A Darker Shade of Midnight (20 page)

“Quentin, baby, c’mon. My grandmother’s property will most likely come to me.” Azalei’s voice cracked with desperation. “Remember all those shale formations and the millions we’ll get from natural gas?”

“My lawyers tell me your grandmother didn’t make sure she had clear ownership of the mineral rights. So I don’t need
you,
” Quentin replied.

 
“Explaining two dead women and a dead fellow deputy is going to be tough even for you, Brad,” Chase said.
 

“I’ll manage. The Rousselle family doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, and your questionable behavior getting involved with a suspect will round out the story nicely,” Brad said. “Now move away from that bush or I’ll start by shooting your woman in the gut. That’s a slow painful way to die.”

Azalei let out a series of terrified squeaks before she was able to speak. “Quentin, please. I can still be of use to you. I’ll confirm any story y’all tell about LaShaun and Broussard. That will make it more believable. ”
   

“I have no reason to trust you. Maybe you’ll decide to blackmail me the way Rita tried,” Quentin replied.

“I kept a file,” Azalei shouted. “My mother will know where to look if anything happens to me.”

“Where are those sex videos of us, Azalei? I might let you go if you give them to me,” Brad barked. “And I doubt seriously you’d leave those anywhere for your mother to find.”

Azalei sneered when LaShaun shot a look of contempt in her direction. “Don’t get self-righteous, LaShaun. Not after the way you used your body to get what you want. Obviously Deputy Broussard is under that same spell.”
 

Quentin laughed. “You’re not even close to being in LaShaun’s league. You’re a lucky man, Broussard. Excuse me; you
were
a lucky man until tonight.”

Azalei spat at Quentin’s feet then looked at Gautreau. “Everyone in Vermillion Parish will get an eye full of us having a good old time. Buck naked and buck wild.”
 

“I should never have dirtied my hands getting involved with a— ” Gautreau sputtered and choked on his rage.

“Your hands and every other part of your body,” Azalei shot back. “Your wife, the judge’s daughter, will not be happy. Let me go, and none of this will come out.”
 

“You can get a new wife, Brad,” Quentin said.
 

LaShaun looked at Quentin.
 
His crooked malicious smile sent a chill down her back. Quentin’s voice held a whispery quality. The lilting accent was not his own, but one LaShaun found familiar. He eyes gleamed with an unnatural radiance. Quentin’s aura turned various shades of red, the colors of anger and a lack of compassion. He walked toward LaShaun with a broad smile. His head tilted oddly to one side.

“Yes, love. I’m here. Your grandmother wanted us to be together,” Quentin’s mouth spoke the words of another. His voice changed completely. “You must have known I’d come for you.”

Brad looked at Quentin and frowned. “What’s wrong with you, man?”

“LaShaun, everything can be yours. But you must choose. I can be either one of these men you want. We’ll have nothing but days of passion and fun. We can travel the world. I would love for you to see my native land.”

“Haiti?” LaShaun gazed at him, mesmerized by the loa.

“I go back much farther, centuries in your time. Zanzibar. I traveled with the slaves to Haiti.” Quentin’s face twisted. His voice broke through. “What is happening?”

“You’re being ridden by an evil spirit called a loa, but you can fight back,” LaShaun said loudly. “You have a strong will.”

Quentin’s expression smoothed out again and his laugh was musical. “Yes, he does, but not stronger than me of course. His streak of evil serves me well.”

Gautreau looked at Quentin. “This is a bunch of bull! You’re not foolin’ me with that phony voodoo act. Quentin, straighten up or I’m gonna shoot you, too.”

“That’s not Quentin. He’s possessed by a being who doesn’t care who gets hurt. He might shoot us all,” LaShaun said to Gautreau.

“Why are you talking so crazy? Quit playing around, Quentin.” When he cackled and made a weird face at her, Azalei shook with terror.
 

“I had fun with you, girlie. You like to play dirty games with Papa Limba.” Quentin winked at her.

“This can’t be real. This can’t be real.” Azalei panted as she looked at him.

