Under the Cajun Moon Read online

  “You could probably answer that better than I could. I don’t remember much, just the parts I wish I didn’t remember.”

  Travis nodded and solemnly led me to the table, introducing me to the man as a friend and inviting me to sit. A covered plate was waiting there, and when I removed the lid it was to see scrambled eggs, bacon, and a fruit cup. I wasn’t very hungry, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I took a bite of the bacon, picked at the eggs, and focused on the mixed fruit. As I sat there eating, I could tell both men were sort of sizing me up, trying to figure out if I was stable enough now for normal, intelligent conversation. Finally, I put down my fork, looked from one to the other, and told them I wasn’t nuts, I wasn’t out of my head, and I wasn’t made of glass so they needn’t be afraid I might break.

  Both men laughed and visibly relaxed. I wasn’t sure how much to say in front of the man, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere and there was a lot I wanted to know. I decided to follow Travis’ lead, and right now they weren’t talking about anything more important than a boat engine.

  “You folks have a lot of talking to do, I’m sure,” the man said finally, rising from the table. “Before I go, may I pray for you, Chloe?”

  I looked up, a little startled. Though I didn’t feel like praying, it seemed rude to refuse. I nodded, and I was surprised again when the man placed a hand on the top of my head before closing his eyes and speaking to God on my behalf.

  He started his prayer by asking for healing and hope at this time of despair, as well as guidance, wisdom, and truth. He continued on from there, but my mind hung onto that one word: truth. Yes, God, if You are listening, please help me find the truth.

  The man’s hand stayed on my head through the whole prayer, and though it was a weird sensation, it felt good somehow, as if a deep warmth was running through his hand into me. Once he reached his “amen,” he gave me a final pat and took his hand away, offering to return my plate to the kitchen. I thanked him, and after he was gone, I turned and looked at Travis, suddenly feeling very shy. We had been through a lot together since first seeing each other yesterday afternoon, yet in most ways we hardly knew each other at all.

  “Ordinarily,” I said, “I would make some stupid joke about now, something to help make light of the vulnerable and embarrassing position I find myself in. But not one witty comment springs to mind.”

  Before he replied, Travis reached out and placed a wide, warm hand on top of mine.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean, cher. I tend to make jokes at times like these too. But who are we kidding? There aren’t times like this. There’s never been a time like this, not in my experience. I’ve never seen anything like that, and I only knew Sam as a friend. I didn’t love him like you did. I didn’t think of him as a second father.”

  “Travis—”

  “No, just let me say this. Please don’t be embarrassed, and please don’t feel vulnerable. We may not know each other very well, Chloe, but our families go way back. Despite whatever rift has divided your father and my grandfather, I think they would both be glad to know that in this horrible time at least we have each other.”

  I appreciated Travis’ sentiments, and I decided he was right about not being embarrassed. Maybe I had gone off the deep end, but I was suddenly grateful that he had been the one who was there when it happened. I told him so now. With a sweet smile, Travis squeezed my hand and then let go, and as he pulled his away, I found myself wishing he wouldn’t. Meeting his eyes, I couldn’t help thinking how handsome he looked. Gone was the baseball cap he’d been wearing last night, and his freshly shampooed hair looked far less shaggy without it. In fact, I decided, I really liked the length of his cut and thought it suited him well.

  “So where are we, Travis, and what are doing here? Are we in hiding?”

  He replied that we weren’t here so much to hide as to regroup.

  “By regroup, do you mean verify my sanity? I think I’m okay now.”

  “Good, because we have a lot to do.”

  I looked out at the water through the trees. I had thought it was a lake, but from this vantage point I realized it was a river. A lazy, beautiful, slow-moving river.

  “Please tell me what happened. I don’t remember much beyond walking into Sam’s apartment and seeing him there.”

  According to Travis, my first instinct had been to run toward the body. To keep me from doing so, he had been forced to physically restrain me. There was no question that Sam was dead, he said, so there was nothing we could do to help. Travis explained that he had asked me several times if I thought we should call the police or simply leave and let someone else be the one to find the scene and call it in. Considering that I had already been framed for one murder, his inclination was that we should go.

  “But I know you, Chloe. I know that you like to play by the rules. That’s why I kept asking. When you wouldn’t answer me, I realized that you were overcome with shock, so I had to make a decision for us. You were moaning a little, but otherwise you were pretty docile. With my arms around you, I was able to get you all the way back to the truck, but then once we got inside you really scared me by just laying your head down and going to sleep. Even when you were awake, it was like you weren’t there. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  “So you brought us here, to a retreat center?”

  “I knew it wasn’t open for the season yet and would be pretty deserted. The owners are good people, old youth directors of mine. I jus’ told them that a friend and I had run into a little trouble and needed a place to come where we could get some rest and figure out what to do next, but that they had to keep this to themselves. They said come on down. By the time we got here, they had made up one of the cabins for you and set up the sofa bed in the house for me. God bless ’em, they haven’t asked me for any details about what’s going on.”

  “I assume you weren’t the one who changed me into a nightgown?”

  His face colored, and I was surprised how easily my words had made him blush.

