by Stacy Green
“No, you won’t.” Bonin slowed at an intersection for pedestrians. Tourists swarmed around artists hawking their creations. Two boys had commandeered a prime spot on the corner and rapped away on their bucket-drums. “Trust me, the last thing you want to do is piss Miss Alexandrine off.”
Bonin cut a left onto St. Ann, and they drove past Bourbon. “A little New Orleans history for you: Marie Laveau’s first house was on St. Ann Street, near Congo Park. It’s Louis Armstrong Park now. Miss Alexandrine lives just down the street.”
“Wasn’t everybody afraid of Marie Laveau?”
“More Hollywood crap,” Bonin said. “The Rue St. Ann house was a sanctuary for the poor and sick, especially children. Marie performed charms and rituals, yes, but she was good. People who know the real history call her an angel of mercy.” The car slowed. “She was pretty much confined to the Rue St. Ann house at the end of her life. The original house is gone, but people see her spirit walking through here all the time.” Bonin parked in front of a modest, yellow cottage with green plantation shutters.
“Please let me do the talking.”
“No problem.” Cage followed her up the short walk.
A woman dressed in white answered the weathered door. She couldn’t have been more than five feet, but her age was impossible to tell. Her startling eyes held him in a trance, her high cheekbones and gleaming skin reminiscent of an Egyptian queen.
“Myra Bonin. I’ve been expecting you. How’s your grandmother? She feelin’ better?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bonin said. “That herb you gave her did the trick.”
“I knew it would.” Her gaze landed on Cage. “My Lord, you’re a tall man. And as handsome as Ly—sorry, Annabeth—says you are. I’m still getting used to using her real name.”
He flushed. “Thank you. Is she here?”
Bonin elbowed him, but Miss Alexandrine only smiled sadly. “She is. We all need to talk. Come inside.”
Annabeth stared at them defiantly as Cage and Bonin sat down. “Told you she’d fix everything.”
“Hush,” Miss Alexandrine said, handing him the sweet tea she’d insisted on serving. Cage took a long drink to keep his mouth shut.
“Apologize for the way you behaved last night,” Alexandrine said.
Annabeth crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip.
“Ti fi, pa anbarase m.” The priestess pointed her finger. “Mwen pa pral disrespeted nan pwòp lakay mwen.”
“What is she saying?” Cage whispered to Bonin.
“Not to embarrass and disrespect her.”
“Good luck with that.”
Annabeth’s middle finger shot up.
Alexandrine pinched the girl’s arm. “I promised your Gran that I’d take care of you, but I won’t hesitate to fix your attitude real quick.”
“How about this bitch trying to get Sen Michel to trick me?” Annabeth said. “Or what she said about Gran?”
“I did what I had to. She ran off.” Bonin side-eyed Annabeth. “By the way, you need to practice your spell work.”
“Fuck you.”
“I won’t have another word like that,” Alexandrine said. “Apologize. Now.”
“Whatever. Sorry I ran off.” Annabeth curled into the chair, refusing to look at all of them.
Cage took another drink of tea and wished he’d remembered aspirin. A headache nagged at his temples. “Why didn’t Charlotte come forward?”
“You have to understand that Lyric was her whole world,” Alexandrine said. “Even though they fought constantly. Lyric had a group of friends in the Ninth Ward—one supposedly her boyfriend—who partied hard and didn’t take their future seriously. Charlotte prayed for Lyric to turn her life around before she went down the same path as her mother.”
“Charlotte said in the original police report that she and Lyric had a fight the day she disappeared,” Bonin said.
“Over that boy, mostly. Lyric wanted to ride out the storm at his house in the Ninth Ward. Charlotte said no, the Ninth was always too close to ground zero. Lyric finally gave in and promised to stay. She left to get supplies around an hour before the curfew started.”
Alexandrine reached for Bonin’s hand. “You remember how bad it was, don’t you? Chaos and death everywhere.”
