The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (23 page)

Soileau twitched like she was about to take action. No doubt, the woman was used to being in charge. She was probably trying hard not to appear weak or scared in front of them. Weren’t law enforcement types supposed to be the fiercest and bravest in the room? Soileau had a lot to live up to. Who could face the unknown without trembling? The woman would have to be superhuman, and Elsa was sure that Charlotte Soileau was anything but that. How could she control the other members of the search party if she couldn’t control her own reactions?

Elsa glanced toward Collin and held his gaze for a long moment. He nodded once, his eyes bright with excitement and apprehension. He was there. He was still with her. He wouldn’t leave no matter what. But his stare revealed he also knew she was the one who had to stand and face the spirits in the house. His comforting nearness gave her the little bit of extra strength she needed to push through her fears.

She broke her stare with Collin, closing her eyes and absorbing the atmosphere around her. Nothing. The house seemed benign, empty of life, malicious or otherwise. Maybe the image she’d seen in the downstairs window was only a reflection after all.

“Is anyone here?”

Still nothing. No sound. A dead still silence.

“I know you’re here. My friends have seen you. They’ve heard you. They’ve felt your presence. Please don’t hide. I need your help.”

A slight breeze ruffled her hair.

“The spirits at the hotel…” Was she making a mistake mentioning them? She gulped down her anxiety and pushed forward, moved a step further into the middle of the room. “The spirits at the hotel told me I was the one who was supposed to stop
him
.”

Her heart suddenly felt ten times heavier in her chest. A load of sorrow landed on her psyche. She stifled a sob. No, she wouldn’t break down. Sophia needed her. Others were counting on her.

“Please, help me. I know you can if you want to.” She swiped at the tear that rolled down her cheek and held her breath, waiting, allowing herself to feel everything, to hear in her heart the softest of whispers or the loudest of roars.

What do you want from us?

The question brushed across her spirit so softly she almost missed it. She released the breath she’d been holding. “I don’t know who
he
is, but I have to find him before it’s too late. He’s taken my friend Sophia. He thinks she’s Celia.”

Someone has to die.

The message caused her knees to go weak. “The spirits at the hotel keep telling me that. Do they mean me? Do I have to die before this stops?”

You must stop him.

“I know, but how do I stop him? I don’t even know who
he
is.”

Celia wants to go home.

She wasn’t connecting the messages. They were linked. She knew it deep in her soul. But how? She should know. Guilt smacked her hard. Why didn’t she get the full message? What was stopping her from understanding?

Images zoomed across her psyche in swift succession. Skeletons in a macabre dance. A man hanging from a balcony. Another man face down in the water. A woman screaming with blood covering her dress.

Her eyes focused on the cheval mirror in the corner of the room. A woman’s face reflected back at her. Not hers. The woman’s eyes begged her for help. Begged her for release. And inexplicably, begged her for mercy. For forgiveness. For peace.

A scream clawed its way up from her gut, but Elsa refused to let go of her sanity. She pressed her hands over her eyes, trying to block the blood-covered image. The visions slipped out of her mind, one by one, leaving her mental landscape practically sterile. Numb. Anestheticized.

Answers. She needed answers. Lots of answers. They were leaving her without them. The spirits had taken from her without giving back, without giving her enough pieces of information to understand what she was supposed to do. She was left with confusion instead of enlightenment.

Anger surged up from her soul. How dare they suck all the energy from her without giving her anything in return? No, she wasn’t done with them.

The longer they had remained with her, the dimmer the voices had become. She might get one more answer to one more question.

Her eyes snapped open. “How many Celias are here?” Where the question came from, she couldn’t have said.

Her energy left her, sucked clean out of her body and spirit. Limp, she hung in the air without any support. The sensation of floating permeated her being, as if she were drunk and the world had begun spinning around her and giving her an unmistakable case of vertigo.

A pinpoint of light appeared in one corner of the room, and then another and another, until dots of bright white light circled her, closing in on her. Still, fear didn’t overtake her. Their nearness settled the anxiety that had been building in her.

We are here.

