by Jenna Ryan
“Someone found him.”
“In a ditch, five miles south of the diner. And before you ask, I’d speculate that whatever vehicle our killer’s been using to follow us comes equipped with a device that enables him to tune into several police radio frequencies.”
“There’s good news.”
“He got lucky, Mia. It happens.”
“So does bad luck.” She buckled up. “I say it’s time we directed as much as we can of that his way.”
“Which translates to?”
“Something my grandmother told me when I was young.”
“Don’t talk to strangers?”
“My grandmother was sixth-generation Louisiana bayou. Nothing she said would ever be that simple.” Mia waved a hand. “In fact, you could probably tie one of her rhymes very neatly into our pseudo swamp witch’s advice.”
Ryder looked around before swinging the truck onto the dark strip of road. “You’re going to tell me this whether I want to hear it or not, aren’t you?”
For an answer, Mia spread her fingers and adopted a Creole accent. “‘Man cast a shadow in the night. Man’s shadow gone when comes the light. Man evil, got no soul to lose. Man hell bound, got no right to choose. You meet a man, no heart, no soul. You speed him down that fiery hole. Pull off the mask, destroy the spell. Send man and evil straight to hell.’”
* * *
Crucible’s foul mood took a sharp downward turn when he discovered his erstwhile rogue agent in a sleazy hotel lounge. The owners here made no attempt to disguise the true nature of their business. Hookers were a dime a dozen and overpriced at that.
“You doing drugs now, too?” he demanded, stopping the hazy-eyed street walker already headed his way with a glare.
Grogan drank his beer. “I don’t punch time clocks, Crucible, and I don’t answer to you or your handlers.” He snorted out a laugh. “Bet Cutter’s pissed.”
“He’s not alone.” A hand snaked out to pin Grogan’s arm and prevent him from lifting the glass again. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”
“Same as you, I expect.” Features hardening, Grogan added, “You’re gonna want to move that hand in two, my friend, unless your face is eager to meet the floor.”
Crucible did the mental count, but backed off when he spied the glint in Grogan’s eyes.
“Okay, you’re not on drugs. And you don’t sound drunk. So why are you here and not somewhere, anywhere, with our star witness?”
“I told you what happened. Ryder blindsided me.”
Crucible’s eyes hardened. “Ryder’s obsessed. You’ve known him too long to think otherwise. Family ties, misplaced loyalties, call it what you will, Mia LeMay won’t be coming back to New Orleans.”
“Oh, I think she’ll be back.” But for the first time, a crack formed in Grogan’s cocky veneer. Tossing back the last of his beer, he slammed his mug on the table. “The hell of it is,” he growled, “I’m wondering if she might not be making that return trip in a pine box.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
They drove for more than three hours, once again in nothing resembling a straight line. As the crow flew—unless it was flying drunk—it couldn’t have been more than fifty miles from the diner to Ryder’s next swampland destination. However, the route he took to get there turned fifty miles into a hundred and fifty, and waning daylight into star-hazed night.
He only stopped once, shortly after they left the diner, for coffee—which Mia appreciated—and fuel. Then it was back on the road en route to wherever he deemed it safe for them to sleep.
Of course safe didn’t necessarily preclude attractive, or even habitable. A sharp turnoff took them down what could at best be called a footpath to a ramshackle building bordered by misshapen trees and a number of swampy knolls.
Constructed of old wood, old stone and rusty metal, the structure stood in a mist-shrouded clearing. A parking lot jutted out next to it. Although it was partly obscured, the moon cast a decent amount of light, enough for Mia to spot a sign nailed to a tippy picket.
When Ryder said nothing, she faced him with a smile. “Let me guess. You found us another bar-slash-inn. Only this one’s been abandoned since the powers that be condemned the place. I’m guessing that would have been about the time our borrowed truck was born.”
He shut everything down, engine, country radio station, headlights, his expression…
“We could have driven another five miles while you asked that question, Mia. To which the answer is a simple no.”
