22

A single thought flooded my mind. Betrayal.

I gave Belle a withering look. “I thought you didn’t know anything about this place?”

“I didn’t,” she said calmly. “You must realize that my mother was an admirer of Marie Laveau, and she had this strange idea she was a kind of spiritual heir of Marie’s. The heir to the title Mambo of New Orleans —priestess of voodoo. I had heard her talk a few times about the mansion ruins at the bayou. She thought it was a special peristyle.”

“Say again?”

“A kind of voodoo temple. But I never heard details. So, that same night after you left, I came across a diary where my mother had described Marie’s bayou mansion, including a map. Right down to the longitude and latitude.”

“Why didn’t you call me and tell me?”

“I had to be sure. I contacted a swamp guide. Only a few know the way to this bayou.”

Heather chimed in. “Google Maps doesn’t even have a satellite photo showing this place. People have checked.”

Belle said, “I had every intention to call you if I made it here. Especially if I found your daughter.” She raised her cell and pointed it at me. “But no service.”

Salt in the wounds. But it made sense.

There was pathos in Belle’s voice, and for a moment, I felt parts of me being drawn in. Pulled. Metal shavings moving to a magnet.

Belle invited us to walk, and all three of us strolled toward the edge of the island. “Trevor,” she said, “you need to know something. After our conversation at my house, I thought about something you said from the Bible. About hidden things. It sparked a memory. I hadn’t been back to our mansion for years until Mother died. Things were not good between us. But after your comment, I remembered it.”

“Remembered what?”

“A secret place. A little hiding place I used to play in when I was a girl. Underneath a stairway and covered by a bookcase. Once, when Mother wasn’t looking, I saw how she would go in and out. She would remove a book on the top shelf to push a button behind it and swing the bookcase out, revealing an entrance. From then on, I started playing in there myself. I saw books and pictures and boxes there that were filled with strange objects —talismans and amulets that she kept. But when she found out, she scolded me terribly. Told me she would ‘tan my hide’ if I ever went in there again. So I never did. Not until last night.”

“And then?”

“I knew that my mother used to keep diaries on her nightstand in her bedroom. After she passed, I went through the house. Strangely, I didn’t find any of them. Until I rediscovered that secret place last night. In the one diary I found, the dates of her entries started only a few days before she died. Where the other diaries went, I have no idea.”

“Who could have taken them?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Who else was in the house with her?”

“She had a housekeeper, but she was a very trusted friend. The only other person was the man who was with her the day she died. The man who cooked her meals and did some odd jobs.”

“Besides the location of this bayou, what else did she write?”

Belle hesitated. She parted her lips like she was about to share something but stopped.

“Belle, please,” I said. “I am hunting down very bad people doing some very bad things. I don’t know whether or not they’re all connected. Your mother’s diary might help.”

Another pause, then, “Mother and I had parted ways long before I started art school up in Philadelphia. Regardless . . . I can’t think she was involved. Not the way you might think. Not the way it looks on the page . . .”

“What are you saying?”

Belle was shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s not the way it seems, when you read it. There has to be another explanation.”

Before I could respond, we heard the sound of drums coming from the interior courtyard of the crumbling mansion.

Heather had a conflicted expression on her face. She looked over to the ruins strangled in overgrowth, where the bonfire was lighting up the night sky. “I . . . I have to go. I can’t afford to miss this. My research . . .”

The father in me leaped out. “Heather, I care more about your soul than your research. Don’t go. This is dangerous stuff.”

She shook her head.

I pressed in. “It’s not about some ridiculous voodoo ceremony. There’s more at play here underneath all of that —a supernatural enemy with an aim to maneuver you, entice you, until you’re a slave. He’s just looking for an open door, that’s all. Any door will do. Heather, please don’t step into it.”

Before I could explain any more, Heather exploded. “I’m not doing this with you right now. Especially in front of this nice woman,” she said, nodding to Belle. “I’m not going into your medieval junk, Trevor. Satan and his minions. Heaven and hell. Your comic book theology.”

Heather turned and strode toward the lights from the bonfire that were flickering up the cypress trees encircling the ruins, where the drums were beating louder.

Belle looked away from me, like a child who had just reluctantly chosen sides against me in a schoolyard argument. “There’s something I have to do,” Belle said and then quickly followed after Heather.