She counted the orbs of light around her. Seven. There had been seven Celias.

She dared to ask yet one more question. “Where did
he
begin?”

A chorus of voices pounded her heart, her mind, and her soul.

The Grove. The Grove. The Grove. The Grove. The Grove. The Grove. The Grove.

Stunning insight raced through her mind. “Would he take Sophia…Celia to The Grove?”

Too late. Too late. Too late.

Her heart pounded harder. Was Sophia already dead?

She screamed her question. “Where is she? Is she dead?”

She is here.

It was too much. Her overloaded psyche couldn’t hand anything more. Just as she began to collapse, Collin wrapped his arms around her and eased her onto the floor.

Chapter Eighteen

Over An Hour Earlier

“I told you it was a bad idea to meet Thoreau all the way across the lake. I told you we’d get jammed up if we needed to get back to town in a hurry. I told you...” Petrie’s I-told-you-so tone crawled all over Nick’s skin. Like metal scraping concrete.

Nick gripped the steering wheel tighter and pressed his lips together to hold back his irritation. They had been headed toward the causeway when Dylan had called to tell him Sophia wasn’t at the hotel in the French Quarter. He’d had to turn the car around and head the other direction because it made more sense to take a different route to the River Road. The change in route had cost him some valuable time.

“What if we go all the way over to Wakefield and she’s not there?”

Nick closed his eyes for a brief moment. Petrie had a habit of jabbing at Nick’s insecurities. What if he made the wrong call? It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Sullivan went up to Wakefield’s room. He wasn’t there. The hotel is huge. You know that. I don’t have the manpower to canvas the whole place. I had Sullivan search the public rooms. If Les came back to the Sherwood, he slipped in through the back door and took her to a different room.”

Petrie erupted with another observation. “Wakefield wouldn’t come back to the Sherwood because he knows we’d look for him there. The same reason he wouldn’t go to his office. He could have rented a room anywhere. If he did…”

It was a good thing Petrie didn’t finish his thought because Nick had been holding out hope that Sophia was still alive.

Nick finally expressed his worst fear. “If he killed Tanya…we still haven’t found the primary crime scene. After all this time, it’s been compromised. Any evidence… That’s beside the point, I guess. Thing is…I have no idea where he’d take her other than the Sherwood, the hotel, or the plantation. The man is a mystery.”

His cell phone bounced in his cupholder with the opening bars of a Bon Jovi song.

Petrie glanced at the phone and smirked. “Really? You rag on my ringtone, and you changed yours to that?”

Moreau shot a mean glare at Petrie and then glanced at the display. The groan that escaped him probably set off the seismograph at LSU. He yanked the phone from its perch and answered.

“Yeah, boss.” He loved calling his Uncle Ed boss because Ed always acted uncomfortable when he did. Family was family, Ed would say. Funny. It never seemed to bother his uncle when his cousin Riley called him boss. But then Riley was…Riley.

“I just got a strange call from a deputy sheriff in Destrehan. There’s been an incident at The Grove. A woman insisted on talking to a cop from New Orleans named Moreau, so the operator put him through to me so I could talk to her. She was a little upset when she didn’t get the right Moreau. So who’s Sophia Cannon?”

“She worked for Brandon Wakefield on the plantation house.”

“You told me that case was closed. Why are you still… Never mind. Why is she calling for you?” Ed’s response held the distinctive tone of a reprimand.

“Les Wakefield abducted her earlier today. Is she okay?” There, he’d finally involved Ed.

“She’s bruised a bit and madder than hell, but the deputy says he doesn’t think she’s injured.”

“Does he have Wakefield in custody?”

“No, Wakefield got away.” Ed’s pause was loaded with reproach. “You should have told me you were still investigating the Wakefields. Is there a reason for that?”

Plenty. But none that Ed wanted to know about. Plausible deniability was what it was called. He deflected as best he could, hoping Ed would leave the subject without too much struggle. “You said she’s at The Grove?” Facts and details started aligning in Nick’s head. Les Wakefield owned The Grove. Had anybody thought of looking for Sophia there? He needed to call Dylan Hunter. “I’ll update you when I get back to town. Right now, I have a situation I need to deal with.”

