Trouble In Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  Helena shook her head, clearly miserable. “I guess. I just don’t know.”

  “Well, hell, that’s the way it happens in the movies.” She blew out a breath in frustration. “How should I know? We didn’t exactly cover this sort of thing in college.”

  “Well, it wasn’t covered in the society pages, either, so I don’t know why you’re getting all pissy with me. I’m trying to save your skinny ass from whatever that man cooked up.”

  Maryse clenched her jaw, not about to launch into why she was pissy with Helena. If not for Helena and her games, Maryse’s skinny ass would be nice and safe. She took another look at the cabin. Mind made up, she drew her keys from her pocket and began walking toward the front door. Helena started to protest, but Maryse beat her to the punch. “I’m not going inside. I’m only going to unlock the door.”

  She crept up the path, feeling like a fool for sneaking up on her own home, and stopped at her front door, easing the key into the lock. It slid in silently, and she heard the barely audible click of chambers rolling inside the door as she turned the key to the left. Then she backed away from the cabin as quickly as possible and stopped at the dock next to Helena.

  “What now?” Helena asked.

  Maryse jumped into her boat and lifted the back seat to get into the storage box. “The latch on the front door is so old it doesn’t hold anymore. Unless it’s locked, even a good wind will blow it open.”

  “No wind today. Figures.”

  “No matter.” Maryse reached into the box and pulled out a shotgun and a box of shells.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Rubber bullets,” Maryse explained. “I have to have them for the job. Not supposed to kill the critters, you know. They won’t tear anything up, but it will be more than enough punch to open that door.” Maryse grabbed the tie line for her boat and pulled it along the edge of the bank until it rested behind an overhang. “Better stand back,” Maryse said as she loaded the gun. “I know nothing can touch you, but this might be scary if you’re right about that guy.”

  Helena hesitated for a millisecond, then hopped into the boat next to Maryse. They stood on one side and peered over the edge of the bank. Satisfied with their position, Maryse lifted the shotgun over the bank and aimed it at the front door.

  “You ready?” she asked Helena.

  Helena covered her ears with both hands and nodded.

  “Here goes,” Maryse said, and pulled the trigger.

  The shot seemed to happen in slow motion, although it couldn’t have taken more than a second for the bullet to hit the door. The instant they heard the smack of the rubber on the wood, the door flung open, giving them a clear view of the inside of the cabin. Maryse was certain neither of them moved, or breathed, or even blinked, but as the seconds passed, only dead silence remained.

  Maryse was just about to give the entire thing up as Helena’s overactive imagination when the cabin exploded.

  Maryse ducked behind the ledge and flattened herself against the dirt wall as flat as possible. If she hadn’t been so frightened, she might have been amused to see Helena crouched there next to her as pieces of glass and wood flew everywhere—some hitting Maryse on her hands which covered her head, and some landing in the bayou behind them.

  It took only seconds for the rain of glass and wood to stop, but it felt like forever. When the last piece of debris plopped into the water, Maryse waited another five seconds, then peeked over the bank and sucked in a breath at what she saw.

  The cabin was completely leveled. Not a single wall remained, and even the bathtub was nowhere to be seen. That had her wondering for a moment since it was an old cast iron tub and had to weigh a ridiculous amount. She stared in stunned silence at the degree of damage, unable to make out anything, not even a wall. Absolutely everything had been torn apart by the blast.

  Maryse swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to hold back tears when she caught a glimpse of something shiny hanging from one of the cypress trees. She strained her eyes to make out the object and realized with a jolt that it was a picture frame. Even with the metal twisted and black, she knew exactly what picture had hung in that frame.

  Suddenly, Maryse’s sadness and loss shifted to anger. Two years worth of anger, all bubbling forth at this exact moment. She screamed at the top of her lungs and pounded the embankment with her fists. Helena stepped back in surprise and fell off the back of the boat and onto the bayou where she rested on top of the water, rising and falling with the waves.

  “This is all your fault!” Maryse shouted at Helena. “Like producing that sorry excuse for a human being you call a son wasn’t enough—you had to rise from the dead, visible only to me, the person who probably despises you most, and then have the nerve to make me a moving target by leaving me some piece of land I was much better off without!”

  Helena stared at her a moment, then looked down at the bayou, not saying a word.

  “Look at this,” Maryse cried, and waved an arm over the embankment at the disaster that used to be her home. “I have nothing left because of you. Everything I owned was in that house. And don’t even talk to me about insurance because I don’t want to hear it. How is insurance going to replace my mom and dad’s wedding photo? How is insurance going to replace the Dr. Seuss books my mom read to me when I was a baby?”

