Читать книгу Night of the Raven - Jenna Ryan - Страница 8

Chapter Two

New Orleans, Louisiana

Present Day

“Make no mistake about it...”

Moments after the sentence had been passed, the raspy-voiced man with the stooped shoulders and the tic in his left eye had looked straight at Amara Bellam and whispered just loud enough for her and the two men beside her to hear.

“Those who brought about my imprisonment will pay. My family will see to it.”

Although her eyewitness testimony had played a large part in his conviction, at the time Jimmy Sparks had uttered his threat, Amara had thought his reaction was nothing more than knee-jerk. After all, life in prison for someone of his dubious health surely meant he wouldn’t see the free light of day ever again.

But the word family crept into her head more and more often as the weeks following his incarceration crept by. It took root when Lieutenant Michaels of the New Orleans Police Department contacted her with the news that one of her two fellow witnesses, Harry Benedict, was dead.

“Now, don’t panic.” Michaels patted the air in front of her. “Remember, Harry had close to two decades on Jimmy.”

“Lieutenant, Jimmy Sparks is the two-pack-a-day head of a large criminal family. He has a dozen relatives to do his legwork. Harry was a hale and hearty seventy-nine-year-old athlete who hiked across Maryland just last year.”

“Which is very likely why he died of a massive coronary just last night.” The detective made another useless patting motion. “Really, you don’t need to panic over this.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“No, you’re not.” His hand dropped. “Well, that makes one of you. Chad, our overstressed third witness, knocked back two glasses of bourbon while I was explaining the situation.”

“Chad dived off the temperance wagon right after Jimmy Sparks whispered his threat to us.” She rubbed her arms. “Are you sure Harry died of natural causes?”

“The path lab said it was heart failure, pure and simple. The man had a history, Amara. Two significant attacks in the past five years.”

Hale and hearty, though, she recalled after Michaels left.

For the next few weeks she fought her jitters with an overload of work. Even so, fear continued to curl in Amara’s stomach. She had thought she might be starting to get past it when the harried lieutenant appeared on her doorstep once again.

“Chad’s dead.” She saw it in his dog-tired expression. “Damn.”

The lieutenant spread his fingers. “I’m sorry, Amara. And before you ask, the official cause, as determined by the coroner’s office, is accidental suicide.”

“This is not happening.” A shiver of pure terror snaked through her system. When the detective spoke her name, she raised both hands. “Please don’t try to convince me that suicides can’t be arranged.”

“Of course they can, but Chad Weaver was surrounded by eleven friends when he collapsed—in his home, at a party arranged by him and to which he invited every person in attendance. No one crashed the event, and the drugs and alcohol he ingested were his own.”

She swung around to stare. “Chad took drugs?”

“Like the booze, he got into them after Jimmy Sparks’s trial. As witnesses, you all had—er, have—impeccable credentials.”

“Right. Credentials.” Feeling her world had tilted radically, Amara headed for her Garden District balcony and some much needed night air. “Mind’s really spinning here, Lieutenant. What kinds of drugs did Chad take?”

The cop rubbed his brow. “Ecstasy, mostly. A little coke. Might’ve smoked some weed earlier in the day.”

She made a negating motion. “No chance that any of those substances could’ve been tampered with prepurchase, huh?”

“Amara...”

Her sarcastic tone didn’t quite mask the anger beginning to churn inside her. “It’s a fair question, Lieutenant. We’re talking about street dealers, people who aren’t exactly pillars of the community. Are you saying that, given the right inducement, not one of them could or would have slipped a little extra something into the goody bags Chad bought?”

“The coroner is convinced it was—”

“Yes, I heard that part. Accidental death.”

“Suicide.”

It cost her a great deal to work up a smile. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” She struggled to maintain her composure. “I can read your face, Michaels. You’re going to tell me there’s nothing you can do in terms of police protection. I mean, on the off chance the coroner is mistaken.”

The detective regarded the toes of his scuffed shoes. “Massive coronary for Harry. Private party for Chad. No one except the three of you and me heard Jimmy’s threat. The media would love to jump all over this, but they won’t, because the powers that be are well aware of Jimmy Sparks’s many and varied connections. Sure, the odd question is bound to surface, but they’ll die as quickly as they’re born. After all, there’s no evidence of wrongdoing in either case.”

“I suppose not. Well, then.” Amara took a deep breath. “At the risk of sounding paranoid, do you have any suggestions as to how I can avoid a date with the forensic team?”

When he raised his head, the steely look in his eyes said it all. “You need to disappear,” he told her. “Get out of the city and go someplace safe.”

“Safe. Great.” She pressed firm fingers into her temples. “Where?”

Tossing a worried look onto the street below, Michaels pulled her away from the wrought iron railing. “Your parents are in South America, aren’t they?”

“Central America. They’re doing medical relief work, have been for the past two years. Mostly with children, Lieutenant. I’m not taking this nightmare to them.”

“You have relatives in Maine, don’t you?”

“What? Yes—no.”

“We’ll go with the first answer.” When the lights bobbed, he closed the French doors and pulled the curtains. “Let’s do it this way. You pack, make whatever calls you need to, and I’ll drive you to the airport.” He managed a feeble grin. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s shaking criminal tails.”

Amara’s mind swam. “Surely Jimmy Sparks’s family will have the airport covered.”

“Not in Jackson, Mississippi. I know this guy, Amara. It won’t be a group hunt so much as a single-person stalk.”

“As in one person sent to make sure I choke to death on a bite of crawfish or drop dead on the sidewalk from a nonexistent blood clot that’ll dissolve before... God, what am I saying? No, wait, what am I doing?” She turned to face him. “I can’t endanger the lives of my family members. You know I can’t.”

“You can, and you should. Most of those family members live in a spooky little town in a remote and densely wooded section of coastal Maine. Raven’s Cove is your best and safest option right now.”

She stared at him for five long seconds before countering with a flat “It’s Raven’s Hollow, and I will call my grandmother. I’ll explain the situation. But if she’s the least bit hesitant, I’m choosing another destination.”

“Deal.” He ran his gaze over the ceiling when the lights bobbed again. “Pack only what you need.”

What she needed, Amara reflected, was a time machine. Unfortunately all she had was her iPhone, her grandmother’s number and a waning glimmer of hope that she’d ever see anyone in or out of Raven’s Hollow, Maine, again.