I took in a calming breath and let it out slowly, hoping to settle my frazzled nerves. “All right, but this has to end, Henri. I can’t keep lying to Jean Marc for you. If you’re not gone in three days, I’ll tell him everything.”
He nodded and pointed to the parlor doors. “Deal. Now go and get the damned door.”
I headed out of the parlor and walked down the narrow beige hall to the living room, where I found Ms. Marie already at the dark red front door.
She was speaking with three men, standing on the porch outside. The man in front was dressed in a tailored black suit with a cream-colored tie. He was tall, skinny, and had dark hair sprinkled with gray. His face was long and he had deep-set, bright green eyes. He was holding up a bible in his left hand as he smiled warmly at Ms. Marie. The two men flanking him were thick, muscular, and bald. Each was dressed in casual dark slacks with white, long-sleeved shirts. One of the men had a thick, white scar down the left side of his face, running from beneath his eye to his upper lip. When he smiled at Ms. Marie, his upper lip crinkled, looking more like a sneer than a smile. A rush of anxiety gripped me as Ms. Marie waved the men inside. The man with the scar refused Ms. Marie’s invitation and remained outside as the two other men entered the home.
I knew from the steady flow of Ms. Marie’s friends who had been coming and going over the past few days that these three men were not from her church. If anything, the sight of them made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I ducked out of the living room before I was spotted and headed back to the parlor. When I opened the parlor doors, Henri was already in his bed, dressed in his pajamas and pretending to be asleep.
“Henri, get up. There are three men here and something is not right about them.”
Henri rolled over in the bed and looked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Two of the men came inside when Ms. Marie invited them in, but one man stayed on the porch. He had this scar down the side of his face and—”
“What scar?” Henri sat up in the bed.
“It ran from underneath his eye to his lip.” I watched the color drain from Henri’s face. “What is it, Henri?”
Just then a knock came from outside of the parlor doors.
“Coming,” I called as Henri stood from the bed.
Ms. Marie opened the parlor doors and peeked inside. She smiled at Henri. “Henri, some nice men are here to see you. They’re friends from your church in the city. I put them in the livin’ room and told them you’d be out shortly.”
“I’ll help him get ready,” I assured her.
“See, Henri,” Ms. Marie said to her son. “People care about you. And you told me you didn’t have any friends in New Orleans. You shouldn’t be telling your mama such fibs.” Ms. Marie shifted her eyes to me. “I’ll just be off to church, Nora. But make sure those nice men get some refreshments, all right?”
I nodded at Ms. Marie. “Of course. I’ll take care of it. You go on. You don’t want to be late for church.”
Ms Marie waved good-bye to her son, and I waited until she had closed the parlor doors behind her before I spoke.
“Who is here, Henri?”
He quickly moved from the bed to the parlor doors and I was shocked by the effortless grace of his movements. I figured he had been hiding his true physical abilities from me all along. I wondered what else he had kept from me.
Henri listened at the door as the tap of his mother’s shoes on the hardwood floor headed down the hallway toward the kitchen. He turned to me. “It seems my associates from the city have come to see how bad off I really am.”
My heart fell to the floor.
Henri, however, remained cool and collected. “Go to the cottage and get Jean Marc.”
“But he went crabbing with Uncle Jack.”
Henri cursed under his breath. He gazed about the room and then his black eyes returned to me. “Go to the cottage. Call his cell phone. He takes it everywhere with him. Tell him what’s going on.”
“What about you?” I asked, feeling the nervous beads of sweat begin to collect on my upper lip.
He went to the foot of the bed and picked up his robe. “I’ll stay here and talk to them. Try and convince them that I’m as stupid as they need me to be. But if they aren’t convinced….” Henri slipped the robe over his shoulders. “Looks like you might get your wish after all, Nora. As soon as I can get rid of these guys, I will have to leave. I can’t stay here anymore.” He nodded to the door. “Take the back door from the kitchen to Jean Marc’s. Now go.”
