Книга - Flash Point

Flash Point
Metsy Hingle


Is a picture worth a thousand words…New York photographer Kelly Santos hides behind her camera and her talent, where no one can know about her tragic past…or the visions that haunt her.…when it exposes a deadly truth?Now the past is reaching out to her, calling her back to her native New Orleans, to the hidden danger that waits. From the moment Kelly returns she is plagued by visions of murder. But no one believes her–until a man turns up dead, and Kelly becomes the prime suspect. Seeking the help of homicide detective Jack Callaghan, she sets out to prove her innocence.But Kelly's quest for answers is leading them both on a treacherous path to the heart of a sinister secret–and to a killer who is prepared to finish a grim and deadly task begun many years ago. Soon past, present and future will collide in an explosive, shattering…FLASH POINT







“I guess it’s fortunate that I showed up when I did.” Following his lead, she opened the passenger door of the car, and nearly gagged on the stench of stale whiskey and cigars as she slid inside. Still, she forced herself to pull the door closed, shutting out the noise from the street musicians and revelers who’d flocked to New Orleans’ French Quarter to celebrate Halloween.

“Fortunate is right, missy. I’m a busy man,” he said. “I’ll have you know I’ve got better things to do with my time than wait around for the likes of you.”

“Then let’s not waste any more of each other’s time, Doctor. Did you bring the document?”

“’Course I brought it. But first I want to see the money.”

She opened the black tote bag that was filled with $100,000 in cash. Opening it, she angled it so that the light from the street lamp fell on its contents. There was no mistaking the lust in the man’s bloodshot eyes. When he reached for the bag, she snapped it closed. “Not so fast, Doctor. First I want the document.”

“Sure. Sure.” He fumbled inside his coat pocket, drew out an envelope and shoved it at her. “Here.”

“You sure this is the only copy?”

“What? Yeah, it’s the only one,” he muttered, still distracted by all the cash.

She tucked the envelope inside her purse and reached for her gun. “Then I guess this is goodbye, Doctor,” she said politely as she pulled the trigger.


Also available from MIRA Books and METSY HINGLE

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Flash Point

Metsy Hingle





www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For Valerie Gray, Editor and Friend With thanks and affection for the guidance, creative vision and unending support




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


While I was creating this book, I spent countless hours alone with the characters of this story as I tried to bring them to life. But the finished product would not have been possible without the help of many people who assisted me both technically and emotionally. My heartfelt thanks go to the following people for their help in bringing life to Flash Point:

Dianne Moggy, editorial director of MIRA Books, for her trust and support.

Karen Solem, my agent, for her unending support and guidance, and for being my voice of reason.

The amazing MIRA staff, who continue to astound me with their support.

The MIRA art department, which is truly the best in the business.

The MIRA public relations team of Tania Charzewski, Sarah Rundle and Maureen Stead for their support.

The wonderful fans who allow me to entertain them with my books.

Diane Hingle Anding, my sister-in-law and friend, who makes me proud we are family.

Sandra Brown, my dear friend, for her friendship, love and support.

Carly Phillips, friend and fellow writer, for her friendship, support and e-mails.

Dixie Kane and Hailey North, dear friends and fellow writers, for their love and support.

A special thank-you goes to my children and family, whose love and support enable me to spin my tales of love, hope and happily-ever-after.

And, as always, to my husband, Jim, who is my love, my family and all things to me.


Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for picking up a copy of Flash Point. I’m both grateful and honored that you’ve chosen my book when there are so many wonderful books available. If this is the first time you’ve read my work I do hope it won’t be the last. For those of you who are familiar with my books, you won’t be surprised to find Flash Point is set in my hometown of New Orleans, a city and people that continue to inspire me and make me proud to call them my own. I hope you enjoy reading my latest tale of romance and suspense as much as I enjoyed writing it.

