“All kinds of new business ventures start popping up during holidays. You see unofficial rideshares and short-term house rentals that operate purely cash-only businesses during this time. Locals love finding ways to be a part of the tourism industry, and the businesses themselves always have specials or events going on, too. Come on. I’ll show you around a little.”

  We walk to the edge of the parking lot where a sidewalk leads further into the island and start walking with the throng of other visitors toward the little village of shops, hotels, and other businesses at the front of the island. I watch as drivers who thought they were getting the jump on everyone who parked in the lot filter into the village to search for parking spots on the packed sides of the road. Now that they’ve bypassed the parking lot, it’s likely they’re going to end up having to venture deeper into the island and hope for parking space in the residential area, then make the trek back to the village, or just hope to be the lucky one who sees someone move at the exact right time.

  As we enter the village, I see the picture windows on the businesses filled with Mardi Gras scenes. There are also signs sitting on the sidewalk advertising the holiday special sales and offerings. Business owners are outside festooning the buildings with garlands and decorations, including enormous stands of beads and masks.

  “This is the main parade route,” Celeste says. “The businesses around here always go all out to show off during the celebration and lure people back after the parade. The whole day is full of people out in the streets shopping, eating, and celebrating. It’s pretty amazing.”

  As we’re exploring the village, my phone rings.

  “Hey, Bruce,” I answer after checking the screen.

  “Dean, there was a transaction on the joint account,” he tells me.

  “There was?” I ask. “Where?”

  “Some place in Twilight Cove. Hyacinth Boutique. It went through earlier today,” he tells me.

  “That’s great,” I tell him. “That gives me a starting point and could create a trail to follow. I’m on Twilight Cove right now, so I’ll go check out the boutique and see what I can find out. Thanks for calling. Keep an eye on the account and let me know if anything else goes through.”

  I end the call and turn to Celeste. “Do you know the Hyacinth Boutique?”

  “Sure,” she says. “I don’t go there very often, but it’s one of the more popular gift shops on the island. It’s closer to that end of Main Street. Why don’t I show you where it is, and while you’re doing what you need to there, I can run my errands, then we’ll catch up in a bit for lunch.”

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  We walk down the street, watching as more and more people fill up the sidewalks and filter in and out of the shops. I can imagine the business owners always eagerly anticipating any holiday times if they are like this. Cars are still coming down the street, and people are walking in from the direction of the residential areas, telling me they are now filling up those streets and still making their way down to this part of the island. I wonder how many of these cars are the unofficial rideshares Celeste told me about and how they work. It could be one of those situations where you have to know who to contact, but I won’t be surprised to find little makeshift advertisements around to draw the attention of tourists tired of walking around.

  “Dean,” Xavier says.

  “Yeah, X?”

  “I need king cake,” he says. “Just at some point.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “Will you check it for babies? I don’t want to choke on a baby.”

  “I will check your cake for babies,” I tell him.

  Like many things that have come out of my mouth over the last few years, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

  Seconds later, we walk by a bakery, and Celeste gestures at it.

  “That would be the best place to get it. They start cranking out king cakes weeks ahead of Mardi Gras and cut them in slices starting a couple of days ahead, so you should be able to get one there. Best bakery in Twilight.”

  We keep going a bit further and are nearly at the end of Main Street when Celeste points out a particularly lavish window.

  “That’s the Hyacinth.”

  We make plans for lunch and part ways before Xavier and I go inside the shop. It’s bustling with people, and I look around, trying to see if there are any visible security cameras set up around the ceiling. I don’t notice any sign of them, so I search for someone with a name tag. When I finally find one, I see she looks flustered. I can’t really blame her, considering the number of people crammed inside the shop. It’s relatively large and airy for what I would imagine a boutique would be, but there are people filling every inch.

  “Hi,” I say. “Is there a manager I can speak with?”

  “A manager?” she asks, as if she can’t fathom someone making that request on top of everything else.

  “Yes, please,” I tell her. “It’s important.”

  She stares at me for a beat, possibly hoping I’ll withdraw the request, then lets out a little breath.

  “Wait right here.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “X, you okay?” I don’t get an immediate response, and I look around, worried that all the people have gotten to be too much for him. “X?”

  I find him a few feet away, rearranging a display of crystal animals. He appears to be arranging them in pairs by species, and I’m not sure if he’s going for a Noah’s Ark theme or creating his own zoo, but as long as it’s keeping him distracted and calm, I’m here for it.

  It takes a few minutes before a woman in a sundress that’s a tad too hopeful for warm weather comes toward me. She has a smile on her face and looks unfazed by the busy day.

  “Hello,” she says. “I’m Aubrey Tanner, the owner of the Hyacinth. How can I help you?”

