BRIDAL JEOPARDY (13 page)

“I should stop talking about this.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how we got on the subject. I guess we were just looking for information about Houma so we could plan our day.”

“You can get that from the chamber of commerce or the town hall.”

“Yes, thanks,” Stephanie said, but the other woman was already bustling toward the dining-room entrance, where another couple was waiting to be seated.

I guess we hit some kind of nerve,
Stephanie said to Craig when they were alone again.

Yeah. There must have been some blowback from the Solomon Clinic.

Or it’s because that woman’s son died.

I think we should go see her.

You think she’ll talk to us?
Stephanie asked.

Maybe we can use the same method,
Craig answered.

I hate doing that to a grieving mother.

I don’t love it, either, but if it saves our lives, I’m willing to try it.

She winced.

They went back to their room, where they used the computer to look up Darla Dubour in Houma, Louisiana, and found that she lived in a small community outside of town.

“Should we call her?” Stephanie asked.

“I think it’s better if we just go over unannounced.”

They were in the car and on their way a few minutes after they’d looked up the location.

Stephanie felt a chill go through her.

Craig reached to cover her hand with his. “You’re thinking we’re going to find out something bad about ourselves when we talk to that woman?”

“Yes.”

* * *

W
AYNE
C
HANNING
and his partner, Buck Arnot, Harold Goddard’s men, had arrived in Houma the evening before.

Because they’d been ordered to stake out the location where the Solomon Clinic had been located, they had spent an uncomfortable night in their car in a grocery-store parking lot where they could see the target location.

“Got to pee,” Wayne said as he moved restlessly in his seat.

“There’s a gas station a couple blocks down.”

“But we’re supposed to keep the building in sight.”

Channing sighed. “This is a real long shot.”

“But we got our orders.”

“Okay, I’ll drive down to the gas station and do my thing. You stay here and watch the building.”

“And get arrested for loitering.”

“Walk up the sidewalk and back again, like you’re out for your morning constitutional.”

“Yeah, right. Come back with coffee and doughnuts.”

“What flavor?”

“Surprise me.” Buck climbed out and watched his partner drive off. When he was out of sight, he ducked around by the Dumpsters. He didn’t need a smelly gas station to relieve himself. Then he started down the block, looking in shop windows.

When he got to the cross street, he turned and walked back, then did it again.

He was going to call Wayne on his cell and ask if he’d fallen into the gas-station toilet when he saw something interesting.

A car turned in at the grocery-store parking lot where he and his partner had spent the night. As he watched, two tough-looking men got out and stretched, as if they’d just finished a long drive.

Their gazes were fixed on the building that he and Wayne had been watching.

When he saw his partner coming back, he flagged him down and climbed back into the car.

“I can go into that parking lot and we can switch. You can drive to the gas station, and I’ll wait here.”

“I already done it out by the Dumpsters.”

Wayne made a disgusted sound. “Didn’t your mama teach you better?”

Ignoring the comment, Buck said, “Keep on drivin’ past that parking lot.”

The urgency in his voice made Wayne glance toward the lot, then speed up.

“Two tough-looking guys,” he said.

“Yeah. I’m thinkin’ they might have the same assignment we do.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Must be a lot of interest in Swift and Branson.”

“So what are we gonna do?”

“Call the guy who hired us and ask for instructions.”

“He’s probably still sleeping.’

Buck’s voice took on a nasty tone as he turned toward his partner. “Well, we got reason to wake him up.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I thought we’d take a look around town before we talk to Mrs. Dubour’s,” Craig said as he pulled out of the driveway of the B and B.

Stephanie closed her hand around his arm.

“Don’t go there.”

His gaze shot to her, then back to the road as he tuned in to her thoughts.

“You think it’s dangerous to go into Houma,” he said aloud, considering the implication of her words.

“Yes.”

He silently debated her assessment. “You think the men who kidnapped us might be looking for us there.”

“Yes.”

“Which would mean they know something about the Solomon Clinic.”

She nodded.

“Okay, we can go straight to Darla Dubour’s.”

“How are we going to approach her?”

“I think honesty is best. We tell her that we found out we were born as a result of treatments our mothers received at the Solomon Clinic and came to Houma to see if we could find out more about the clinic. We were talking to Mrs. Marcos, and she told us about David, and we’d like some more information, if she can give it to us.”

“And if she doesn’t want to talk to us?”

“We try our new technique.”

* * *

R
ACHEL
H
ARPER
SHUFFLED
a deck of tarot cards and laid one of them on the table.

Her husband, Jake, took in the worried expression on her face.

“It’s the Hierophant, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes. He’s the archetype of the spiritual world. The card can refer to a person who holds forbidden or secret knowledge.”

“Which means what, in this case?”

She sighed. “You know how relieved we were when Solomon and Wellington were killed.”

Jake nodded.

“Suppose there’s someone else who knows about the children from the Solomon Clinic?”

“And he’s trying something similar to what Wellington was doing?”