“Nick, don’t you dare hang up on me…”

Too late. He’d already punched the call off.

“What did the boss say?”

The glow in Petrie’s eyes confirmed that the younger cop already had a good idea what Ed had yelled in Nick’s ear.

“He told me to keep up the good work.”

Petrie smirked. “I bet he did.”

The drive along the west side of Lake Pontchartrain seemed to take forever. Nick glanced at the sun sinking lower and lower on the horizon. He couldn’t get Dylan on his cell phone to tell him Sophia had been located. Dylan had headed for Wakefield Manor, and Nick had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d be making the trip out to the old plantation house before the day was over. He hoped they’d get there before dark.

He had never met a ghost, and he didn’t want to have his first encounter. Life would be great if he never had the questionable privilege. Some people sought out paranormal activity. On purpose. Nick would not be one of those people.

Almost an hour later, they had finally arrived at The Grove. Two sheriff’s department vehicles had parked in the circular drive in front of the old plantation house that now operated as a bed and breakfast. Nick spotted Sophia Cannon sitting sideways in the passenger seat with her feet dangling out the door of one of patrol units. When she spotted him, she waved and offered him a weak smile.

He flashed his detective’s shield at the deputy standing next to her. “Moreau.” He hooked his thumb back toward Petrie. “This is my partner, Petrie.”

The deputy nodded his acknowledgment of their introductions. “Theriot.” He tossed a glance at Sophia. “You know her?”

Nick leaned one hand on the hood of the car and stared down at her. “Yeah, I know her. You okay, Sophia?”

“I’m not hurt if that’s what you’re asking.”

Theriot began his report. The debriefing was a courtesy since the other cop didn’t owe him anything. “We got a call from the manager here that some guy was dragging her into the woods behind the plantation house. My guys searched the woods for him, but he’s long gone. He left his vehicle in the lot, but it’s missing. Apparently, she put up a pretty good fight. She refuses to go to the hospital to get checked out though.”

She blinked at Theriot and then addressed Nick as if Theriot hadn’t said anything. “I’m safe now, and Dylan has to be out of his mind, so can we just get out of here?”

“Yeah, Dylan is out of his mind, and he’s worried about you too.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes at him. She obviously wasn’t in a joking mood. “Call him and tell him I’m not where he thinks I am.”

“I would, but he’s not answering his phone.”

Sophia’s eyes widened with apparent fright. “We have to find him.”

Nick smiled. “That’s what he kept saying about you. Don’t worry about him. He’s with Elsa and Collin. I imagine you have a story to tell, so why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

She managed to get out of the deputy’s vehicle, but not without difficulty and not without the deputy grabbing her elbow to steady her.

“We have to go, Nick. We have to find them now.”

The deputy opened his mouth to object, but Nick waved his objection off and placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “Have you given the deputy your statement?”

“She should go to the hospital first. Then she can give us a statement when she feels better. Then you can take her home, if you like.” Apparently, Theriot was not easily dissuaded.

Sophia roared with impatience. “There’s no time for me to feel better. Les got away. Don’t you understand? He’s out there somewhere. We have to find them before he does. And where do you think he’d go from here?”

Nick couldn’t be sure, because he would have sworn Les would have gone to the old Wakefield plantation house first.

He stared at the deputy, hoping the guy would interpret his non-verbal communication. If Sophia didn’t get her way, she was going to be a handful. Neither of them wanted that. “I’m going to take her with me.”

He held his breath. Would the deputy insist on coming with them? He finally relaxed when they were down the road without a sheriff’s department escort.

Sophia leaned forward and spoke to Petrie. “Have I ever met you before?”

Petrie glanced at her over his shoulder. “No, ma’am. It seems my partner has this habit of keeping me in the dark about certain cases he’s been working.”

Sophia fell back on her seat. “He’s good at not telling everything he knows.”

“Sophia—”

“Don’t let up on him until he tells you everything.”

Petrie grinned, but kept his focus straight ahead.