  “Hi. I’m Dean Steele,” I tell her. I take my credentials out of my pocket and show them to her. “I’m a private investigator. I’m working on a case involving a potential missing person, and it seems that she came through your shop earlier today.”

  Aubrey holds out her hands like she’s indicating everything happening in the shop. “A lot of people have.”

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I can see that. I was wondering if you have cameras that record the transactions of your guests.”

  “No,” she answers without hesitation. “I know a lot of shops are insistent on having full coverage by security cameras, but I don’t think that is in alignment with the clientele I welcome and the experience I’d like to give them. No one feels welcome in an establishment when they realize they are being watched every step of the time they are there.”

  “I can understand that,” I tell her. “Don’t you worry about theft?”

  “If it becomes a problem, I’ll do something about it,” she says with a smile that looks heavily rehearsed, a coping skill that goes along with being cool and collected.

  “Fair enough,” I say. “Can I have just a moment, please?”

  “Sure,” she says. “I’ll be right over there.”

  She gestures to a display in the corner, and I nod my acknowledgment before taking out my phone. I call Bruce.

  “Bruce, can you send me the most recent picture you have of Marcy looking as much like her everyday self as you can think of, please?” I ask. “Just a picture that looks like you would expect her to look right now if she was out walking around.”

  “Did you find her?” he asks hopefully. “Do you think you see her?”

  I hate to hear the hope and eagerness in his voice and have to tell him that he misinterpreted.

  “No,” I tell him. “I’m sorry. Right now I’m just checking out that boutique we were talking about. But it would help for me to have a recent picture of her while I’m searching.”

  “I’ll send you one,” he says.

  The call ends, and seconds later my phone alerts me to a new text. I open the message and see that Bruce seems to have taken a picture of one of the family pictures sitting on the shelves and sent it through. I keep the picture up on the screen as I carry it over to Aubrey. She is fixing the aftermath of a group going by the display and indiscriminately picking up everything they could and putting it down wherever they felt like. The smile is gone as she fixes the items, but it’s back when she turns toward me in response to me saying her name.

  “Do you remember seeing this woman?” I ask, showing her the picture.

  “Actually, yes,” she says. “I remember her because of the hood. There was still such a chill in the air, and I thought she looked so comfortable and cozy in her hood. I don’t remember what she purchased, though.”

  “That’s all right,” I tell her. “Was she alone?”

  “It seemed like it. I didn’t notice her talking to anyone. It wasn’t as busy then as it is now, but there were still a lot of people, so I might have missed something, but I don’t think so.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  I walk out of the Hyacinth Boutique confident Marcy Bassinger had been in there shopping earlier today. It means she may still be on the island. This narrows the search, and I think of all the cars parked along the sides of the roads in the village. If she got here early today, it’s very likely she parked here rather than in the lot.

  “Why don’t we check the cars on the roads around here to see if we can find Marcy’s car before we meet Celeste for lunch?” I suggest.

  “After king cake,” Xavier says. “We’re right here by the bakery. It only makes sense from a geographic perspective.”

  “I guess I can’t really argue that,” I tell him.

  We go to the bakery and get two slices of the colorful cake. There isn’t a plastic baby in either one of them. Xavier looks both relieved and disappointed. We start the process of checking every car along the sides of Main Street, looking for one that matches the description and license plate I memorized from the police reports. We end up walking around the entire village and don’t find the car.

  “I’m guessing she took the cash out of the ATM so that she could get one of the short-term rentals on the island rather than reserving another hotel,” I tell Xavier. “At this point, she knows she is being looked for and wants to do anything she can to minimize being tracked.”

  By now, it’s time for us to meet up with Celeste for lunch, and we go to the little Italian restaurant she told us about. It’s the street over from Main Street. She already has a table and is waving at us when we step inside. The restaurant is cozy and dark, filled with delicious smells and the kind of atmosphere that says it has been here through generations.

  “How did it go?” she asks as we join her at the table. “Did you find out anything at the boutique?”

  I look up at the waiter, who has already appeared at the side of the table to bring us glasses of water, and thank him.

  “I talked to the owner, and she did remember Marcy being there but couldn’t remember what she bought or anything. I showed her a picture, and she did say that was her, that she remembered the hoodie that she always wears, so at least that’s something. It gives me the beginning of a possible trail here. But Xavier and I have been looking at all the cars in the village since we left there to try to find hers and haven’t been able to,” I tell her.

  “Maybe she’s in the residential area,” Celeste says. “She could have come in for the celebrations tomorrow and gotten a short-term rental in one of the houses.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” I say.

  “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t find out anything else, but speaking of the Mardi Gras celebrations tomorrow, I was hoping that you would come back and take part in them with me,” she says.

  “The Mardi Gras celebrations?” I ask.

