Without A Trace: A totally addictive thriller packed with twists, page 1
WITHOUT A TRACE
A TOTALLY ADDICTIVE THRILLER PACKED WITH TWISTS
LOGAN SISTERS THRILLER
BOOK 3
PEGGY WEBB
BOOKS BY PEGGY WEBB
Logan Sisters Thriller Series
Black Crow Cabin
Taken in the Dark
Without a Trace
Thrillers
Snow Brides
Savage Beauty
The Ally
All the Lies
Just One Look
Cozy Mysteries
A Charmed Cat Mystery Series
Magnolia Wild Vanishes
Southern Cousins Mystery Series
Jack Loves Callie Tender
Elvis and the Dearly Departed
Elvis and the Grateful Dead
Elvis and the Memphis Mambo Murders
Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble
Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse
Elvis and the Bridegroom Stiffs
Elvis and the Buried Brides
Elvis and the Rock a Hula Baby Capers
Elvis and the Pink Cadillac Corpse
Elvis and the Blue Suede Bones
Elvis and the Devil in Disguise
Elvis and the Heartbreak Hotel Murders
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Hear More from Peggy
Books by Peggy Webb
A Letter from Peggy
Black Crow Cabin
Taken in the Dark
Acknowledgments
Publishing Team
Supporting Young Readers
To Marte Mason Bock Johnstone, friend extraordinaire who loves reading books as much as I love writing them. With deepest gratitude.
PROLOGUE
HONEY ISLAND SWAMP, LOUISIANA
There she was. Her hair lush. Her face exactly what he wanted.
The girl was alone. Such easy pickings.
He slid along under cover of the trees, a shadow, unseen. Anticipation made his eyes glow like the terrifying Rougarou of Creole legend, the wolf-like creature who stalked his prey in the swamp at night. He was larger than life. Untouchable. Invincible.
Finding a spot that put her in perfect range, he settled in to wait.
She turned and stared toward his hiding place. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound. Did she have a sixth sense?
His dart gun held just enough lethal injection to knock her out until he could get her to his special place. The burlap bag was waiting to transport her there like so many dead animals. And then the fun would begin. He raised the gun and aimed.
Still, she stared, her body poised as if for flight. Did she know this was her day to die?
ONE
ASSISI, ITALY
“Find me. Save me...”
The whisper curled through Assisi like smoke, twisting along the narrow streets of the medieval Italian town, borne on the soft night air that stirred cypress trees, rising above ancient walls and the olive groves beyond. The cry for help went unnoticed by mothers and fathers, sons and daughters sleeping in the giant shadows cast by Mt. Subasio and the Basilica de San Francesco.
But in the heart of the historic town, in a studio flat of pink stone walls and arches so old they had their own story to tell, the whisper came clearly to Annie Logan as she lay on her wrought iron bed, transported to another place by her dreams. Mists swirled around her. She saw massive trees, their roots jutting up from slow-moving water, green with algae. Overhanging branches half-hidden by a curtain of Spanish moss held secrets so dark they shuddered her soul.
“Where are you?” Annie’s dream-self asked as she wandered through the swamp, searching.
“Find me.” The voice was male, deep, and heavily accented. His whisper echoed through Annie, strangely alluring, tugging at her as if a silver cord bound them.
She struggled against the connection. “Who are you?”
Silence answered her, prolonged, heavy with fear. Suddenly… from the distance… a woman screamed… followed by his voice calling to her once more. “Help me.”
Annie’s terror was so palpable she jerked awake, her heart hammering, her mouth dry. The luminous dial on her old-fashioned bedside clock showed midnight, the witching hour. This dark dream from the bayous of her mother’s childhood usually came to her at midnight, the details vivid, the message clear. Danger.
She grabbed her cell phone and punched in her sister’s number. It would still be early evening in the States. Jen, the oldest of the three Logan sisters, answered in her usual authoritative, straight-to-the-point way.
“Annie? If you’re calling to tell me you’ve had a dream predicting disaster for our family again, I’m going to run through Gulf Breeze screaming.”
“I don’t know…” Annie murmured.
She put her cell on FaceTime just to have the reassurance of seeing her beloved sister, so like their mother with her wild mane of black curls, dark eyes that see your soul, and the regal bearing of a queen. Jen was sitting in a lounge chair in the pool room of her posh home in Gulf Breeze, Florida, as vibrant and filled with determination as she had been in the spring, when Annie last saw her. Of the three Logan sisters, Jen had always been the one to hold them together. She had even taken over the role of mothering after their own mercurial mother, Delilah Broussard Logan, had died in a car crash that also killed their jovial Irish father, Patrick Logan.
