Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

Naturally they’d been delayed by several hours, and he thought they’d never be alone. Then the weather had turned on them, the rain deciding to fall in little stops and starts. Already the sun was determined to set, but Rubin was equally determined to have one night alone with Jonquille. So far, she hadn’t objected and asked to go back to the Fontenot house.

“Luther must have planned all along to conceal the still in the caves. He’s had plenty of time to do it over the years and find a place he could vent while he works on his whiskey,” Rubin explained, filling her in on the older man they’d all come to be fond of.

“Don’t you think it’s extraordinary that these experiments have been taking place since the beginning of the Vietnam War, Rubin? Most likely before?”

“I heard rumors from the time I was a little boy about him. All the pieces of the puzzles involving Luther fit now that I can put them together. He must have really had fun feeding the gossip. Even giving Edward Sawyer a bad time about being a spy for the government. Of course all that did was get me worried about him.”

“I think it worried Edward’s brother, Rory, as well,” Jonquille pointed out.

Rubin liked that she’d picked up on that detail. “You’re right. Rory was concerned for Luther. The old man had trudged through a blizzard to check on his mother. He wasn’t going to turn his back on him if he’d grown senile or had turned just plain ornery. The Sawyers are good people.”

“I think a lot of your friends are good people, Rubin.”

“The ones in my unit certainly are. I’m glad you like the house, Lightning Bug. I was hoping you’d like it enough to want to live here with me.” He kept pushing her for the commitment. Needing her to mean it.

Those silvery-blue eyes turned fully on him. So unusual. Rare. Unsettling and as beautiful as the storms she seemed to dance in.

“If I point out to you that I’ve said yes to you several times, Rubin, a preacher won’t suddenly leap out and marry us, will he?” Laughter lit the blue in those eyes of hers.

“Had I thought of that, it would happen,” he conceded.

“I would love to live in this house. It’s such a find. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d have you, and then a home like this one.” She walked over to the wall and put her hand on the wood. “How sad that the builder gave this up.”

“He had two brothers. They both had property on either side of him. One was single, and he built his home with the help of both brothers. The oldest brother was married and had a young daughter. The oldest brother and his wife were robbed and murdered on the way home from a night out in the French Quarter. The police found the two men who killed them, but they got off on a technicality. They walked out of the courthouse laughing.”

“Rubin, that’s horrible. Really horrible. This poor family seems as if they live under a curse.” Her hand went to her throat, and for one moment white-hot sparks of light danced around her midsection like fireworks, betraying her emotions. “If I could, I would track those murderers down and deliver a little real justice to them.”

He found himself laughing. “It’s a good thing Diego isn’t around to hear you say that. He’d never let either one of us hear the end of it. As it happens, someone did just that. It seems they found both men, several weeks later, dead. They liked to visit Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and apparently they were the victims of robbery and murder themselves. Many people thought it was a fitting end for them. The detectives have never found who killed them.”

“That really was a fitting way for them to die.” Jonquille frowned. “Were there other robberies? Like a series of them?”

“That’s the strange thing. No other robberies. Just those two. And not one single tiny bit of evidence. No camera on the street or business recorded anything. There wasn’t so much as a hair on the bodies or ground. No tread of a boot. No witness. Absolutely nothing. That just doesn’t happen, Jonquille. There’s always some little thing, even if the evidence doesn’t lead anywhere, but there was nothing.”

“How were they killed?”

“According to the police, they were executed military style. A knife to the base of the skull. They each died looking at the other one being executed.”

“The knife? Or knives?”

“Taken from the crime scene.”

“You think the brothers killed them, don’t you?” Jonquille guessed.

“If they killed Diego, I’d hunt them to the ends of the earth,” Rubin said. “They’d die knowing I killed them. And no one else would ever know I did it. So yes, that’s my guess. All three brothers served their country, but that doesn’t mean they were the ones that killed those men. They put the three properties up for sale, took their niece and moved away from here about a year after those men were killed. Said it was too hard on her with all the memories.”