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yeah. At least that’s what we’re hoping. I mean, after everything that happened last month and your involvement with it all, Maryse, Sabine, and I thought maybe Helena should shadow you for a bit and make sure you couldn’t see her. We were just starting to think we’d gotten it all wrong when someone shoved you in front of a bus.”
    “And then I could see Helena,” Raissa finished.
    “Right,” Mildred said. “But the only thing in your life that changed from that moment to an hour before was you talking to the police about that missing girl. Helena was there when you talked to that detective, but you couldn’t see her then. So we know it has something to do with the missing girl and your talking to the police. We just need you to tell us what.”
    “What makes you think I know?” Raissa asked.
    Mildred glanced over at Helena, then back at Raissa. “I’ve always known you were hiding from something. I figured it was an abusive husband or the like, which is why I never pressed you for answers. But after knowing you as long as I have, I’ve decided you’re too strong to have been abused. Which means that whatever you’re hiding from is a lot worse than one angry, vindictive man.”
    Raissa nodded. “You’re right. It’s not one man.”
    Mildred narrowed her eyes at Raissa. “You were a cop, weren’t you?”
    Raissa felt a wave of anxiety pass over her. She shifted in her chair and looked down at the floor, millions of denials already forming in her mind. Finally, she looked back up at Mildred and in an instant, she knew.
    It was time.
    Time to stop running. Stop hiding from her past. From the truth.
    “I was an FBI agent.”
    Helena sucked in a breath and stared at her, wide-eyed. “Holy shit! You were a supercop. No wonder nothing fazes you. You’ve got balls of steel.”
    “Ha!” Raissa spit out that single word. “If I had balls of steel, I wouldn’t have spent the last nine years hiding behind scented candles and tarot cards. If I had balls of steel, I’d have taken out the entire Hebert family so I could have my life back.”
    Mildred put one hand over her mouth. “The Hebert family…as in Sonny Hebert, the Don Corleone of southern Louisiana?”
    “Yeah. As in, not one man—but a ‘family.’ ”
    “Holy shit,” Mildred repeated Helena’s words, then downed her entire cup of coffee. “Okay, this is far worse than I had imagined.”
    Helena nodded. “That’s not the kind of family that does barbecues and beer.”
    “No,” Raissa agreed. “They’re more into extortion, and money laundering, and God knows what else.”
    Mildred refilled her coffee cup, pulled a bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of her desk, and poured a generous amount into her coffee. She handed the bottle to Helena, who took a huge gulp straight from the bottle, then doctored her own coffee and passedthe bottle to Raissa. Raissa, who had never been one to drink after another person, wasn’t quite sure the ghost counted, but it still bothered her on too many levels, so she passed on the whiskey altogether.
    “Okay,” Mildred said, “so there’s a bit of a setback in our original thinking, but there’s no cause to panic.”
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” Helena said. “Hell, I’m panicked, and I’m already dead.”
    Mildred frowned. “Well, at least they can’t kill you twice.”
    “That’s not entirely true,” Raissa said. “I died nine and a half years ago when one of the Hebert clan put a bullet through my chest. They resuscitated me in the ambulance. On paper, I’ve been dead ever since. So in this case, if the Heberts get me, then technically they have killed me twice.”
    “We’re not going to let that happen,” Mildred said, her voice growing strong again. “I promise you, Raissa, we will see you through this. The first thing we have to do is find you someplace safe.”
    Raissa laughed. “I know you mean well, and I love you for it, but I’m trained to hide, and they still