Bayou Pirates Read online

  “Well played, Mr… what was your name again?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me a little.

  “Ethan,” I said, deciding to stick close to the truth again. “Ethan Moore, but you can call me Ethan if you like.”

  “I think I will,” she said, touching my shoulder briefly. I didn’t move away.

  “And my question?” I asked her, knowing that she hadn’t forgotten.

  “Oh, let’s just say the whole thing keeps me in touch with my people,” she whispered, leaning close to my ear without touching me this time. I detected a slight Creole accent in there somewhere now, if I listened very closely.

  “How so?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I doubt an American gang has much to say about any culture, including your own, even if they are exploiting it for their own gain.”

  There was a glint in her eyes now.

  “My, Ethan, you are an interesting man, aren’t you?” she asked. “Far more than you appear.”

  Her eyes drifted back over to Holm as if to say that he did not measure up in comparison. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  “I like to have fun, but I’m not uncultured,” I said simply, giving her a small smile.

  Holm and Nina continued to watch this interaction with some fascination and more than a bit of humor, I could tell.

  “Clearly,” Madame Rosaline said, resting her hand on my shoulder again and letting it linger this time. “In answer to your latest question, I would say that my hope is that this… partnership, if you will, with unsavory characters such as these will lead to better and more prosperous connections down the road.”

  “Oh?” I asked, following her with my eyes as she walked around me in a circle, letting her hand slip away from my shoulder reluctantly. “Such as?”

  “You are a curious man, aren’t you, Ethan?” she asked, though her eyes still sparkled.

  “I pride myself on it,” I told her, flashing her a half-grin.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” she asked, giving me a wink as she rounded back to her original position to my right. “I won’t tell you who, but I have it on good authority that someone who may be of great interest to me in connection to this drug is on his way here as we speak. I hope to pick his brain on its conception and development if only to improve my own practice.”

  Hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Solomon. There was no way that she wasn’t talking about Solomon. I didn’t reveal my combined alarm and fascination with this particular piece of information on my face, however, passing it off as mild amusement.

  “Your own practice?” I repeated. “So you practice voodoo in addition to selling it? Somehow, I’m far from surprised.”

  “I’m certain that you are,” she said, that same characteristic glint lingering in her eye. “And yes, I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  My eyes lingered on the flowing arms of her pitch-black dress, and I had a feeling that she meant that literally as well as figuratively.

  “And I’m certain that you do,” I said, giving her my fullest, grandest smile now. “I would absolutely love it if you would demonstrate something for us.”

  “You would, would you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at me. “Very well, then.”

  Seeming more than pleased by this request, she whirled around, her dress twirling behind her, and disappeared back into the back of the shop, leaving Holm, Nina, and I alone up front.

  I quickly crossed back over to them, so we were all standing very close

  “Well, she certainly likes you,” Holm grumbled in my ear.

  “You think so?” I chuckled. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “We think she’s talking about who we think she’s talking about?” he asked in a very low voice. “The one that’s coming from Haiti?”

  I gave a curt nod but didn’t vocalize my response. We had to be very careful here. For all we knew, Madame Rosaline wasn’t the only one here.

  “Kind of creepy, isn’t she?” Nina asked, shooting a wary look in the direction of the door behind which the woman had disappeared mere moments before.

  “You could say that again,” Holm agreed, giving a low laugh.

  “Why are we asking her to do some of her mumbo jumbo again?” Nina asked me.

  “We want her to trust us,” I murmured. “And we want her to open up to us more. This could help us understand her better, too.”

  “Okay, but if any actual zombies show up, I’m out of here,” Nina announced, flashing me a grin.

  “You joke, but you haven’t seen the real thing yet,” Holm pointed out to her. “It’s not just the stuff of horror movies anymore.”

  “Well, it’s not quite like in the movies,” I chuckled under my breath. “But, it’s not pretty, either.”

  It wasn’t long before Madame Rosaline reappeared from behind the shop, a long flight of small potion bottles in hand.

  Holm and Nina both visibly recoiled when they saw this, but I crossed over to where she positioned her instruments behind the front counter. I peered over the wooden holders at them. They were all sorts of colors, textures, and densities, and an odd, almost putrid floral smell emanated from one of them.

  “What is this?” I asked, trying to sound eager instead of disgusted. “It looks fascinating.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” she said, giving me another one of those warm but eerie smiles. “It’s a collection of my finest potions. I assure you that they are of the finest quality.”

  “And what are you going to do with them?” I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of curiosity when I was really starting to get kind of worried. I hoped she wasn’t expecting any of us to ingest any of this stuff.

  She seemed to see through my facade but didn’t mind either. She gave me a knowing smile and a wink.

  “Don’t worry, Ethan,” she said. “No one will be drinking any of this today. Though, of course, if you wished to come back another time, we could make a time of it.”

  She winked for a second time, and my skin started to crawl, but I just smiled and nodded.

  Once she finished setting up, she closed her eyes and began to hum, moving her hands across the tops of the jars as if playing an instrument of some kind.

