Damned (Shaye Archer Series Book 7) Read online

  “Oh, yes! I completely forgot to tell you that the florist for the Donahue wedding called earlier in a snit. He wants to know what time he can deliver the flowers and to make sure the temperature will be correct, so they won’t wilt before the ceremony.”

  Nicolas sighed. “The panic surrounding a wedding that doesn’t take place for three weeks is somewhat overwhelming. I dread the last few days leading up to the actual ceremony.”

  Malcolm grinned. “People lose their minds over weddings. This is your first one officiating, but you’ll get used to it.”

  “That’s a frightening thought.”

  Malcolm laughed. “Yes, well, I have to call him about the Miller christening, so I figured I’d answer his question about the wedding as well and save you one tiny hassle.”

  “Then tell him I will adjust the temperature that morning. The guests will be freezing, but you can assure the florist that the flowers will be beautiful. He can deliver them any time after noon.”

  “Very well,” Malcolm said and ducked out, closing the door behind him.

  Nicolas looked down at the last envelope and frowned. It hadn’t gone through the regular postal system. There was no address or return address. Not even a stamp. Only his name written on the front in a handwriting he didn’t recognize. He opened the envelope and pulled out the paper.

  When he saw the words, he gasped. Then he grasped the arms of his wheelchair and stifled a cry. When he was certain he had control, he looked down at the paper in his lap, the horrible words staring up at him. Shaming him. Mocking him.

  She can’t help you.

  5

  It took Shaye several hours and trips to four different locations before she found the landscaping crew who’d been working at St. Mary’s. Some of the wasted time appeared to be because of a completely horrible administrative system, but the rest appeared to be employees closing ranks. Despite her protesting, they sensed trouble and didn’t want to put others in the line of fire. Finally, she’d convinced one young man that she was not looking to make trouble for anyone, and he’d told her where to find the men who’d been working at the church that Saturday.

  It was late afternoon when she located them in the courtyard at the university. It seemed a lot of work for five people, but they moved quickly and transformed the shrubbery from scraggly into compliant. She saw an older man with black-and-silver hair giving instructions to the rest and assumed he might be the foreman, so she made her way over.

  When she introduced herself, the man gave her a wary look and glanced at the other employees.

  “You the cops?” he asked.

  “No. I’m a private detective. And no one is in trouble. I’m simply looking for information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “My client was at St. Mary’s on Saturday when your crew was working there.”

  “Did someone make a complaint? Because we don’t speak to people when we’re on the job except the clients. It’s company policy.”

  “No one has made a complaint,” she assured the man. “My client was in the cathedral praying and when she left, she forgot her purse. When she went back to get it, it was gone. I wondered if you saw anyone leaving the cathedral through the courtyard around 2:00 p.m.?”

  “We don’t go in the cathedral.” The man looked slightly panicked.

  “I don’t believe you did.” Shaye’s frustration began to grow. The man was so worried about being accused of something that he was no help whatsoever. “My client doesn’t want to press charges anyway. But there’s a string bracelet her niece made her in that purse. Her niece passed away a month ago. She just wants the bracelet back. There are two exits from the cathedral, and one leads into the courtyard. Since that’s where you were working, I hoped you could tell me if you saw anyone leave that way.”

  “There was several people,” a young black man said. “An older black lady with silver hair, blue dress, and a hat with flowers on it. A white dude, maybe late 50s. He was tall and had on black slacks. Got into a Mercedes S-Class. There was a younger Asian guy with hair in a ponytail and a little girl with him. The girl was maybe five or six. Two average white dudes were there—one came out the courtyard door and one came down the sidewalk from the front of the cathedral. Probably in their twenties. They got into a van for an electric company. After that, the younger priest pushed the one in the wheelchair out. He looked like he was sick. The one in the wheelchair, I mean.”

  “And all of these people exited into the courtyard around two o’clock?”

  “Sometime around then,” he said. “I wasn’t looking at my watch really. Some might have been before and some after, but they was all around that time.”

  “You have a really good memory,” Shaye said.

  “Thanks. My moms says so too. That’s why I’m taking night classes. She don’t want me working lawns forever.”

  “Your mom is a smart lady,” Shaye said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. What’s your name?”

  “Jamal Thibodeaux.”

  She pulled out a card and handed it to Jamal. “If you think of anyone else, please give me a call. Do you think you’d recognize any of the people if I showed you pictures?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Jamal said. “I’m good with faces.”

  She looked around at the other workers. “Did anyone else see someone exit into the courtyard besides the ones Jamal mentioned?”

  The other workers and the foreman shook their heads.

  Even if they had noticed someone, Shaye doubted they’d say so. They all had that look she ran into often that said they weren’t sticking their necks out.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Jamal,” she said. “Good luck with your studies.”

  He nodded. “It was nice meeting you too. I know who you are. My moms is going to be excited when I tell her. You help people. There’s not enough in this city that do.”

  “There’s a lot more than you know. They just don’t make the evening news. But you’re right. We could always use more.”

  “You have a nice day, Ms. Archer,” Jamal said. “And I hope you find your client’s purse.”

