by Jana DeLeon
“The land is held by the trust, not really the individual. The person who inherits gets limited control of the land and is the beneficiary of any income received off the land.”
“And the trust doesn’t allow for the sale of the land.” Maryse felt the light bulb come on. “So then why would it matter who inherited at all?”
“Well, the original trust documents were prepared long before anyone considered the possibility that companies and individuals might enter into long-term leases, essentially giving the same benefits to the lessee as buying. Helena felt you wouldn’t entertain those sort of offers, so she selected you.”
“Lucky me,” Maryse said, and smiled. “So you need me to select an heir, and it can be anyone I want, unless I have kids at some point and then things have to change. Is that the gist of it?”
“That’s correct. If you have no objection, I’ll be happy to draw up that paperwork for you as soon as you give me a name.”
Maryse pulled a pen from her pocket and proceeded to write Sabine’s name on a napkin. She pushed the napkin across the table to Wheeler. “I know it’s not very official, but I figure you just need the name, right?”
Wheeler folded the napkin and placed it in his suit pocket. “That will do. I’ll draw the papers up and make sure to get them signed and filed before the end of the one-week period. From that point forward, if anything were to happen to you, the land will be safe and secure in the hands you’ve selected.”
Maryse straightened in her seat and stared at Wheeler. “From that point forward?” She narrowed her eyes. “So God forbid, something happens to me in the next week, what happens to the land?”
“It passes to the next heir—Hank.”
“That’s it,” Helena shouted and jumped up from her booth. “That’s the part I couldn’t remember that I thought was important.”
Maryse stared at Wheeler in dismay. “You’re telling me I have to outlive Helena by a week or the land goes to Hank, no questions asked?”
Wheeler nodded.
“Unbelievable. And it never occurred to anyone that this rule might leave the first to inherit with a much shorter life span than originally intended?”
Wheeler shook his head. “I don’t think they were thinking in those terms. It was simply a different world back then. And while I understand your concern, I really don’t think you have a lot to worry about. Certainly, it’s possible the land could be worth a good bit of money to developers at some point, but that’s not the case at the moment. The state is the only interested party as things stand right now. Ten, twenty years down the road, things could change, especially if New Orleans continues to push its boundaries, but what you’re suggesting is an awfully big risk for a payoff that might not even happen in a person’s lifetime.”
“But you said the land was Helena’s most valuable asset.”
Wheeler nodded. “Sentimentally, it was, and as I said, long-term the land will probably be worth more than any of us can imagine.”
“I guess you’re right,” Maryse said, but one look at the pensive Helena, and Maryse wondered if there was something that Wheeler didn’t know. Something that Maryse didn’t want to know. “Is there anything else?”
Wheeler pulled some documents from a folder on the table. “I need some signatures for the paperwork for the state to ensure they make the check out to you rather than Helena, and there’s a couple other documents needing signature…mostly just legal posturing, but required nonetheless.”
Maryse pulled the stack of paperwork over toward her and spent the next fifteen minutes signing her name as Wheeler pointed out the correct spots. Finally, she passed the last document back to Wheeler, who placed them all neatly back in his folder. “Well,” Maryse said, “if that’s everything, I guess I’ll be on my way.”
Wheeler nodded and rose from the booth. As Maryse rose, he extended his hand. “Thank you for meeting me this morning, Ms. Robicheaux. I’ll call as soon as I have those papers ready for your signature. I can meet you here again if that’s convenient.”
“That’s fine,” Maryse said, and shook Wheeler’s hand. “Just let me know.” She turned from the booth and left the cafe, Helena trailing behind her. Maryse loitered a bit on the sidewalk, waiting for Wheeler to leave. She needed to talk to Helena and wasn’t about to give the ghost a ride again. Hanging out with Helena all day simply wasn’t on her list of things to do. Finally, Wheeler made it to his ancient Cadillac and pulled away.
Maryse glanced inside the café to make sure no one was looking and turned her back to the huge picture glass. “Okay, Helena, spill it,” she said. “You’ve got this pained look on your face, and I have the bad feeling that you’re about to say something else I’m not going to like.”
Helena lowered her eyes and shuffled her feet. “I’m just concerned about the one-week clause. That’s all.”
Maryse stared at her. “Why? You heard Wheeler. It’d be too risky for Hank or Harold to try anything when the land isn’t really worth much right now.”
Helena bit her lower lip and raised her head to Maryse. “You remember that envelope I had you look for in my safe? The one that was missing?”
Maryse nodded. “How could I forget?”
“Well, it had some documents from a survey of the land.”
Maryse closed her eyes in frustration. “So what did it say, Helena? Where are you going with this?”
Helena clenched her hands together and stared at Maryse. “It might have said that the preserve was full of oil.”
“What!” Maryse cried, then glanced around making sure no one had seen her yelling into empty space. “Oil? Exactly how much oil might that letter have said was in the preserve?”
