Sanctuary in Chef Voleur

Chapter Two

Just like the girl at the truck stop had predicted, Hannah wound up in Metairie at 3:00 a.m., unable to hold her eyes open any longer. She found a small, seedy motel that she figured wouldn’t push the limit of her credit card, checked in and managed to sleep a little—in fits and starts, interrupted by nightmares of finding her mother just as she was breathing her last breath, or worse, leading the killer to her.

Around eight, she got up, showered and dressed, then sat down on the bed and dumped the contents of her purse. Like her mother, Hannah carried everything essential, valuable or meaningful in her purse. And like her mother, she wasn’t sentimental, so most of the bag’s contents were practical, except for two items. One was a photo her mother had given her years ago. The second was a sealed envelope.

Hannah picked up the envelope. With the traumatic events of the past couple of days, Hannah had totally forgotten about it. Looking at the words scrawled across the front made her want to break down and cry, but she didn’t have time for that. So she carefully placed the envelope back in her purse and picked up her wallet.

She pulled the fragile, dog-eared photo out of a hidden pocket. It had to be thirty years old and was of her mother and Kathleen Griffin, her best friend. On the back it read, “Kath and me at her house.” In a different hand was written “sisters forever,” and an address in Chef Voleur, Louisiana.

Hannah looked up the address and took note of the directions. She was about to head out when her cell phone rang.

When she looked at the display, her heart skipped a beat. It was the Dowdie, Texas, sheriff’s office. Hannah’s already queasy stomach did a nauseating flip, the result of too little sleep, too much coffee and the image of Billy Joe’s blood in her head.

She stared at the display, not moving, until the phone stopped ringing, then she dropped the phone back into her purse. There was no doubt in her mind why they were calling. They’d found Billy Joe’s body. But how could she talk to them? What would she say? How would she explain to the authorities why she had run away to South Louisiana after witnessing a murder if she couldn’t explain it to herself?

It took her about half an hour to drive to the address written on the back of the photo. It was across the street from a pizza place. With the photo in her hand she walked up to the building, hope clogging her throat.

A small voice deep inside her asked why she thought that talking to her mother’s old friend would help her find and rescue her mother back in Texas.

She had no idea. Except that her only other choice was to trust Sheriff King to believe her, and she’d been taught at her mother’s knee that authorities couldn’t be trusted. Sheriffs. Police. Lawyers. They were the people who took children away from their mothers and placed them in foster care. They threatened sick people with prison for using marijuana to relieve the debilitating nausea associated with cancer and other diseases.

* * *

SHE KNOCKED ON the heavy wood door, then realized immediately that her tentative rapping probably couldn’t be heard by anyone inside. So she rapped a second time, harder.

For a long moment that probably spanned no more than eight or ten seconds, she stood there listening and heard nothing. As she lifted her hand to rap again, she heard soft thuds on the other side of the door, as if someone was walking on a hardwood floor in socks or barefoot.

Standing stiffly, not quite ready to believe that she’d actually found her mother’s best friend, Kathleen, she waited for the door to open.

When it did, it was not a pretty, dark-haired woman with even, striking features and a beautiful smile who stood there. It was a man. He was tall and lean and he had the same even, striking features but they were distorted in a scowl. And he had a cell phone to his ear.

After a brief, dismissive glance at her, he scanned the hallway behind her. Once he’d assured himself that she was the only one there, he said, “Hang on a minute,” into the phone. “I’ve got to deal with somebody at the door.” His tone was irritated and impatient.

Private investigator MacEllis Griffin kept his expression neutral as he eyed the young woman from the top of her streaked blond hair to the toes of her clunky sandals.

“What is it?” he growled. She stood there looking at him with all the apprehension of a kid called to the principal’s office. Only she was no kid and he was no schoolteacher.

She could have been a kid. Her hair was pulled back into a single messy braid that looked like she’d slept in it. The skinny jeans were slightly loose on her slender frame and the shirt looked more slept in than her hair.