  “No, cher, that was not I.”

  I took a deep breath, looking around at the beautiful terrain that surrounded me, the oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, the birds twittering in the trees, the water sparkling in the distance. Truly, I would have loved nothing more than to stay here and soak it in for days. But there was much to be done, many questions still to be answered.

  “Has the…body…been discovered yet?”

  “Not that I know of. I entered some media alerts on my phone, so if any relevant news stories come out—anything at all that contains words like Sam, Samuel, Underwood, Ledet’s, or Chloe—I’ll know about it. I’ve received a couple of texts, but they were all false alarms.”

  “How about my father? Is he still alive?”

  “Yeah, but still in a coma. You weren’t going to make it to the hospital last night, and I didn’t want your mama to worry ’bout you, so I texted her on your phone, pretending I was you. Hope that’s okay.”

  He pulled my cell phone from his shirt pocket and slid it across to me. Curious, I read through their exchange of text messages, which had begun last night but had continued on through the morning:

  11:30 pm—Hi, cell reception not good so am texting instead. Hope you get this message. Something came up and I won’t get there tonight. Didn’t want you to worry. Keep me posted. I’ll be in touch.

  11:34 pm—Something came up? Better be something important! Your father is still in a coma.

  8:02 am—How’s Dad this morning?

  8:15 am—Doctor says vital signs stronger. Coma or not, might get out of ICU soon.

  8:17 am—Thanks. Keep me posted.

  8:25 am—Can’t take another night on this couch. Need a shower. Soon as you get here am going to take a break, go home, and get cleaned up.

  8:30 am—Might not get there soon. Don’t wait on me.

  9:15 am—Good news! Doctor said vitals stable. Will move to regular room in a few hours. Still in coma, though. Are you coming?
/>   9:17 am—Not yet. If you leave hospital, make sure you take bodyguard with you and that Dad has one too.

  9:19 am—One what?

  9:22 am—Bodyguard. One for you, one for him.

  9:25 am—Oh, good idea. Will hire second bodyguard. Where are you?

  9:31 am—Hard to explain. Keep texting for now. Love you.

  9:45 am—Get here soon as you can. Am so bored!!!

  The messages ended there.

  “Gee, Travis, you’re a better daughter than I am. I just hope she wasn’t tipped off by the ‘love you.’”

  “You don’t tell your mother you love her?”

  “Not really. Please note she didn’t respond in kind.” I clicked out of the saved texts, glad to know at least that my father was now stable enough to be moved to a regular room, even if he was still unconscious. “Thanks for being so resourceful. That was a nice thing to do, considering the circumstances.”

  “I’m just glad we could charge your phone in my car. I noticed you had some voice mail too, but I didn’t feel right going through that.”

  While Travis waited, I checked the messages, all three of which were from Jenny. The first two calls were about the lawyer, asking if he worked out, how the bail hearing had gone, etc. In the third call, she said that so far she had seen one small mention on the TV news about my father’s hunting accident, but that otherwise there had been nothing about me or the fact that I had been arrested, at least not that she had seen, and there had been no calls from the media.

  That was a relief. Hanging up, I decided I would get back to her later. Right now, I had some thinking to do. At this point, as badly as I wanted to go see my father, I thought it was more important to figure out who shot him, who drugged and killed Kevin, who drugged and framed me, and who tortured and killed Sam. Sadly, the list was growing longer with each passing day. Given that my dad was still in his coma, my visiting him wouldn’t necessarily make any difference to him anyway, though it would have made me feel better.

  “You sure you’re okay, cher?”

  I looked at Travis and saw the concern that wrinkled his brow.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever really be okay again,” I said honestly. “But I’ll survive. And I will find out who’s behind all of this if it’s the very last thing I do.”

  “Correction, cher. We.”

  “We?”

  “We will find out who’s behind all of this. Together.”

  “No, Travis—”

  “Ain, don’t forget that I saw Sam’s body too. I fled the scene of a crime, in the company of an accused murderer, no less. I’m also the one who worked on your father’s phone message at the request of Sam, who is now dead. Given all that, I’d say I’m as mixed up in this as you are.”

  I wanted to object, to tell him that it was too dangerous, that Chloe Ledet didn’t need anyone to fight her battles for her. But the truth was, I needed his help.

  The truth was, I couldn’t even bear the thought of trying to do this alone.

  NINETEEN

  FRANCE, 1719

  JACQUES

  From his perch on the stone wall, Jacques watched the figure of John Law on the stage, holding up the golden fleur-de-lis statuette and promising to tell the people how they could qualify to get one for themselves.

  “But before I tell you,” Law said, “I want to bring up one more expert, a master assayer from the Goldsmiths Division of the Merchants Guild. Not to question the testimony of the royal goldsmith, but simply to make sure that everyone here understands the purity and value of this fantastic object d’art, the assayer will now inspect this statuette and authenticate it for us. Monsieur?”

  Ignoring the catcalls of those audience members who were running out of patience, the well-dressed assayer strode to the center of the stage. As he did, Jacques recognized him from his dealings with the guild, a man he and Papa secretly referred to as “Monsieur Pomp.” Papa didn’t like the man much, as he felt he was all show and no substance, a flatterer of kings who was always last to do the quiet, thankless jobs of the guild but first in line to hold up a corner of the royal robes during processionals.

