Chapter Two

      Just like the girl at the truck stop had predicted, Hannah wound up in Metairie at 3:00 a.m., unable to hold her eyes open any longer. She found a small, seedy motel that she figured wouldn’t push the limit of her credit card, checked in and managed to sleep a little—in fits and starts, interrupted by nightmares of finding her mother just as she was breathing her last breath, or worse, leading the killer to her.

      Around eight, she got up, showered and dressed, then sat down on the bed and dumped the contents of her purse. Like her mother, Hannah carried everything essential, valuable or meaningful in her purse. And like her mother, she wasn’t sentimental, so most of the bag’s contents were practical, except for two items. One was a photo her mother had given her years ago. The second was a sealed envelope.

      Hannah picked up the envelope. With the traumatic events of the past couple of days, Hannah had totally forgotten about it. Looking at the words scrawled across the front made her want to break down and cry, but she didn’t have time for that. So she carefully placed the envelope back in her purse and picked up her wallet.

      She pulled the fragile, dog-eared photo out of a hidden pocket. It had to be thirty years old and was of her mother and Kathleen Griffin, her best friend. On the back it read, “Kath and me at her house.” In a different hand was written “sisters forever,” and an address in Chef Voleur, Louisiana.

      Hannah looked up the address and took note of the directions. She was about to head out when her cell phone rang.

      When she looked at the display, her heart skipped a beat. It was the Dowdie, Texas, sheriff’s office. Hannah’s already queasy stomach did a nauseating flip, the result of too little sleep, too much coffee and the image of Billy Joe’s blood in her head.

      She stared at the display, not moving, until the phone stopped ringing, then she dropped the phone back into her purse. There was no doubt in her mind why they were calling. They’d found Billy Joe’s body. But how could she talk to them? What would she say? How would she explain to the authorities why she had run away to South Louisiana after witnessing a murder if she couldn’t explain it to herself?

      It took her about half an hour to drive to the address written on the back of the photo. It was across the street from a pizza place. With the photo in her hand she walked up to the building, hope clogging her throat.

      A small voice deep inside her asked why she thought that talking to her mother’s old friend would help her find and rescue her mother back in Texas.

      She had no idea. Except that her only other choice was to trust Sheriff King to believe her, and she’d been taught at her mother’s knee that authorities couldn’t be trusted. Sheriffs. Police. Lawyers. They were the people who took children away from their mothers and placed them in foster care. They threatened sick people with prison for using marijuana to relieve the debilitating nausea associated with cancer and other diseases.

      * * *

      SHE KNOCKED ON the heavy wood door, then realized immediately that her tentative rapping probably couldn’t be heard by anyone inside. So she rapped a second time, harder.

      For a long moment that probably spanned no more than eight or ten seconds, she stood there listening and heard nothing. As she lifted her hand to rap again, she heard soft thuds on the other side of the door, as if someone was walking on a hardwood floor in socks or barefoot.

      Standing stiffly, not quite ready to believe that she’d actually found her mother’s best friend, Kathleen, she waited for the door to open.

      When it did, it was not a pretty, dark-haired woman with even, striking features and a beautiful smile who stood there. It was a man. He was tall and lean and he had the same even, striking features but they were distorted in a scowl. And he had a cell phone to his ear.

      After a brief, dismissive glance at her, he scanned the hallway behind her. Once he’d assured himself that she was the only one there, he said, “Hang on a minute,” into the phone. “I’ve got to deal with somebody at the door.” His tone was irritated and impatient.

      Private investigator MacEllis Griffin kept his expression neutral as he eyed the young woman from the top of her streaked blond hair to the toes of her clunky sandals.

      “What is it?” he growled. She stood there looking at him with all the apprehension of a kid called to the principal’s office. Only she was no kid and he was no schoolteacher.

      She could have been a kid. Her hair was pulled back into a single messy braid that looked like she’d slept in it. The skinny jeans were slightly loose on her slender frame and the shirt looked more slept in than her hair.

      “Hmm? Oh, nope. It’s pretty slow here,” Mack said into the phone as he tried to guess her age. Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Under twenty-five? Hard to tell. She had that heart-shaped face that always looked young. But faint blue circles under her eyes that matched the color of her jeans told him she was much older than her hair or clothes might indicate. She opened her mouth but he held up a finger. “Buono’s working a missing person case,” he said. “A seventeen-year-old. Probably ran away with her boyfriend.”

      “Well, get to the office and do something useful,” Dawson Delancey, his boss, replied. “You could file your past three months’ expenses if you’re bored.”

      Mack didn’t take his eyes off the young woman as he laughed. “I’ll never be that bored,” he said. “In fact, I might be real interested in something real soon.” He smiled when the woman’s gaze dropped from his and her cheeks turned pink.

      “In what?” Dawson asked. “Was that the mailman delivering your latest issue of Playboy?”

      “Right. He just got here from 2002,” Mack responded. “Nope. Looks like I’m about to be hit up for Girl Scout cookies or a donation to a religious cause. I’d better go.”

      “I hope it’s the donation. You don’t need the cookies,” Dawson said.

      “Bite me,” Mack said conversationally. “You’re the one getting fat on your wife’s Italian cooking.”

      “You’re just jealous. Juliana and I will be back in Biloxi in a few days. I’ll give you a call when we know for sure.”

      “Okay. Later. ’Bye.”

      As Mack hung up the phone, the young woman met his gaze and gave him a sad, self-conscious smile. The smile didn’t reach her eyes and the only thing it accomplished was to make her look older and sadder.

      A familiar sinking feeling gnawed at his stomach. He knew that smile. He’d never met this woman before, but he knew her type way too well. Standing there with that sadness in her eyes, that furrow between