  I looked around the shop, as if expecting something to change, and noticed that Holm and Nina were doing the same. It wasn’t as if I actually thought this voodoo magic or whatever was real or anything, but after what we’d encountered down in Haiti, I knew that the witch doctors’ concoctions could have some very real consequences, even if there was a rational explanation as to why.

  Nothing changed, however, and when Madame Rosaline opened her eyes, the potions looked just the same to me as they had before she started her little ritual.

  Madame Rosaline, however, looked pleased as she went over the jars one by one, holding her nose about a foot above each one and wafting its scent up to her. I didn’t smell anything other than the same odd smell emanating from one of them, but I wasn’t about to say that.

  When she finished with her evaluation, she raised her head and smiled at me.

  “Notice the difference?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

  I studied her for a moment, trying to decide whether she was testing me, asking a trick question to see if I would play along or not. She seemed genuine, though, so I went with it.

  “Yes, I believe so,” I said, returning her smile. “It’s more of a feeling than a visual cue, really.”

  I took a chance on this last part, but it paid off. I was on a roll that day.

  “Very good,” she said, looking pleasantly surprised. “You are certainly more than you seem, aren’t you, Ethan?”

  She reached out and touched a finger to my chest gently, emitting a tingling sensation in the area. Real witch or not, this woman was certainly creepy. There was still something alluring about her, however.

  “I would like to think so,” I chuckled. “So, what spell are you going to be performing for us today?”

  I waggle
d my eyebrows at her and grinned in anticipation.

  “Oh, I get the feeling that there’s someone you’re not too fond of walking around out there somewhere, isn’t there, Ethan?” she asked pleasantly as if she were merely inquiring about the weather.

  “Plenty,” I laughed, which was true enough. I could think of more than a few, all of them criminals.

  “I thought as much,” she said knowingly, narrowing her eyes at me. “How about you just pick one and run with it?”

  “I think I can do that,” I said, deciding on Solomon, though I didn’t plan on telling Madame Rosaline that. Who knew, maybe this spell could tip things in our favor. I severely doubted it, but it couldn’t hurt.

  “Alright. Now, focus on this individual who you wish to suffer,” she instructed. “Hold this and close your eyes.”

  She reached out and handed me a small voodoo doll, and I had another flashback to Holm and my mission down in Haiti. When we’d gone into the voodoo shop there, I’d asked the old witch doctor to do a spell on a voodoo doll for me, pretending I had a boss back home in Miami who I had it in for.

  The witch doctor had never actually performed the spell because my colleagues and I cracked him and his grandson before they got to that point. Apparently, a far more elaborate spell was in play here.

  I took the voodoo doll from the woman and studied it closely. It was a bit different from the other one, less cartoony and a bit more sinister. It had beady little eyes and a crop of black hair sticking out in all directions, kind of like one of those toy troll dolls you see in the supermarket. It didn’t look anything resembling human to me, except perhaps for the presence of arms and legs.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it,” Madame Rosaline commented with a smile that was almost a sneer, as she seemed to have noticed my discomfort with the object.

  I wiped the alarm off my face and smiled back at her.

  “Uh, yes, it really is quite something,” I managed, looking away from the doll and making a decision to avoid looking at it carefully ever again.

  Madame Rosaline threw her head back and laughed. It was a pleasant sound, smooth and silky, and echoing throughout the shop due to its high ceiling.

  “I like you, Ethan, I really do,” she said when she finished, still chuckling a bit under her breath. “But, you really are a terrible liar.”

  I had to laugh along with her, then, considering that I wasn’t even close to who she thought I was.

  “So, I’m supposed to visualize this person who I want to be harmed in some way, and close my eyes?” I asked when we were both done laughing, eyeing the potion bottles with some wariness. “You’re not going to slip me any of those now, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling again. “Those are for when I’m finished with you.”

  I didn’t quite like the sound of that, but I went with it, anyway. I followed her directions and closed my eyes.

  “What’s going to happen to this person?” I asked. “Will he die?”

  “Now that depends on you, doesn’t it?” she asked with a kind of puckishness in her tone. “All I do is get it ready for you. Then, you decide what you want to do with it.”

  “Ah, I like that even better,” I said, flashing her another grin without opening my eyes. I’d almost forgotten the whole point of voodoo dolls, with all this pomp and circumstance.

  So I stood there, holding that strange little doll and blind to the world, as Madame Rosaline moved in a circle around me, making some kind of chant.

  I didn’t understand what she was saying, and I wasn’t even sure that it was a real language, but it had a strange kind of off-kilter musical quality to it that was half pleasing, half bone-chilling.

  Finally, she finished and stopped right in front of me.

  “You may open your eyes,” she said.

  I did so, blinking as I adjusted to the newfound light even though it wasn’t all that bright in the shop.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “Not quite,” she said with a small smile, plucking the voodoo doll from my outstretched fingers and crossing back over to the counter where she had left the potions.