“I’ll never forget it,” Bonin said. “I was a patrol officer. After the levees broke, we got on boats and tried to help people, even though we were told not to. Everyone was too busy arguing over who was in charge to actually do anything. When we were finally allowed to search houses … God Almighty, I’ll never get those images out of my head.”
“I stayed right here,” Alexandrine said. “And so did Charlotte. That house has been in her family for nearly three hundred years. If it was destroyed, she’d just go right along with it. Praise God, the Quarter was spared. But Lyric didn’t come back, and people said the Ninth was gone. Charlotte marched to Rouse’s as soon as it reopened. The manager said Lyric had bought $100 worth of supplies—just like she’d told Charlotte she would.”
“Grocery store on Royal Street,” Bonin clarified. “It’s been there forever. Was the power out by the time Lyric went to Rouse’s?”
“Security footage?” Cage asked.
“Hurricane, dumbass,” Annabeth said. “No power.”
Alexandrine stood up to tower over Annabeth, spewing Creole so fast the words ran together.
He nudged Bonin.
“Disrespectful, foolish, something about a curse that’ll make her break out in hives, I think.”
Annabeth shrank against the priestess’s wrath. “Okay.”
Cage’s phone vibrated; Agent Roger’s office number flashed on the screen. He sent it to voicemail.
“Why was Charlotte so certain Lyric ended up in the Ninth, especially after she bought supplies?” Bonin asked as Alexandrine sat back down.
“Because Lyric didn’t always tell the truth, and that wasn’t the first time she stole from Charlotte. Telling her to not to do something was as good as any spell, especially when it came to Sean Andrews.”
Cage and Bonin shared a glance. “We found Charlotte’s notes about her search for Lyric. Do you know why she put a truth spell on Sean?”
“She blamed him, even though he went with his family to the Superdome and never saw Lyric that day. Charlotte never accepted that.” Alexandrine sighed. “She was convinced Lyric ended up taking up with some other friend in the Ninth and figured Sean was covering for him. That never made sense to me, but Charlotte was damn near out of her mind. I always thought Lyric must have drowned and been washed away, but Charlotte never gave up hope.”
Alexandrine’s strange eyes clouded. “She was relentless with the spirits. We conjured, worked the rituals, but the Loa were silent, no matter how generous our offerings. Divination produced nothing but bleakness.”
“You’re losing me.” Cage’s phone vibrated again. He should have called his boss first thing this morning, but news of Annabeth’s being bailed out had distracted him. He’d welcomed the opportunity to put it off a little bit longer.
Bonin elbowed Cage as Alexandrine’s gaze swept over him. Her mesmerizing eyes locked with his, and he had the sensation of being questioned by a relentless investigator. She gave him a tiny nod.
“Divination is a practice for learning about the future,” she said. “We ask the Loa—our Voodoo spirits—for guidance in all things. None were able to help, until finally her ancestor, Dayana, appeared.”
“Dayana.” Cage tried to be polite. “Is that a spirit? Or an ancestor? Sorry, I’m confused.”
“Many ancestors rise to the position of family Loa—spirit,” Alexandrine said. “Dayana’s father came from Haiti during the revolution. He was a very powerful priest, and he passed those powers to Dayana. Every generation of Charlotte’s family had someone who possessed the power, right down to Lyric. But she rejected our faith.”
“And this Dayana said Lyric was alive?”
“Trapped and praying for help,”
Alexandrine said. “Dayana promised to find a way to bring Lyric home. Not six weeks later, Charlotte receives the call that Lyric is in a Jasper hospital.”
“She should have told the Jasper police when she realized the truth.” His phone vibrated a third time, his headache flared. The frustration leaked into his voice. The police might have mobilized a better search. Even if the kidnapper had already taken off, he’d likely left evidence behind. Seven years ago, the cops had a real chance at catching him.
Cage ignored Bonin’s dirty look. He didn’t care how powerful the priestess was—her friend’s silence had probably cost other girls their lives.
“She considered it, but the Jasper Police were more concerned about the rich, white citizens who hit her with their car,” Alexandrine said. “She fell in love with Annabeth. She couldn’t risk losing her.”
