“I haven’t seen her this morning. But...I know how she loved you and appreciates you,” Casey said earnestly.
“Well, I hope she comes to the house sometime,” Stephanie said softly. “I want her to know how much I love her—will always love her. She was my only sibling. It feels like a part of me was cut away. I’m so grateful I have Annette. And so scared.”
“Stephanie—” Ryder began.
They were cut short by the buzzer.
“That’s Jackson,” Ryder said, pushing his chair back. “Excuse me. I’ll just let him in.”
He left the kitchen to answer the intercom and open the gate.
“Jackson?” Casey said to Stephanie.
“Jackson Crow, Ryder’s field director. He’s going to hang with the baby and me today.”
“Oh,” Casey said and smiled. “Um, nice.”
Stephanie laughed. “Jackson is great. He’s six-foot-something of Native American and Irish and incredibly good-looking. And married. Very married, with two kids, and a spectacular wife who manages and juggles the Krewe of Hunters. You’d be amazed by some of the strange activities that go on around the country.” She was quiet for a minute. “And the departed who stay because they need help or need to help someone else. Like Lena,” she added softly. She squared her shoulders then and stood ready to meet the newcomer.
Annette started to cry, wanting out of her chair. Casey instinctively went to get her and remembered that Stephanie was her guardian. She asked, “May I?”
“Oh, please. I miss her little daycare most of all in this insanity of being so careful. She needs more fun than I can really supply.”
Casey rescued the baby, who wanted to run out of the kitchen and to the door. She moved like lightning, but Casey kept up.
Ryder introduced her to Jackson Crow, who seemed to be everything Stephanie had said.
He was also good with children, saying, “Hi,” to Annette in answer to her every “Hi!”
He studied Casey and was friendly and cordial, thanking her for being there.
“What a way to come into this,” he said. “But then, it never is easy.”
“We’re going to head to the French Quarter,” Ryder told him. “Casey opens the shop at ten, so I guess we need to get going. Bobby O’Hara is in the library now, keeping an eye on the video screens. Come in there for just a minute. I’ll introduce you.”
Annette raced after Ryder and Jackson, and Stephanie and Casey raced after Annette. Annette ran to the corner to play with some books. Jackson and Casey were both introduced to Bobby O’Hara, another of Ryder’s old friends. Bobby, in contrast to Arnie Benson, had a full head of white hair and a cavalier mustache.
Casey greeted him pleasantly, but as she spoke, her eyes wandered around the handsome library before stopping to hear what was being said.
There was a row of pictures on the wall.
“Are you all right, Casey?” Ryder asked.
“Um, sorry. Who are those men?” she asked.
“They’re all on the board of directors,” Stephanie supplied.
“Why?” Ryder asked Casey.
“I—I’ve seen them. Two of them, anyway. They’ve been in my shop.”
Chapter 6
Casey stared at the pictures.
Yes, she had seen two of the men. She walked toward the photos on the side wall. A desk sat against that wall, while the rest of the walls were filled with shelves and books—other than the security nook Ryder had created.
Above the desk hung a sign that read: Past and present leaders of Marceau Industries Incorporated. We thank them.
“They came to the shop when? Who came? Which men?”
Casey pointed to two of the pictures. One was of an older man, another of a man about forty. They hadn’t come in together. They had come in at different times.
“That’s Barton Quincy, the new CEO. And that’s his assistant, Larry Swenson,” Ryder said. He caught her gently by the shoulders and turned her around to face him.
“Casey, when did they come in? Did they see you...with Lena?”
She shook her head. “They were both in before I saw Lena in the shop. I mean, Lena’s ghost. They were in that night, though. They both bought a few things and talked about a reading.”
Ryder released her and then paused. His eyes were on the wall, focused on a section that included past leaders of the company.
“Ryder?” she said.
He pointed to another picture. “That’s William Marley. The man we had exhumed, whose cremains are being studied in Mississippi.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“We’re still waiting on results, but tests take time, especially when you’re dealing with a corpse that has been...”
“Baking in the Louisiana sun,” Stephanie supplied.
“To put it gently, yes,” Ryder said. “Jackson—”
“Angela has done extensive background checks on every man on the board,” Jackson said. “Nothing in the paperwork helps. Justin Marceau was busted as a kid for pot. Larry Swenson had a lot of parking tickets. Expensive, but a far cry from premeditated murder. Harry Miller didn’t even have a traffic infraction against him. After a month of searching, the only thing she could discover was the unusual way that William Marley died. Suffering from a sudden heart attack without having any problems with heart disease at all.”
“Stephanie, I think you need to call a board meeting,” Ryder said.
“But I—I don’t know anything. I approve or deny decisions as the baby’s trust officer, but I don’t know much. I was never a businessperson. The only thing I ever knew was that both Anthony and Lena were passionate about keeping the price of life-saving drugs down as much as possible. And I believed it was all just a formality, naming me as Annette’s legal guardian. Anthony and Lena were young. I never thought it could really happen. I heard Anthony arguing with one of the men once. I don’t even know which one. He said that, yes, you had to pay staff and have laboratories, but they didn’t need to make a lot of money off prescriptions that people need for heart conditions or diabetes or other such diseases. Anthony said he wasn’t going to make money off the lives of others.”
“It’s okay. You’ll just call the meeting to make sure the company can make money in other ways. Slight increases on their organic vitamins and other such items,” Ryder said. “That will be it. The meeting will be to make everyone understand that you—as Annette’s guardian—will veto any suggestion of a price increase in new or old drugs. Elijah was a smart old geezer. He created the board but kept ultimate control on all aspects. And that authority has now passed down to you and Annette. You can just say you’re calling the meeting to make sure everyone knows the direction the company will be taking, and Marceau Industries Incorporated will honor the wishes of Elijah, Anthony, and Lena.”
“Okay, but I don’t think I can call a meeting for today. I believe Justin is in Biloxi, speaking with a chemist they want to hire,” Stephanie said. “And I have no idea if the other guys are in the office or not.”
“Tomorrow will be fine. For now, I’ll head to the French Quarter with Casey, and Jackson will stay here and get some work done,” Ryder said. He glanced at Jackson, and knew the man would have Angela dig deeper into every possible—and impossible—resource to find out more about Barton Quincy and Larry Swenson.”