As always, one of the great joys for me as a writer is hearing from readers, and I’d love to hear from you. In fact, as a special thank-you, I’ve had a commemorative bookmark created just for Flash Point and, while supplies last, I’ll send one to each reader who writes and requests one.

Happy holidays!

Metsy Hingle

P.O. Box 3224

Covington, LA 70433

U.S.A.

www.metsyhingle.com




Contents


Prologue (#u1240e968-b3b2-5e81-8fe5-50b2190afe8b)

Chapter One (#u0d257ffc-3681-5cc8-be38-99b9b407d3c8)

Chapter Two (#ubed05319-a638-52a6-9585-56c5413ca3cd)

Chapter Three (#ue8bc47f2-9040-5ee7-ba80-941da5c7d453)

Chapter Four (#u7e0bdbf0-7041-5ce0-b9ed-5c405d524705)

Chapter Five (#u500748c4-b494-5fc0-b7b0-ea8c240046d3)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)




Prologue


“It’s about damn time you showed up. I’ve been waiting in this alley for twenty minutes and nearly got mugged twice.”

“I was detained,” she said coolly, giving no indication of how much she detested having to deal with the sorry creature.

“Well, you’re damn lucky I waited,” he informed her, his Mississippi drawl even thicker due to the liquor. “Another two minutes and I’d have been gone.”

“Then I guess it’s fortunate that I showed up when I did.” Following his lead, she opened the passenger door of the car and nearly gagged on the stench of whiskey and stale cigars as she slid inside. Still, she forced herself to pull the car door closed, shutting out the noise from the street musicians and revelers who’d flocked to New Orleans’ French Quarter to celebrate Halloween.

“Fortunate is right, missy. I’m a busy man,” he said, puffing up his chest and straining the buttons on his dated suit coat. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than to wait around for the likes of you.”

Better things like drowning in a bottle of whiskey or slithering into the nearest casino, she thought, even more repulsed by the man now than she’d been when he’d first sought her out six months ago. “Then let’s not waste any more of each other’s time, Doctor. Did you bring the document?”

“Of course I brought it. But first I want to see the money.”

She retrieved the black tote bag that she’d filled with $100,000 in cash. Opening it, she angled it so that the light from the streetlamp fell on its contents. There was no mistaking the lust in the man’s bloodshot brown eyes as he gazed at the money. Like a drug addict about to get his next fix, she thought. But when he reached for the bag, she snapped it closed. “Not so fast, Doctor. First, I want the birth certificate.”

He fumbled inside his coat pocket, drew out an envelope and hesitated. He narrowed his beady eyes. “You know, your daddy sure loved that little girl. Used to call her his princess. I imagine he’d have paid a lot of money to find out she didn’t die in that fire after all.”

“Unfortunately for you, my father’s dead. And I can assure you I don’t place the same value on her that he did. My one concern is protecting my family’s good name. It’s the only reason I agreed to pay you for that birth certificate.”

He tapped the envelope against his palm, gave her a measuring look. “I imagine your sister would be willing to pay a great deal to learn who her daddy was. Of course, if you was to—”

“I don’t have a sister,” she snapped. Fury caused her vision to blur for a moment before she regained control of herself. More calmly she said, “And I suggest you quit trying to shake me down for more money, Doctor. Otherwise, I might reconsider whether or not I’ve made a mistake by not going to the police and telling them about your offer.”

“Now, hang on a second,” he said, alarm in his voice.

“There’s no need to go dragging the police into a little business transaction between friends.”

“You and I are not friends, Doctor. And I doubt that the police would see your proposal as a business transaction,” she said, toying with him and enjoying the fact that she was making him nervous.

“We had a deal and it’s too late for you to try to back out now,” he countered, and shoved the envelope at her.