Chase faced Gautreau. “Corruption charges are bad, but not as bad as accessory to murder. We both know Quentin mostly likely killed his own grandfather. Murdering Rita probably came easy for him.”

The being in Quentin laughed and turned to LaShaun. “The man of yours still hasn’t figured it out. Tsk, tsk, you’ve chosen quite a dense lover.”

 
Chase shook his head. “Brad, you’re willing to kill us to hide an affair? Think, man. Three lives.”

LaShaun stared at Gautreau coldly. The scene fell into place inside her head like a movie. “No, that would be four for you, wouldn’t it,
Deputy Gautreau
. You killed Rita. I’ll bet you were furious when you found out they’d left Azalei alive. You let Azalei think it was all a plan so she wouldn’t be suspicious that you got her out there with Rita. She thought she was luring Rita into a trap. But the trap was for both of them.”

Quentin clapped his hands and danced around. “Yes, yes. My clever beauty. This Broussard fellow is not worthy of such a queen.”

“You dirty sons of bitches,” Azalei screamed.
 

“The forensic guys found swamp grass and mud on Rita’s body,” Chase said.
 

“Yeah, so what?” Brad frowned at him.

“GPS,” Chase said. “All the units have them because we cover Vermillion Parish, lots of rural areas not close to anything. Using GPS means dispatch can locate us in case an officer is in trouble and can’t respond.
 
We can check where your cruiser was at the time of Rita’s death.”

“Not to mention getting mud from your tires, under your cruiser, maybe even find trace evidence at your house,” LaShaun added.
 

“You have a serious problem, Deputy Gautreau.” The loa let out a rumbling laugh that sounded strange coming from deep in Quentin’s throat. His voice contained an eerie mix of two distinct timbres. “Most of the evidence points to you and Miss Azalei. This cunning man I own will get away clean.” He clapped his hands did a few dance steps again. He spun the gun on one finger like a gunslinger in an old western movie.
 

“Shut the hell up, Trosclair.” Gautreau blinked when large beads of sweat rolled into his eyes.

“No, I’m having too much fun.”
 

Still wearing a spine-chilling grin, Quentin pulled the trigger. Gautreau gave a loud grunt of pain and keeled over against his cruiser. He
 
slid to the ground clutching his neck. Blood sprayed out then poured over his hand. Chase pulled a small gun from an ankle holster. Quentin jerked then staggered as the gun slipped from his fingers. Azalei crawled across the ground like a spider and picked it up gun. She pointed it first at Quentin, then at LaShaun.

“I’ll kill her, just try me,” Azalei screeched when Chase confronted her. “Everything I got was second hand from you, including him.” She jerked her head at Quentin.

“Don’t be stupid,” LaShaun said, watching the gun instead of her cousin.

“Stupid, huh? I’ve got the gun,” Azalei yelled back.
 

“You think
I
was stupid enough to come out here without back-up, Azalei?” Chase jerked his head to the right.
 

“Drop the gun.” Deputy Arceneaux emerged from behind a tree. Two more deputies flanked her on the right and left. All three held their weapons in the typical law enforcement stance, with both hands and their legs apart.

“They’re trained marksman. This isn’t a gunfight you can win, Azalei. Gautreau and Quentin killed Rita. No matter what you feel toward me that must mean something. The Rousselles might cheat each other out of money, but spill each other’s blood? No.” LaShaun shook her head slowly.

Azalei’s entire body shook like she was chilled to the bone. She panted hard, looking first at Gautreau then at Quentin. “What do I do?”
 

“I’ll help you, sweet,” Quentin said. He managed to stagger to his feet.

“Azalei, don’t.” LaShaun tried to close the space between them, but did not make it in time.

“Quentin?” Azalei blinked at him as he approached.

“Of course it’s me. I was just throwing them off guard with that act. Now give me the gun.” Quentin smiled at her.

Azalei gazed at him steadily. When he was only inches away, the being in Quentin hissed like a snake. Azalei backed up. “No, get away!”