“Tell me what you see.” Jen was drinking tea from her favorite cup. A ritual for her—for all of them really. Water sparkled behind her as her teenagers frolicked in the indoor pool. The sound of a waterfall cascading into the pool soothed Annie’s soul.
“A man keeps calling to me for help, and there’s always a woman screaming.” Did the scream sound like her own, or was she letting fear take over? The dream was still so real, she shivered. “This is the third time I’ve had the same dream this month, and they’re getting stronger each time. The man is definitely in a swamp. I sense such a strong connection with him, I think he’s close to our mother’s people.”
The bayous of south Louisiana around New Orleans had not only spawned the larger-than-life Delilah Broussard, but also the mystical gifts she had passed along to her three daughters—foretelling dreams to Annie, warnings through scent to Rachel, and alarms from nature’s creatures to Jen. Steeped in the Creole legends and myths of her French and African ancestors, Delilah had passed through their lives like smoke, the mystery of her saturating everything they did and believed, coloring their future so that neither Jen nor Rachel nor Annie could ever escape the past she kept shrouded in darkness.
Jen’s face was calm as she sipped her tea. “Did you see danger to yourself or to any of our family?”
That was a definite yes, Annie thought. The sense of personal menace was so strong, Annie found herself constantly looking over her shoulder. Fear eroded her confidence. She felt vulnerable and scared, emotions that were foreign to her.
Annie replayed her dream warnings, the danger hidden in mist and the whisper of a voice that pierced her heart. “I don’t see danger to you or Rachel or your children, but the sense of foreboding feels personal. Do we have any living Broussard relatives?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. And neither should you.”
“These dreams are drawing me toward the bayou. I think I should go to New Orleans and try to locate Mom’s people.”
“No!” Jen cried. “Stay as far away from that place as you can. Those vicious least terns I saw on the beach before Tommy and Marianne were kidnapped are back, and it feels like the warning is for you.” As Jen launched into one of her long-winded lectures, Annie relived their terror when her niece and nephew were taken. “Concentrate on your art, and live a good life. Delilah kept the past from us for a reason. Don’t try to open that Pandora’s box. I don’t want to have to worry about my baby sister. You hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“But you’re going anyway. I can hear it in your voice and see the stubbornness in your face.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She’d fallen in love with New Orleans on her brief visit there last spring. After her stay with Jen, her agent decided to book an art lecture for her at Tulane before she flew back to Italy. Speaking at the university will be great PR for you when I book showings of your watercolors in America, she’d told her.
Annie had not yet agreed to art shows in the States. But lately, she had felt a tug that had nothing to do with her dreams. She felt restless, unfinished somehow, as if an essential part of her was missing and could only be found back home.
She was torn between taking her sister’s advice and following her urge to discover the secrets her mother had buried in the bayou.
“I’m deciding for you,” Jen said. “This family has had enough drama to last a lifetime. Don’t go courting more.”
Over the past year, Rachel had been kidnapped by a local madman and Jen’s children had been taken in the night, events so terrifying, Annie had thought she might lose both her sisters as well. Still, from the time she was nine and started having prescient dreams, she’d never ignored them. Even then, almost twenty years ago, she had known the dreams were more than the normal way a mind processes the day’s events. They had been Technicolor predictions of things to come, the warnings so clear they left no doubt in her mind that they were real.
“I make no promises.”
“Listen, Annie. Gran’s not as young as she used to be, and the drive from Colorado to Gulf Breeze last spring took a toll on her. Benjamin and I are flying out to the ranch with the children for Thanksgiving break. It’s sort of a second honeymoon for us, and the twins are wild about the idea of seeing their cousins and riding horses. All of us together will be a handful. Don’t add any more trouble to her plate.”
“I can’t believe you said that. Victoria Logan would snort at the idea she’s getting old.” Her fierce grandmother would do more than snort; she’d be stomping mad. Annie started giggling at the idea, and couldn’t stop. Her sister joined in, and soon the two of them were burning up international call-time with their fits of glee. Finally, she wiped her face with the edge of her sheet. “I’m glad you and Benjamin are doing so well.”
“We’re better than ever. A crisis can bring out the best or the worst in people. And the aftermath is as unpredictable as nature.”
All Annie’s senses went on alert. “Wait, what are you not telling me? What have you seen?”
“The great blues are back, circling and casting their giant shadows.”
The great blue heron was a large coastal bird, standing four feet high and boasting a wingspan of seven feet. Last spring when Annie had been in Gulf Breeze, they had plagued Jen by circling at her bedroom window with warnings of danger that had nearly destroyed her family.