She clenched and unclenched her fists. “Yes.”

“Which means we should stay away from him.”

“Or it means we need to reach out to that other couple. Unless they turn out to be our enemies.”

“Try another card,” Jake suggested.

Rachel fanned out the deck and pulled out the Ace of Cups. When she smiled, Jake stroked his hand over her shoulder. “The start of a great love,” he murmured.

“You’re learning the cards.”

“I like knowing what you know.”

“A great love—ours or theirs.”

“Let’s see one more card,” Jake said.

Rachel pulled out the Five of Swords and caught her breath.

“What?”

“Well, it usually means you are defeated, cheated out of victory by a cunning and underhanded opponent.”

“You think it refers to that other couple?”

“Or to the person who is going against them and us. But sometimes with the Five of Swords, you are that victor. You’re the one who wins over your opponents by using your mind.”

“That sounds like us.”

“And them.”

“And you still don’t have enough information to trust them?”

She shook her head. “It’s not just us who would be at risk. It’s also Gabriella and Luke,” she said, referring to Gabriella Bordeaux and Luke Buckley, another couple who’d been born as a result of treatments at the Solomon Clinic. Rachel and Jake had come to their rescue, and they had formed a little community, using the plantation property Gabriella had inherited from her mother. Rachel and Jake lived there part of each week and commuted to New Orleans so that they could each maintain their business interests in the city, Rachel with her shop and Jake with his antiques and restaurant businesses.

“Can you at least try to figure out where they are?”

Rachel closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, sending her mind outward.

* * *

“I
F
M
RS
.
D
UBOUR
won’t talk to us, we’re no worse off than we were before,” Craig said.

They drove away from town, turning off onto a secondary road that led to a small community at the edge of the bayou, checking the house numbers on the mailboxes as they drove.

When they came to number 529, they turned into a rutted gravel drive that was about fifty yards long. At the end was a white clapboard house with blue shutters surrounded by a trimmed lawn and neatly tended flower gardens edged with white painted rocks.

A car was parked in front, and they pulled up behind it and walked to the front porch that spanned the front of the house.

It took several moments for them to hear movement inside after they knocked. Finally an old woman opened the door. She looked to be in her late seventies, with wispy gray hair and a lined face. She was wearing slippers and a faded housedress.

“I’m not buying anything,” she said as she stared through the screen door. “And I’m not interested in any religious lectures.”

Stephanie shook her head. “We’re not selling or preaching. Are you Mrs. Dubour?”

“Yes.”

“We’d like to talk to you about your son, David.”

She stiffened. “What about him?”

“We’re staying at Mrs. Marcos’s bed-and-breakfast, and we were talking to her this morning. She told us that you were treated at the Solomon Clinic before David was born.”

“What about it?”

“Our mothers were both treated at the same clinic, and we wanted to find out what you knew.”

Her expression had become less hostile as she’d listened to Stephanie speak. “I guess you’d better come in,” she said.

Craig let out the breath he’d been holding as the older woman stepped aside. They followed her into a small, neat sitting room furnished in old maple pieces and a bulky sofa and overstuffed chairs.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing toward the sofa.

They sat, and she took one of the chairs opposite, where she watched them with speculative interest.

“You say your mothers went to the same clinic that I did?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“It goes back to my twin brother being killed by mobsters in a restaurant when I was eight.”

The old woman sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“After Sam died, I remember hearing my mother trying to contact someone at the Solomon Clinic, but it was already closed by then.”

“She wanted to have another child?”

“That’s my guess.”

“Weren’t there other clinics she could have gone to?”

“Maybe she only had faith in Dr. Solomon.”

“Yes, he had a way of projecting strength and reassurance.”

Stephanie got back to the original question. “We looked through some of my mother’s papers and found literature and application forms from the clinic.”

“And how did the two of you get together?” Mrs. Dubour asked.

“I got some information on who might have caused my brother’s death. I came down to New Orleans to investigate and found Stephanie,” Craig explained, giving an abbreviated version of how they’d happened to hook up.

The old woman looked from one of them to the other. “Did you think it was odd that the two of you ended up meeting each other?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Craig said.

Mrs. Dubour shook her head. “Maybe you should have,” she said in a hard voice.

Craig kept his gaze fixed on her. She looked like a typical aging housewife, but she obviously had spent a lot of time thinking about what happened to her son. And she’d come to some interesting conclusions.

“Something similar happened with my David.”

They both stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“David was living at home and working at the hardware store in Houma when he got an email from a woman who said she’d gotten his name from a lawyer who was investigating inequalities in fees charged at the Solomon Clinic. She said her mother had paid thousands to be treated there, and his mother had gotten her treatment for free. The woman was all hot under the collar, and she came charging down here to see David. She was a weird, kind of flighty girl. I took a dislike to her right away, but as soon as she and David locked eyes on each other, something changed with him. With both of them, I guess. I mean, you could see sparks flying between him and that girl.”