Cage downed the rest of his tea. Rogers was definitely going to fire him before he officially started—and probably find a way to permanently destroy his career. He rubbed his temples—ignoring Bonin’s questioning look—and tried to pretend he still had a job. “She risked other girls’ lives in keeping silent.”
Alexandrine’s eyes turned to ice. “Charlotte didn’t make the decision lightly. She made sure there wasn’t any dental work or anything else to use for identification.”
“But not her fingerprints,” Cage said. “Those prints are the reason we’re sitting here.”
“I assume she didn’t consider a teenaged girl would have fingerprints on file,” Alexandrine said. “I can’t blame her for that.”
Or she didn’t look into fingerprints because she’d known they were the best shot at identification. “Annabeth’s grandfather worked for the prosecutor’s office during the Atlanta Child Murders case,” Cage said. “Her father grew up paranoid about unidentified kids. He had Annabeth fingerprinted when she turned twelve. If she’d told the police, they would have identified her.”
“Charlotte believed she’d tried her best,” Alexandrine said firmly. “She decided Lyric had given her life for this girl, and her ancestor had brought Charlotte to care for her.”
The pain wrapped around his skull. “Did she realize that Lyric must have been in the same place as Annabeth? She had Charlotte’s phone number. Her ancestor’s ghost didn’t make those things happen.”
The priestess stared him down, her disconcerting eyes amused. “Her jaw was broken, her brain bleeding. The brain surgeon told Charlotte it was a miracle that she communicated the number. How do you think that miracle occurred?”
He didn’t care. But he sure as hell didn’t believe some ancestral spirit had anything to do with it. “Ma’am, I respect your faith in your friend, but whoever took Annabeth and Lyric may still be out there.”
“That’s why Charlotte did the ritual.” Alexandrine refilled his glass, and he drank greedily. Too much salt in his breakfast. Bonin nudged him again, and he scooted away. She’d told him to be polite. And the tea was delicious.
His cell again, but this time a text from Rogers flashed on the screen.
‘You have ten minutes to call me back or don’t bother showing up for work next week.’
Cage barely heard Alexandrine’s explanation of the spell performed over Charlotte before she died so that her ashes would protect the girl. Rogers wasn’t ready to fire him. Maybe Cage could spin the situation to make Rogers see it as a publicity win for him.
“Charlotte’s whole being is in that spell. As long as Annabeth wears the ring, she’s safe.”
“It’s going to take more than a spell to protect her.” He set the glass down hard, splashing some of the tea onto the coffee table. “It’s only a matter of time before the media finds out. If he’s still alive, he’ll come for her. Her memory loss won’t matter.”
“Then I entrust that duty to you.” Alexandrine reached over and took his hand in her warm one. “She must face who she really is now. Keep her safe and bring this person to justice.”
He couldn’t look away from her powerful eyes. “I can’t do that unless she tells us everything.”
She turned to Annabeth and said something in Creole. Annabeth’s chin trembled, and she shook her head. Alexandrine spoke again, ‘Charlotte’ the only word Cage could make out.
“Mwen pral nan pwoblèm. Mwen ta dwe te di li anvan.”
“Yes, you should have told us everything from the start,” Bonin said. “Now’s your chance to make it right. You won’t be in trouble if you just come clean.”
“Like I can trust you.”
“I trust her,” Alexandrine said. “Go on.”
“If it’s about your abduction, something you remember, you’re not going to be in trouble,” Cage said.
“Even for keeping important information from the cops?”
“Why would you do that in the first place?” Bonin asked. “Didn’t you want them to find the person who hurt you?”
Annabeth’s eyes turned murderous. “Don’t you dare judge me, especially after what you did.”
“You’re comparing me trying to keep your foolish ass safe to your withholding information?”
Instead of bursting into another verbal tirade, Annabeth wilted. “You have no idea what it’s like to wake up and not remember existing.”
“You’re right,” Bonin said. “But we’re just trying to help you. We can’t do that if you’re not straight with us.”
