t look this nice. Unless they’re married.”

  He laughed. “When I first moved in, I had this old sofa that I’d been dragging around since college and milk crates for end tables. My bed consisted of mattresses on the floor. It worked fine for me, but my mom wouldn’t have it. I think she was afraid women would see it and be scared off.”

  “More likely, they’d see it and want to fix you.”

  “Ha. You’re probably right, but mom didn’t give any the opportunity. She swooped down on the place and after a month of telling her I didn’t care about fabric and paint swatches, she was finally satisfied with the result.”

  “She did a great job.”

  “She thinks so too, but I thought it was painful. Do you have any idea how much furniture costs? I could have bought a really nice used bass boat.” He pointed to a hallway at the back of the living room. “There are two bedrooms at the end of the hall. Guest room is on the left. Only one bathroom—it’s the first door on the right. Laundry is on the left.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “I think so. Mom keeps harping on me to add another bedroom and bath, but I don’t see the point as long as it’s just me.”

  “I’d love to have something like this eventually.”