Voodoo Woman Read online

  Dana’s face was flushed, her pupils wide within the dark irises. “What did—why did you do that?” she asked, flustered.

  Flynn breathed in. “I had to be sure you weren’t wearing a wire.”

  Dana blinked as the humiliating realization began to dawn. “Wait—you thought I was wearing a wire? That I’d spy for the fucking feds?”

  Flynn gave a half-shrug. Her insides felt hot and itchy. This wasn’t going the way she had imagined it might.

  Dana’s face twisted with disgust. “Jesus! You already knew about Agent Krueger’s investigation, didn’t you?”

  Flynn nodded.

  Dana frowned. “How could you know that?”

  “I had certain people who…well, let’s say they helped me out in my previous profession. I was aware that the FBI attempted to investigate a hit woman whom they suspected to be working out of New York in the 90’s, but I didn’t know who the lead investigator was. Until now.”

  “She said she met you once before…” Dana’s forehead crinkled as she recalled her conversation with Agent Krueger. “In Cuba. At some hotel bar in Havana. She said you actually told her that you were an assassin? You said your name was Wynne Foster.”

  “And she claimed her name was Erica Kane.” Flynn smiled grimly. “I do recall her. Dark hair, dark eyes?”

  Dana blinked. “No. She’s a blonde, with blue eyes. Did you really tell her that you were an assassin? Just like that, you blurted it to a perfect stranger. That was kind of dangerous, wasn’t it?”

  Flynn felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “I think I may have recognized a kindred spirit in ‘Erica Kane’, whether or not I quite realized it at the time.”

  “She was CIA?”

  “I suspected she was, yes. So what did she want with you?”

  Dana sucked in a deep breath. “She has evidence. A button. It’s got your print on it.”

  Instinct told Flynn that Agent Krueger would not have approached a reporter with this information, not if it were her intent to open a new investigation. “There’s more, isn’t there?” she stated flatly to Dana and the reporter nodded again, reluctantly.

  “She wants you to kill someone—her stepfather. She claims that he abused her for years as a child.”

  That took Flynn by surprise. She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  With a shrug, Dana Jordan added, “It seems that Agent Krueger knows all about how you killed some members of a pedophile ring operating in and around West Virginia. Her own stepfather abused her, so I guess she figured—I don’t know. That she could bargain with you to kill him maybe?” Dana’s tone turned hesitant. “Is it true, Flynn? Did you kill those men?”

  There seemed little gain in keeping this a secret from the reporter now, and so Flynn nodded. She looked off toward the sun-dappled strip of river in front of them. It still awed her to think that, during Katrina, this river had actually run backwards for a time, such had been the force of the winds. Nature was a great wonder indeed. Unlike human beings, who were often horribly predictable and did things for reasons that displayed how depressingly mundane evil was. “I would do it again, too. Those guys really did deserve to die.”

  “And the other people you killed—did they all deserve to die? How many have there been?”

  “I didn’t keep score.” Flynn followed the laborious progress of a freight barge upriver, watching its oily wake churn the water to a brownish sludge. “I don’t know how many of them deserved to die, or even if any did. I know I never killed children, the elderly, or the disabled.”

  There was an audible click as Dana swallowed. “What about women?”

  “A few.”

  Dana shook her head. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”

  Now Flynn turned her gaze away from the river barge and directed it back to the reporter. When she saw the expression of mingled unease and disgust with which Dana looked at her, she felt something in her chest tear loose. She gritted her teeth against a swell of unfamiliar emotions. “You never did know me.”

  Without thought that Flynn had just admitted to being a hired killer, Dana Jordan stepped forward and abruptly slapped her in the face. Flynn took the blow without flinching, which apparently made Dana mad all over again. She seethed, “No, I don’t damned well don’t know you! And I seriously don’t know whether I want to know you now.” The impulse to visit some of the humiliation she was obviously feeling upon the cause of it, prompted Dana to lash out again, only this time Flynn caught hold of her wrist before she could make contact.