She took the envelope. And while he pounced on the bag of cash and began pawing through the stacks of bills, she withdrew the faded sheet of paper from the envelope. An icy-cold rage whipped through her as she stared at the form, read the names and examined the signatures. For a moment she was eight years old again and listening at the door as her father told her mother he was leaving them. She crushed the paper in her fist. Reaching deep down inside of herself, she channeled her anger, just as she had that night all those years ago, and focused on what had to be done. “You’re sure this is the only copy?”

“What?” He glanced up briefly. “Yeah, it’s the only one,” he muttered and went back to counting the cash.

She tucked the envelope and crumpled paper inside her purse and reached for the gun. “Then I guess this is goodbye, Doctor,” she said politely and calmly pulled the trigger.




One


“No,” Kelly Santos cried out as flames went up all around her. Bright orange tongues of fire licked at the curtains and raced greedily up the walls, devouring the rose-patterned paper. Terrified, Kelly turned in a circle, searching for a means of escape. But everywhere she looked there were more flames shooting up around her.

Surrounding her.

Trapping her.

She struggled to see past the blaze and to find her way out of the inferno. But the fire was so hot, the smoke too thick. Her eyes stung from the heat. Tears streamed down her cheeks. As the smoke filled the room, she began to cough. Her lungs burned, felt as though they would burst in her chest at any moment.

Have to get out. Have to get out.

Scarcely able to breathe now, she tried waving the smoke away from her face so she could get her bearings. And then she saw the door. Her heart leapt in her chest—part relief, part panic—as she noted the burning beam that dangled overhead in the space between her and the door. Terrified that the beam would collapse on top of her, Kelly was afraid to move, yet afraid to stay still.

Suddenly an explosion ripped through another section of the house and, without thinking, she raced toward the door. The moment she reached it, she grabbed the doorknob.

She screamed as the hot metal scorched her fingers, burning her flesh. Sobbing, she fell to the floor, cradling her throbbing hand. As she lay there, the burning beam came crashing down to the floor and landed in the spot where she’d stood only seconds earlier. Kelly screamed again. Petrified and in pain, she crawled over to a corner of the room and pressed her body against the wall. “Tell Nana where you are! Come to Nana,” she heard a familiar voice call, first by the door, then by the window. Paralyzed with fear, she said nothing. And as the flames ravaged the room, filling it with smoke and depleting her oxygen, she started to choke.

Coughing violently, Kelly jerked awake. Still unable to breathe, she sat up in bed and continued to struggle for air for several moments longer. Pressing a hand to her chest, she dragged air into her lungs. It was just a bad dream, she told herself as she tried to shake off the vividness of being trapped in the fire, of being overcome by the smoke and the heat. With unsteady fingers, she brushed the hair away from her face, discovered her brow damp with perspiration.

“Just a dream,” she murmured aloud. Not real. There were no flames, no stench of burning wood and fabric and smoke. There was no fire. Just a dream. Unwilling to delve into what might have triggered the old nightmare this time, Kelly closed her eyes and drew in one breath, then another. She followed the ritual she’d used since childhood to rid herself of the aftereffects of the nightmares and visions that had plagued her most of her life. Continuing to focus on her breathing, Kelly attempted to erase from her mind all traces of the dream by replacing the fire and smoke with the soothing images of blue skies, white sandy beaches and a rolling surf.

As her breathing steadied, she could almost hear the surf rushing to the shore, could smell the saltwater in the air, could feel the cool breeze on her cheek. Finally, Kelly opened her eyes. She blinked once, twice and a third time as she adjusted her eyes to the darkness of the room. Scanning her surroundings, she noted the drawn drapes, could make out the table with her camera equipment atop it, her suitcase just inside the door. A glance at the illuminated clock on the bedside table read a few minutes past ten. Morning or night? she wondered, and then she remembered.

New Orleans.

She was in New Orleans. Suddenly all the events of the past few days came rushing back. Returning from the month-long photo shoot in Europe to find a message on her answering machine from the Mother Superior, telling her that Sister Grace was dead. The message had been more than two weeks old.

Two weeks.