  Now Jacques watched as M. Pomp reached into his pocket with his right hand, and with a great flourish pulled out a touchstone. After holding the small black chunk of basalt up in the air for all to see, he stepped closer to M. Law and slowly rubbed the touchstone back and forth over the side of the statuette. Jacques knew that this action would cause a telltale, temporary metallic streak to appear, a sign of pure gold.

  Sure enough, after pulling his hand away and taking a look, the assayer nodded and smiled.

  “The mark of the touchstone indeed proves that this is gold,” he announced to the crowd in his high-pitched, nasal voice as M. Law turned the statuette toward the people so that all could view it. They cheered loudly, though Jacques doubted that more than a few of them could even see the mark from where they stood. He couldn’t, and he knew what he was looking for. As the cheer died down, the assayer nodded at M. Law and slid the touchstone into his pocket. “Nevertheless, I shall now attempt a second test to be absolutely sure, that of the application of nitric acid to the surface.”

  That earned another soft murmur from the crowd.

  “If an item is not gold,” he continued, obviously relishing the attention, “then one drop of nitric acid will turn it green, black, or brown, depending on the alloys used.”

  To demonstrate, he walked over to the table where the three gold items had been waiting, forgotten, ever since Law first pulled them out from under the table and put them there. Standing behind the table now, the assayer pulled a small brown bottle from his pocket.

  He slowly removed the thin glass stopper from the top of the bottle and held it over the shiny golden platter. After a moment, a slight flick of his wrist allowed one tiny drop of nitric acid to fall onto the platter’s surface. Once the drop hit its mark, he quickly tilted the platter upward, and immediately the rolling drip created a streak of green down the shiny surface. As the crowd gasped at this bit of magic, Jacques shook his head, marveling at the sheer theatricality of the presentation. He had watched assayers do this test hundreds of times, but always in the quiet of the mint or the workshop, never for the delight of a crowd.

  “Now, if the product is gold but is of a quality between eight and thirteen carats, then a drop of the acid will create a slight tarnish or discoloration in the surface.”

  Taking a step sideways, M. Pomp inverted the candlestick, held up the brown bottle, and again pulled out the stopper to allow another small drop to fall on its surface. The acid hit its mark, and after a moment, he nodded and then held out the candlestick for all to see.

  “The tarnish is faint, but it is there. By my practiced eye, I would say this candlestick is approximately ten to eleven carats. That’s still gold, of course, but not of the highest standard.”

  He displayed the candlestick with its tarnished spot for a long moment, and then he put it down and moved to the medallion.

  “If gold be pure,” the assayer declared dramatically as his eyes scanned the eager crowd, “then a drop of nitric acid will cause no discoloration nor tarnish at all. This is the surest test for purity.”

  Correction, Jacques thought. This is the surest test that you can do in front of a crowd, with visible results. There were other, more accurate tests to be had, but they involved furnaces and crucibles and the like—all things that could not logically be employed here on the stage at Les Halles.

  Slowly, the assayer pulled out the stopper, held it over the medallion, and allowed the acid to drip down on the bulging curve of the golden surface. As predicted, it had no effect whatsoever.

  “As you can see, the metal of this medallion does not respond to the acid in any way. That’s because this medallion is made of twenty-four carat gold.”

  People nodded and whispered to each other, as if to say, Yes, I thought so. I thought it looked like twenty-four carat. Soon they returned their attention to t
he stage where the assayer was rejoining M. Law and his statuette at the center.

  “I will now conduct this same test on the fleur-de-lis statuette.”

  The crowd seem to hold its collective breath. They all watched and waited until one tiny drop of nitric acid fell from the glass tip onto the gold surface. The assayer, obviously more for dramatic effect than the actual necessity, paused for a long moment, and in that moment the people who watched him remained still and silent, the suspense nearly unbearable. Finally, the assayer nodded at John Law, who took a look himself and then held up the unblemished statuette for all to see.

  “As predicted, the nitric acid has had no effect,” M. Pomp announced to the crowd. “This test, along with confirmation of the touchstone, proves conclusively that these statuettes were created from gold of a quality greater than thirteen carats. I would stake my reputation on it as an assayer of His Royal Highness Louis XV, and his regent, the duc d’Orleans.”

  The crowd went wild. As they clapped and cheered the assayer moved to the back of the stage to sit by the others, and Jacques could only shake his head, wondering what all of this drama was leading them to.

  He was soon to find out.

  The crowd now held firmly in the palm of his hand, Law walked to the trunk and stood directly behind it. By that point, Jacques was so caught up in the spectacle of it all that he even forgot to feel nauseous.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Law said solemnly once the crowd had quieted down, “as founder of La Banque General and director of the Compagne des Indes, I would like to make the following offer to the sons and daughters of France. Right now as we speak, at the port in La Rochelle awaits a new ship, an ocean-worthy vessel which has been christened Beau Séjour. Aside from crew, Beau Séjour has room for exactly two hundred passengers.”