Bayou Bodyguard

by Jana DeLeon

  Brian stepped into the tunnel and started feeling the inside wall. “I want to figure out how to open the door from the inside. I think I found it.”

  Justine nodded as the door slid silently into place, then reopened a couple of seconds later. “Good thinking.”

  “I’m going to go in first. We’ll move slowly and check the tunnel as we go. Stop me if you see any sign of an offshoot or a hidden door. If I stop short, stop with me and be very quiet. That means I’ve heard something I need to identify. Any questions?”

  Justine shook her head. He’d rattled off the instructions like a military mission. Given the secret tunnels and an unknown enemy, she supposed the situation might share similarities to what he’d experienced at war.

  He stared at her for a moment as if he wanted to say something more, but then he whirled around and entered the tunnel, glancing back only briefly to make sure she was following. The stairs down from the crypt were wide but steep. Justine made sure she took deliberate steps, checking each stone step before placing her foot upon it. The last thing they needed was for one of them to have an accident.

  It probably only took a minute, but it seemed like far longer before Justine stepped off the last step and into the tunnel below. Like the stairwell, it was wide, but the low ceiling gave it more of a closed-in feel. No light penetrated from the stairwell and Justine was grateful for the spotlight Brian carried that illuminated the long stretch of tunnel before them.

  “Can you see an end?” Justine asked as she stepped beside him.

  “No. It looks like a straight shot into darkness.”

  “Sounds inviting.”

  “Yeah. Well, let’s get this over with.” He shined the spotlight down on the stretch of ground directly in front of them, then lifted it back up and started down the tunnel. They moved slowly, inspecting the walls visually and with their hands as they progressed, looking for any indication of another tunnel, a hidden room or an exit.

  Finally, they reached a turn in the tunnel and Brian stopped, directing his spotlight first at the tunnel behind them, then again at the stretch after the bend. Justine checked her watch. “We’ve been walking down here almost twenty minutes. How far do you think we’ve come?”

  “A half mile maybe. It looks like this stretch is shorter though. I see a wall about twenty yards ahead.”

  “Probably just another turn. We’ll probably exit this tunnel somewhere in Mexico.”

  “Ha. I don’t think we’ve traveled that far, and we’ve been moving steadily west, which is good. That put us back in the direction of the house.”

  “I haven’t seen any indication of a hidden wall.”

  “I haven’t, either. This tunnel may be just a passageway from the graveyard to somewhere else on the estate. The hidden rooms may all be contained directly below laMalediction. You ready for the next leg?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t wait to find out where this tunnel comes out. The amount of work that went into this and all the secret passageways and rooms is staggering. Franklin Borque was one paranoid guy.”

  “With good reason. When you’re a monster, there will always be someone out to get you.” Brian directed his spotlight down the second leg of tunnel and started walking.

  Justine clutched her flashlight and followed behind, the word monster still echoing through her mind. It was such a simple word, but so complex when attached to a human. Unfortunately, it was very applicable in this case.

  She walked behind Brian and held in a sigh of disappointment. So far, this excursion had yielded nothing but a road that led somewhere away from the graveyard, a grave with no discernible clue to the location of the emeralds and a tunnel that went somewhere as yet to be determined. She hoped the end of the tunnel provided something for them to work from. Otherwise, they were back at square one.

  Lost in thought, Justine didn’t realize Brian had stopped until she ran smack into him. “Sorry,” she said as she backed up a step.

  “Looks like the end of the line.”

  Justine peered around the bend in the tunnel and saw a set of stone steps leading up. “Do you think it leads to the basement of laMalediction?”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t feel like we were getting lower in the tunnel. We would have had to for the basement to be above us.”

  Justine shook her head. “You’ve got a much better sense of placement than I do. I have no idea whether or not the tunnel drifted down.”

  “Well, let’s see.” He passed Justine his spotlight and pulled his pistol from the waistband of his jeans. “Just in case.”

  Justine gripped the spotlight and watched as Brian inched up the stairs and searched for a switch to open a door at the top. She heard a faint click and the ceiling above Brian slid silently back. Brian paused for a couple of seconds and Justine knew he was listening for any sound of movement. Her heart beat so loudly, she was afraid he could hear it.

  He poked his head through the opening. “I’ll be damned,” he said and continued up the stairs through the opening. “Come on up. It’s safe.”

  Justine climbed the stairs and crawled out of the opening, then stared in surprise at Brian, who was kneeling at the edge of the dining table right smack in the middle of laMalediction’s kitchen. She looked up at the top of the table that rested just inches from her head.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “We sat right here with that beneath us and never knew?”

  Brian shook his head. “And with the table over it, no one would walk on it and hear the difference in the sound of the flooring. My security system must have been a real source of amusement to the intruder.”

  “Wow,” Justine said, and started to crawl out from under the table.

  “Hold on and I’ll move it so you can stand.”

  “It will be too heavy—” She cut short as Brian effortlessly slid the enormous table across the kitchen floor. She rose from her stooped position and stared at the table. “What’s wrong?”

  “You moved the table so easily. Is it heavy?”