  She walked behind the counter and pulled a larger jar out from under it, mixing all the potions together inside it one after the other. It began to turn a dark black color about halfway through and emanated an even more putrid stench now, and some kind of smoke or steam billowed off the top. I noticed Holm and Nina both scrunch up their faces in distaste at the smell, even though they were standing farther away.

  When all the smaller jars were empty, she dumped the voodoo doll inside it, to my surprise. I watched as the thing swirled around inside the concoction for some time before she pulled it out and returned it to my possession.

  “Now, it should be ready,” she said, holding it out to me.

  I stared at it for another moment, expecting it to be wet, but when I touched it, it was still dry.

  “How…?” I started to ask, but she just shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips.

  “I never reveal my secrets,” she said, her eyes twinkling at me.

  “Either way, I thank you,” I said, pocketing the doll. “Now, what about that… service we came in for?”

  “Ah, that,” Madame Rosaline said, sounding a little disappointed. “I have to admit that I don’t have any here.”

  “You don’t?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

  She seemed hesitant to respond, but she finally did, leaning in closer to me so that Holm and Nina couldn’t hear.

  “You know that man from Haiti that I was telling you about?” she asked.

  I nodded, eager to resume the conversation on this subject.

  “I pretended the latest supply they sent me wasn’t delivered properly and sent it back where it came from, hoping they would tell me where I could go to speak directly with someone who would know more about the substance,” she said.

  “And?” I asked in hushed tones. “Did it work?”

  “It did,” she said, nodding excitedly. “I’ll be making a trip out to the bayou later this evening. I hope to meet him there.”

  “Where in the bayou?” I asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.

  “Ah, nice try, Ethan,” she said, winking at me and patting my shoulder before drawing away from me. “But I’ll be keeping that part of the story to myself.”

  CHAPTER 24

  After leaving the voodoo shop, Nina and the MBLIS agents headed back to the police station to discuss how to proceed, and Holm ordered food for delivery on the way.

  When they arrived, Marston ducked out to take a call from the police detective, while Nina and Holm went inside and got comfortable at Barrett’s desk. The food was already waiting for them, and they weren’t sitting around long before Marston walked back inside.

  “He’s stuck at the hospital for the night,” Marston said gloomily as he settled in beside Nina.

  “It’s alright,” Nina said, shaking her head. “We can manage on our own.”

  “What’s the plan, then?” Marston asked, looking between Holm and Nina.

  “I think I can figure out where this mysterious ship is,” she explained as she helped Holm open the containers and distribute the food to all three of them, each getting a hefty helping of crawfish and corn in creole seasoning. “It’s probably near where Rusty and Josh took me the other morning. If we just go out there, I’m sure I can find it. It can’t be that far away from where we were before. It’s a tiny corner of the bayou, nice and tucked away. The gang uses it for all kinds of things, hiding stashes, even bodies.”

  “That sounds like the perfect spot,” Holm agreed as he shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth.

  “It does,” Marston agreed. “We should check it out tonight.”

  Nina nodded, and they fell into an uneasy silence as they ate their food. The atmosphere in the building was dark and solemn. The word of the young detective’s death had obviously spread, and the lack of boisterous
laughter that usually accompanied groups of law enforcement officers sent a chill down Nina’s spine. The food was outstanding, but it didn’t sit well in her stomach, and as soon as they had eaten their fill, they collected their things to leave.

  After another quick call to Barrett, they secured a small boat that belonged to him, and that night, they went out and began their search.

  The trip was long and arduous, but it was also kind of nice. At night, it wasn’t so humid in NOLA, and it was beautiful out on the water.

  They started out in the ocean near the shore where all the tourist boats were since that’s where Barrett docked his personal boat. Nina watched with Marston as a party boat, and then a fishing ship, passed them by, as Holm hung back to steer the vessel.

  “Interesting how two such different ships could be in the same place,” Marston remarked as he took a sip from a water bottle and offered one to Nina. She took it.

  “That’s the beauty of New Orleans,” she laughed. “It’s a wonderful city full of wonderful people, from all different sorts of backgrounds. And some not so wonderful people, as you’ve already experienced.”

  Marston nodded as they rounded away from the main harbor and headed off in the direction of the tucked away bayou where Nina was almost certain they would find what they were looking for.

  “You were great today, by the way,” he told her, and for some reason, she swelled with pride. “You really saved us back there above the bar. Quick thinking.”

  She was an FBI agent, so why did she care so much about this one random guy’s approval? Nina couldn’t quite figure out why she was so drawn to this man, even though they’d only known each other for a short time.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” she chuckled, elbowing him in the side playfully. “Especially with all that terrible flirting back in the voodoo shop.”

  She could’ve sworn that his face turned beet red at the mention of this.

  “Yes, well, I could tell that she… um…” he stammered, unable to find the words. Finally, he just took another drink of water to cover for himself, as if she wouldn’t notice.

  Nina laughed.

  “Yes, she definitely liked you,” she continued, egging him just a little further. “I thought she was going to devour you with her eyes at a couple of points there.”