The Whispering Room

Twenty-One

Evangeline called Mitchell as soon as she got back to her car. While she waited for him to answer, she lifted her gaze to the building in front of her and idly counted the floors. For a moment, she thought she spotted Nash in the window of his office. Then she lost him in the glare of sunlight off the glass, and she decided it probably hadn’t been him anyway.

“Hebert,” Mitchell said on the other end.

Evangeline leaned forward and started her car. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at the station,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I thought we might take a drive out to the lake.”

“I’m all for that,” he said. “But something tells me we’re not going out there for lunch.”

“We’re going to see Sonny Betts again,” Evangeline said.

“Wait a minute. I think we have a bad connection. Because I could have sworn I just heard you say something about going to see Sonny Betts. And I know you didn’t actually say that because you’re not stuck on stupid.”

“What’s stupid about wanting to ask him a few more questions regarding the murder of his former attorney?”

“What isn’t stupid about it? One, you’re not even on the case, and two, you heard what Lapierre said about Betts. We don’t make another move on a guy like that unless we have got some heavy-duty artillery to use against him. Right now, we’ve got squat.”

“I’m not suggesting we go in with guns blazing,” Evangeline said. “I’m talking about a friendly little chat. I’m headed out there right now. I was kind of hoping you’d meet me.”

“And then Lapierre can kick both our asses, is that it?”

“What do you care about Lapierre? You’re moving to Houston.”

“That’s not a done deal, and it’s beside the point anyway.”

“What if I told you that Betts had something to do with Johnny’s death?”

He gave a loud, exasperated sigh. “Based on what, Evie?”

“Based on what Special Agent Declan Nash of the FBI just told me in his office. Johnny’s death wasn’t random, Mitchell. There’s a good chance he was set up.”

“By who?”

“Nathan Mallet.”

“Why would Nathan set up Johnny?”

“Because I think Johnny found out Nathan was dirty. He worked for Betts.”

“And just what do you hope to prove by going out there and rattling Betts’s cage again?”

“This time, it’s not Betts’s cage I’m trying to rattle,” she said. “It’s Declan Nash’s.”

Evangeline was five minutes from her rendezvous point with Mitchell when she realized she was being followed. Earlier she’d spotted a red Mustang behind her when she left the federal building, and she’d thought at first it might be Nathan’s stolen car.

But the driver made a right at the first traffic light, and Evangeline hadn’t caught sight of the car again.

The vehicle behind her now was a black Lincoln with heavily tinted windows.

Keeping an eye in the rearview mirror, Evangeline made a quick left on a red light, hoping to lose the tail, but the Lincoln shot up behind her, tapping her bumper just as a car approaching from the other direction swerved in front of her.

Evangeline had no choice but to hit the brakes as the two cars wedged her between them. Heavily armed men spilled out of the vehicles and surrounded her car with enough artillery to start a small war. Guns were suddenly pointed at her from every direction.

“Get out of the car now!”

A dozen different actions raced through Evangeline’s head, none of them viable at the moment. She had no choice but to do as she was told.

Pushing open the door, she slowly climbed out.

“Throw your weapon on the ground. Do it now!”

Rough hands seized her then and her arms were pulled behind her back and cuffed. Dragging her over to one of the cars, they shoved her into the backseat and slammed the door.

By the time Evangeline could struggle to a sitting position, the car was already moving. The whole confrontation had taken less than thirty seconds. So fast any onlookers probably wouldn’t have even realized what was going on until it was too late.

“Who are you people?” Her heart thudded against her chest and she tried to ignore the pain that streaked across her shoulders.

“You have no idea what you’ve been meddling in,” the man on the passenger side said.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” she asked again.

But he merely gave her a withering look and turned back to face the front.

She glanced out the window at the passing scenery. She thought at first they were going to Sonny Betts’s place, but instead they cut back and traveled a maze of side streets and alleys until they reached a warehouse. The overhead door was activated by a remote and the big car slid inside. A moment later, the door rumbled closed behind them.