“Hmm? Oh, nope. It’s pretty slow here,” Mack said into the phone as he tried to guess her age. Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Under twenty-five? Hard to tell. She had that heart-shaped face that always looked young. But faint blue circles under her eyes that matched the color of her jeans told him she was much older than her hair or clothes might indicate. She opened her mouth but he held up a finger. “Buono’s working a missing person case,” he said. “A seventeen-year-old. Probably ran away with her boyfriend.”

“Well, get to the office and do something useful,” Dawson Delancey, his boss, replied. “You could file your past three months’ expenses if you’re bored.”

Mack didn’t take his eyes off the young woman as he laughed. “I’ll never be that bored,” he said. “In fact, I might be real interested in something real soon.” He smiled when the woman’s gaze dropped from his and her cheeks turned pink.

“In what?” Dawson asked. “Was that the mailman delivering your latest issue of Playboy?”

“Right. He just got here from 2002,” Mack responded. “Nope. Looks like I’m about to be hit up for Girl Scout cookies or a donation to a religious cause. I’d better go.”

“I hope it’s the donation. You don’t need the cookies,” Dawson said.

“Bite me,” Mack said conversationally. “You’re the one getting fat on your wife’s Italian cooking.”

“You’re just jealous. Juliana and I will be back in Biloxi in a few days. I’ll give you a call when we know for sure.”

“Okay. Later. ’Bye.”

As Mack hung up the phone, the young woman met his gaze and gave him a sad, self-conscious smile. The smile didn’t reach her eyes and the only thing it accomplished was to make her look older and sadder.

A familiar sinking feeling gnawed at his stomach. He knew that smile. He’d never met this woman before, but he knew her type way too well. Standing there with that sadness in her eyes, that furrow between her brows. She was the embodiment of a lot of things he’d worked very hard to forget. She was exactly the type of person—the type of woman—he’d spent his adult life avoiding.

He upped his scowl by about a hundred watts and aimed it directly at her. With any luck, she’d turn and run. Her type was easily intimidated.

But her gaze didn’t waver. She lifted her chin and to his surprise, he recognized a staunch determination in her green eyes, along with a spark of stubbornness. Interesting. But the small furrow between her brows didn’t smooth out and the corners of her mouth were still pinched and tight.

He put his hand on the doorknob, preparing to close the door and get back to his coffee. “Can I help you?” he asked grudgingly.

“I’m looking for Kathleen Griffin,” she said quietly.

The name hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. “Who?” he said, an automatic response designed to give him a second to think. But his brain seemed suddenly to be caught in a loop. Kathleen Griffin, Kathleen. Kathleen.

“K-Kathleen Griffin. The mailbox said Griffin.” She gestured vaguely toward the front door.

It had been twenty years since his mother had died. This young woman wouldn’t have been more than five or six at the time. Why would she be looking for his mother? “What’s this about?”

“It’s...personal,” she said, glancing behind him into his foyer.

“I doubt that,” he said flatly. “Go peddle whatever you’re selling somewhere else. Kathleen Griffin doesn’t live here.” He started to close the door, but she held out a small, dog-eared photo. The paper was old and faded, but one of the two women in the picture looked familiar.

“Please,” she said. Her hand was trembling, making the paper flutter.

“What’s that?” he asked, knowing he was going to regret having asked that question. He held the door in its half-shut position.

The young woman’s throat quivered as she swallowed. “It’s a picture of my mother and Kathleen Griffin,” she said, lifting her chin. “I really need to see her. It’s a—” she bit her lower lip briefly and her gaze faltered “—it’s a matter of life and death.”

He gave a short laugh, but cut it off when she winced. “Life and death,” he said dubiously. “Who are you?”

“Hannah Martin,” she responded. “My mother is Stephanie Clemens.”

She waited, watching him. But he didn’t recognize the name. He gave a quick shake of his head, took a small step backward and started to close the door.

“You’re her son, aren’t you?”

Her words sent his stomach diving straight down to his toes. He shook his head, not in denial—in resignation. She had him and he knew it. He also knew that if he didn’t do whatever he had to do in order to get rid of her this minute, he was going to regret it for a long time. “I’m sorry, but Kathleen Griffin is dead. So...” He put his hand on the door, preparing to close it.