Before I pulled the parlor doors open, I glanced back at Henri.
“Go get my brother,” he urged with a wave of his left hand. “He’ll know exactly what to do.”
Chapter 27
I took off down the hall and headed toward the kitchen. I didn’t see any sign of Ms. Marie, and prayed that she was on her way to church and out of harm’s way.
I rushed out the back door and down the porch steps. As soon as my feet hit the soft, green grass, I took off running toward the path that led to Jean Marc’s.
I reached the clearing in front of Jean Marc’s cottage and recognized my uncle’s blue pick up truck parked under a nearby oak tree. As I approached the screened front porch, I heard raised voices coming from the back of the cottage. I ran around the side of the house and noticed two men leaning over the back of a green flatboat tied up to the dock.
“Check the sparkplug again,” Jean Marc’s voice barked as I ran up to the dock.
“I already did that. She ain’t the problem,” Uncle Jack replied as he turned from the back of the boat and saw me.
My uncle nudged Jean Marc next to him as I hurriedly approached the boat.
Jean Marc stood up in the boat. “Is something wrong?”
“There are men at the house for Henri,” I explained as I tried to catch my breath.
My uncle looked from me to Jean Marc.
“Men?” Jean Marc scowled. “Policemen?”
I shook my head and took another few quick breaths. “They showed up at the front door and your mother let them in. They said they were friends from his church, but Henri told me they are his former associates, the ones who set him up in all of that cult business.” Jean Marc climbed out of the boat. “He sent me to get you. He said you would know what to do,” I related as he came up to my side.
Uncle Jack followed Jean Marc onto the dock.
Jean Marc ran his hands over his face. “Where’s my mother?”
“She went to church,” I informed him.
“You sure ‘bout that?” Uncle Jack demanded.
I nodded. “She wasn’t in the house when I left.”
“How many men?” Jean Marc questioned.
“Three,” I answered. “One stayed outside on the front porch, and the other two were in the living room waiting for Henri.”
He turned to Uncle Jack. “You got your shotgun?”
Uncle Jack nodded. “In my truck, loaded and ready to go.”
Jean Marc motioned to the house. “Meet me out front.”
Uncle Jack hurried down the dock and headed around the side of the cottage.
I turned to Jean Marc. “What are you going to do?”
Jean Marc started for the back door of the cottage. “The only thing we can do. Go over there and make sure nothing happens to Henri.”
I followed him to the back door. “You can’t just walk in the door, guns at the ready, and shoot everyone.”
Jean Marc stopped at the door and faced me. “Nora, if these men are as Henri said then we have no other choice. They came here for one thing and one thing only; to make sure Henri can’t talk and incriminate them in any way. It won’t matter to them if he can remember any of his dealings with them or not.”
“But he can remember everything, Jean Marc. Mentally he’s still the same Henri, and has been for some time.”
Jean Marc grabbed my arm. “How long have you known this?”
“Since yesterday
morning when I returned to the house. I walked into the kitchen and found him smoking a cigarette. That’s when I learned the truth about his recovery.” I dropped my gaze from his outraged eyes to his hand, clutching my arm.
He let go of me and shook his head. “You should have said something to me last night. I could have kicked his sorry ass out of the house and avoided this mess.” He opened the back screen door and waved me inside.
We stepped through to the rear of the kitchen and then headed for the living room. I followed behind him as he went to the table by the front door and retrieved the .9mm pistol from a drawer. He pulled out the magazine, checked it, and then slammed it back into the gun.
“Are you going to kill those men, Jean Marc?”
“Possibly.”
“Have you ever killed a man before?”
He stared at me as if trying to understand why I had asked such a question.
“Henri told me about you. He said you’re considered one of the best in your profession. How long have you been an international smuggler?”
Jean Marc uttered a heaving sigh. “Fifteen years. I was going to tell you about all of it, tonight. I would have said something earlier, but I was afraid of losing you.” He dropped his eyes to the gun in his hand. “Am I going to lose you, Nora?”