  She pulled the reporter close, feeling Dana’s heartbeat against her own chest as their bodies met. “I’m sorry I misled you about kissing you,” she said, “but, please, don’t try to hit me again. If it makes it any better, I did enjoy the kiss. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I met you five years ago.”

  Dana glared, the heat of humiliation burning in her face. She tried to pull her wrist free, but Flynn held on. “Let me go,” she grated. “I’m not one of your marks, or whatever you called them.”

  “You won’t try to hit me again?”

  “No. But I might try to kill you.”

  With an abrupt laugh, Flynn let go of the reporter’s wrist and took a step back to give her space. “It’s targets, by the way,” she added. Dana frowned at her in confusion. “We called them targets. The people I killed.”

  “Well, that’s blunt. Thank you for correcting me.”

  Rubbing her wrist where Flynn had gripped it, Dana walked stiffly away toward a wooden bench. Behind the bench, the inclement spring heat had started to bring to bloom sculpted azalea bushes, and all around those erupted a yellow-green-pink riot of flowers. A stone statue of some New Orleans dignitary from decades ago loomed over the flowerbeds with a sort of frozen, patriarchal righteousness. Flynn hesitated, then followed Dana, and sat down, making sure to give the reporter space, fixing her gaze upon the stone statue.

  “I’m not scared of you,” Dana said, with a defiance that amused Flynn, and pleased her, too. She had long ago guessed that Dana Jordan might be tougher than she looked.

  Flynn tilted an eyebrow. “You’re a little bit scared of me, admit it,” she teased.

  Dana sighed. “Okay. So maybe I’m a little bit scared of you.”

  “I’m sorry about grabbing your arm. I would never hurt you intentionally.”

  “You’ve killed people, Flynn. How can you be sure what you might do?”

  “I’m not going to kill you…” Flynn was devastated that Dana would even entertain such a terrible notion. She scowled at the river, afraid to look Dana in the face, afraid that she might give her own mixed feelings away. “I like you. Really like you. You know that.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Dana said, “Yeah, I know. And I’ve always liked you, Flynn. No point denying that. But this—this is one hell of a shock. Just tell me one thing—why did you stop being what you were?”

  Flynn had no ready answer for that question. She reached into her jacket for her cigarettes, lit one and inhaled, mostly to give herself time to think of something to say. Finally, she just shook her head. “I’ve asked myself that a lot. I wish I could give you an answer, but I just don’t know. I think I got tired of it. Of the killing. Of always looking over my shoulder and not being able to trust anyone.”

  “But you haven’t really stopped looking over your shoulder, or not trusting people, have you?” Dana spoke softly but with such feeling that Flynn blinked and frowned at her. The reporter gave her a sad smile. “It’s why you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length, isn’t it? Because I’m a reporter. Do you really think I would treat you as a story?”

  Flynn scowled at the redbrick sidewalk between her own feet. She heard Dana blow a sigh. “Jesus, Flynn. That isn’t who I am. I would never do that to a friend—to you.”

  “That’s all I am then?” Flynn’s heart twisted, surprising her with the force of disappointment.

  “You’re the one who would never let me in,�
� Dana reminded her. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “What are you going to do about Agent Krueger?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I promise I won’t kill her though.”

  “Oh, very funny.”

  “Sorry. I mean, I don’t think she’s any immediate threat to me.” Flynn let her voice soften. “What about you? Us? Where do we go from here?”

  “I don’t know—” Dana gave her head a quick shake. “I need time to figure it out. I mean, what you and I are, or could be. You understand, right?”

  “Yeah, I do. I hate it because I think you’re saying you need to stay away from me in order to do that. But I get it.”

  Dana stood up abruptly. She breathed in, and then looked at Flynn in such a way made that thing—grief, disappointment, unrequited fucking love, Flynn just didn’t have a name to put to it because she’d never experienced it before—tear loose in her chest all over again. “I’ll call you,” Dana said.