Evangeline glanced around, trying to get some sense of her surroundings, but they were in total darkness. She was taken out of the car and led to the back of the building, where her cuffs were removed and a gruff voice instructed her to sit. When she failed to comply, she was pushed down on a wooden, straight-back chair, and her wrists were once again fastened behind her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

No response.

“Who are you?”

Only silence.

“If you people think you can snatch a New Orleans homicide detective without consequences, I suggest you think again.”

Someone laughed this time.

“You should be worrying about the consequences of your own actions, Detective Theroux. You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

She tried to get up, but a hand on her shoulder pressed her back down.

“You may as well get comfortable,” a second voice said behind her. “You’ve got a wait ahead of you.”

“What am I waiting for?”

“If I told you that, it’d take all the fun out of it, now wouldn’t it?”

The room fell silent. No one spoke again until a side door opened and a third man stepped into the warehouse. Evangeline could hear the low murmur of voices in the dark, but she couldn’t make out what any of them were saying.

The door opened again and for a moment, Evangeline thought they had left her. Then an overhead light came on and she squinted, momentarily blinded by the brilliance.

When her vision cleared, she saw Declan Nash standing in front her.

“I figured it would come to this,” he said. “But I didn’t think it would be this soon.”

“Come to what?” she asked angrily. “Kidnapping?”

“A lot of people went to a great deal of trouble to keep this day from happening,” he said. “You have no idea.”

“Why don’t you stop speaking in riddles and tell me what the hell is going on.” Evangeline tugged at the handcuffs. “And while you’re at it, how about taking these things off me?”

He reached behind him and plucked a key off a small wooden desk. Then he walked around the chair and unfastened the cuffs.

Evangeline jumped up and whirled to face him as she massaged her wrists. “Was that really necessary?”

“With you, yes.” His glance traveled over her and she thought for a moment he looked anxious.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

She was still rubbing her wrists. “I’ll live.”

He moved around to the front of the table.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why did you bring me here?”

“This seemed as good a place as any to give you what you want.”

“And that is?”

“The truth,” he said, “About Johnny.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she walked toward the desk. “And why should I believe you this time?”

“You don’t have to believe me.” He lifted the lid from a cardboard crate on the table and removed a thick file folder, which he plopped down in front of her. “You can reach your own conclusions.”

Her gaze dropped to the folder. “What is this?”

“Your husband’s file. If you’re not convinced by the time you’ve reached the end, there’s more where that came from.”

When she made no move to open the folder, he said, “Go on. Take a look.” He grabbed a wooden chair and shoved it toward her. “Here,” he said. “You better sit. This could take a while.”

Reluctantly Evangeline pulled up the chair and sat down. She placed her hand on the folder, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to open it. She didn’t understand fully what was going on here, but she instinctively knew she wasn’t going to like what she found inside that file.

She glanced up. Nash had moved over by the door and was on his cell phone.

Again her gaze dropped to the folder. Open it.

Just get it over with.

She flipped it open and the first thing she saw was a picture of Johnny.

Her heart almost stopped.

There he was. Just the way she remembered him.

Her Johnny. The love of her life.

She drew a shaky breath as she made herself study the photo. The shot had been taken through a window using a telephone lens. Johnny was standing in an unfamiliar room conversing with another man that Evangeline recognized as Sonny Betts.

She looked up, saw that Nash was watching her, and she quickly glanced back down.

Johnny…and Sonny Betts?

No. No.

No.

Another photo had been shot poolside with Johnny, Betts and several other people Evangeline didn’t recognize. Drinks in hand, they were all laughing and smiling and totally oblivious to the camera.

By this time, Evangeline’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely pick up the photographs. There were dozens. Shots of Johnny with Betts, shots of Johnny with men she didn’t know, shots of Johnny in his car emerging from the parking garage where he’d been killed.