Sinking back against the pillows, Kelly closed her eyes again. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. They’d buried the only person in the world who had ever cared about her and she hadn’t even managed to attend the funeral. Silently she cursed herself for the hundredth time for not checking her machine for messages. It didn’t matter that the only persons who ever called her were Sister Grace on holidays and her agent who had known where she was. She still should have checked the thing. If she had…if she had, she might at least have made it back in time to see the nun one last time.

A new wave of grief washed over Kelly and she covered her face with her hands. Sobbing, she gave in to the pain and wept aloud. And as she sat in the dark hotel room and cried, she thought about the nun who had been the closest thing to a mother she’d ever known. The tiny nun in her navy-and-white habit had been the one person who had made growing up at St. Ann’s Orphanage bearable.

Memories came tumbling back. Sister Grace wiping tears from her six-year-old cheeks when a potential adoptive family had returned her to the home, claiming she was the devil’s spawn because of the visions. Sister Grace soothing her eight-year-old heart when she’d realized no one was ever going to want her to be their little girl. Sister Grace comforting her as an unhappy eleven-year-old when the other kids taunted her, whispering that she was a witch. And Sister Grace rescuing her as a lonely thirteen-year-old by giving her her very first camera. That camera had been a lifeline for her. It had opened a window to the world and eventually it had provided her with a means of escape.

And she had escaped, she’d escaped and had never once looked back. After all, with the exception of Sister Grace, New Orleans held no fond memories for her. She’d closed that door to her life more than ten years ago, allocating the unhappy memories of her early years to a sad chapter in her life. It was a chapter she’d never intended to open again. Just as she’d never intended to return to New Orleans again.

Yet she had returned. Only, she’d come back too late, Kelly thought, crying harder. Too late to thank Sister Grace for believing in her all those years, for caring about her when no one else did. Too late to tell Sister Grace how much she’d meant to her, how much she’d loved her.

Startled by the sudden squeal of a police siren, Kelly looked up. Still sniffling, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her pajamas and then climbed out of the bed. She walked over to the window, pushed aside the drapes and looked down at the street below. Traffic had come to a halt and had shifted over to the far right lane. As she watched, two police cars with flashing lights came speeding past the hotel and continued toward the Mississippi River.

Once the police units had gone, traffic started to flow again. She noted that, despite the lateness of the hour, people were out in force. Cars hurried from one red light to the next and pedestrians, mostly in pairs or groups, waited on both sides of the street for the arrows to signal it was safe for them to cross. No doubt tourists or convention-goers, she reasoned, since few residents ever paid heed to the signal lights.

A blur of movement at the far corner of the street caught Kelly’s eye. A man, sporting a black cowl with horns and waving a devil’s red-tipped pitchfork in his hand, raced up to the crosswalk. Several similarly clad people rushed up behind him. She’d almost forgotten that it was Halloween. The devil led a group of what she suspected were college kids across the busy Canal Street intersection. Evidently they were planning a big night of partying in the French Quarter. Although at twenty-eight she wasn’t a great deal older than the college crowd, the idea of partying held little appeal for her. Turning away from the window, she stared over at the rumpled bed and debated whether or not to go back to sleep.

She was still jet-lagged, since she’d barely returned to New York before she’d hopped a plane for New Orleans. And the crying hadn’t helped. Yet, recalling the reason she’d awoken in the first place—the old nightmare about being trapped in a fire—she knew going back to sleep would be an exercise in futility. Besides, she reasoned, her body was still on European time and that little catnap had taken the edge off her exhaustion. Deciding that a shower and something to eat would be a better idea, she headed for the bathroom.

When Kelly exited the bathroom a short time later, she felt marginally better. The shower had helped. She suspected the crying had, too, since she’d allowed herself little chance to grieve after learning of Sister Grace’s death. She’d simply begun making the necessary arrangements to come to New Orleans. Despite the protests of Wyatt, her agent, at her abrupt departure, she’d been right to come back. She’d needed to come back. Not for Sister Grace, but for herself because she’d needed to say goodbye. Once she had done so, perhaps she’d be able to close that last link to her past and to the girl she had once been.