The front door flew open and my uncle came bounding into the cottage. In his hand was a double-barreled shotgun.
“You ready?” he asked, nodding to Jean Marc.
Jean Marc moved toward my uncle.
I reached for his arm. “What about the police? Shouldn’t we call them?”
Jean Marc pulled his cell phone from the front pocket of his jeans and handed it to me. “Mel Cadeaux is on my call list. He’s the local police chief. Tell him what’s going on and to get out here right away.”
I took the phone from him. “What do you want me to do?”
Jean Marc took a step closer to me. “Stay here. I can’t protect you if things get dicey up at the house. Promise me you will stay here until the police arrive.”
“Please be careful,” I whispered to him.
He kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry about me, Nora. I’ll be fine.” He stood back from me and winked.
I looked to my uncle, who offered me a reassuring nod, and then the men headed down the porch steps. I watched from the cottage doorway as Jean Marc’s tall figure disappeared into the brush.
I peered down at the cell phone in my hand and began scrolling through Jean Marc’s long list of contacts, until I came across the name Mel Cadeaux. After four rings a man’s gritty voice picked up on the other end.
“Gaspard, you old son of a bitch.”
“This isn’t Jean Marc, Mr. Cadeaux. It’s Nora Kehoe. There’s trouble at Gaspard House. Three men have shown up and are threatening to harm Henri. Jean Marc wanted me to call you right away.”
“You’re Claire Mouton’s girl. I remember you, Nora,” Mel Cadeaux said into the speaker of the phone. “Tell Jean Marc I’m on my way.”
I hung up the cell phone and placed it on the table by the door. I stepped on to the screened porch beyond the front door and waited. As the minutes ticked by, I began to pace back and forth on the noisy porch planks. I felt helpless waiting there. I was worried about Jean Marc, about my uncle, and even about Henri. I silently prayed to the heavens above for a peaceful resolution to this mess. Unable to stand it any longer, I decided to slowly make my way to the main house and see if I could detect any activity from the brush just beyond the back door. But I knew I could not just go traipsing over there without some form of protection. Then I remembered the hammerless .32 revolver Jean Marc kept in the drawer of his nightstand.
I flew back into the house, and when I reached his bedroom, I pulled the gun from the drawer of the nightstand. While checking to make sure the gun was loaded, two loud pops echoed from outside. My heart stopped and my stomach shrank with dread. I ran from the bedroom, down the stairs and out to the porch. Once outside, I heard the frantic barking of Napoleon and Nelson coming from the rear of Gaspard House.
I clicked off the safety on the gun, and then immediately started down the porch steps. I had to find out what was going on.
Sticking close to the green brush along the way, I ran toward the house. By the time I sighted the terra cotta roof shingles of Gaspard House glowing in the late morning sun, my heart was pounding. I stayed close to the brush as I came around the back of the house. Only the occasional chirp of a bird broke through the eerie stillness of the morning air, and then I heard the distinct sound of growling coming from just behind the back porch.
I moved as fast as I could while trying to remain hidden in the brush. When I came around the edge of a small cleared area beyond the back of the house, I saw Napoleon and Nelson growling menacingly at something on the ground near them. As I stepped from the cover of the brush, I noticed the blood; deep red and pooling in the bright green grass on the ground in front of me. Then, the reason for the blood became evident. Lying face up in the grass was the tall man dressed in a black suit, and in his hand a .38 snub-nosed revolver. His dull green eyes were staring into the sky. In the middle of his chest, two spots of blood on his white dress shirt were slowly expanding. Not far from his side was an open bible. The center of the bible had been hollowed out like a box. I walked over to Nelson and patted his thick neck as the two dogs kept a vigilant watch over the dead man.
“Nora?”
Henri emerged from the open back door of the house. His robe and pajama’s were stained with blood. He was holding a .9mm pistol in his left hand.
