Dreadful

by Jana DeLeon

  DREADFUL

  JANA DELEON

  Copyright © 2018 by Jana DeLeon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  1

  MARDI GRAS NIGHT, February 9, 2016

  Ponchatoula, Louisiana

  THE MOON PEERED out from behind the dark clouds that covered almost every inch of the vast night sky. But deep within the swamp, even the tiniest sliver was like a beacon in the pitch black. The path she walked was barely discernable in daylight, which made it practically impossible now.

  But she knew the way.

  The sounds of the night insects filled the air as she walked, her steps barely registering as she trod on the soft moss and weeds. Somewhere in the distance, an owl screeched, ominous and piercing.

  Not much farther now.

  She heard the frogs before she reached the water, their rhythmic croaking like a round-robin song in a kindergarten classroom. She smiled, remembering her own childhood, sitting on the blue tape that formed a circle on the old tile floor of her classroom, but as she walked into the clearing at the edge of the bayou, the smile faded.

  It was time.

  She stepped up to the edge of the water and opened her hand to stare at the locket she’d been clutching, its chain wrapped around her fingers. It was an ornate silver heart—an heirloom—with a picture of two young girls inside. One of them was her. The other…

  Was waiting.

  She lifted her arms and started to sing, a lullaby that their mother had sung to them when they were young. The heart began to warm in her hand, and she opened her hand enough to let the chain slip down, allowing the pendant to hang, suspended in front of her. Her singing grew stronger as her voice went up an octave, and the pendant emitted a faint yellow glow, growing brighter with every note.

  Then it began to pulse.

  First so faint she could barely see it, then stronger and stronger, until she could see it flex with every beat of her own heart. The wind swirled around her, lifting her hair and causing it to twist around her face. The water in front of her stirred, and the glow from the pendant shot out to its rippled surface like a beacon. The ripples grew in size and intensity until a circle of waves crashed against themselves, as if trapped inside an invisible wall.

  The winds picked up her tune, providing accompaniment, and from the center of the waves, she emerged. Rising above the water in a gown of white, her long blond hair swirling around her with the same intensity as the angry waves. Her head was lowered, as if studying the water beneath her, but then she lifted it up and locked red eyes on the woman on the bank.

  Find me.

  Her haunting voice carried across the water, and the woman on the bank began to cry.

  “I don’t know how,” she said.

  Find me. I’m all alone.

  The woman on the bank sank to the ground, begging the apparition to tell her how.

  Alone. Alone. Alone.

  The voice faded along with the apparition.

  “No!” The woman on the bank sprang up and rushed toward the disappearing apparition, but the second her feet touched the water, a bright light flashed from the pendant, blinding her. She threw her hands up in front of her face and screamed.

  JENNY TAYLOR BOLTED upright in her bed, her own screams echoing in the empty bedroom. Frantic, she scanned the room, but the swamp she expected to see was gone, replaced by four light green walls illuminated by the static-filled screen of the television on top of her dresser. She grabbed the remote and turned the set off, then fell back onto her pillow.

  Sweat rolled off her forehead and down the side of her face, and it wasn’t long before the tears that had been threatening to fall followed the same path. As she lay staring into the darkness, she knew with certainty that it was time. The dream was too intense. Too frequent.

  It was time to find Caitlyn.

  2

  MONDAY, February 15, 2016

  French Quarter, New Orleans

  SHAYE ARCHER PULLED the steaming latte from the fancy coffee maker Corrine had given her for Christmas, giving silent thanks for her mother’s stellar taste in kitchen appliances. Shaye would have never purchased one for herself, mainly because she didn’t know it existed and wouldn’t have known where to start looking for one. According to Corrine, many options were available but only this one was worth the price. Shaye had no idea what the machine had cost, but she agreed with Corrine on the strength of the output alone.

  She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out Reddi-whip, then dressed up the top of the latte before heading into her office. A stack of administrative work awaited her, and she couldn’t put it off any longer. The last couple months had been relatively quiet workwise. She’d had plenty to do, but it was all insurance work. The bland, safe kind that made Corrine really happy but left Shaye restless and a little bored.

  Shaking her head, she slipped into her office chair. It was a catch-22. She wanted something more interesting to do but at the same time, didn’t want people going through the agony that always came with more interesting things. She checked her phone for the tenth time, hoping for a message from a new client, then sighed at the stack of folders, all needing invoices. Tonight, she was having dinner with her mother and Eleonore Blanchet, her mother’s best friend and Shaye’s therapist. The two women had been inseparable for decades and had been unrelenting in helping Shaye work through her horrible past.