Suddenly chilled, Annie pulled the covers closer. “Who was the message for?”
“The herons are coming to my office this time, but only when my new patient is with me. She’s a tall, auburn-haired beauty like you, except she doesn’t have your ocean eyes. They’re brown instead of blue-green.” Jen paused to tell her son Tommy to stop splashing his sister. “The warnings are for you, Annie. I’ve suspected it for a week, but now I know. Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”
“I’m impulsive, but never rash.”
“That’s debatable...”
Annie smiled. Jen was a psychologist—Dr. Turner to her patients—and fond of probing the mind. Everything was debatable with her. “All right. I’m not going to hop on a plane to New Orleans. At least not yet. I have an art show here tonight.”
“Good. If the Broussards wanted to have anything to do with us, they’d have made themselves known years ago. They’re either a snooty bunch or have a lot to hide.”
Annie didn’t believe a word of it. Their mother was the one who severed contact with her family and kept them hidden. Maybe the Broussards had tried to get in touch, but Delilah discouraged it, and Gran wouldn’t allow it.
She could ask, of course, but Gran might or might not tell her. She was not just stubborn; she was ornery. Her response would depend on her mood.
After they said their goodbyes, Annie tried to sleep, but her rest was fitful. Though the stranger no longer called to her, she kept hearing a weird sort of creaking song in her dreams that could only come from the throat of a swamp creature. Before dawn, she gave up on sleep and did a quick internet search on the wetlands around New Orleans.
According to one article, in winter the swamps come alive with the chorus of three types of winter-breeding frogs.
Frogs! They even had interesting names—the chorus frog, the spring peeper, and the Southern leopard frog. The idea of hearing them in person intrigued her so much she imagined sitting in a boat in the middle of the green water of her dreams, sketching them. Why not? She had done watercolors of Italy for so many years, she felt as if her art might soon grow stale.
If I go, Jen will kill me. Annie’s laughter blended with the sound of cathedral bells as she brewed coffee and gathered her sketch pad and art supplies. What she needed was a quiet day on the Piazza del Commune, centering herself as an artist and pampering herself with the lemon gelato that had almost become an obsession with her.
But maybe Jen was right. She would be foolish to leave the place she loved to go in search of trouble.
Annie gathered art supplies and donned a wide-brimmed hat with a turquoise ribbon that matched her eyes. Suddenly, a cold wind swept over her, as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder.
Help me!
The whisper chilled her to the bone. It was the same voice from her dreams, the message as clear as if it were written on her walls.
Someone in the bayou was waiting for her, but evil also waited in the mist, its shadow pulling her into a past that could prove deadly.
TWO
PIAZZA DEL COMMUNE
Annie’s multi-colored gypsy skirt swept over the cobblestones as she strolled to the plaza and spread her belongings on a table that gave her the best view of the people and the city around her. Her outdoor office, she called it.
She’d chosen a shaded spot. She pulled off her hat so her hair tumbled around her shoulders in dark waves that glinted with hints of reds. It was the kind of balmy day that could almost make her forget her sister’s warnings and her own disturbing dreams. As usual, she checked her emails, texts, and social media accounts on her cell phone before she started her work. They were not her favorite things to do, but were necessary to maintaining a career, even as an artist.
She deleted the usual junk, then read one from her agent, wishing her good luck on her showing at the gallery this evening. Her lone text was from Jen, reminding her that nothing good could come from meddling in their mother’s past.
Annie put quick posts on social media, the usual snapshots with I’m here, and this is what I’m doing, and then scrolled through comments on her most recent post inviting friends to attend her showing at the gallery in Assisi tonight. One response immediately popped out.
I see you and I know what you did. I will make you pay.
An awful premonition swept over her. Someone’s watching me. Everything that had happened to her two sisters came flooding back, the terror of almost losing them. And all of it had started because someone evil was near.
Trying to tamp down her fear, she glanced around the plaza as if the person who posted might be out there somewhere, trying to uncover some dastardly deed from the past that she didn’t even remember. Where are you? Who are you? She hugged herself to hold back her shivers.
Finally, satisfied she had no watcher, she did a quick search of the sender, a man who called himself John Davidson. He was not in her friends list, and his account appeared to be a fake. All his posts were generic and recent, with no comments, and he had only two followers.
She deleted his post, a simple act that might have ended the matter except for Annie’s gift. A waking dream flashed through her mind, water everywhere… and death. Its lightning strike left her unable to breathe.