  Maryse bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears of anger that threatened to fall. “The only memory I have of her is reading those books. You’ve taken everything from me and given me nothing but trouble in return. I never thought I could hate you more than I did when I was paying Hank’s debts, but I was wrong.” She stared at Helena, but the ghost wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

  Disgusted, she started her boat and pulled away from the embankment, leaving Helena sitting on top of the bayou. Maryse’s life was ruined. She had nothing left, not even the photos of her parents. She felt as if they were being erased from existence, all proof of her and her world being swept away. And even worse, obviously someone wanted her swept away with her memories.

  Unless you beat the odds.

  The thought ran through her head with a jolt. All of her anger at Helena and the situation with the will, at Hank for running out on her, at her mom for dying too soon, and her dad for following behind her mother with his stubbornness, came together in one instant, and she felt a sudden clarity run through her. There was one way to fix this. One way to make everything right.

  Stay alive and keep that damned land.

  Her resolution made, she shoved the throttle down on her boat and it leapt out of the water. Whoever had tried to kill her had made a fatal mistake in not getting the job done the first time, because now she was mad.

  A mad scientist.

  Luc had just pulled away from the dock when the explosion burst into the sky. “What the hell!” He raced down the bayou toward Maryse’s cabin. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You should have followed her more closely.

  He made the last turn and stared in shock. Her home was gone, completely leveled. It looked like something you saw in war footage. He scanned the patch of land for any sign of life, or a body, but couldn’t make out a thing. As he zoomed closer to the bank, all hope disappeared. There was simply no way anyone could have survived that blast. No way.

  He was reaching for his cell phone when Maryse’s boat came around from the back side of the island. He held his breath as he stared at the driver and was relieved and surprised to see Maryse driving the boat. He cut his throttle and yelled at her and she guided her boat over to his. As she drew closer, he could see tiny cuts on her arms and a couple of nicks on her neck.

  She came to a stop next to him and he reached over for her arm. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  She looked at him, the anger on her face clear as day, but Luc knew that even though she was moving, driving a boat, she had to be in shock. He glanced over at the leveled cabin. No damn wonder. “Maryse,” he said, and gently shook her, “are you all right? Are you hurt?”<
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  Maryse blinked and seemed to recover a bit of herself. “What? No, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t feel hurt.” She gave him a frightened look. “Unless you see something I don’t. I’m in shock, right? I might not feel anything.”

  Luc gave her a quick once-over. “I don’t see anything life threatening, although you should definitely be checked out. What happened? Do you know?”

  Maryse looked back at her cabin, her face flushed, her jaw tight. “It just exploded. I was pulling up to the dock and it exploded.”

  She was lying. Luc knew it, but whether it was about something important or something stupid, he could only imagine. “Did you see anyone near the island?”

  Maryse shook her head, but Luc could tell she was holding back again.

  “There wasn’t anyone but me,” she said.

  Luc flipped open his cell phone and dialed the police. “The first thing we’re going to do is call the police. They need to get someone to look at this. Then we’re getting you to a hospital, just to be sure.” He held his hand out to Maryse. “Why don’t you step over into my boat? I can tow yours back to the office.”

  Maryse hesitated for a moment, but he was relieved when she took his hand with no argument and stepped over into his boat. She kept looking back at the island—not at the demolished cabin, but scanning the entire area. What in the world was she looking for? Had there been another person there?

  Luc got Maryse seated, then secured her boat behind his with a tie line. He was just about to pull away when Maryse yelled.

  “Jasper!” Maryse pointed to the island at something moving around a clump of cypress trees. She spun around and looked at Luc. “That’s my cat, Jasper. I was afraid he was in the cabin. We have to go get him.”

  Luc looked over at the small speck of yellow and smiled. “Of course we do.” He slowly turned the boat and crept towards the bank. “I’m going slow so I don’t spook him,” he said. “The poor thing is probably already stressed enough.”

  Maryse nodded. “Thanks.”

  It took them a minute to get to the bank, and before he could even assist, Maryse scrambled up the side and called the cat. Luc looked over the embankment in time to see the old tom wrap himself around Maryse’s legs and allow her to pick him up. She smiled and kissed the top of his head, then headed back to the boat, passing Luc the cat so she could get in.

  Luc reached for the cat, who didn’t even protest at being in a stranger’s arms. Then again, animals usually had an instinct about when people were trying to help them. He rubbed the cat behind his one ear and passed the animal to Maryse after she took her seat. “He’s a little rough around the edges, huh?”

  Maryse nodded. “Yeah. He’s definitely a fighter. I think that’s why I like him so much.”

  Luc smiled. “Well, let’s get back to the office and drop Jasper off there. Then we can take a trip to the hospital. I want to make sure that head injury from your car wreck wasn’t aggravated by being so close to the blast.”

  Maryse shrugged. “Whatever you think.”

  Luc looked over at her as he pulled away from the island. She clutched the cat to her chest and stared straight ahead. Her face was drawn, her neck stilled flushed with red. Luc had absolutely no idea what the hell had just happened, but he’d bet his last dollar that Maryse knew something. Something she wasn’t about to tell.