  Unfortunately, it never completely went away.

  Things were definitely better now. In fact, when Shaye considered how far she’d come, just in the past year, she was amazed. She’d finished her internship as a PI with the agency she’d worked with during and after college, opened her own shop, and she’d had instant success helping the police take down some of the worst criminals the city had seen in years. More importantly, she’d solved the mystery of her own missing past and seen the man who’d abused her die. But memories that had been long buried continued to surface periodically, and she had to remind herself not to lapse back to the past hurts and anger every time a new memory emerged.

  With every new revelation came another round of processing and documenting, because despite everything she knew, there were still gaps she hoped to fill. Often sad, horrific gaps, but they were hers and she wanted them whole. Before her memory had started returning, she’d always believed that not knowing was worse. Now that she had remembered the majority of her past, she was certain of it. No matter how difficult a memory was, it couldn’t be dealt with until it was present. Lurking back in her subconscious, all it did was let fear and distrust fester, which could easily cloud the future.

  So every day, Shaye made a conscious decision to live forward and not behind. To cherish what she had today, in spite of what it t
ook for her to be here. And every day, it had gotten easier, to the point that her morning routine had become no more than giving it all a passing thought before starting her day.

  A big part of her transformation was her relationship with Detective Jackson Lamotte, who’d been with her when she’d discovered the truth and hadn’t left her side ever since. His unique ability to discern when she needed space and when she needed to talk, or when she just needed a distraction or to be left alone in her thoughts had endeared him to her, and the trust she’d previously held for only a few people now extended to him. With that trust came giving herself permission to step into the unknown world of a romantic relationship. Shaye would be the first to admit that if she thought too hard about it, the fear was still there, just not as acute. And ultimately, a little fear was worth what she had gained. Jackson was one of a kind, and Shaye was finding it hard to imagine her life without him in it.

  She blew out a breath and picked up the first set of documents she needed to record and invoice and accessed the accounting software on her laptop. Sitting here mulling over her life wasn’t going to get those reports done, and Shaye could easily spend years considering her life and its many nuances. An afternoon was child’s play.

  She’d completed two of the eight reports she needed to send out when there was a knock at her door. She frowned and checked her phone, but there were no text messages from any of the sum total of four people who might drop by without an appointment. Her current workload was insurance cases only and all handled over the phone, so no reason for anyone to pay her a personal visit on that account.

  She started to get up but then took a couple seconds to access her front security camera. After all, there was no point in having security if she wasn’t going to use it. The camera was outside under an eave of her apartment and offered a clear view of anyone standing on the sidewalk in the vicinity of her front door. Two women and a man stood outside, probably mid- to late twenties, and all of them looked slightly uncomfortable.

  Might as well see what this was about.

  She didn’t get much in the way of door-to-door soliciting, and these people looked too young and casually dressed to fit in with the religious crowd that came by from time to time to pitch the local churches. It wasn’t election time, so she had no fear of having to listen to a bunch of political ranting. Worst case, it was a charity pitch. That was something she could deal with and didn’t really mind, especially when it interrupted paperwork.

  She opened the front door and the young woman with long blond hair started a bit, then looked over at the other woman. The other woman had shoulder-length mahogany-colored hair and piercing green eyes. She glanced at the blonde woman and then the young man before giving Shaye an awkward smile.

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” she said. “We don’t have an appointment, but we’d like to talk to you about a job…Jenny would like to talk to you.” She inclined her head toward the blonde woman. “If you’re busy, we can make an appointment…or if you’re booked then that’s okay too.”

  Her discomfort was so obvious that Shaye felt sorry for her. The blonde woman had spent the whole time staring at the sidewalk, and it was clear that the woman speaking was somewhat uncertain about even being there.

  “That’s okay,” Shaye said. “Please come inside and we can talk.”

  The three stepped inside the front room that served as her office and Shaye pulled a chair from the back corner of the room so that there were three of them in front of her desk. They all glanced around, then slowly took seats, the blonde woman in the middle.

  “Would any of you like something to drink?” Shaye asked. “Water, tea, soda? Or I could put on a pot of coffee?”

  The blonde woman and the man shook their heads and the brown-haired woman said, “No. Thank you. We just came from lunch.”

  “Great,” Shaye said and took a seat behind her desk. “So you already know that I’m Shaye Archer. What are your names?”

  “I’m Marisa Sampson,” the brown-haired woman said. “And this is my friend Jenny Taylor and my husband, Rick.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Shaye said. “Do you live in New Orleans?”