Kelly’s stomach grumbled. Pressing a hand to her middle, she acknowledged a hollow ache in her belly that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with the simple fact that she was famished. When in the world had she eaten last? she wondered. And since she couldn’t remember ingesting anything besides coffee since the return flight from Paris, she decided it probably had been much too long.

After slipping into her favorite pair of DKNY black jeans, she pulled on a black-and-ivory cashmere turtleneck and the designer boots she’d picked up for a song while shooting in Italy. She ran a brush through her blond hair, scanned her appearance in the mirror and frowned at how pale she looked. Digging through the cosmetic samples one of the makeup artists had given her, she chose a soft pink blush and rubbed some on her cheeks to give her face some color. Then she swiped the rose-colored lipstick on her mouth. Satisfied with the results, she walked over to the table and picked up the hotel room key. She slipped it into her jeans pocket, grabbed her camera bag, which also functioned as her purse, and headed out the door in search of something to eat.

She found just what she wanted in one of the dozen or so hole-in-the-wall restaurants located in the French Quarter. What the place lacked in decor it more than made up for in great-tasting food—a fact that Kelly discovered after biting into the shrimp po’boy sandwich she’d ordered. In no time at all she had polished off the crisply fried shrimp served on half a loaf of French bread, topped with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and mayonnaise. She’d even washed down the monster-size sandwich with a bottle of ice-cold beer. Feeling stuffed from her meal, Kelly exited the restaurant, positive she wouldn’t be able to eat or drink a thing for at least a week.

But by the time she’d made her way down to Jackson Square and checked out the renovations under way at the historic Saint Louis Cathedral, she was already craving a cup of café au lait and beignets. Cutting across the Square, Kelly headed for the Café du Monde.

The place was packed—not an uncommon sight given that the sidewalk café, famous for its coffee and sugar-covered doughnuts, remained open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The fact that it was Halloween and people were in a party mood only added to the frenzied pace. Spying a table in the far corner that looked out over the sidewalk, Kelly quickly wound her way through the tight spaces to claim it. She flopped down in the seat. Within minutes a tired-looking young man dressed in a plain white apron and matching hat appeared before her. He stacked the used cups, saucers, spoons and paper napkins on his tray and swiped the tabletop with a damp cloth that Kelly suspected had been white at one time, but was now a dingy gray.

“What can I get for you, ma’am?” he asked in a drawl that hinted at northern Louisiana roots.

“Café au lait and an order of beignets.”

“Decaf or regular?”

“Better make it decaf,” she replied, deciding she’d have a difficult enough time sleeping without the added caffeine.

“Be back in a sec,” he told her as he took off in the direction of the kitchen.

There had been a time when she would never have even attempted to sit like this in a crowded café, Kelly admitted. Fear that she would find herself in a crush of people and that touching someone might set off a vision about a person’s past or future had made her avoid crowds when she’d been growing up. But the years of living in New York and her frequent travels had helped her. She’d learned to control her reactions far better as an adult than she had as a young girl or teenager.

While she waited for her order to arrive, Kelly did what she always did. She picked up her camera and looked out at the world through the viewfinder. Using the telephoto lens, she panned the scene across the street in front of Jackson Square. Named after Andrew Jackson, the onetime president and war hero who had been immortalized in the statue of him astride his horse, the Square had once been the heart of the city. But even as the city’s boundaries expanded and sprawled far beyond the French Quarter, the area remained the center of activity for the city, and a major destination spot for both locals and tourists alike. She scanned the area to the right where a string of fortune-tellers had set up tables along the side of the Square and were attempting to entice passing pedestrians to have their fortunes told. Kelly clicked off shots of one gypsy-clad woman as she drew her finger down the length of a man’s palm. Judging from the fellow’s expression, he seemed more concerned with the woman’s cleavage than her predictions of his future.