“It might have said there was billions of dollars worth…”
Maryse stared at Helena, horrified. “Billions, as in I don’t even know how many zeros, billions?” Maryse felt a flush rise to her face. “Jesus Christ, Helena! You heard Harold threaten me at Wheeler’s office. He probably took that letter before the will reading. He expected Hank to inherit the land. That’s why he’s so mad.”
“Now, let’s not get excited.”
“Excited? Are you crazy? You’ve made me a moving target. One without a lot of places to hide given that I can’t leave Mudbug. Do you really think Harold wouldn’t take a shot at me over billions of dollars? He may be lazy, but he’s not that lazy.”
Helena took in a deep breath, and Maryse could tell that despite her protests, Helena was worried. Great. Just great.
“It’s only six days counting today,” Helena said. “We can come up with a plan.”
“What kind of plan? Maybe locking me in a Kevlar box for a week? Even the bayou has a limited number of hiding places.”
Helena shook her head. “I don’t want you camping in the bayou. In fact, if you could not go into the bayou at all for a while that would probably be better. As long as you’re surrounded by people, it will be much harder to get to you. And you do have a secret weapon.”
Maryse narrowed her eyes. “What secret weapon?”
Helena pointed to herself. “Me. Think about it, Maryse. I can look out for you without anyone suspecting. I can warn you if anything is out of the ordinary.”
Maryse stared at her. “Yeah, because everything else that’s happened this week has been normal. You’re not a weapon, Helena. You’re the angel of death, and I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’ve done quite enough.”
Maryse jumped into her rental and tore out of the parking lot before Helena could fling herself on the trunk or anything else ridiculous the ghost may come up with. Six days. Unbelievable. Not quite a week, and it seemed ages. Suddenly, still being married to Hank seemed like such a simple problem.
She turned onto the gravel road and headed toward the office. She had to get her head on straight. Had to come up with a plan. Maybe she’d just have a heart attack right here and now and save Harold the trouble. A second later, she slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a stop i
n the middle of the road. The thought that had hit her was so horrible, so awful that she couldn’t even breathe.
If Harold killed her, she might be stuck in limbo like Helena. Even worse, she might be stuck in limbo with Helena.
For all eternity.
Six days was looking shorter by the minute.
Luc eased the thin tool into the deadbolt on the door to Maryse’s lab. Since he’d hacked her e-mail and found out about her appointment with Helena’s attorney, he knew she would be late coming in. Unfortunately, the guy bringing him the tools got stuck in a traffic jam in downtown New Orleans, so he was getting started a good hour later than he’d planned.
He leaned in close to the door, listening for the tell-tale click that would let him know he was successful. It took a couple more seconds before he felt the tool give and heard the barely audible sound of the locking mechanism turning. He slipped the tool in his pocket to use inside on the locked drawer where the notebook was stashed, and grabbed a second tiny rod from the black carrying case that housed his breaking and entering tools. He’d need that one to relock the drawer and the door once he was done.
He closed the case and crossed the room to slip it inside his gym bag. If Maryse came back sooner than expected, the last thing he needed was for her to see the tool set and start asking questions. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what the thin blades were for, and Maryse was no dummy. The case secure, he slipped into the lab and worked his magic on the drawer. A minute later, he pulled the notebook from inside and headed out of the lab and straight for the office copy machine.
He flipped page after page, copying as fast as the antiquated machine allowed. The front office window gave him a clear view of the road and the dock, which was good since he was never quite sure what mode of transportation Maryse might use. Either way, he should see her in enough time to get everything back to where it belonged. He hoped.
Ten more pages or so, he thought as he turned the notebook over and over again and prayed that the copier would hold out. He was only a couple of pages from the end when the copier whined to a stop. What now? He studied the copier display screen and groaned. The thing was jammed, and if that display was any indication, it was jammed all over.
He put the notebook on the table behind him and opened the feeder tray. As he pulled a sheet of paper lodged halfway in the feeder, he looked out the window. Shit, shit, shit! There was no mistaking the red rental car turning the corner. And it was coming fast.
Chapter Eight
Luc grabbed the notebook and ran into the lab. He shut the notebook in the drawer, then poked his tool in the lock, hoping it worked its magic. The lock clicked almost immediately and he rushed to the door, repeating the process on the deadbolt. He hurried over to the copier and pulled the documents off the tray and shoved them into his gym bag.
His pulse racing, he glanced out the window just as Maryse pulled to a stop in front of the office. Yanking open the panels of the copier, he prayed that he got the paper removed before she could offer to help. If any of the jammed pieces were partially copied, he was busted, pure and simple. There was no logical way to explain what he was doing with her personal property—or how he had broken into her lab to get it.