  Marisa shook her head. “We drove in from Ponchatoula. We hoped you’d meet with us. We should have called, though.”

  “That’s all right,” Shaye said. Ponchatoula was a typical small town about an hour from New Orleans. She’d been there once when Corrine had roped her into going antique shopping with her. She remembered it as quaint and somewhat sleepy, with an abundance of older people, but most of them were probably from out of town and were drawn there for the antique shops just like Corrine.

  “So how can I help you?” Shaye asked.

  Sometimes, she tried small talk, but with Marisa answering for everyone and spending more time apologizing than explaining, she figured it might be easier to get right to the point of their visit.

  “I want you to find my sister,” Jenny blurted out.

  Shaye focused on the clearly upset woman. “Your sister is missing?”

  Jenny nodded. “My twin sister, Caitlyn.”

  “Did she go missing in New Orleans?” Shaye asked.

  “Yes,” Jenny said.

  “Have you reported her disappearance to the police?” Shaye asked.

  “The police can’t find her,” Jenny said, her voice increasing in pitch and speed. “They’re not even trying anymore. She doesn’t matter.” Jenny covered her face with her hands and started to sob.

  Marisa put her arm around Jenny and mumbled some comforting words to her, then gave Shaye an apologetic look. “Caitlyn disappeared six years ago. I’m sure the police did everything they could at the time, but…”

  Marisa didn’t have to finish her sentence. If Jenny’s sister had been missing for six years, the case had gone cold long ago. The police would have worked the clues at the time, but as the weeks and months passed, the fewer items they’d had to go on until they’d exhausted everything and were forced to shelve the case in favor of more recent crimes that they had a better chance of solving. On the negative side, that meant Shaye didn’t have much to go on either, and the trail was now six years old. On the plus side, she might not step on as many toes down at the police department looking into something that happened on the previous police chief’s watch.

  “Tell me what you know,” Shaye said and pulled out a recorder. “Do you mind?”

  Marisa and the silent Rick both shook their heads. Jenny leaned against Marisa and still had her eyes closed.

  “We were all in New Orleans for Mardi Gras,” Marisa said. “Me, Rick, Jenny, Caitlyn, and our friend Sam. Jenny, Caitlyn, and I were hometown friends, and then we all went to college together at LSU. We met Rick there. It was our senior year, and since we were all finally twenty-one, we decided to go to Mardi Gras. We’d never done it before. Not in New Orleans, I mean.”

  Shaye nodded. Most cities around Louisiana held some sort of Mardi Gras celebration but none of them compared to the party in NOLA.

  “Where were you when Caitlyn went missing?” Shaye asked.

  “At a bar in the French Quarter,” Marisa said. “We’d been walking the Quarter, partying at different places all night. The last was a place called the French Revival.”

  “I know it,” Shaye said. She’d never actually been inside, but since she wasn’t much of a social drinker and didn’t enjoy crowded, noisy places, that wasn’t much of a surprise.

  “Anyway, we were drinking and dancing and there was karaoke. Sam cut out before that. He wasn’t much of a party guy, and I think it was all a little overwhelming for him. Caitlyn got up to sing and afterward, she said she was going to the bathroom. Jenny went shortly after. Some time passed and they never came back to the table, so I went to look for them.

  “They weren’t in the bathroom, and when I asked one of the waitstaff, she said she saw someone go out the back door into the alley where people went to smoke,” Marisa continued. “Neither of them smoked, but I f
igured maybe they went outside to get some air. I only found Jenny, and she was starting to panic.”

  “Was someone bothering her?” Shaye asked.

  Marisa shook her head. “She said she couldn’t find Caitlyn. I checked the alley and then we went back inside, but Rick hadn’t seen Caitlyn either. He searched every inch of the bar and even went around the entire block asking people if they’d seen her, but no one knew anything.”

  “And you never saw her again?” Shaye asked.

  “No. It’s like she simply vanished,” Marisa said. “How does that happen?”

  “Easier than you would think,” Shaye said. “Did Caitlyn have a cell phone?”

  “Yes. I called immediately, but it went straight to voice mail. We left messages and sent texts, but never got an answer. At least, not that night.”

  Shaye had been jotting some notes on a pad, but now she looked up at Marissa. “What do you mean ‘not that night’?”

  “The next morning, I got a text from Caitlyn that read ‘You be you. I’ll be me. Tell Jenny I love her.’”

  “Did the police trace the phone?”

  “They said the text was sent from somewhere in the French Quarter, but they couldn’t narrow it down more than that, and by the time they got the cell phone service to track it, the phone was turned off.”