  Shaye headed back to her SUV and immediately made notes based on Jamal’s descriptions. The young man had noticed a lot, but none of it was enough to send her to someone’s doorstep. She hoped Nicolas could help her narrow things down. The senior lady could go last on the list. Shaye didn’t think for a minute that women were above committing murder, but it took strength to strangle someone. So unless the victim was very young and weak, it was unlikely the older lady was the perp. She’d focus on the four men instead, although the man with the child wasn’t exactly a good fit, either. People had inserted children in the middle of their crimes before, but it was risky. Still, she’d move him just in front of the older lady.

  It wasn’t a lot to go on, and it only covered one exit, but it was a start.

  6

  As Grayson pulled away from the curb of the café where they’d just had a late lunch, Jackson’s cell phone rang. It was the forensics unit, so he answered right away and put him on speaker.

  “Please tell me you got something on the phone,” he said to Matt, the tech.

  “Not much,” Matt said. “This girl was not a normal teen. Hardly any texts and it looks like she deleted most everything as soon as she read it. We retrieved the texts, but I don’t see anything of interest. They’re all to her parents or a girl named Gina.”

  “No talk of being mad at the parents, or a secret boyfriend, running away, nothing?” Jackson asked.

  “Not even a peep,” Matt said. “There was plenty of complaining about a calculus teacher, and the other girl is afraid her grades are going to drop below an A in science, but mostly it’s school stuff or about shows they’re watching on television. It’s weird.”

  “What do you mean?” Jackson asked.

  “What sixteen-year-old girl isn’t talking about boys?” Matt asked. “Or bitching about her parents?”

 
; “Probably the kind whose parents read all her texts,” Jackson said. “The father seems determined to ensure that his daughter is not corrupted by outside influences.”

  “One of those,” Matt said. “Then I’d bet on another phone. She’s talking regular talk somehow, and I doubt it’s all in person.”

  “If she has another phone, then it’s gone along with her because forensics didn’t turn up anything,” Jackson said.

  “Well, if you get something, let me know and I’ll do another trace.”

  “Thanks.” Jackson hung up and looked over at Grayson.

  “You think he’s right?” Jackson asked. “You think there’s another phone?”

  “Maybe. Given the situation, I’m sure she’d want one, but she’d need the funds to pay for it.”

  “Most kids figure out a way to get a hold of some cash. Babysitting, dog walking, tutoring, whatever. If she was helping Gina with school then she might have been helping others.”

  Grayson nodded. “We’ll be sure and ask the friends. One of them should know.”

  Jackson checked his phone—4:30 p.m. School was out for the day, but that didn’t mean either girl was at home. If they weren’t, then Jackson and Grayson would spend whatever amount of time it took to track them down. The first forty-eight hours were critical in a missing persons case. And despite the fact that both girls claimed no knowledge of Hailey’s plans, teens usually covered for each other until they realized things had crossed the line from a bit of fun away from the watchful eye of parents to a dangerous position for a young woman to be in.

  Hailey’s parents had stressed the fact that she didn’t have a boyfriend, but if she was hiding someone from her parents—someone they would deem inappropriate—there was a 99 percent chance one or both of her closest friends knew about it. Then it was just a matter of convincing them to talk and hoping that the inappropriate boyfriend wasn’t the stuff nightmares were made of.

  Grayson parked in front of a Spanish-style home and they climbed out. The area was mostly middle-class families, often with both parents working. If they could catch either of the girls at home and question them without their parents present, they were far more likely to get the answers they were looking for.

  They rang the doorbell, and a tall, thin girl with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail opened it. Grayson explained who they were and her eyes widened. She responded in the negative when Grayson asked if her parents were home, and Jackson thought she was going to refuse to speak to them, but then she gave them a long-suffering sigh and waved them inside. She flopped on the couch and started picking the polish on her thumbnail.

  Grayson indicated for Jackson to sit and they sat across from the girl in two chairs. Towering above her was only likely to make her nervous and that often equaled silence, especially with teens. However, Jackson was fairly certain that Marcy wasn’t nervous at all. She looked more bored than anything.

  “Have you found Hailey?” Marcy asked.

  “No,” Grayson said.

  She shrugged. “I guess it was stupid of me to think you had. I mean, if she’d come home, she would have called, right? Unless something bad happened. Did something bad happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Grayson said. “We don’t know where Hailey is or what happened to her. We were hoping you could help us with that.”

  Marcy shook her head. “I don’t see how. Gina’s sent a million texts but they don’t go through. She even tried calling and it goes straight to voice mail. It’s like her phone isn’t even turned on.”

  “Would it be out of character for Hailey to turn her phone off?” Grayson asked.

  Marcy gave him a look of slight disdain. “We don’t turn off our phones. How can people live without a phone? Our whole lives run by these things. Appointments, reminders, friends, social media—and parents calling all the time. ‘Where are you?’ ‘Did you remember to lock the door?’ ‘Don’t eat the cookies before dinner.’ And how would we take selfies?”

  Properly chastised, Grayson tried a different line of questioning. “And you have no idea where Hailey might have gone?”