  “Not really.”

  Justine frowned and stepped up to the table, then gripped the edge with both hands and pulled. The table slid easily across the floor toward her. “This should be heavier. It almost feels like…”

  She bent down and looked underneath the table again, studying the corners where the thick, ornate legs connected with the top. In one corner, the wood appeared a little darker than the rest of the table. She ran one finger across the dark spot and stared down at the brown stain on her finger.

  “What did you find?” Brian asked as she rose.

  She smelled her finger and showed it to Brian. “Wood stain. This table has had a coat of it in the last couple of weeks. With the humidity so high, it still hasn’t dried completely in the corners.”

  “Why would anyone restain an antique?”

  “It’s not an antique.” Justine stared at Brian, her mind whirling to put all the pieces together. “It all makes sense now.” She grabbed Brian’s arm, her excitement rising.

  “Don’t you see?” she asked. “I banged my leg on this table earlier this week and it didn’t budge, and you said the furniture upstairs had been moved but wasn’t hiding anything. Then you got that brown stain on the diary entry after you’d been working with the furniture upstairs.”

  Brian’s face cleared in understanding. “You think someone’s been stealing the antiques and replacing them with copies. How lucrative could that possibly be?”

  “Very, given the quality and age of the assets in this house. Hundreds of thousands of dollars if you cleaned out every room, and who knows what’s stored in the basement and attic. Someone could spend years replicating the furniture and selling the originals, and no one would have been the wiser.”

  “The tunnel under the table is wide enough to have moved a lot of it out that way, leaving only the big pieces for when the caretaker was absent.”

  “Locals would know the caretaker’s schedule and hear about any other scheduled
departures from Cypriere. There’s no hardware store here to speak of.”

  “No. It was a forty-five-minute drive to the closest one.”

  “Easily leaving a two-to-three-hour window of opportunity to remove larger items.”

  “And you’re certain this is a phony?”

  “Of course. It was part of my studies, and I’ve contributed to books on antiques.”

  “Which anyone who was keeping tabs on you would know,” Brian said, his voice elevating in excitement. “That’s why he wants to get rid of you, Justine. You can identify the fake antiques. When Olivia left, he probably thought he was home free—until you showed up and presented an even bigger problem than Olivia. No one but myself, Olivia and John, and the estate attorney know you’re here to find the emeralds. He probably assumed you were here to catalog everything for sale.”

  Justine stared at him. “Oh, man! I literally said that was the reason I was here that first time we went to the café. I thought I was being smart hiding the real reason I was here, and instead, I said the one thing that would set him off the most.”

  “Do you mind taking a look at some of the furniture upstairs that was out of place? I want to be sure before I contact John and Olivia.”

  “Absolutely,” Justine said, and followed Brian out of the kitchen, elated at the revelation.

  There was a simple explanation for everything happening at laMalediction. A criminal one, but simple. Just as Brian had suggested.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE MUCH effort for Justine to identify several pieces that were fakes. Cleverly and carefully constructed fakes, but fakes nonetheless. Brian’s excitement was almost contagious as they moved from room to room, with Justine identifying the pieces that had been replaced. He made notes on the back of photos and Justine could just see the wheels spinning in his mind. Probably mentally running through how to locate the stolen property and identify the seller—a task he was far more suited to than chasing ghosts or uncovering old mysteries shrouded in voodoo lore.

  They were so engrossed in their task that they never noticed a storm moving in, until a huge burst of lightning flashed outside the bedroom window, followed by an earsplitting boom of thunder. Justine jumped at the blast and looked out the window that overlooked the courtyard. “Should we make a run for it?”

  Brian moved next to her and looked outside, frowning. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t supposed to rain at all today. Maybe this will be over quickly.”

  Justine stared at the sheet of rain falling across the courtyard and hoped he was right. She didn’t relish the thought of being caught in laMalediction for the night.

  “You’d think, with all the rain, that fountain would be a small swamp, but it’s always dry.” Justine pointed to the huge fountain in the center of the courtyard.

  “It must have a leak. It’s not grown over much, though, so it’s probably recent. The water would have protected it from weeds pushing through from the sides or bottom.”

  The water would have protected it…

  Brian’s word faded away as Justine stared at the fountain.

  Water, water everywhere. Her mother’s words flashed through her mind.

  The marks on the tombstone. They weren’t tears—they were drops of water. In an instant, Justine knew the answer she’d been searching for. “The fountain! The emeralds are hidden in the fountain.”

  She ran out of the bedroom, dashed down the stairs and out into the blinding rain.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brian didn’t even have time to process Justine’s words, much less reply, before she’d run out of the room as if on fire. He heard the front door slam as he hurried down the stairs to the front entry. He opened the front door and a wave of rain blew onto him, stinging his skin. The wind whipped through the entry like a tornado and he had to squint to make out Justine in the storm.

  He could see her crouched in the middle of the fountain, seemingly oblivious to the blinding storm that raged around her. Brian shook his head. She was either going to get struck by lightning or drown. He hurried to the library to grab the raincoat she hadn’t bothered to grab before running outside, intending to make a dash to give it to her. But as he turned to leave, something outside the library window caught his eye.