There were surveillance notes, too, all carefully stamped with the date and time. Some of the notes were nearly two years old.

Evangeline scrutinized every photo, read every note, scoured every report. And when she was finished, she closed the folder and sat for a moment, not trusting herself to speak.

“Do you want to see more?” Nash asked quietly. He left his spot by the door and came over to the table.

She shook her head. “I’ve seen enough for one day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you really?” She didn’t know why her anger was still directed at Nash.

“Like I said, no one wanted it to come to this.”

Johnny’s betrayal was as heavy as an iron cloak on her shoulders. She felt small and beat down. “Who’s no one? Who else knows about this?”

“Apart from my team, a few people at NOPD.”

She closed her eyes. “Why wasn’t I told?”

“It’s a sensitive issue,” he said. “There’s still an ongoing investigation. I’m only telling you now because your questions were creating an uncomfortable situation.”

“Uncomfortable,” she repeated numbly.

“I really am sorry you had to find out—”

“How long?”

“How long—”

“How long was he working for Betts?”

“At least two years. He was already under surveillance when I took over the operation. He was probably approached when Betts returned from Houston and started building his network. Johnny and Nathan Mallet were both on the payroll.”

“That’s what I don’t understand. If Johnny was on the take, where did the money go? We didn’t lead a lavish lifestyle. Far from it. We barely made ends meet. The only reason I’ve got some breathing room now is because of his life-insurance policy.”

“He probably funneled everything into an offshore bank account. He was a smart guy. He knew the only way to avoid suspicion was to keep a low profile.”

And just what was he going to do with all that money? Evangeline wondered. Had she and the baby figured into his future plans at all?

“He wasn’t smart enough to keep himself alive, was he?” she said harshly. “What happened? Did he fall out of favor with Betts?”

“We think a rival syndicate took him out. A power play, most likely.”

“What about the woman he went to see?”

“She worked for Betts. She handled the money. I doubt there was a personal relationship between them. We never saw any evidence of it.”

“Well, that’s something I guess.” Evangeline pushed aside the folder and stood. “I’d like to leave now if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Don’t take this personally,” she said. “But right now, you’re the last person I want to be with.”

That evening, Evangeline carried the baby monitor out to the front porch and sat down on the top step. She remembered sitting there the night before when all she had to worry about was a strange car in the neighborhood and whether or not to believe the outrageous story that Lena Saunders had told her.

She still didn’t know whether to believe that story. But one thing was certain. Lena Saunders had led her to the truth about Johnny.

Her eyes burned with fatigue and unshed tears, but she wouldn’t give in to her emotions. She’d never been the type to wallow in despair, not even in the aftermath of Johnny’s shooting. She had J.D. to think of. She was all he had left.

Down the block, a car door opened and closed, and Evangeline watched as a man crossed the street and started up the sidewalk toward her house. Her gun was on the porch beside her, and she put her hand over the weapon and kept it there until he’d turned up her sidewalk and she recognized who he was.

Nash paused as their gazes met in the twilight.

Then he slowly closed the distance to the porch and climbed the steps.

She turned her head up to him. “How long have you been sitting out there?”

“A while. I wanted to make sure you’d gotten home all right.”

“Don’t your agents give you a report?”

“I guess I wanted to see for myself.” He hesitated. “I’ll leave if you want.”

“Suit yourself. I don’t care one way or the other.”

He still hesitated before finally lowering himself to the step beside her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? My husband was on the take and I never suspected a thing. All I want to know now is how I could have been so blind.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Good thing stupidity’s not a crime.”

He planted his forearms on his thighs and gazed out into the gathering darkness. “For what it’s worth, I understand a little of how you must be feeling. I know what it’s like to be disillusioned about the person you trusted most in the world.”

“You don’t know how I feel right now.”