“Oh. Oh, no,” Hannah Martin said, her eyes filling with tears and her face losing its color. “I’m so sorry—” she started, but at that instant, her phone rang. She jerked at the sound, then reached into her purse and pulled it out.

As Mack watched, she looked at the screen as if she was afraid it might reach out and bite her. When she checked the display, her face lost what little color it had. She made a quiet sound, like a small animal cornered by a hungry predator. Her fingers tightened on the phone until the knuckles turned white, and all the time, the phone kept ringing, a loud, strident peal.

Whoever was on the other end of that call frightened her. In fact, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. When the ringing finally stopped, Hannah dropped the phone back into her purse as if it were made of molten lava.

Mack had missed his best opportunity. He should have closed the door as soon as her phone rang. It was the perfect opportunity to escape. But he hadn’t taken it. He wasn’t sure why.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said in a trembling voice. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here. I apologize for bothering you.” She closed her eyes briefly.

She’d let him off the hook. He took a step backward, preparing to close the door, because of course, she was about to turn and walk away.

But she didn’t move. Her ghostly white face took on a faint greenish hue. She swayed like a slender tree in a punishing wind. Then she fainted.

Mack dived, catching her in time to keep her head from hitting the floor. She was fairly short, compared to his six-foot-one-inch height and he’d already noticed that she wasn’t a lightweight. Her body was compact and firm. Lowering her gently to the floor, he grabbed a pillow off the couch and placed it under her head, making the decision to leave her on the floor rather than try to move her to the couch or a bed.

By the time he’d gotten the pillow under her head, she’d woken up. He recalled a paramedic telling him once that if someone passed out and woke up immediately, they were probably in no immediate danger.

Her face still had that greenish hue, although surprisingly, it didn’t detract from its loveliness. He retrieved the photo she’d dropped when she’d passed out. He looked at the two young women—girls, really. They were both pretty and pleasant-faced. They were laughing at whoever was taking the picture, and behind them, Mack recognized the furniture. Most of it was still here. He knew one of the girls. It was his mother. He smiled sadly, seeing how young and happy and innocent she looked.

He’d never seen the other girl before, but the young woman lying just outside his door bore a strong resemblance to her. He turned the photo over. On the back was written “Kath and me at her house” in an unfamiliar hand. The other handwriting he knew. It was his mother’s flowery script. She’d written “sisters forever” and his address.

Hannah stirred and tried to sit up. “What happened?” she asked, looking around in confusion.

“You fainted,” he said.

She stared at him. “No, I didn’t,” she said, frowning at him suspiciously. “I never faint. Did you do something—?” But then her hand went to her head. “I feel dizzy.”

“Just sit there a minute. I’ll get you some water,” he said grudgingly. He rose and drew her a glass of tap water. When he handed her the glass, she drank about half of it.

Then she shook her head as if trying to shake off a haze. “I guess I must have fainted.”

“I guess,” he said, a faint wryness in his voice.

She rose onto her haunches and stood, then grabbed on to his forearm for a second, to steady herself. “I never faint,” she said again.

Mack smiled. “So I’ve heard,” he said, thinking she was stubborn. He assessed her. Her color was still not good. “Do you want to sit down?” he asked, then felt irritated at himself for asking. Hell, she’d stood up on her own. So it was the perfect time for her to leave. And again, he’d missed his chance. And right there was one of the primary reasons why he didn’t get involved with her type. She was obviously on some personal mission that would consume her life until she accomplished it. A certain clue—she’d driven all night without stopping except to get coffee and gasoline.

“Thanks,” she said, and turned and headed, a little unsteadily, for the small dining table. He followed her.

She started to sit, then looked around.

“Here,” Mack said, handing her the photo. “This what you’re looking for?”

She took it. “Was this what we were talking about when I—” she gestured toward the front door.

“When you didn’t faint?” He nodded, deciding for the moment not to remind her that she’d received a phone call that had scared her.

She held the photo in one hand and touched the faces of the two girls with a fingertip. “According to my mother, she and Kathleen Griffin swore they’d always be there for one another. Sisters forever.”