  “Yes! Especially the parade. That’s the highlight of the daytime activities. It takes over the village, and everybody comes out to see it. Even the business owners who are going to have their businesses open after the parade come to see as much of it as they can and then go back and open up shop for the people. My company donates to the fundraising beneficiary of the parade, so we have a reserved area at the best place on the parade route. I would really love for you to come and see the parade. It’s absolutely amazing. These people prepare all year long for this event.

  “There are all the floats and performers. People are throwing beads. There’s even a king of the parade. Every year, the community selects one particularly esteemed member among us to be the royalty of the parade. This year it’s a man named Scott Russo. I haven’t seen it, of course, but I hear that the float for him is especially incredible this year. He’s going to rise out of it on his throne. Besides, pretty much everybody on the island will be at the parade. You might get a chance to see Marcy there. It’s practically a work event,” she insists.

  I laugh. “I’m not sure I can pull off that description and count it in my expenses when I bill the Basinger family, but I’ll go with it for now. I would really like to see all this preparation in action.”

  “Yay!” Celeste cheers, clapping a little bit. “You’re going to love it. And if you’re up for a real party, I can probably get you an invite to Joseph Palmer’s highly coveted party tomorrow night. The parade is the centerpiece of the daytime events, but at night, there are events that are less family-friendly, if you’re following me. The biggest and most impressive of the parties is Joseph Palmer’s. The only way I can really describe him is, he’s a Gatsby type. He lives alone in this rambling house out by the water. From what I understand, he used to be in politics, but now he seems to be more or less a professional socialite.

  “He does a lot of fundraisers for the community, which is how we met a couple of years ago. He’s also known for his parties. There’s always something going on at his house during any holiday celebration, and everybody wants to be invited to his place. You should see his house at Christmas. It’s gorgeous. But he has a particular affinity for Mardi Gras. He really loves New Orleans and the history of it. He likes to tell stories at his parties, and they are almost always set there. Urban legends and ghost stories, those kinds of things.

  “I thought you might have heard of him, actually. He has been in the news recently because he spoke out on his time on a high-profile jury. He was part of the jury for that recent big trafficking case where people said the police planted the evidence and coerced the jury, and he decided to come forward as a juror and talk about what actually happened in the jury room,” she says.

  “It sounds familiar,” I say. “But I don’t know the details.”

  “Well, there was this case—” she starts, but her phone rings. She walks away from the table for a second before rushing back. “I can’t believe this, but I’ve got to go. I completely forgot about a meeting that I have about preparations for tomorrow. I’m so sorry. Stay and enjoy lunch. We’ll meet up tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sounds great,” I tell her.

  “Perfect,” she says. “I’m sorry again. Have a good lunch!”

  She waves and rushes out of the restaurant. Xavier and I order and have a delicious lunch before walking back to the parking lot to get the car. We’ve decided to drive around the residential area some to see if we happen to be able to find Marcy’s car.

  Though the island is accustomed to welcoming tourists and having plenty more of it than people actually live here, the residential area looks like it’s generally a sleepy little place tucked back away from the touristy area. That is not so much accurate right now. Everywhere we look, there are people. Mardi Gras is obviously in full swing, even though it isn’t until tomorrow. People are set up in lawn chairs in the front yards, and I can hear music coming from several of the houses. Children are running back and forth, and I wonder how many of them are locals excited to have new friends, at least for a couple of days.

  I pay close attention to every car we go past, but none of them look like Macy’s. I realize that there are garages attached to many of the houses, and the driveways go around behind some of the others, meaning I won’t be able to see all the cars that are in this area. Xavier and I spend a couple of hours exploring the neighborhoods before we decide it’s time to ferry back to the mainland and return to our hotel.

  The parking lot has thinned only slightly, and I wonder how many of the cars there belong to people who are staying on the island overnight tonight so they can get a jump on the celebrations tomorrow. Celeste has already sent me a text message warning me that I need to be on the ferry first thing in the morning if I want a chance at getting a parking spot in the lot. Worst-case scenario, it’s even busier than expected, and if don’t get one of the parking places, she says we can park at her house and just make the walk to the village.

  I get into a hot shower as soon as we’re back in the hotel room. My phone is ringing when I get out. It’s Bruce.

  “I just checked, and there was another transaction,” he says. “Some other little shop, I guess. It’s just called the General Store. I didn’t really go to Twilight Cove with her very often, so I’m not as familiar with these places.”

  “That’s all right. Xavier and I are going back tomorrow, so we’ll check it out in the morning. Thanks for keeping track of the account for me. That does make me want to ask you something, though. Do you know why she would suddenly start using the joint account? She was using her personal account before. Why would she switch to using the account she shares with you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Bruce says. “I don’t think she would have run out of money in her account. At the same time, I don’t have a way to monitor it, so I don’t really know.”

  “All right. Thank you. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else. Give me a call if you think of anything,” I say.