“I know about betrayal. I was married to a woman for fifteen years,” he said. “I thought we had the perfect marriage. Then one day, out of the blue, she told me she wanted a divorce. She said she hadn’t been happy for a really long time, and she needed to find herself while she still had her youth. That’s actually what she said to me.”

Evangeline turned to stare at him.

He gave her a little sideways smile. “That’s not the worst part. I thought with a little time, a little space, we’d be able to work things out. A few weeks after she left, I found out she was already living with her boss. They’d been having an affair for nearly a year. He was married, too, and he and his wife went through a nasty divorce because of Deb. Both families got dragged through the mud before it was all said and done. The fallout nearly ruined my career. The bureau tends to frown on a messy personal life.”

“How did you get over it?”

“It took a long time and I made a lot of stupid mistakes along the way. But the worst part is what all that did to our daughter. She’s still paying the price for what we put her through.”

“How old is she?”

He turned back to the darkness. “She just turned twenty a couple of months ago. We celebrated her birthday at the Louisiana Correctional Institute in Saint Gabriel.”

Evangeline turned in surprise. “She’s an inmate?”

“For her eighteenth birthday, she and her friends went out partying. They were all well over the legal limit, but Jamie was the one driving that night. She veered into the wrong lane and hit a car head-on. The other driver was killed instantly. Two of the girls in the car with Jamie were critically injured. Jamie suffered a concussion and a broken leg. She was still on crutches when she was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison. She’ll be eligible for parole in another two.”

Evangeline had no idea what to say to that. “My brother’s an ex-con. He served nearly seven years in Angola for robbing a convenience store. My parents were devastated. I don’t think they ever got over it.”

“I don’t think I ever will, either,” he said quietly.

They fell silent for the longest time as night settled over the neighborhood. Heat lightning shimmered in the distance as the breeze off the river kicked up. It was the kind of night that always made Evangeline feel lonely and lost.

“I should go,” Nash said beside her. It was almost a question.

She nodded.

“Are you going to be all right?”

She tried to smile. “I guess that’s the upside to having someone knock on your door and tell you your husband is dead. I’ve already survived the worst night of my life. I’ll get through this, too.”

He fished a card from his pocket and laid it on the porch beside her. “This is my number. If you need anything…”

“I won’t. But thanks.”

He rose and walked down the porch steps. When he got to the bottom, she said his name and he turned to glance up at her.

“Why did you really come here tonight?”

He hesitated, glanced out over the yard and then his gaze came back to her. “Because I wanted to see you.”

And then he turned and walked off into the darkness while Evangeline sat hugging her knees, an odd little catch in her chest.

She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but it was funny how exhaustion and mental anguish could sometimes be your best friend.

After checking on J.D., Evangeline curled up in bed, staring into the darkness as her thoughts tumbled one over another.

She thought about all those pictures of Johnny and Sonny Betts, the meticulous surveillance documentation, the tapped phone conversations that the FBI had assembled against her husband.

She thought about her parents’ troubled marriage and the hell that Vaughn had put them through. They’d survived untold heartache over the years only to end up separated because her father was restless and her mother was not an easy woman to love.

She thought about the night J.D. had been born and the day she’d brought him home from the hospital, and she wondered if she would ever be able to love him the way he deserved to be loved.

She thought about the bizarre story Lena Saunders had told her about two little girls named Ruth and Rebecca. One innocent, one a murderer.

She thought about origami cranes and the man with the scarred face.

And just before she fell asleep, she thought of Declan Nash. He had a daughter named Jamie and an ex-wife named Deb.

And he had come to Evangeline’s house tonight because he wanted to see her.

Sometime later, Evangeline awakened to a strange sound. This time she knew it wasn’t the television because she hadn’t turned it on. The sound was again coming from the baby monitor on her bedside table.

But there was no music this time. What she heard was the sound of J.D. fretting and a strange woman’s voice soothing him that chilled her blood.

“Shush. She’ll hear you.”