  As Flynn watched her walk away, the tight hunch of Dana’s shoulders spoke volumes about how she really felt, and Flynn realized that she didn’t want this to be how it ended between them. They had to be able to find a way past this. She dropped the cigarette half-smoked to the ground, crushed it beneath her heel with just a little more vigor than necessary, and then she took out her cell phone, dialed a familiar number.

  The line was answered with a stark one-word salutation: “Speak.”

  “Danny, I need a favor.”

  “State it,” Danny Cho commanded.

  Danny was one of those people with whom Flynn had worked in New York, and who had helped her to leave behind her life there. A tech genius, Danny could hack into any computer system in existence, forge any document that a person might ever need. He was also the coldest, meanest, deadliest sonofabitch that Flynn had ever met. And the CIA had trained him to be everything he was.

  “I need for you to find me everything you can on Special Agent Erin Krueger with the New Orleans FBI field office,” Flynn told him.

  The line hummed quietly whilst Danny digested this. Flynn knew there was absolutely no chance of anyone listening in on their conversation, neither by design nor accident. Danny would not allow such a thing.

  “I think she might’ve been CIA at some point,” Flynn added.

  “Ooh, one of ours. Trained to kill by our very own government.”

  “Your tax dollars at work. Is it a problem, Danny?”

  He cooed down the line at her. The sound brought goose bumps out on Flynn’s flesh. “My specialty are problems, dear heart.”

  “Good. Because I need to know about her stepfather, too. No name or details.”

  “I shall work my magic and get back to you as soon as, dearest.”

  Danny hung up without goodbyes or any of those pleasantries indulged in by normal people. Danny was, of course, not a normal person. No sooner had Flynn closed her phone than it began to ring and she flipped it open again, half-hoping it would be Dana calling. It wasn’t. Boudreau’s pissed-off voice greeted her instead.

  “Waylon just called. We got a hit on the prints found in Camber’s condo. They belong to a woman named Helen Dufresne…” Boudreau pronounced the name Doo-frain. Flynn heard computer keys clicking, and wondered if Captain Embry knew that his detective, who was supposed to be out sick, was accessing the NOPD records from home. “This Dufresne woman, she’s a con. She was doing heavy state time on two counts of murder, and one of supplying stolen goods. Got paroled early—that’d be just about one year ago—because the prison system is overcrowded, and the bitch is pretty.”

  It was well known by law enforcement and legal professionals—and by the criminal fraternity, too—that when it came to female cons, the prettier they were the more likely they were to be paroled early. Justice was blind, except when it came to a pretty woman.

  “She met with her parole officer a grand total of two times, and then she promptly dropped off the grid,” Boudreau added. “Nothing. No driver’s license, no current address, no family, no utilities, no credit cards…she’s in the fucking wind.”

  “No, she’s in New Orleans,” Flynn said grimly. She heard Boudreau snort on her end of the line. “Someone—someplace—knows her. Y’all just need to keep looking.”

  “Oh, ‘we’ do—so you agree it’s our case again, is it?”

  Flynn started walking back toward Jackson Square. “If you need my help, Pierce, you know where I am. I’d be happy to assist the NOPD in their endeavors to make my city a safer place in which to live.”

  Boudreau hung up. When she did so, Flynn heard her still laughing at that notion.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Flynn walked back to Bourbon Street, got in her car, and just started driving with no particular destination in mind. Sometimes, when she was upset, angry, or simply had a lot on her mind, she liked to drive aimlessly and play the radio as she drove. She twiddled the knob through the FM band until she found a local station playing a mix of classic rock and country, and some 80’s pop. By the time she had driven almost to Bayou Barataria, she was feeling a good deal more calm, and Queen had warned her of another one biting the dust, Kenny Rogers had invited her to go down in a blaze of glory with him, and Duran Duran had asked her if there was something they should know?

