by Jana DeLeon
He’d definitely done his research. The surveys he’d paid for indicated huge amounts of oil on the estate property, and the offers he had on hold with oil companies were staggering. Even at collector’s value, the price the cursed emeralds would fetch was negligible compared to the tens of millions that Wheeler was hoping to cash in on.
The last pages of the scan contained Wheeler’s family-lineage research—birth and death certificates, with the final page containing a carefully constructed family tree. It had a couple of black squares, most likely where a spouse, sibling or child might exist, but he hadn’t found the records to prove it yet. She started at the top of the page with Franklin Borque, and read every name indicated below him.
Philomene Bajoliere.
Justine’s breath caught in her throat. Her hands shook as she located her own family research file on her laptop and opened it. She scanned the small list of names that she’d managed to tie to her mother. Philomene Bajoliere. The name was so uncommon, there was no chance it was a coincidence. She switched back to Wheeler’s research to see exactly how that person was related to Wheeler.
A solid line connected Wheeler’s father to his mother but a dotted line to the side of Wheeler’s father connected with Philomene. Below Philomene’s name was a box with the single word bastard written inside. Justine felt a wave of nausea pass over her, certain that her mother’s name belonged in that box. The date below the box was the year her mother was born. Wheeler and her mother shared the same father.
Apparently, fathering illegitimate children ran in the family along with psychosis.
She leaned back in the library chair and stared at the shelves in front of her. Franklin Borque was her mother’s great-great grandfather. She finally had the answers she’d been searching for all these years, and now it was the last thing she wanted.
A tear formed at the corner of her eye and spilled over onto her cheek. She swiped at it with one hand and reached out with the other to close the laptop. Her work in New Orleans was done. She had every mile of the long drive back to Cypriere to figure out how to act normal.
Even though her life had never been normal and never would be.
BRIAN RAN ONE HAND ACROSS his short hair and blew out a breath, his heart aching for the scared little girl he’d met so briefly and the woman who had grown up with that night hanging over her. What in the world was he supposed to do now? There was no way he could pretend around her. He had to tell her he knew who she was, but he didn’t want to tell her he’d had John poke into her background even more than they had already.
Justine had very logical and persuasive reasons for changing her name and erasing her past, and he didn’t blame her one bit for her decision. Her mother’s actions that night and her subsequent commitment to the mental hospital had made the New Orleans news and was well-known in towns even hundreds of miles away. People in Louisiana had long memories. The only way for Justine to escape the stigma of her childhood was to become someone else.
And now her carefully constructed identity had been undermined by a spaghetti dinner.
He rose from the couch and grabbed his keys. The nearest hardware store was forty miles away, but he needed to get out of the house for a while. Buying a new window for the bedroom was as good an excuse as any. Sometime during his window-repair adventure, he needed to come up with a way to tell Justine what he knew.
As he walked out the door, a thought jolted through his mind and he drew up short. The notes. The smell of smoke on the first night at laMalediction. No wonder Justine was so rattled.
Someone in Cypriere knew exactly who she was, too.
DARK CLOUDS LOOMED overhead as the sun began to sink behind the line of cypress trees. The rain started to fall as Justine approached the exit to Cypriere. She merged onto the exit and frowned at the swirling sky above. It was almost as if a permanent cloud of doom hung over the entire town. She glanced into her rearview mirror and her pulse quickened as a white car, about a half mile behind her, also took the exit.
The car had been on the same stretch of highway with her at least since she’d left New Orleans. There had also been a white car parked across the street from the assisted-living center, but Justine hadn’t registered the exact make and model at the time, and hadn’t even remembered it until she’d noticed the white car on the highway. For the first hour, it didn’t seem so odd. Plenty of people traveled this stretch of highway, especially in the middle of the day; but as vehicles began to exit to connecting highways and town, she realized the white car was still with her.
She’d adjusted her speed to see if the car would pass or fall behind, but the driver had maintained the same distance regardless of her own speed. In the last ten miles of highway, all other traffic had exited the highway, leaving only Justine and the white car on the lonely stretch of road. She’d hoped when she exited for Cypriere that the white car continued past and she could chide herself for being paranoid, but that option no longer existed. And while it wasn’t completely impossible that someone might also be driving from New Orleans to Cypriere at the same time of day as she, there was no good reason for the driver to match her speed.
She grabbed her cell phone and was relieved to see she had a signal. Now if only Brian was somewhere that he could hear his phone. The stretch of road between the highway and Cypriere was a narrow, lonely piece of blacktop that ran straight through the marsh, and there wasn’t a single structure before reaching the town.
“Marcentel,” Brian answered.
“It’s Justine. Someone’s following me.”
“Where are you?” Brian’s response was sharp and immediate.
“I just exited the highway for Cypriere. I think they’ve followed me all the way from New Orleans. There’s a truck coming from Cypriere that’s stopped at the underpass, but as soon as they get on the highway, I’ll be alone.”
Justine heard rustling on the phone for a second then a door slam.