“What was her name?” Craig asked.

“Penny Whitman.”

“What happened?”

“I saw them outside under the willow tree, holding hands and looking like they’d been hit by a meteor or something, like they were having some kind of secret communication nobody else could tune in on.”

Craig nodded, understanding perfectly.

“David was so happy. I’d never seen him like that before. They took off, and I never saw David alive again. He and the girl were found in a motel room in bed together—both of them dead.”

Stephanie sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened to them?”

“The coroner said it was like both of them had had a cerebral hemorrhage.”

“My God,” Stephanie whispered.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Craig said.

Mrs. Dubour nodded. “Losing him would have been more of a shock if I hadn’t felt that I’d lost him years ago. Or that he never really belonged to us.”

“What do you mean?” Stephanie asked.

“I was so excited to have a child,” she said, her voice low and wistful. “But he never was, you know, normal. He always kept to himself. He wasn’t affectionate with me or my husband. He never did date much when he was a teenager.” She gave both of them a sharp look. “Am I telling you things you understand about yourselves?”

“Yes,” Stephanie whispered.

Craig also nodded in agreement.

She kept looking at them. “But you met each other, and something changed for you?”

“Yes.”

“You went off together, like my David and that girl, only it turned out different for you.”

“Yes,” Craig said.

“You’re alive, and he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry he died.”

“Because he hooked up with that woman. Why did it kill them?”

Craig wasn’t going to tell her that it had to do with forming a telepathic bond that might overwhelm the two people involved.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Mrs. Dubour kept her gaze on them. “I guess you two should be careful.”

“Yes,” Stephanie whispered, although Craig knew from her mind that she was sure they had made it past the dangerous phase of bonding.

“Did you ever find out anything about the lawyer who sent the woman down here?”

“I didn’t pursue it.”

“Do you happen to know his name,” he pressed.

She hesitated, probably coping with all the sad memories he and Stephanie had dredged up. It would be kindest to let her be, but because they had come here for information, Craig gave her a push.
If you know who the lawyer was, you should tell us. We’d really appreciate the information.

She was silent for several more moments, then said, “She came down here with the email.”

“You mean from the lawyer?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Dubour got to her feet and left the room. While she was gone, they both waited tensely, wondering if she’d really be able to put her hands on the evidence. Finally she returned holding a piece of paper. “Here it is.”

When she handed over the paper, Craig scanned it. It was from a Lewis Martinson in Washington, D.C.

“Thank you so much,” Stephanie said. “We really appreciate this.”

They talked to Mrs. Dubour for a few more minutes. When the woman stood up, her shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry to have brought all this up for you,” Stephanie murmured.

“I hope it does some good.”

When they were back in the car, Stephanie turned to him, and he felt the relief in her mind.

“We could have ended up like David and that woman.”

“Yeah.”

“We both had a headache when we first made love. I guess that was a symptom of...”

“Getting ready to have a stroke,” he finished for her.

“What was the difference for them?”

“We can’t know for sure. Maybe the pain was too much for them to focus on the pleasure. Maybe they lost their nerve at the last minute, and when they didn’t bond, they’d already set the process in motion.”

When he saw a shiver go through her, he reached for her hand, holding tight.

“We got through it,” she said. “Thank God we didn’t understand the danger.”

“I guess it’s a crap shoot—how it turns out,” he said.

“I prefer to think that we had something they didn’t.”

He laughed. “We were hornier.”

She grinned, then sobered. “It looks like somebody wanted to get David and that woman together. Maybe to find out what would happen.”

“I don’t like being manipulated.”

“Likewise. How did you happen to come down to New Orleans?”

“I never gave up the idea of finding out who was responsible for Sam’s death, which was one of the reasons I maintained connections with police departments all over the U.S.”

“Interesting that the body turned up after all these years.”

“You think...”

He let his voice trail off, but he knew where her mind was going. Somebody had deliberately arranged for him to receive the information because they wanted him to come down to New Orleans and investigate the man responsible for Sam’s death—which would mean that he would meet Stephanie Swift.

“Which meant they knew investigating John Reynard would lead you to me,” she murmured. Then she added, “It’s someone who knows there’s something...strange about the children from the clinic.” She looked at him. “How, exactly, did you find out about Arthur Polaski?”

“I got a call from a contact at the New Orleans P.D., Ike Broussard.”

“You think he’s working with Lewis Martinson?”

“I’ll be surprised if it’s that simple.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“We could talk to Broussard and look up Martinson. Unless you want to go poking around in Houma.”

She thought about that. “I think that would be dangerous, because Martinson already knows we’re likely to come to Houma.”

“Agreed.”

“And I wouldn’t have any more contact with Broussard.”

“You could be right about that.”

They stopped to pick up lunch at a fast-food restaurant, then returned to the bed-and-breakfast, where Craig booted up his computer and looked up Lewis Martinson. There were several people with that name, but none of them was a lawyer in Washington, D.C.