Her temper flared, more at his tone than the words he used. “Don’t patronize me, Ryder. I’ve had a bad day—a string of them actually—and sitting here, staring at a backwater bayou shack, knowing I’ll probably be sleeping in it, doesn’t make me happy. Where are we, and why are we here?”
He glanced at the road behind them as he hopped out. “Town’s called Nightshade.”
“What town?” Following his lead, Mia climbed down. “All I see is a stone, wood and metal box surrounded by trees that look like moss-men. I’m sure it’s very pretty here by day, but at night, it’s totally creepy.”
“It gets better,” he said, and pulled her forward.
“Ryder, this is hardly what I’d call…” She stopped to stare at the now visible sign. “Mad Mama’s Antiques?” Unsure whether to laugh or seriously question his sanity, she opted for middle ground, folded her arms and arched a brow at him. “You expect me to feel safe in a place that has the word ‘mad’ in its name?”
“It’s a sign, Mia, not an omen.”
“There were signs in Whitechapel. There was also a crazed murderer and a bunch of dead women.”
Taking her arm, he drew her up the creaking stairs. “Whitechapel’s in the East End of London. It’ll be easier to see what’s coming at us in a rural environment.”
She raised her hands in surrender. “Fine. You win. Does Mad Mama know she’s having houseguests?”
Ryder’s answer was a cryptic smile that told her nothing.
He twisted the knob on the door. It opened with a screech loud enough to wake any corpse in a five-mile radius. The shop air smelled musty, but Mia detected an underlying scent of beeswax. The floors, little more than worn strips of plank, sagged precariously beneath her feet.
She took a moment to…well, “gape” was probably the best word for it.
A clock ticked deep inside, but otherwise the place was silent. The main room was crammed with old furniture, paintings, tools, toys, jewelry, books and ornaments. Each piece vied with its neighbor for elbow room, of which there was none. The contents of the shelves actually brushed the low ceiling in many areas. A desk lamp with a deep blue bulb gave off a ghostly glow that had Mia rubbing her arms and wishing she’d worn a jacket.
“A jacket, right,” she said. “In ninety degree heat.” She turned to Ryder who was looking through the front window. “Can I wander?”
“Just stay where I can hear you.”
“Since I haven’t mastered the art of self-levitation, no problem.”
Because nothing in the bayou could possibly be as creaky as Mad Mama’s floors. Maybe nothing on the planet.
She made her way through a labyrinth of cast-off treasures. Some might qualify as antiques in better light, but most of what she saw was junk. Dented metal pitchers, nicked tables, chairs half stuffed, a pole lamp held together with red duct tape. There were jars of pickled no-idea-what, beads everywhere she turned, a damaged Victrola, a mannequin minus its head and later the head sporting someone’s old dentures.
Okay, that was just sick.
The ticking clock grew louder the farther she ventured into the space. Strings of black pearls hung in shadowed entryways that undoubtedly led to anterooms filled with even more stuff. Outside one of those anterooms, a doll that looked like a miniature wooden puppet sat cockeyed in a rocking chair and regarded her half-lidded.
She thought about straightening him, but angled her head instead. “You’re not really staring at me, are you?
Because if you are, I might have to turn your face to the wall. Dolls, clowns and weapons of ancient torture spook me for some weird reason. Weirder still,” she laughed, “it seems I’m willing to tell them—or tell you, anyway—that they spook me.”
A shiver skated along her spine as she passed the chair. When it spread to her skin, she picked the doll up and studied it.
“Don’t you be messing with Billy, young miss, unless you got a strong wish to find yourself floating face down in Snake Scream Swamp.”
The voice, a woman’s, came from so close behind her that Mia knocked the now-empty rocker onto its side when she spun.
“Who…?” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you Mad Mama?”
The woman, a buxom Creole, stabbed a finger at the lopsided seat. “You put Billy back. Then we’ll talk.”
Mia kept her eyes on the rather imposing female as she righted the chair and sat the doll in it.
“Fold his hands in his lap,” the woman said. “Tip his head just so, and tell him you’re sorry for disturbing his sleep.”
Mia’s smile came and went, but being the intruder, she complied.
