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“Give me a minute,” Antoine muttered, his fingers flying over his laptop keyboard. Then he smiled sharply before turning his screen so that Xavier could see. “What about this?”
Xavier flinched as if he’d been slapped. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Molly leaned forward to study a much younger Lamont Ducote—who bore a stark, noticeable scar that ran from his eye to his chin, bisecting his cheek. “He had the scar fixed,” she murmured. “When was this photo taken?”
“Back in 2001,” Antoine said. “He was a defense attorney back then.”
“So that’s him.” Gabe’s voice trembled, the reality dizzying. “I guess we just need to know if he killed my father, too, and if he killed Mule. And what role did Mule play in all of this?”
Molly sandwiched his hand between hers. “What did your father know and when did he know it? Did he have proof? And if he did, what was it and where did he hide it? Burke, let’s talk to André first, then leave for Baton Rouge.”
Burke had started to rise, when his cell phone began ringing. Sighing heavily, he lowered himself to the chair and answered. “Val? What’s wrong?”
Molly stiffened because Burke’s eyes were sliding closed, his shoulders slumping wearily. “You’re going to call André, right?” He listened a moment longer, then nodded. “Call me if you get any more unexpected company.” He ended the call and looked straight at Gabe. “Patty is fine. Val is fine. Both are unhurt with no new assaults. Phin’s still with them.”
Gabe’s grip on her hand tightened. “Then what’s wrong?” he asked hoarsely.
Burke’s jaw tightened. “You had a mole in the Choux.”
Gabe shook his head. “What? Who?”
“Donna Lee Green.”
Gabe recoiled. “No. No way. I can’t believe that. She’s...” He tried to draw a breath, but his lungs felt so flat. “I trust her.”
Burke looked down at his hands before looking up again, his expression full of remorse. “I’m sorry, Gabe, but she confessed. She heard what happened—what almost happened—to Patty and showed up at her house first thing, sobbing her eyes out. She saw Tobin’s photo in the paper and knew she’d been ‘used’ for information. She felt guilty and couldn’t ‘live the lie’ any longer.”
“Who hired her?” Antoine demanded.
“She said it was Tobin,” Burke said. “And Val said that the phone number in Donna Lee’s call log matched Tobin’s cell. Gabe, I’m so sorry, but she was reporting back to Tobin on your whereabouts. She told him that Molly came in to meet you at the Choux on Monday. You know, when you and Patty left with her.”
“When someone followed us back here,” Gabe murmured. In an unmarked NOPD car.
“What else did she tell them?” Antoine demanded.
Gabe felt Molly stiffen beside him, but she said nothing.
Still reeling, Gabe tilted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “What?”
She looked devastated. For me, he realized. And somehow that helped.
“The pathologist,” she said quietly. “I’ve been worrying in my mind how ‘they’ found out about the private autopsy you had done. The only people that knew were here in this room, plus André and your cousin.”
Gabe frowned, suddenly furious. He dropped Molly’s hand like it was on fire. “You’re saying Patty blabbed to ‘them,’ whoever ‘they’ are? That’s ludicrous.”
Molly snatched his hand back, sandwiching it between hers once again, holding fast when he tried to tug free. “No, she didn’t blab to them. She told her parents, so they would know to leave town. To keep them safe. And if she told them while she was at the Choux...”
“Donna Lee could have heard her,” Gabe said, his stomach feeling like lead. “Oh my God. Patty can’t know. Not about Dr. McLain or Dusty Woodruff. She... My God. Patty dated Dusty in high school. They were friends. She’d never forgive herself.”
“We’ll do our best not to let her figure it out,” Burke promised.
“Why did Donna Lee do it?” Gabe asked hoarsely. He hoped it was for a good reason. Two people had died because Donna Lee had told them things she’d had no right knowing.
Burke sighed. “Tobin had photos of her with another man. She didn’t want her husband to know. Maybe she figured that Tobin was no longer a threat to her, since he’d been arrested. Whatever her motivation, her confession answers a number of questions.”
Gabe lowered his head, trying not to lose it. But it was fucking hard not to do so.
This was betrayal. Two people who helped me are dead because Donna Lee wanted to protect her marriage? He wanted to scream.
