The Helena Diaries - Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Series Novellas) (6 page)

After several long hours of cruising the bayou, I grabbed a ride with one of the non-porn fishermen and headed back to the dock. Even though I knew she was surrounded by people who weren’t going to let anything happen to her, I wanted to check on Maryse. After all, someone had managed to poison me in my own house and get away with it. Whoever was behind this was clever, and while Mildred and the hottie scientist seemed like reasonably intelligent people—jury was still out on the psychic nut—neither of them was qualified to handle a murder investigation.

Maryse was back in her room with the hottie scientist. It was the only time I almost wished I’d caught someone in a state of undress—the scientist anyway, not Maryse—but of course, my boring daughter-in-law was just talking. She looked like a sad Walmart fashion model, but given that I was wearing a pink polyester suit with Nikes, I didn’t figure I had room to comment on her wardrobe choices.
 

That silly cat scattered as soon as I walked through the wall, then the hottie scientist started in on me, like I needed anyone reminding me that my decisions about the land could get Maryse killed.
 

I was a bitch. I wasn’t dense.

Maryse broke up the arguing before it got good and surprised the hell out of me by producing keys to the hospital that she’d taken off of Dr. Christopher as he’d fled the storage room. I have to admit, I didn’t think the girl had a sneaky, underhanded side, and I was more than a little thrilled to find out I’d been wrong.
 

Maryse’s plan—and it was a good one—was to break into the hospital and get a hold of my medical records in an attempt to identify the poison used to kill me. She thought the type of poison would help narrow down the list of suspects. I was impressed.

Hottie Luc was not.

He argued that she could go to jail if caught. Maryse argued back that having people try to kill her and me follow her around the rest of her life were worse than jail. It was a fairly rude sentiment, but it worked with Luc, who apparently didn’t like having me around any more than Maryse did.
 

People in this town are so judgmental.

Then Luc hit me with the question that I’d been expecting since the beginning—why was I so certain when I’d willed the land to Maryse that she wouldn’t let the oil companies in and rake up the billions?

It didn’t happen very often, but I clamped my mouth shut, refusing to answer. Then he turned on Maryse, and I could tell he wasn’t going to let up until it made sense in his mind. I couldn’t really blame him for his persistence. It sounded crazy to give up billions of dollars to allow a stretch of dirty water and stinkweed to remain untouched.

Finally, I blurted out that Maryse wouldn’t allow the swamp to be altered until she found the cure for cancer.
 

She was shocked that I knew, but it hadn’t been hard to get the information from the university she used for testing—especially when I donated a lot of money. Luc seemed surprised, but he ceased all complaining about breaking into the hospital and instead shifted gears and insisted on driving.

Maryse yelled at us to get out so she could rest, and I thought I had a reprieve. Then Luc insisted I follow him outside and we discuss my idiot husband Harold and his so-called military service. The last person I wanted to think about was Harold, but I wasn’t willing to piss Luc off, as he was the only other person who could converse with me.

Luc told me that Harold had been bragging down at Johnny’s Bar that he’d been Special Forces during his time in the military. I laughed so hard, I think I got an aneurysm. Special Forces? The man could barely walk without tripping, and the one time I’d seen him fire a shotgun, he didn’t have it firm against his shoulder and gave himself a lovely black eye. I have no idea what Harold actually did during his time in the service, but I’d bet a million dollars it involved a toilet bowl brush.

Luc didn’t seem surprised at my answer. He told me to keep watch on Maryse—preferably without her knowledge—then said he had some things to do and took off. I watched him drive away and thought, once again, that there was more to the sexy scientist than what we could see. I just hoped whatever he was hiding didn’t hurt Maryse more than she already had been. Even the dead could pick up on the attraction between the two of them, although they appeared hell-bent on ignoring it.

I sighed and headed back into the hotel, hoping that this time Maryse had picked the right man.

Wherein Helena gets a new look

I lucked out! The salesman in the room next to Maryse’s left his television on the movie channel. I spent the entire afternoon watching an action marathon. Batman (the good ones with Christian Bale) and James Bond movies (the good ones with Daniel Craig). Hours of ass-kicking, heart-pumping, hot-man-onscreen entertainment.

And then it happened.

One minute I was wearing the hideous polyester and the next, I was clad in a black leather bodysuit. Badass!

I jumped up on the bed and bounced around in celebration, and then realized that leather bodysuits, while ultra-cool, don’t allow for good movement. I suppose if you wore it for a couple of weeks, it would loosen up some, but at the moment, I had serious binding in the armpits and the crotch—two areas you definitely don’t want binding in. Not to mention that walking around in a body armor of leather wasn’t something I had any desire to do in the heat of the Louisiana summer. Might as well stick with the polyester.

And no sooner did I have that thought than the polyester was back in place.

What the hell?

I lifted my arm to look and saw one black leather glove peeking out of the pink sleeve. I jumped off the bed and ran to the full-length mirror, then remembered I didn’t have a reflection. A pox on this death thing! I leaned over and scanned myself and grew more confused. The pink suit was definitely back, but with the one black leather glove remaining. The Nikes were still in place, but now, I had tube socks in bright purple and lime green pulled all the way up to my knees.

Damn it! I’d never thought about tube socks!

Who the hell thought about tube socks after the early eighties? And what in the world was I going to do now? I couldn’t go in public this way. Even though Maryse and Luc were the only two people who could see me, I still had my pride. Okay, I had a little pride left, and it was fading fast, but I wasn’t about to let it slip away over tube socks.

Then the tube socks vanished.