“I’m sorry to you, as well,” she said. “Ryder and I were just…” What, she wondered. Driving by and decided to break into your shop? She sighed in frustration. “I’ll let him explain. Because, honestly? I haven’t got a clue why we’re here.”
The woman’s gaze slid from Mia to Billy and back again. Mia put her age at about seventy-five. Her hips and breasts were wide and her feet bare. She wore a jumbled collection of bracelets, pendants and rings, all of which jangled when she moved. She swept her arm into an arc. “The door to the shop is open to anyone who bears no malice toward it or me. Billy, he accepts your apology because he knows you’re kin.”
“Kin to who?” Then comprehension dawned. “Ah. You mean Billy recognizes that I’m bayou born and that my apology was sincere.”
Two cracked front teeth appeared when the woman smiled. “Billy, he’s sharp as a pistol. There’s none can fool him. You got trouble, he saw that straight away. Got it in another place and brought it with you to this one.”
Did Billy’s eyelids lower a fraction? Did his mouth alter its rather jarring shape?
Mia dragged her gaze away. “I do have trouble,” she admitted. “And, yes, I might have brought it here. I hope not.”
The woman’s features closed down unexpectedly. Her eyes slid sideways, and her voice rose. “That seed got itself planted in your head is starting to look a suspicious lot like poison, Ricky.” Metal and crystal jangled as she turned to address a shadow. “You bring a stranger here, but you don’t tell her why.”
“She knows why.” Ryder emerged from the darkness far enough for Mia to make him out in silhouette, but she couldn’t see his face. “This isn’t your war, Desdemona.”
“This is whatever I want it to be. I’ve known your auntie and you too long for you to take that tone with me. You play dangerous games these days, Ricky, and you play them by rules only you know.”
“In homicide, we call that gaining the upper hand. “
“Homicide?” With a last glance at Billy, Mia raised her head. “Crucible said your assignment was to keep me alive.”
“It is.” His eyes were fixed on the older woman. “Desdemona thinks she can read minds, but the truth is, she spent half her adult life making jewelry in Florida. She moved to Nightshade seven years ago to help an old friend run this shop.”
“Where and how a body earns her living makes no difference, and I’ve never claimed to have the sight. My friend, she was gifted from birth. It doesn’t hold that her death turned what lived inside her to dust.”
This was a very strange conversation, Mia decided. And it didn’t improve her jittery state of mind to see that Billy’s wooden hands were no longer folded in his lap.
“Okay, look.” She placed herself between Ryder and Desdemona. “You two are obviously at odds over something.” She faced Ryder. “We shouldn’t have come here, Ryder, and I think we should leave. This isn’t Desdemona’s problem. It’s not fair that her life should be in danger because of me.”
“Girl’s got sense.” Desdemona nodded. “Doesn’t make her right, but I like folks with sense. Now Ricky here, sometimes he shows sense, but other times he walks a dark path to nowhere. To no win.”
And now it was riddles. Mia fought back rising doubt and told herself to get a grip. Ryder had bayou ties. Desdemona was one of them. As for Billy, the doll…
A headlight swept through the shop, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Swamp folks pass by here sometimes on their way to the Fox. That’s my son’s bar,” Desdemona explained to Mia. “But maybe you want to move that truck of yours into the old storehouse out back, Ricky, just to be sure. Stock’s low. There should be plenty of room. I’ll take…” She raised inquiring brows at her guest.
“Mia.”
“There’s a pretty name. Mia and me will go on upstairs.” She winked. “I’ll show her what’s what and what’s got a mind of its own. Like when you pull the toilet chain and nothing happens how you gotta fiddle with the connection. It’ll flush by and by. My friend, she never worried about things like did the toilet flush right.” She tapped a ringed finger between her eyes. “You got the sight, you got bigger worries.” She wagged a finger behind her. “Billy, you keep a sharp look out for intruders, you hear?”
Mia caught the jingle of Ryder’s keys. “I’ll bring our stuff.”
“Her stuff, not yours,” Desdemona corrected. “Only one guest room up here. You sleep in the back. Billy, he’ll point the way.”
“I know the damn way,” Ryder said through his teeth.