  “She wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” Marcy said. “Hailey was so boring even her dog ran away. She never did anything that mattered. She never said anything that mattered.”

  Grayson glanced at Jackson. For someone who was supposed to be friends with the missing girl, Marcy’s attitude was strange.

  She noticed the glance and rolled her eyes. “You think I’m being mean, right? Just like Gina. ‘Be nice to Hailey. She doesn’t have many friends.’” She threw her arms in the air. “Well, that’s a big lie and I assume you want the truth. The truth is Hailey doesn’t have any friends except Gina.”

  “So you’re not her friend?” Jackson asked.

  “I’m Gina’s friend. Have been since we were five years old. Hailey came along a year ago when her family moved to the neighborhood. Gina was nice to her one day and Hailey’s been clinging to her like a parasite ever since. I never get to do anything with just Gina anymore.” She perked up a bit. “Until now. I guess I can now.”

  “Okay,” Jackson said, slightly uncomfortable with the teen’s complete lack of concern about a missing girl. “So we can rule out other friends. Is there any place in particular that Hailey liked to spend time—a library, store, coffee shop? Somewhere she might have gone? If we can narrow down where she was right before she disappeared, it might help find her.”

  “She did like to read,” Marcy said. “But why would she go to a library when you can read on your phone?”

  “Of course,” Jackson said. “I suppose it’s safe to assume Hailey doesn’t have a boyfriend?”

  Marcy snorted. “Are you kidding? She was afraid to talk to boys. She blushed seventy shades of red and purple if one accidentally spoke to her.”

  “So there was no one she was interested in?” Grayson asked.

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t interested,” Marcy said. “Everyone notices a cute guy. Even geeks. But no cute guy was going to notice Hailey. Not with her staring at her feet all the time.”

  Grayson rose and pulled a card from his pocket. He handed it to Marcy. “Please give me a call if you think of anything that might help. Her parents are really worried, and New Orleans is no place for a young girl to be alone.”

  Marcy looked a tiny bit contrite. “Okay. I hope you find her. I mean, I don’t really want to hang out with her, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, either.”

  Grayson nodded and they headed out of the house. When they climbed in the car, Jackson looked over at his partner and shook his head.

  “Remind me to never, ever have a teenage girl,” Jackson said.

  Grayson snorted. “They’re not all as bad as that, but yeah. She definitely makes one rethink being a parent.”

  “You didn’t ask about a second cell phone.”

  “That girl doesn’t know anything about Hailey, except that she wanted her to disappear, which is exactly what happened.”

  Jackson shook his head. “If she wasn’t so forward and was a bit more clever, I might consider that she’d killed Hailey just to get Gina back to herself.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time a teen committed a murder over something that silly, but I agree. Marcy appears to be all talk. I’m sure her mouth does plenty of damage but I’m not ready to peg her as a killer.”

  “I’m not ready to strike her off the list, either.”

  “No. It’s too early for that.”

  “Let’s hope Gina doesn’t feel the same way Marcy does. We don’t know anything more about Hailey now than before we went in that house.”

  “We know Hailey’s dog found her uninteresting.”

  “Fine. We don’t know anything relevant.”

  Grayson pulled away from the curb. “Let’s go see if we can get something, then.”

  Jackson found himself scanning the neighborhood as Grayson drove. It was an average middle-class sort of place. Modest homes with modest cars in the
drive. Some with nice landscaping and well maintained. Some with beds that had been taken over by weeds and a lawn that needed a good round of fertilizer. It was so typical that it could have been any neighborhood in any city anywhere.

  Except a girl had gone missing from this one.

  Maybe.

  The reality was, they needed to narrow down exactly where Hailey was when she dropped off the radar. Her phone last pinged in her house, but with no sign of forced entry and her cell phone and purse missing, everything pointed to her leaving voluntarily. Where she’d gone was the question.

  Gina’s house was a classic, boring red brick with white shutters and decent hedges. There were no cars in the drive, so unless one was stored in the single-car garage, they might have lucked out again and would catch Gina at home alone. Grayson knocked on the door and they waited a bit, but there was no answer. He knocked again and Jackson saw a blind slat lift a bit. He took his badge out and put it in front of the window. A couple seconds later, the door opened and a young girl peered out.

  While Marcy had looked somewhat athletic and had a bit of a tan, Gina was thin and had no color to her skin. Her lips were a natural bright pink and her hair a mousy limp blond, making her look somewhat fragile.

  “May we come in and speak to you?” Grayson asked.

  She nodded and stepped back to let them in, then immediately closed the door, locked it, and drew the dead bolt. As she walked into the living room and sat on the fireplace hearth, the contrast between her and Marcy was all the more defined.

  Gina was scared.

  Grayson and Jackson took seats on opposite ends of a sofa facing the fireplace. Gina stared at the ground and chewed on her fingernails.

  “Detective Lamotte and I are trying to find Hailey,” Grayson said. “We’d like your help.”

  She looked up at him and nodded.

  “We just talked to Marcy,” Grayson said. “She said you were Hailey’s only friend.”

  She nodded again. “People didn’t get her. She was smart…too smart to be cool, you know?”