“It’s only a little snippet. And until today, I wasn’t sure it was even real. Like maybe I hallucinated it. I knew the cops would want me to take them back there. I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to.” Annabeth’s fingers dug into her tattoo again. “There were graves. And Mickie was in one.”
16
“Sir, please hear me out.”
“Not until I’m done chewing you a new asshole, Foster.” His soon-to-be supervisory agent Mark Rogers reamed Cage for five minutes straight. Rogers was an LBI star, and the new unit was his brainchild. He’d made it clear that tarnishing his image would be the fastest way out the door.
“It’s bad enough that you’re acting as an LBI Agent without having the credentials,” Rogers said. “But now you’re telling me you can’t inform this girl’s parents, even though the fingerprint evidence is solid?”
The old pavers in Alexandrine’s small courtyard seemed to suck up the sun. Cage felt dizzy from the heat. “Sir, there are extenuating circumstances.”
“Like what? Has she been held captive for seven years? Are we looking at some kind of trafficking ring?” Rogers sounded too excited at the prospect.
“No, sir.” He quickly explained Annabeth’s condition and his theory on her disappearance. “She’s already remembered bits and pieces of what’s happened, including seeing the other missing girl in a grave.” Graves. Plural. Annabeth was sure of it, even if the image was murky at best.
“How do you know she’s not putting on an act?”
He couldn’t offer any proof other than gut instinct. Even Annabeth’s story about not knowing Mickie’s name until today could have been made up. “Why would she do that? She was captive less than a month, sir.”
“Jesus Christ, Foster. Why didn’t you just let the NOPD handle this?”
“I worked her disappearance as a rookie, sir, and I knew Annabeth as a kid. My former captain and I both believed Annabeth would recognize me and realize she was safe.”
“And now you think the smoking gun to this whole thing is locked inside her head?”
“Lyric and Annabeth were taken by the same person, nearly six years apart. That’s a long dormant period. There’s a good chance he took other girls in between.”
“He kept Lyric alive, according to your theory,” Rogers said. “Lyric’s getting old. He replaced her with a similar looking girl.”
“And then he had to replace Annabeth seven years ago.”
Rogers sighed. “Foster, what do you want from me?”
“Time,” Cage said. “Not informing her parents is a risk, and I’ll take the blame for that.
If I can just have a couple of days, she might—”
“Seven years, and she’s remembered a handful of things. What makes you think that’s going to change now?”
“The pressure. Whatever wall she’s built around her memory is cracking. I don’t think she can stop it. I just need time.”
“This family has suffered enough,” Rogers said. “And if word gets out that we located her and didn’t inform them immediately, the unit is screwed before we get started.”
Selfish media-whoring asshole. “And what happens when the media finds out we took her home against her will?”
Rogers grunted. “Is she refusing to cooperate?”
“She wants nothing to do with going back to Mississippi,” Cage said. “But she’s willing to work with a hypnotist to see what else she might remember.”
His hole kept getting deeper. Cage hadn’t even brought the idea up to Annabeth.
Rogers was silent.
“If we bring her parents before she’s ready, she’ll never trust us. We have one chance.”
“Keeping this from her parents is a big risk for the unit. And by unit, I mean you. I just can’t sign off on it. Make the call.”
“Sir—”
“It’s not open for debate. Call the Georges.”
The screen door slammed, and déjà vu washed over him. Annabeth, wringing her hands and gnawing her lip, silently imploring him. Altered face, but the same soulful, pleading eyes. She’d just been a kid, and he’d made the wrong decision out of selfishness.
Not this time. “There’s only one problem with that, sir.”
“And what would that be?”
Dani would kill him if she ever discovered what he was about to do. “She ran off. I don’t know where she is, and I need time to find her.”
17
Bonin drove while Cage sucked down a big bottle of water and swallowed two aspirin. He wasn’t sure Agent Rogers actually believed him, but his lie had worked. He’d given Cage two days, and then her parents had to be informed.