I ran my gloved hand down my leg, but only cold skin met my touch. Weird. I hadn’t realized I was cold to the touch, but then, I hadn’t gone around touching myself either. I supposed that explained the chill some people felt when they were near me. I rose back up and realized the leather glove was gone, but I was now wearing a corsage of lilies.
 

Death was exhausting.

Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Thirteen

Wherein Helena touches something…at the absolute wrong time

As I didn’t want to startle Maryse and Luc at the hotel, I wore my standard pink polyester to the hospital. But as soon as I stepped through the car, I changed into my breaking-and-entering wear. I’d been practicing all afternoon and had sorta gotten the hang of it. At least, half of the time, things went right. Maybe less than half.
 

Whatever.

Rather than look impressed with my leopard-print, spandex bodysuit, Maryse looked like she’d eaten bad Chinese food. I should never have expected her to have any appreciation for style. She’d worn a cocktail dress to my will-reading, spent the rest of her time in rubber boots, and didn’t own underwear. What could she possibly know about fashion?

I would have let the whole bad-Chinese look go, but when she started laughing, Luc—who wasn’t looking near as hot anymore—stepped out of the car to see why, and the horrified look on his face only made Maryse laugh harder. So I changed into an all-black, completely boring ensemble so that the hilarity would cease and we could get on with the real business at hand.

That’s what I get for working with amateurs.

Maryse made some snide remark about how if I’d learned to touch things instead of wasting time on hideous wardrobe choices, it would have been handier as then I could have stolen my own file. I swear, when all this is over, I’m going to figure out a way to contact a civil liberties organization and sue.
 

Anyway, despite the somewhat rocky start, we did manage to get my medical records. Unfortunately, we also discovered that the psychic nut has cancer, and I could tell Maryse was freaked. I tried to work up some aggravation that this development could impede my murder investigation, but even I couldn’t reach that level of selfishness. The reality was, it blew.

We almost made it out of the hospital without incident. Almost.

There was a bit of a panic when a nurse came into the records room. Maryse hid and I tried to stop her—even donned a boxing outfit complete with gloves for the hit—but I couldn’t manage to connect a blow. Even worse, no matter how hard I tried, the damn gloves wouldn’t come off when the panic was over, and my Nikes were gone and replaced with the old pumps. It was not a look that would get me on a Paris runway.

Just when I thought we were in the clear, the nurse came back. I yelled at Maryse to run and she took off like she was on fire. I tried to follow, but without the Nikes, the nurse gained rapidly. Then as I rounded the corner for the exit, I hit a medical cart and flipped completely over it, sprawling onto the floor.
 

Shit scattered everywhere and before I knew it, that nurse was running right past me and straight for the exit door Maryse had just run out of. I jumped up and bolted for the door, knocking the nurse to the ground as I ran outside, but that completely average-looking scientist that Maryse liked was already hauling it out of the parking lot.

I was left walking again.
 

And the Nikes were nowhere in sight.

That reasonably good-looking scientist was waiting for me at the gas station down the street from the hospital, so I only had to manage a couple of blocks. I spent the time attempting to fix my wardrobe malfunction, but only succeeded in making it worse. The only thing I’d changed by the time I reached the gas station was the tank top, which was replaced with the top from the polyester suit.
 

Let me just say that boxing shorts and a suit top are not a good look.
 

I tried to work up some indignation at Luc for spitting out his soda when he saw me, but it was hard to get indignant over a bad reaction when you sorta agreed with it.

Maryse went into research mode when we got back from the hotel and banned both of us from the office. As I am invisible, Luc sent me outside to patrol, so I spent the rest of the night circling the hotel like a shark.

I know it’s not possible, but I swear, I feel a blister on my right foot.

Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Fourteen and Fifteen

Wherein Helena is offended…again

Between all the pacing around the hotel and the paranormal television marathon I indulged in after Maryse went to bed, I managed to get my outfit back to tolerable standards. Jeans and the Nikes were a welcome relief, and I threw in a bit of creativity with a T-shirt that read “I see dead people.”
 

And everyone thinks I don’t have a sense of humor.

Maryse, Mildred, Luc, and the psychic nut had just started a morning meeting when I strolled through the wall and took a seat. Maryse’s news on the commonality of the poison likely used to kill me was disappointing, especially given everything we’d gone through to get my medical records. But we had to keep moving forward.
 

Once Mildred left the room, the psychic nut surprised me by saying she knew I was in the room. For a second, I thought maybe she was the real deal and could see me too, but then she pointed out the unfortunate expression Maryse adopts every time I’m around. The nut complained about the unfairness of the situation—her being the “alleged” psychic and being the only one in the room unable to see me—but Luc and Maryse convinced her it was a good thing.

Assholes.

I figured with the poison being a dead end, Maryse was out of ideas, but she surprised me by saying we needed to find Hank. Given that he was the person who’d benefit most from her untimely death, it sounded like a reasonable request to me, even if I didn’t think it was possible.

Unfortunately, Maryse already had a plan for locating Hank, and it included me spying on Harold. The last I’d seen of Harold was when he’d been yelling at the Lower Bayou Motel clerk that he’d be leaving for New Orleans the next day. I figured Maryse would never find Harold in New Orleans, so the threat was low. But then she said Mildred was getting a line on Harold, and I started to worry.

Mildred was like a dog with a bone when she wanted something, and as she considered Maryse her daughter, she’d probably shift heaven and earth if required. I flat-out refused to sit around watching Harold and whatever floozy he’d taken up with since the will-reading. And do you know what Maryse did?

She threatened to have the psychic nut perform an exorcism on me!

I know I’m not a demon—at least, I’m pretty sure—but what if it could hurt me in some way? What if the nut messing around with dark stuff caused them to drag me to hell?