Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series) Read Online Free

gonna let her watch the baby?”
Joe’s shy smile got wider and cockier when he knew he was right.
Faye snatched up a clump of oozy mud and threw it at him. It hit his bare thigh and oozed downward. “He’s your son. It’ll take more than one person to keep him from doing something dangerous.”
Then she looked over her shoulder again to make sure that Michael was okay.
In the distance, she saw the golden-skinned girl from the houseboat, walking slowly through knee-deep grass, wearing headphones and waving a metal detector in front of her. The sun, almost directly overhead, cast a shadow at her feet, as black as the muck under Faye’s own boots. She wore an oversized Hawaiian shirt, untucked, with khaki shorts, red deck shoes, and a red baseball cap. She would have stood out in any crowd, based on her unusual height and shoulder-length curls, but the colorful clothing made double-sure that she caught the eye.
Faye was several years away from intimate knowledge of school schedules, but she could think of no good reason for a teenaged girl to be out of school this early in the afternoon on a weekday. It was too late for spring break and too early for summer vacation. Faye could think of no school holidays in April. The girl shouldn’t be sweating under a bright sun or breathing in fresh gulf breezes. She should be crouched over a school desk, getting ready for her final exams. Faye wondered if she should speak with her grandmother.
Belly laughter erupted behind her, and Faye looked back to see Michael smearing mud on a pair of cocoa-brown shins.
“Why you do such things to your Dauphine?” The babysitter turned the toddler around to pick him up, so that the filthy hands waved in the air but did no harm. She hauled him to a not-too-muddy puddle for rinsing, still laughing.
In the distance, the girl stooped and picked something up, studying it with a deliberation that Faye recognized, because it was very like her own. After a moment, she hurled it, overhand, and it landed in the open water with a plop. It occurred to Faye that this young woman might know whether a ruined steamboat dock was lurking nearby.
Making her way to more solid ground, she said, “I want to ask that girl if she’s seen what we’re looking for.”
Joe mumbled something that sounded like, “Go ahead,” so she did.
***
When other mothers cursed their wayward children, they merely shouted four-letter words. When Miranda Landreneau was the one doing the cursing, her target was actually damned, in the original sense of the word. Hebert’s mother was gifted in the dark arts. He believed this with all his heart. He was indeed damned. The sorry state of his life proved that.
Sometimes when Hebert was really drunk, like right now, he staggered down to the waterfront. There was a secluded dock where he could see his mother’s houseboat, without much chance that anyone could see him. Although his mother probably had ways of knowing he was there…
He was squatted on the dock, dabbling his hands in the water and wishing that Miranda would lift her curse, when the knife fell between his shoulder blades. It was a big knife, wielded with power, so it was more than sufficient to penetrate Hebert’s skin and the copious layer of fat beneath it. Severing a number of important nerves, the first blow embedded itself deeply into Hebert’s right lung. He went to the ground hard, on his chest, and somebody’s foot held him down, getting leverage to pull the blade out of his back. The second blow sliced through his spinal cord and nicked his aorta. The third blow pierced his heart, but by this point that hardly mattered.
The foot struck Hebert’s side hard and repeatedly, shoving him toward the dock’s edge. As he dropped into the water, a weak breath and a few words passed his lips. These last words were a curse, one that his mother had taught him.
***
The girl’s response to Faye’s offered handshake was impressively confident for a teenager. “You’re an