“I’m headed your way now,” Brian said. “Just keep driving normally. If the car begins to gain on you, speed up as fast as you can safely drive. We should intersect in twenty minutes.”
“Okay,” Justine said and turned right at the underpass and pressed the accelerator firmly down. She watched in her rearview mirror as the white car approached the underpass then turned right behind her. It was still a ways behind, but not the half-mile distance that it had been on the highway. She pressed the accelerator down a bit more and concentrated on navigating the winding road and alternating checking her rearview for the car.
Every time she checked, the car was closer than it had been before.
She glanced at the clock on her dashboard and felt her pulse increase. Only five minutes had passed since her phone call to Brian. She had another fifteen minutes to go until he reached her, and that was assuming the other driver didn’t get to her before then. But another peek in her rearview didn’t leave her much hope. The white car had closed half the distance between them and was gaining fast.
She hit Redial and pressed the speaker button, so she could keep both hands on the wheel to control the car as she barreled down the worn asphalt road.
“Are you okay?” The anxiety in Brian’s voice was clear.
“No. The car is closing in on me. I’m going to leave the phone on speaker. Don’t disconnect. If something happens, if I can see anything…I’ll yell it to you.”
“Don’t think that way. I’m only ten minutes away.”
Justine looked in her rearview and felt the blood drain from her face. The white car was only twenty yards behind her. “It’s right behind me—he’s going to hit me!”
Justine braced herself for the hit, but instead the car swung out to the side and pulled alongside her. She tried to make out the driver, but the window tint was too dark to see through. A second later, the car slammed into the driver’s side of her vehicle.
Justine gripped the steering wheel so hard her hands ached, desperately trying to maintain control of the vehicle, but the fro
nt wheel dipped off the asphalt into the edge of a drainage ditch. The change in elevation was all it took to pitch the car off into the ditch.
As the car slammed to a stop, Justine screamed and threw her arms up in front of her face to protect it from the air bag that deployed. Water from the ditch splashed up, creating a solid sheet of water that fell over the car. She could hear Brian’s voice on the cell phone, but it had slid to the floor at impact and she couldn’t reach it.
Panicked, she moved the air bag to the side to look out the side window, and her heart sank. The white car had stopped just up the road from her and was now slowly backing toward her. She reached into her laptop bag for her pistol then tried to open her car door, but it was jammed shut. Gripping the pistol in her right hand, she lowered her driver’s window and took aim at the white car.
Her first shot hit the rear window and shattered the glass. The car changed direction and sped away, tires squealing on the asphalt. Justine watched the car until it disappeared over a rise in the road about a half mile away, and then let her breath out in a whoosh, unaware that she’d been holding it.
She looked down at her watch and took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart. Five more minutes and Brian would be there. She hoped it was soon enough.
“DAMN IT!” The sound of the gunshot rang out through Brian’s cell phone and he pressed the accelerator down even farther, gripping the steering wheel to control the Jeep as it slid around a corner on the worn road. When he got on a straight stretch of road, he picked up his phone again to see if Justine would reply, but he got only silence.
What the hell had happened?
If something happened to Justine, it was his fault. He should have made her leave. Should have told John that the research would have to be done in New Orleans, with only occasional visits to the estate until he could figure out exactly what he and Justine had stepped into the middle of.
Now she might be injured…or worse.
He shook his head and concentrated on driving. Thinking that way was something he couldn’t allow himself. He had to focus on the mission. Extract the soldier and get her to safety. Identify and destroy the enemy—now. This was war.
He turned onto the stretch of road where he expected to find Justine and sucked in a breath when he didn’t see her car anywhere. The evening sun had almost set, and the light had all but faded from the road, leaving only dim light and his headlights to illuminate the road in front of him. He scanned the sides of the road as he drove, and almost passed her car before he saw it in the drainage ditch. His heart leaped into his throat as he screeched to a halt, then ran from the Jeep to the ditch, calling her name.
The car was empty, but the driver’s window was down. “Justine!” He scanned the woods, starting to panic, when he heard a voice behind him.
“I’m here,” Justine said, and exited the woods from the other side of the road. “I figured if the car came back they’d look for me on that side of the road, so I hid on the other.”
She waded through the ditch, clutching her laptop bag, and he ran across the road to give her a hand crawling out of the channel. “Are you all right? I heard a gunshot. What happened?” He scanned her for any sign of injury and felt a wave of relief pass over him when all he saw was mud and water.
“I’m okay. Just a little shaken up.”
“I’m sure. Let’s get the hell out of here. You can tell me what happened on the way.”
“My car—”
“I’ll call a tow company in New Orleans to come get it. Do you need anything out of it?”
“No. I grabbed my laptop and my pistol when I crawled out. My cell phone got wet when water started to seep into the car. It’s shot.”
They climbed into the Jeep and Brian took off, constantly checking his mirrors and the road ahead for an ambush. Justine relayed her story as he drove, and his anxiety level increased with every turn of phrase. No way was this random. And in order to make it happen, someone must have followed Justine to New Orleans and then back to Cypriere, just waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
But all the people he suspected were in the café this morning after Justine left.
