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Prologue
Hanlen
Then . . .
The images in front of me blurred, like trying to see a penny at the bottom of a churning pool. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, and that ice-water rush of adrenaline had yet to leave my veins. I swallowed hard, tried to tune back into what the man and woman in front of me were saying, but I couldn’t concentrate. I could barely breathe. There had to be some mistake. I had just seen Reagan. Had just hugged her goodbye.
I shook my head and tried to swallow, the edges of my vision getting grayer by the second. Just as I sensed my knees give way, I felt strong arms breaking my fall, and heard a feminine voice saying, “Get her settled on the couch. I’ll grab her some water.”
Barely aware of what was happening, my mind too much a stew of confusion, grief, and shock, I went willingly, feeling my feet shuffle as someone led me into the living room and to our sectional sofa. I collapsed and then closed my eyes for a moment, trying to take some deep, slow breaths through my nose, letting them out through my mouth. I looked up when I heard movement in front of me.
The police officer squatted down and handed me a glass of clear liquid. “Here, drink. It’ll help with the shock.”
I grabbed the glass from her and took a small sip. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the cool refreshment hit my tongue. I took another larger drink, my hand shaking. I almost dropped the glass, but the woman gently took it from me, setting it on the coffee table in front of us before taking a seat on the easy chair to my right. I closed my eyes again. This couldn’t be happening.
“Miss Arbor, I am so sorry to bring you such horrible news at this ungodly hour. Are you going to be all right? Is there someone we can call?”
I looked up when a hand landed on mine, eyes meeting those of the man in front of me. There was emotion there, but not what I expected. Not pity, exactly. Empathy, maybe?
“I . . .” I cleared my throat. “There’s no one here. No one close. There’s only Reagan.Wasonly Reagan,” I corrected myself.
I couldn’t stop the tears then. They came in a deluge, my body wracked with sobs. My roommate, my best friend, the sister I had chosen in life, had been murdered. I was well and truly alone in the world.
At least, that’s how it felt.
Chapter 1
Hanlen
Now . . .
Ten years. I had been gone for ten years, and yet, driving down Highway 61, it was almost as if no time had passed at all. The Spanish moss and resurrection ferns on the live oaks hung like gauze ghosts at Halloween, both welcoming and creepy. Everything about this terrain and these parishes used to be a comfort to me. All of that ended early one morning on a Saturday when two uniformed police officers showed up on my doorstep to deliver the most crushing news possible. Reagan, my soul mate for all intents and purposes, was gone.
She would never walk through the door of our home with the beignets I loved. She would never break another blender trying to make frozen café au lait. Some sadistic bastard had somehow lured her out of the bar where I’d left her, a place we’d been to countless times before, only to leave her bleeding out in the urine-scented asphalt of the alley next door.
The case was still open. Now cold. Numerous persons of interest had been questioned, but there was never enough evidence to hold anybody for long. And definitely not enough to prosecute. It was one of the reasons I’d basically started my life over after I moved to Texas, going into criminal justice. Unfortunately, even with my degree, my emotional issues never let me fulfill my dream of hunting down and bringing Reagan’s murderer to justice.
I had eventually accepted reality and left the police academy. But I did log my hours with a great private investigator, got licensed, and opened my own P.I. firm. Four years of busting cheating spouses, background-checking corporate bigwigs, serving papers, debunking insurance fraud, and handling the occasional Amber Alert alongside the cops made for some boring stakeouts and probably the start of liver failure, but I had to admit, I loved my job. I adored making my clients happy and showing the assholes what’s what. And I still held out hope that I might catch a break on Reagan’s case someday. Because I couldn’t let it go. It would likely haunt me forever and be a constant drive until I had answers. And once I did, I would gleefully take away the power her killer held over me and so many others. The asshole would no longer be anonymous. That advantage would be stripped, and they would finally be brought to justice.
My phone rang through the Uconnect system on my Cherokee and snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned down the radio and glanced at the readout.Mom. Of course, it was my mother. I tapped the screen to answer and then refocused on the road.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
My mother had moved to south Florida years before I left New Orleans, and she had only been back a couple of times since, but she still loved the city.
“Hey, baby. Just checking to see where you are. Did you make it across the state line yet?” I could hear her tossing ice cubes into a glass on the other end of the line. Ugh, I could use a glass of something myself, too bad I was still driving. I crossed some lines occasionally—okay, quite a few—but drinking and driving was not one of them.
“Yep. In Louisiana. Not far out. I still can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
The sound of liquid hitting the cubes came through, and my mouth watered. I could not wait to hit the hotel and raid the mini bar.
“Oh, honey. It’ll be great. They just need you to be there as owner of the property. Answer some questions. Show them the lay of the land. There’s money in this for all of us since the network offered payment. Some notoriety. And all we have to do is give them access to the house and the outbuildings for the next week or so, and let them film for seventy-two hours. You know your great-great-great-granddaddy would be proud that we’re keeping the family stories alive.”
I cringed. Family stories, my ass. The truth of the matter was, the Arbor family had landed in Louisiana centuries ago, settling and running a prosperous plantation. Things had gone really well—or so later generations had been told and believed—until a string of bad luck befell the family, resulting in numerous accidental deaths, a few deaths by suicide, and business ruin that spanned the next several decades.
Legend had it the family had been cursed in retribution for something my many-times-removed ancestor had done. I didn’t personally believe any of it. It was all nonsense. Bad luck was a thing. So were terrible business practices and people ignoring safety precautions. End of story. At least, they were able to keep the property.
Now, however, most of my family and almost anyone who’d ever stayed at the plantation house—we listed it on a rental site—were convinced it was haunted. Yet more baloney that I didn’t believe. When you died, you died. Goodnight, Mary. There was no hanging around—for vengeance or otherwise. If ghosts existed, Reagan would have come to me. She would have told me who killed her. She would have . . . No, ghosts were not a thing.