Grinning now, Mia regarded her hostess. “I think he’s regretting his decision to bring me here. And seeing as there’s a killer after me, I wish he hadn’t.”
“Nonsense.” Desdemona flicked a hand. “Maybe I think the games Ricky plays are dangerous, but his brain works just fine when it wants to.”
Mia considered asking her how she knew Ryder and his aunt, but they’d creaked their way to the top of an extremely narrow staircase and the minute the overhead light flared, Desdemona shrieked.
She grabbed a broom from the corner. “You get gone.” The straw end thumped the worn floorboards. “No rats allowed up here, you know that.”
Perfect, Mia thought. Rats, on top of a toilet that might or might not flush, and the spine tingling sensation that Billy could still see her. She kept a safe distance from her broom-wielding hostess and her mouth shut.
“Here, take this.” Desdemona thrust the handle at her. “You see whiskers and a skinny tail, you bring it down hard and show no mercy. That rat, he killed my budgie, Feathers. Tried to blame the cat, but Billy, he said, no; it was the rat who did the deed.”
“I…don’t know what to say.” Mia confessed. “I’ll keep the broom in my room. Which is…?”
“Bedroom’s left, bathroom’s right. I’m in the attic.”
Of course she was. Mia smiled. “This is very kind of you.”
Desdemona chuckled. “You think so, and Billy thinks so, but Ricky, he thinks I’m a witch.” The woman’s cracked teeth gleamed in the barely there light. “Sleep well, young Mia. You need me, you know where I am. No need to worry yourself about being safe.” Pressing three fingers to Mia’s forehead, she whispered, “Last bad man who came to this antique shop got himself shot in the head.”
Mia stared in surprise. “You shot someone in the head?”
“Course not.” Desdemona sniffed. “Ain’t no need for me to resort to such violence. No need at all. Not with Billy sitting downstairs in his little chair. He rocks away all night long with a scowl on his face, watching and waiting for someone to come along and give him a reason to smile.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ryder knew Desdemona would come back down and read him her version of the riot act. But he needed something she had, and favors came at a cost.
She didn’t disappoint. Less than five mi
nutes after he returned to the shop, she stormed into the back room, slapped a key on the table and poked a finger into his chest.
“You’re a bastard, Richard Ryder. You got the heart and soul of the snakes that infest this swamp.”
“Yeah, it’s been mentioned.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me. We might not be blood, but I’m gonna tell you what I think. A mostly dead man with one living brain cell could see right off what you’re doing.”
“Would he see why?”
She made a disgusted sound. “Dead is dead, Ricky. You think a second wrong’s gonna make the first one right? That pretty girl up there dies, you got no one to blame but yourself. You don’t watch your step, I’ll get Billy to watch her instead.”
“Right, because there’s nothing crazy about entrusting someone’s life to a doll.”
Desdemona’s smile held no humor. She stepped so close he could smell the herb sachet she wore. “Blood like you got in your veins, and still you say a thing like that. You’re gonna get that girl killed you go on like this, and that’s a fact.”
“It’s also enough.” His expression cautioned her to back off. But Ryder knew it was the glitter in his eyes that made her whirl away with an angry rattle of beads.
“I got no sixth sense. Nothing speaks to me inside. But Billy, he smells bad in the air. You let Mia die, that bad’ll set its sights on you.”
Ryder picked up and pocketed the key she’d brought for him. “It’s too late for warnings, Desdemona. The bad’s my shadow now. And you, me and Billy all know, there’s only one way to eliminate a shadow.”
* * *
Pushing her doubts firmly aside, Mia stripped off her clothes and braved the shower in Desdemona’s bathroom. Afterward, she pulled on a pair of black pajama pants and a white sleep tank, and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed to think. However, when all she could bring to mind was Ryder, a steamy-as-hell kiss and someone’s eyes—not sure if they were Ryder’s or Billy’s—she gave up and reached for her phone.
Which was dead, she recalled and tossed it back in her purse. Okay, Ryder’s it was. As it was undoubtedly government issue, she had no qualms about using it to call Henri in New Orleans.