But it was too late. The loa roared from Quentin’s mouth. Azalei and he wrestled over the gun. LaShaun shouted the prayer calling on all her force to intervene. Chase leaped forward to grab Quentin. With another roar, the possessed man lifted Chase from the ground effortlessly tossing him away as if he weighed nothing. LaShaun recited the prayer in Creole French that Monmon Odette had left in her diary, a mix of Catholicism, and the old ways from Africa. Distracted Quentin turned to her. The loa answered her in Creole French, the voice like a clap of thunder. Yet, even as LaShaun continued to pray Quentin stumbled

“You cannot turn against me! I am here and will never leave you! No. No,” he croaked.

Seeing her chance, Azalei struck him hard on the head. Quentin turned with a growl of rage. He clutched Azalei’s arm and bent it back with a snarl. “You will not hurt her.”

“I’ll kill both of you tonight,” Azalei shouted.
 

She and Quentin struggled over the gun once more. LaShaun raised her voice and the longer she spoke the words, the more Quentin seemed to weaken. Just as he stumbled again Azalei tried to raise the gun. Chase was shouting something to her, but LaShaun only saw his lips moving. A gauze-like veil seemed to drop around her as she continued the prayer. The loa hissed once more, lost his grip on Azalei, and stumbled again. When Chase ran toward them LaShaun watched the scene play out as if in slow motion. She tried to scream at him to stop, but the thick midnight air seemed to suck in the sound. The gunshot broke the spell. Suddenly her vision and hearing sharpened. A scream of pain sent a thrill of fear up her spine. LaShaun ran toward Chase as he stumbled with the unconscious Quentin in his arms.

“Are you hurt?”
 

“No,” he panted. “See if she’s okay.”
 

LaShaun raced over to Azalei while Chase let Quentin fall to the ground. He went to Gautreau and knelt beside him. Azalei whimpered when LaShaun touched her. After carefully examining her cousin, LaShaun looked at Chase.

“Far as I can tell the bullet grazed her right side. Lot of blood, but it’s just a surface wound,” LaShaun said.

Azalei gripped LaShaun’s arm. “Don’t let me die, LaShaun. Please.”

“You’ll be nice and healthy when you go to prison.” LaShaun worked free of her cousin’s desperate clutch.

Azalei’s pretense of fear and pain dissolved into malevolence as she tried to claw LaShaun’s face. “I’ll make you pay, bi–“
 

LaShaun spun and cut off her words with a backhand slap across Azalei’s face. Her cousin’s fear and pain became genuine in an instant as she whimpered and curled into a ball on in the grass.
 

As though background noise from far away she heard Chase talking the other deputies. Acting Chief Arceneaux gave orders to the dispatcher on Gautreau’s radio for the paramedics. LaShaun went to Quentin. Blood stained the dirt and gravel around him. He did not move or give any sign of life as he lay on his side. Then his head turned to her His glassy stare made LaShaun shiver.
 

“I protected you. How dare she try to hurt you.” Then his eyes closed slowly. Seconds later they opened again and he let out a shuddering groan. “LaShaun, please help me.”

LaShaun pulled away sharply, disoriented by the change in him. Still she knew the second voice well. The loa had fled the wounded, frail human host and Quentin was free. Chase left Gautreau to check on Quentin. His hands were steady, but his handsome face was pale and shiny with perspiration.
 

“A couple of paramedic units and more deputies are on the way.” Chase looked down at Quentin with no sympathy. “He’ll survive.”

“What about Gautreau?” LaShaun glanced at the deputy. He lay in the dirt on his back.

“He’s dead,” Chase whispered close to her ear. Then he put an arm around her waist. “This has been one hell of a night, but we’re okay. We’re going to be just fine.”

LaShaun trembled and leaned against his solid chest. She stared off into the woods. Wondering if she’d finally banished the evil her family set in motion, and she had unwittingly helped get stronger. She silently prayed that her efforts would keep those around her safe. 

* * *

Two days later Beau Chene was still buzzing with the news. CNN, Fox, and even BBC America came to grab every juicy morsel from the residents eager to share gossip. As LaShaun arrived at the Sheriff’s office to give one last statement, a pretty female reporter hurried over to her.