“And?” Mack said, working to sound disinterested, even though he was becoming more and more fascinated by this pretty, determined young woman who had driven all night to find her mother’s best friend.

“And—” She stopped, looking confused. Then she shrugged. “And, I don’t know. I’m not really sure why I’m here. I just remember my mother talking about how much she and Kathleen loved Chef Voleur and how they had made that promise to each other.”

She picked up her purse from the dining room table and stood, gripping the back of the chair to steady herself. “I’m truly sorry about your mother.” She paused.

He nodded. “She died a long time ago,” he said dismissively.

That was another reason he didn’t like to be around women like her. Although Hannah was obviously in need of help and had pushed herself beyond her limits, right this minute her concern was for him and he didn’t like that one bit.

She looked down at the photo, then up at him. “You look just like her,” she said. “You have to be her son.”

“MacEllis Griffin,” he said, offering neither his hand nor any further explanation. “Call me Mack.”

“Mack,” she said, “I apologize for bothering you.” She started to stand.

“Wait,” he said. “What’s this life-and-death emergency?” He bit his tongue, literally. But it was too late.

To his dismay, hope flared in her eyes. “I’m—not sure I should—”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.” What the hell was happening to him? When had his mouth cut itself off from his brain? He was just digging himself in deeper and deeper. And why? Because a pretty woman had fainted in his doorway? No. It was because he had the very definite feeling that when she’d said life and death, she wasn’t overstating the issue at all.

She sank back into the chair and casually picked up a business card from a small stack on the table. “MacEllis Griffin,” she said. “D&D Security?”

“It’s a private firm that takes on certain security issues,” he said, watching her.

“Security—like night guards at office buildings?”

Mack sent her an ironic look. “No.”

She frowned for a second, then eyebrows rose. “You’re a private investigator?”

“You could use that term, although we don’t take the usual divorce or spouse-tailing cases.”

“What do you take?”

The faint hope he’d seen in her eyes grew, although she was still stiff as a board and tension radiated from her like heat.

“We’ve handled our share of life-and-death cases,” he said.

Her eyes went as opaque as turquoise.

“Sorry,” he said. “I can be a sarcastic SOB at times. Here’s a quick rundown of me. I’m thirty-one years old. I’ve been with D&D Security for three years. I’m licensed as an investigator with the state of Louisiana. Now, will you tell me why you drove all night to find my mother?”

“How do you know I drove all night?” she asked.

“Your eyes are twitching and the lids are drooping. Headache and exhaustion, I’d guess. You’re trembling, probably from too much coffee. You haven’t combed your hair and your clothes smell faintly of gasoline. You must have spilled a little while you were filling up. How far have you driven?”

She shifted in her chair. “What are you, some kind of Sherlock Holmes?” she asked drily. “Maybe you can tell me what I had for dinner last night.”

He smiled. “You didn’t eat dinner. You didn’t stop until you were out of gas. You had a cup of coffee and nothing else. Then you didn’t stop again until you got a motel room. You slept in your clothes, although you didn’t sleep much. You couldn’t stop thinking about whatever happened that frightened you so much that you took off without packing.”

“How—?”

“If you’d packed, you’d have changed clothes.” He stopped. “My question is, what or who are you running from?”

She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. He saw tears start in her eyes, but she blinked to keep them from falling. When she spoke, there was no trace of the tears in her voice. “I’m not running from anyone,” she said, straightening her spine.

Mack knew from her voice that she was lying, and from her determined glare that she’d decided something. Probably to unload her woes upon him. He braced himself.

She stared at him for so long he was beginning to wonder if she’d fallen asleep with her eyes wide-open. But about the time he’d decided to snap his fingers in front of her face, she sat back with a sigh. “I drove here from Dowdie, Texas. Eight hours. And I’ve got to start back today. As soon as I can. My mother is—” She stopped as tears welled in her eyes. She wiped a hand down her face, then swiped at the dampness on her cheeks with her fingers.

“Your mother?” Mack said encouragingly.