I ran up to his side and examined his body for a wound.
“It’s not mine,” he insisted, placing his arm about my shoulders and pulling me inside.
I glanced down at the old bricked kitchen floor and saw a trail of blood leading across the room to the hallway.
“Where are Jean Marc and Uncle Jack?” I asked as we hurried across the kitchen.
“Jack’s around front. He’s got the other two guys on the ground with his shotgun on them,” Henri clarified as we made our way quickly into the narrow hall.
“Who was that man, Henri?”
“Dr. Max Morgan, a New Orleans physician and the man I worked for,” Henri explained next to me. “I chased him into the kitchen. Took two bullets to bring him down.”
“Where’s Jean Marc?”
He stopped at the entrance to the living room. “I was coming to get you,” Henri said, and then his eyes anxiously peered into the room.
When I followed Henri’s eyes to the center of the dark green living room, my heart shattered into a million pieces. Lying on a cream-colored rug, and surrounded by a pool of blood, was my Jean Marc.
I ran to Jean Marc’s side and fell to my knees, tossing the gun from my hand. I immediately began to apply pressure to the bleeding bullet wound in his right upper leg.
Henri stood beside me. “Max pulled a gun out of that bible of his and shot him when Jean Marc told him to get out.” His voice became fraught with panic. “I didn’t know what to do and I was—”
“Quick, get me something to make a tourniquet! The bullet has hit an artery,” I shouted at him.
He removed the belt from his robe and handed it to me. “What about this?”
I grabbed the belt and tied it above the wound on Jean Marc’s right thigh.
I examined Jean Marc’s face. He was so pale. His lips were white and his eyes were glazed over. When I touch his cheek, he turned to me.
“Nora,” he barely whispered. “I wanted to see you one more.…” His head fell slightly to the side and then he was perfectly still.
“Jean Marc!” I cried out. “Jean Marc, stay with me. Don’t you leave me!”
As I knelt beside him, begging for him to come back to me, the sound of sirens could be heard approaching from the main road.
Epilogue
I sat at my oak desk and skimmed through the invoices that had been piling up since the previous day. Easing back
in my leather chair, I let my eyes wander to the large window next to me and marveled at the way the early summer sun shimmered on the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.
“You have a visitor.” Steve Seville’s voice came through the intercom on my desk. “And she ain’t friendly,” he added.
I pressed a button on the intercom. “Send her in, Steve.”
A few moments later Steve entered my office with a comical frown on his face. Right behind him walked my mother. She was newly dyed blonde and dressed in her best blue designer suit, blue leather Prada shoes, and an expensive array of gold and diamond jewelry covering every piece of exposed skin.
I sighed as I leaned forward in my chair. “Hello, Mother.”
She glared over her shoulder at Steve.
Steve just smiled at her and nodded to me. “Can I get you ladies anything?” he sweetly asked.
“No thanks, Steve,” I answered.
Mother waited until Steve had closed the door to my office before she turned to me.
“Why did you have to hire that man to work for you?”
“I wanted Steve to join me, Mother. He’s a good secretary and a good friend.” I shuffled some papers around on my desk. “Why are you here? You always swore you would never return to Manchac.”
She took in my compact, wood-paneled office at Gaspard Fisheries and threw her hands up. “I can’t believe you actually want to run this place. I did not raise you to be a fish farmer, Nora.”
“I doubt any of us actually set out to be what we end up becoming. But circumstance tends to overpower even the best of intentions. Besides, who else is going to help run Gaspard Fisheries?”
My mother came toward my desk, her brown eyes blazing. “You should come back to New Orleans. You can stay with me and Lou, at least until you’re married, then we can decide what—”
“Forget it, Mother.” I sat back in my chair.
Mother’s lower lip trembled as she took a seat in the red leather chair in front of my desk. She opened her handbag, pulled out a newspaper clipping, and then gingerly placed the clipping on the desk in front of me.
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