  He stepped up to the window, straining to make out the moving object, and his breath caught in his throat when he realized that the white-robed figure was moving across the courtyard, directly at Justine. He pounded on the library window but there was no way Justine could hear him over the storm. Pulling his pistol from his waistband, he ran down the hall and out of the house into the storm.

  Justine was squatting down at the front of the fountain, her back to the white figure that approached her. Brian yelled as he rushed out the door, but the white figure was closing in fast. Justine looked up at him when he yelled, a startled expression on her face. She whirled around just as the white figure reached the fountain and lifted one arm.

  Brian saw the flash of steel and yelled again. Justine turned to run but lost her footing and crashed to the ground. The white figure ran straight at Justine, the knife flashing above the hooded head. Before the attacker reached Justine, Brian took aim and fired while running.

  The bullet caught the attacker in the shoulder and he dropped his knife. He scrambled to recover it, but Brian tackled him before he reached it. Justine rushed around the side of the center feature and grabbed the knife from the bottom of the fountain.

  The attacker’s body was limp and he didn’t struggle at all as Brian turned him over. He pulled the white hood back from his face and stared in shock at the unconscious face of the café waitress, Deedee. Justine sucked in a breath and he looked up at her.

  “Why? I don’t get it,” Justine said.

  “I don’t either, but let’s get her out of the storm until she comes around. Then I’ve got some questions.”

  Justine nodded, then yelled, “Wait! The emeralds. I had just loosened a tile etched with the same raindrops as the tombstone.”

  She bent down and worked off a piece of loose tile from the base of the fountain. The two stones tumbled out of their hiding place and into her hand. Justine stared in amazement at the emeralds, still glittering despite being covered with decades of dirt and with copper twined around it. She closed her hand around them and hurried to the estate. Brian followed close behind, carrying Deedee.

  JUSTINE WATCHED the unconscious Deedee lying on the couch in the sitting room, as Brian rushed to the bathroom for towels and medical supplies. A million questions ran through Justine’s mind as she stared down at the white-robed figure. Of all the things Justine had suspected, Deedee being her stalker wasn’t one of them, and she was anxious for answers.

  Deedee stirred a bit and Justine sat down on the coffee table in front of her. The waitress opened her eyes and looked around then bolted up when she saw Justine, her expression one of complete panic. “I had to stop you. You were going to free the spirits.”

  Justine frowned. What in the world… Then she remembered the emeralds. She unfolded her hand and showed the stones to Deedee. The waitress paled and she scurried to the far corner of the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees in a fetal position.

  “No!” Deedee wailed. “What have you done? We’ll all die now, just like he said.”

  Justine felt her heart drop as she looked into the young woman’s eyes. She might as well have been looking at her mother. Deedee may have been stalking her, but someone had put those ideas into an already damaged mind. Someone who knew her well enough to know how easily she could be manipulated.

  Someone with a lot of antique furniture to steal.

  “Who told you about the spirits, Deedee? Was it Tom?”

  “No. Tom warned me never to come here, but he said I had to keep you away. He said you would ruin everything.”

  “Who? Who told you to try and scare me away?”

  Deedee shook her head. “He said he’d kill me if I told our secret.”

  Justine struggled for
patience. knowing more than anyone that she wouldn’t be able to force the information out of Deedee in the mental state she was in. She was already too paranoid—too psychotic. “Let’s play a game. He didn’t say anything about playing games, right?”

  Deedee stared at her for a couple of seconds, the uncertainty and suspicion on her face clear as day. “What kind of game?”

  “I’ll ask a question and you answer yes or no. That way, you never say a name. Okay?”

  Deedee didn’t look convinced, but she nodded.

  “Is the man from Cypriere?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have I met the man?”

  “Yes.”

  Justine stared at the waitress. She’d been expecting her to say no. The only man she’d met in Cypriere was Tom, but Deedee had already said the bad guy wasn’t Tom. It hit her like lightning and she sucked in a breath.

  “Is the man Sheriff Blanchard?”

  Deedee didn’t even have to answer. The fear on her face said it all.

  A million thoughts ran through Justine’s mind as all of the pieces fell into place. The one person who could access the estate under the guise of “checking things out” that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow on the old caretaker. The one person who never managed to find the vandals and hoodlums he claimed were causing the trouble. The one person who had access to the police database and could break her identity if he wanted to.

  Suddenly Deedee’s eyes opened wide and her hands started shaking as she stared over Justine’s shoulder toward the door to the kitchen. The tunnel!

  Justine knew he was standing behind her before she ever turned around.

  “Sheriff,” Justine acknowledged as she turned to face the man.

  BRIAN HEARD VOICES coming from the sitting room as soon as he stepped onto the upstairs landing. He could hear Justine trying to coax information out of Deedee, so he crept slowly and quietly down the stairwell, afraid that Deedee would clam up if she heard him coming. He hung on to every word and stopped walking down the stairs completely when he heard Justine ask about Sheriff Blanchard.