“She’s very ill. She has to have dialysis or she’ll die.”

Mack waited, but she didn’t say anything else. She pressed her lips together and clenched her jaw, doing her best not to cry.

“Do you need money?” he asked gently. “To pay for the treatments?”

“What? No! I don’t need money. My mother has insurance.”

“So why did you drive all this way just to turn around and go back?”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“Most things are, especially if they involve running.”

Tears welled again, and she pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped her eyes. “I’ve kept that photo in my purse for years. Mom always told me that if I needed anything and she wasn’t—wasn’t—” She took a quick breath. “I should find Kathleen.”

Mack’s brows rose when she’d stumbled over her words. He pushed his chair back and stood. “Okay. Well, I’m Kathleen’s son, so if you’ll tell me what you need, I’ll take care of it for you.”

She played with the water glass, tracing a droplet of water up one side and down the other. “I can’t tell you. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous to who?” Mack asked.

“To my mother.”

“Look,” he said. “You need to start at the beginning. I can’t figure out what you’re talking about and I haven’t heard anything that sounds dangerous yet, except your mother’s illness. And you said she’s getting dialysis.”

“That’s just it. She’s not.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” She sobbed, then banged her open palm on the table. “I can’t stop crying.”

Mack got up and refilled her water. He set it in front of her and watched her as she drank it, hiccuped, then drank some more.

“Now. Why isn’t she getting dialysis?”

“Because she’s been kidnapped.”

Mack flopped down in the chair. “Kidnapped? Is this some kind of joke?”

She stared at him, anger burning away the tears. “A joke? That’s what you think?”

He opened his mouth then shook his head. He wasn’t sure what he thought at the moment. He’d figured she had come to ask for money and it was just taking her a while to work up the nerve.

He studied her. Her skin was still colorless. She looked exhausted and terrified and so far she wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“Okay. Your mother’s been kidnapped. By who? Have they contacted you? Do they want a ransom? And have you talked to the police?”

“No! No. It’s not that kind of kidnapping. And I can’t go to—” She stopped talking.

Mack sighed. “Of course you can’t. Why not?”

“They can’t help. Nobody can help. I don’t even know why I came here. I had to run. He was going to shoot me.” She looked at the water glass. “I should have stayed,” she said, her voice a mutter now. “I should have confronted him.”

Well, she wasn’t talking to him any longer.

“But there was all that blood,” she continued. “And Billy Joe just collapsed and died. So I ran. I thought I had to save myself so I could find my mother before she died. But now she’s going to die anyway. Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

“Whoa, damn it! Slow down.” Mack did his best to put everything she’d said into logical order. If she wasn’t just crazy, then she’d been through some kind of horrible trauma. “Hannah. Let’s start over and take this slow. Who was going to shoot you? Whose blood did you see and who is Billy Joe?”

She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out what he was doing there, in her reality. Then she blinked. “Oh.” She shot up out of the chair and slung her purse strap over her shoulder. “I apologize,” she said. “I think I’ve made a mistake.” She looked at the business card in her hand, then stuffed it into her jeans pocket and ran out the front door.

“Hannah, wait!” he called. He started to run after her, but his protective instincts kicked in.

Good riddance, he thought when he heard the outside door slam. She had to have come here for money, then lost her nerve and tried to make up some kind of story. She’d never make it as a grifter. Her heart-shaped face gave too much away. He’d watched the kaleidoscope of expressions that flitted across her features as she’d listened to her cell phone ring. Bewilderment, fear, anger, resignation, each taking its turn, then the cycle had started all over again.

He felt sorry for her. Whoa. That was the kind of thinking that could get him into deep trouble, if he let himself get drawn in. He was lucky she’d run out when she did. Good riddance, indeed.

While his brain was congratulating him for dodging that bullet, he found himself rushing out the front door. She’d made it down his long sidewalk to her car, digging a large ring of keys out of her purse and unlocking a dark blue Toyota.

Mack used his phone to snap a shot of the rear of her car just as she climbed in. The license plate was from Texas. And even from half a block away, he could see two bullet holes in the bumper near the plate. Recent ones.