He flipped open drawers and panels and yanked the lodged paper from inside, cramming it into his pockets as he went. He was down to the last tray when he heard the office door open. He glanced into the tray at the offending paper and held in a stream of cursing. The paper was jammed in the rollers, crinkled like a Japanese fan, but if you flattened out the folded rows, Maryse’s handwriting still showed on the document clear as day.
“Problems?” Maryse asked as she tossed her keys onto her desk.
Luc rose from the copier and shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary for a machine this old. Just a paper jam.”
Maryse nodded. “It does that all the time. Let me take a look. I’ve gotten to be a real pro at fixing that piece of junk.”
Luc waved one hand, desperate to fend her off. “No, that’s all right. I’ll get it.”
Maryse stared at him a moment. “What’s your problem, LeJeune? Would my fixing the copier somehow be an affront to your manhood?” She walked over to the machine and gave him a shove. “Move out of the way. I don’t want to listen to you banging and cussing over here for the next thirty minutes. There’s a trick to getting paper out of this spot.”
Luc clenched his fists in a panic, searching for something, anything that would stop her from reaching into that panel, but he came up with absolutely nothing. His only hope was that she wouldn’t take a close look at the paper while removing it and he could somehow get it away from her immediately following removal.
Maryse squatted down in front of the copier and looked at the offending paper. “You got it jammed in good. Usually you’ve got to unscrew this top piece to get the paper out, but after I went through that process for about the hundredth time, I got smart and installed a pin to hold it in place. See?” She pointed to a long, thin, metal pin slotted through the panel and into the roller.
Luc glanced at the pin and nodded, certain he hadn’t taken a breath since she’d walked in the door.
“So all I have to do is pull the pin out,” Maryse said and proceeded to remove the pin while holding her hand under the top panel. “And, voila, the tray drops and the paper is easily removed.” She gently worked the paper out of from between the roller and the panel and held it up in front of him, the tell-tale text facing her direction and just below eye level.
All he could think about was keeping her from looking at that paper, and the only way he knew to throw someone like Maryse off track was to give her something bigger to focus on. Before he could change his mind he yanked the sheet of paper from her hand, ignoring the surprised look on her face, and stepped so close to her that he could feel the heat coming off her body.
“Mechanically inclined women really turn me on,” he said and leaned in to kiss her before she knew it was coming and could formulate a retreat.
As his lips touched hers, a spark hit him deep in his center, and the panic he felt began to subside. When she didn’t pull away, he kept his mouth on hers, gently parting her lips for his tongue to enter. He involuntarily pressed into her, his arousal firm against her leg.
The instant other parts of him made contact, Maryse jumped back and stared at him, her face full of surprise and confusion. “What the hell is wrong with you, LeJeune? Are you bucking for a hostile work environment complaint?”
She stared at him, obviously waiting for an answer, but he couldn’t come up with a single excuse that would fly. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I just got carried away.”
She gave him a wary look as she backed away and grabbed her keys from the desk. “Well, don’t let it happen again.” Without so much as a backward glance, she walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Luc watched as she jumped in her boat and tore down the bayou. As the boat rounded a bend and disappeared, he slumped back against the wall next to the copier. What the hell had he been thinking? Maryse’s threat was very real—behavior like that could get him a legal complaint and completely blow his cover.
He looked down at the piece of paper, still clenched in his hand. At least he’d gotten the paper without her seeing it, and that had been the whole point, right? But as he shoved the papers in a file and headed out of the office to take them to a scientist in New Orleans, he couldn’t help but think he’d gotten way more than he bargained for.
Maryse pushed down the throttle on her boat and grimaced every time the bow beat against the choppy surface of the bayou. At the rate the boat was moving, she could probably have run faster, even with her injuries.
And running is just what you’re doing.
That thought brought her up short, and she eased up on the gas and gritted her teeth as the boat bounced to a slower, less-jarring crawl. She’d gone to the office with the intention of actually getting some work done. Then Luc had
pulled his playboy routine, and she’d panicked like a schoolgirl.
Jesus, you’d think she’d never been kissed. She was a married woman, for Christ’s sake. Well, not really married, but married enough that she shouldn’t have been so disturbed by a kiss.
But she was. And that really, really stuck in her craw.
Professional ladies’ men like Luc LeJeune had no business putting the moves on women like her, especially when she wasn’t exactly in her best fighting shape. She cut the gas on the boat and coasted to a stop. Sinking down on her driver’s seat, she looked out over the bayou and took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind of the fog of Luc’s kiss, but her evil brain brought it all back to her in amazing Technicolor.
Luc’s lips, masculine and soft all at the same time, pressed against her own. All she could think of was how those lips would feel other places. When he’d slipped his tongue in her mouth, she’d almost melted on the spot. She couldn’t allow herself thoughts about that tongue going other places. There were just some lines you didn’t cross because you knew there was no returning afterward.