  And from where Luc stood, that something was going to get her killed.

  It took them about forty-five minutes to dock, secure the cat, and make the drive to the hospital. Maryse called Sabine on the way—one, because she knew Sabine and Mildred were bound to hear about her cabin soon and she didn’t want them panicking, and two, because she was going to need a place to stay and something to wear if she planned on showering again. She figured Mildred would give her a room at the hotel and Sabine would come up with something temporary for her clothes-wise.

  After reassuring her friend that she was unhurt, Maryse flipped her cell phone shut and leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes. She was doing her best to hold everything in, but she was still so angry with Helena that she knew Luc was suspicious about what was going on. Like she could tell him even if she wanted to. Hey, Luc, it’s no big deal. I’m just being haunted by my dead mother-in-law who left me a bunch of land full of oil that now apparently people are trying to kill me for. Yeah, that would work. That was believable.

  She held in a sigh as they walked into the emergency room, hoping this was Christopher’s day off. The last thing she needed was to be embarrassed on top of depressed and angry. There just wasn’t room in her head for another emotion. The admitting nurse took one look at her and motioned her toward the double doors to the side of reception. Maryse asked Luc to wait in the lobby, then followed the nurse down the hall.

  Either they weren’t busy at all or Maryse looked much worse than she thought. But as they passed a couple of empty rooms, Maryse decided it was the first. Obviously she’d picked a great time to have an emergency. They had passed three empty rooms when the nurse’s pager went off. She glanced down at the pager, then shook her head.

  “The second room on the left,” the nurse said, and pointed down the hall. “If you don’t mind taking a seat in there, I’ll send the doctor right in.”

  The nurse muttered something under her breath as she turned, and although it wasn’t clear, Maryse could swear she’d said “as soon as I find him.” How exactly did one lose a doctor in a hospital? Didn’t they have pagers too? She glanced back at the nurse who strode down the hall with obvious purpose and shook her head.

  Turning back around, Maryse studied the doors in front of her. Second room on the right or left? Hell, she couldn’t remember. Maybe she did have a head injury. Oh well, what was the worst that could happen—she opened the wrong door and saw someone naked or something? God knows she’d seen worse, especially lately.

  She took a couple of steps forward and pulled open the door on the right. It was immediately obvious that this was not the right room. In fact, it wasn’t a room at all—it was a storage closet, but the most interesting thing was it was already occupied.

  By Dr. Christopher and a candy-striper.

  Christopher apparently had a bit of a sweet tooth, because he’d taken the “candy-striper” title to heart. His mouth was all over the girl, and if the volunteer coordinators saw what was going on under that uniform, Maryse was fairly sure they’d have had heart attacks right on the spot.

  They jumped apart as the light flooded in, but it was too late. Maryse had already seen enough. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, and took a good look at the rumpled candy-striper, who was grabbing for the thin strip of lace wrapped around her ankle and trying to shove it back up her butt where it belonged. “That girl isn’t even eighteen. Are you crazy?”

  Christopher jumped up and ran over to her. “Now, Maryse, this isn’t what it looks like. I was just helping Emily with her anatomy class, and she didn’t want anyone to see. She’s a bit shy about presentation.”

  Maryse stared at him in disbelief and disgust. Why in the world had she thought this guy was a great catch? “Do you think I’m that stupid?” she asked, and Christopher inched toward her, his hands out.

  Maryse stepped back. “Don’t step one foot closer to me. I’m warning you.”

  “But, Maryse, honey, I swear I can explain.”

  Honey? Honey! She glared at Christopher as he made the fatal error of touching her arm. To hell with it. She clenched her hand and punched him as hard as she could in the jaw, causing him to cry out in surprise. Staggering backwards in shock, he fell over a towel rack, knocking Emily, who was still trying to reassemble her clothing, down on the ground in a heap. The sound of material ripping seemed to echo in the tiny closet. Maryse looked down to see the lacy thong now hanging in two pieces around one of Emily’s skinny white thighs.

  The commotion brought the admitting nurse and two orderlies rushing down the hall where they all screeched to a halt and star
ed at the spectacle in front of them. “Dr. Warren,” the admitting nurse said, her lips pursed in disapproval. “I thought Director Stone was very clear about this the last time. I’m afraid I have no choice but to report you. And I’d start packing my things if I were you.” The nurse looked at the candy-striper and frowned. “And shame on you, Emily. When your mother hears what I have to say…” She shook her head in obvious disgust and stomped down the hall, apparently in search of the director.

  “Now see what you’ve done?” Christopher accused, struggling to rise from the floor.

  Maryse laughed. “What I’ve done? Have you lost your mind? I wasn’t the one in a compromising position with a minor.”