Nick groaned. The last thing he needed was for those two to team up and give him grief.

“So tell me what happened?”

Sophia was silent for a long, long time. Nick was about to ask again when she finally spoke. “It was so strange. When he grabbed me at the parade, I had no energy. I couldn’t fight him.”

“Do you think he doped you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’d still be feeling the aftereffects if I had, wouldn’t I? No, it was more like he put me in some sort of trance or hypnotized me. Nobody else there seemed to be able to do anything either. Elsa tried. God knows she tried. Her stun gun didn’t even slow the guy down. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like I was living inside somebody else’s dream. Like no one else in the whole world could move except Les, and he dragged me with him. He was so strong… He was unstoppable… It was really…really scary. I’ve never been so scared…”

Petrie coughed and Nick glanced his way just in time to catch a withering glare from him.

“You haven’t told me a lot of things, have you, Moreau?”

Nick wasn’t in the mood to placate Petrie’s injured feelings.

He ignored the jab and pushed Sophia to continue. “So how did you get away from him?”

He thought he heard a sniffle come from the back seat, so he twisted to catch a glimpse of her distressed face. Poor woman had already gone through a lot before Wakefield kidnapped her. He sighed and retrained his focus on the road ahead of them.

“It was the weirdest thing. Up until we walked into the woods, it was like Les couldn’t be stopped. Then he just seemed to…I don’t know…lose energy. He let go of my arm and just stared. I don’t know what he was staring at. It was like he was watching something that wasn’t there. He said something weird… I wish I could remember what it was. When he turned to face me, I punched him in the nose. He doubled over, so I picked up a big stick and hit him with it. That was about when I heard the deputy coming down the path toward us. Les must have heard him too, because he took off running. He was gone by the time Deputy Theriot found me.”

Strange. There was something about the woods behind The Grove that sucked Les Wakefield’s power from him. That was a good thing to know.

****

Nick spotted a St. Denis Parish SUV, which was probably Charlotte Soileau’s, and a car, which was probably Elsa Madsen’s, when he rounded the last curve in the drive from the highway to Wakefield Manor. As soon as his car came to a stop in front of the house, Sophia was yanking on the door handle.

Nick reached between the seats and grabbed her wrist. “Hold up. We don’t know what’s going on in there.” He smiled to reassure her everything was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to stop her from going to Dylan. They just needed to clear the area first, just to be on the safe side. “And you can’t open the door from the inside. I’ll have to come around and open it for you.”

She plopped back in her seat, grumbling ugly epithets for him, no doubt.

He released her wrist and turned his attention to his partner. “Circle the house and check things out, just in case Wakefield is hanging around. I don’t want to be surprised.”

Petrie nodded, and Nick exited the car to come around to the passenger side and let Sophia out of her temporary prison.

She grumbled her displeasure. “Why don’t you get your stupid door lock fixed, Nick?”

“Police cars are made that way for a reason, Sophia. You should know that. Haven’t you ridden in the back seat of police unit before? Surely, you have. We don’t like people that we’ve arrested to get away that easily.”

She grunted and headed toward the house.

He caught up with her and stepped in front of her. “I’m taking the lead. You stay behind me.”

“Oh come on, Nick.”

“We do it my way or you go straight to the nearest hospital. Your choice.” He held her gaze until the argument left her eyes.

There were six steps from the ground to the wide front porch. Nick took them at a fast clip just as Petrie disappeared around the corner of the house to the right. Sophia’s shoe heels clicked on the stone behind him. The sun had already dropped below the horizon, leaving the area under the oaks in deep shadows. The creepy crawled all over him. There was no telling what they would face once they entered the house.

The front door was ajar. Nick pushed it all the way open with the toe of his shoe and peered inside. His hand touched his weapon, reassuring him of its presence. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as they always did when he sensed the nearness of a threat. He scanned the gloomy downstairs as far as his vision would allow. Once his eyes adjusted to the semi-dark, the size of the front room nearly took his breath. Wakefield Manor had no doubt been a grand lady before she had been abandoned to the elements.