  Her phone rang.

  “I have your information,” Danny said, with his customary lack of preamble.

  “Then I am suitably impressed by the speed of your magic,” Flynn told him.

  “Thank you, dear heart. I shall, of course, forward everything to your usual secure email, but there’s something I think you need to know immediately. First of all, let me just get this out of the way…Erin Krueger is a looker, and then some.” Danny chortled. “She seems to be single, too. I would almost be hopeful, if it weren’t for the rest of what I found. She was indeed ‘one of ours’, as you put it, but she wasn’t just CIA, or even Black Ops. She was part of an elite unit within the Agency does not exist in any conventional records. This unit is buried so deep I required the electronic equivalent of a backhoe to unearth even the meager amount I did. And you know how good I am at unearthing those secrets others do not wish to be unearthed.”

  Danny didn’t believe in false modesty when it came to his own abilities. Flynn smiled. “What’s the purpose of this unit?” she asked.

  “Assassinations on US soil mostly, as far as I can gather.”

  Technically, the CIA had no jurisdiction within US borders; their theatre of operations was overseas. Of course, such mere technicalities could be worked around, if and when it suited any ‘higher purpose’ deemed by the Agency.

  Flynn frowned. “When I met Krueger in Cuba, she told me that she was working there.”

  “Oh, she may well have been,” Danny agreed. “You know how our government feels about sticking to its own rules.”

  “You said ‘worked’, past tense.”

  “The unit was officially disbanded in the late 90’s but there are hints it might still be active unofficially. Oh—and Agent Krueger’s relative? That would be Assistant Director Richard Cunningham. Assistant Director of the CIA. He’s running for the State Attorney’s office in Virginia. I’m not certain, Flynn, because much of the records have been redacted, but I think Cunningham might have had some early connections to the unit in which his step-daughter served. So why did you need to know about him? He sounds like the kind of man that you’d prefer to stay very far away from.”

  The more Flynn learned about Special Agent Erin Krueger, the more curious she became to know more about the woman—and whatever angle Krueger might be playing. That the agent was playing an angle, was in no doubt in Flynn’s mind. She switched lanes, ready to take an upcoming exit and head back to New Orleans. “His step-daughter wants me to take him out,” she explained to Danny. “Did you get an address for our intrepid agent?”

  Danny relayed an address in the Upper Garden District. He also offered a small piece of advice. “Be careful of tangling with either AD Cunningham or his step-daughte
r…as gorgeous as she is, there’s something hinky about that family dynamic.”

  Flynn smiled grimly. “Thanks, Danny. I figured there was an agenda. I’m just not seeing it yet.”

  She hung up and zoomed down the exit ramp. It was time to pay Special Agent Erin Krueger a welcome-to-the-city visit.

  The FBI agent was renting single-storey shotgun house set in a small courtyard of rambling, overgrown bushes and flowerbeds. Banana trees grew on either side of the gate and the front door. Trailing vines wrapped around the porch. Flynn figured that gardening services must’ve come as part of the rental package since Erin didn’t strike her as the type to enjoy kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds all day.

  Inside, the furnishings had the generic look of having been provided by the rental agency. Nowhere were there any of the knick-knacks and gewgaws collected by people who intended to settle in one place for a long time. Erin Krueger believed in traveling light and leaving little trace of herself behind. After poking her head into the living room and kitchen, finding nothing of interest there, Flynn made her way to the single bedroom. A glance through the closets and drawers revealed that the agent evidently spent most of her government salary on clothes.

  As she moved from the bedroom to the bathroom, Flynn halted as she heard a key enter the front door lock. Apparently Erin had chosen today to come home early from work. Flynn melted silently back into the bedroom, pushed the door almost closed and flattened herself against the wall, slipping the .45 out of its holster at her back as she did so. The front door opened. A few moments later a faucet ran in the kitchen, and Flynn counted five seconds, listening to the running water, and then she opened the bedroom door.