The revelation from John’s information flashed through his mind. Someone in Cypriere knew who Justine really was, and her mother wouldn’t be that hard to find. The stalker could have waited at the assisted-care facility, figuring that Justine would visit her mother while she was in New Orleans. They wouldn’t necessarily have had to follow her from Cypriere.
But to force her car off the road was bold, which meant he was more desperate. The worst thing was, Brian still had no idea why Justine was such a threat.
“I think you need to reconsider leaving,” Brian said when she finished recounting her tale. “He’s going to continue escalating until he gets what he wants, and all I can figure is that right now, he wants us to leave.”
Justine shook her head. “I’m not leaving until the job is done. If anything, this just made me angry. I mean, it frightened me. But then, that makes me angry, since that’s exactly what he intended to do.”
Brian struggled with his feelings, wavering between admiration at her strength and dismay at her hardheadedness. “I’ll have to tell Olivia and John.”
“Do you think they’ll make me leave?”
“I think they’ll trust me to handle the situation in the manner I think is best. Right now, if you want to stay, then I’m willing to try and make it work, but we’re going to have to change our strategy.”
Justine gave Brian an apprehensive look. “Should we call our friend, Sheriff Blanchard?”
“No. I’ll call John and get the state police involved in a covert way. I’d rather keep this suppressed as much as possible, to throw the stalker off balance. But if you’re not okay with that, I understand, and we’ll figure out another way.”
“So you want to pretend nothing happened…to piss him off?”
“Yeah. I think it will force him to act sooner than planned, and perhaps in acting without a plan, he’ll make a mistake.”
“That makes sense.”
“We’ll be extra cautious. I know you don’t like me looking over your shoulder, but I’m going to have to maintain a closer presence than I have. No more road trips alone. We go everywhere together from this point forward.”
“You’ll get no argument out of me.”
Her words, and the fact that she was so quick to respond, let Brian know that today’s attack had shaken Justine more than she would ever admit. The truth was, it had shaken him, too, but it had angered him even more.
Chapter Sixteen
Lightning flashed in the dark sky as they pulled into the driveway, but the rain Justine expected hadn’t begun to fall. Brian scanned the area as he parked, and glanced up at the sky.
“It’s holding off for now,” he said.
“The calm before the storm,” Justine said as she collected her laptop and climbed out of the Jeep. She entered the rental house and dumped her laptop on the dining table she was using for her work, then headed into her bedroom to grab a change of clothes. She was starting to chill from wading through the ditch and wanted to take a hot shower while Brian conducted his exterior patrol of the rental house and grounds.
Eyeing herself critically in the bathroom mirror, she decided she didn’t look nearly as bad as she felt. Her skin was a little pale, but she hadn’t sustained any injuries from the wreck, not any visible ones anyway. The attack, on top of her visit with her mother, along with what she’d learned about her lineage, was a lot for one person to handle at a time, but she didn’t have a choice.
If she broke down, Brian would probably discover her secret and make her leave. She’d never finish her research—never know with certainty that her mom’s stories and Wheeler’s research were accurate and that she was a descendant of Franklin Borque.
If she could just find the emeralds, the estate settlement would prompt DNA testing for all potential heirs. Assuming Franklin Borque was bu
ried on the estate, Justine could petition for a definitive answer. Without a claim on the estate, the attorney would never approve an exhumation and DNA test for her.
So all she needed to do right now was keep from looking generally miserable and scared or bursting into tears. If she could manage that, she might be able to pull off the evening. With any luck, the storm would break tonight and they’d be back at laMalediction tomorrow. It was easier to focus with more square footage between her and Brian.
Ten minutes later she stepped out of the shower, pleased to see that the steamy water had returned some of the color to her face. She heard the front door of the rental house open and close, and took a deep breath before leaving the bathroom. It was now or never. Brian would want to know if she’d learned anything on her field trip. Putting off giving him the information would seem strange, especially in light of the attack. He would assume her research may be relevant.
Brian was washing his hands in the kitchen sink and looked up at her when she walked into the living room. “I got the bedroom window replaced this afternoon, but still need to do some caulking. It’s still covered with the tarp for now. With any luck, the rain will break soon and I can finish up.”
“I heard the weather report on the way in from New Orleans. They seem to think we’ll get a break, but you know how reliable that can be.” She grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator, then took a seat on the couch.
Brian dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Did John send you the information from Wheeler’s office?”
“Yeah,” Justine replied, trying to keep her voice calm. “I’ll print off the file so we can take a look and see if any names jump out at us. Did you find out anything at the café this morning that can help?”
“Ha. This is one strange town. It almost seems like people are either too scared or too offended to talk. It’s a real trial trying to get something useful out of them.” He walked into the living room and sat in the chair across from her. “I want to check into that mechanic a little more. He’s got a chip on his shoulder that I can’t put my finger on, and our friend Sheriff Blanchard was his usual cheerful self.”