Shifting her focus to the left, she noted only two artists working—one doing a portrait in chalk of a woman dressed like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and the other doing a charcoal sketch of a middle-aged couple. She clicked off several shots, then scanned the length of the block in search of more of the artists who supported themselves by using their skill with a pencil or brush. But she spied only one. Far fewer than there had been when she’d left the city after graduating high school, she thought, and lowered her camera in disappointment.

But the moment the horse-drawn carriage pulled into view, she lifted her camera once more. The driver no sooner emptied the vehicle of passengers before he began loading new patrons into the carriage. As long as she could remember, the old-style carriages had been a fixture in the Quarter, and she began clicking off shots. This one was painted in black and white and was hitched to a chocolate-colored mule that sported a hat with flowers and an orange-and-black ribbon attached to its swishing tail. She adjusted her lens and focused on the carriage’s driver. Judging from the way he doffed his hat and waved his arms, the man was giving his passengers their money’s worth. She could easily imagine him in that same spot more than a century ago with a bevy of southern belles ready to embark on a spin around the city’s streets.

Kelly clicked off several shots in succession, then zoomed in on the driver’s face. She loved studying a person’s face. It was like a road map, she thought, as she noted the man’s weathered skin. Skin that she guessed had seen more than a half century of sun, wind and cold. A river of lines bracketed soft brown eyes, and given the smile on his face, she suspected a great many of those wrinkles were the result of laughter. The bushy brows and salt-and-pepper hair gave him a dramatic flair. She’d always heard that the carriage drivers tended to embellish history a bit in order to make the rides more exciting and their tips more hefty. Since it was Halloween, she imagined tonight’s passengers were in for some ghoulish retelling of the city’s already colorful history. When the driver sat down, flicked the reins and drove away, Kelly recapped the lens of her camera and returned it to her bag.

The place was growing more crowded by the minute, she realized, and a flicker of uneasiness went through her. For a moment, she debated leaving. Just as quickly, Kelly nixed the idea. She was being ridiculous. She could handle this, she assured herself. It wasn’t as though she was trapped in a crowd with no means of escape. No one was bothering her. Everyone was wrapped up in their own little dramas. And although she didn’t want to eavesdrop, the close proximity of the tables made it impossible for her not to overhear bits and pieces of the conversations going on around her.

“Come on, Joey,” the tallest of a trio of boys at the table to her left began. “We put on these monster masks and that dude at the door ain’t gonna be asking us for no IDs.”

While at the next table, a petite brunette declared, “I swear, Sara Beth. I must have been out of my mind to let you talk me into going on that ghost tour with you. I’m not going to be able to close my eyes tonight.”

“You’re drunk, Mark,” the woman at the table directly behind her snapped. “You made an ass of yourself at the party. Now, drink the damn coffee so we can go home.”

Trying her best to ignore them, Kelly drummed her fingers on the tabletop and cast an anxious glance in the direction of the kitchen. Unable to see past the steady stream of patrons and waiters, she sighed and focused her attention on her own table once more. She was about to pick up her camera again when she noted the newspaper lying on the chair next to her. It had been days since she’d even looked at a newspaper or listened to the news. Picking it up, Kelly gasped as the vision hit her.

“It’s about damn time you showed up. I’ve been waiting in this alley for twenty minutes and nearly got mugged twice.”

“I was detained,” she told him.

“Well, you’re damn lucky I waited. Another two minutes and I’d have been gone.”

“Then I guess it’s fortunate that I showed up when I did.”

Smart-mouthed, stuck-up bitch, just like her mother, he thought as he climbed into the car. Too bad he needed the money, because he’d like nothing better than to tell her he’d changed his mind and watch the bitch stew.

“Then let’s not waste any more of each other’s time, Doctor. Did you bring the document?”

“Of course I brought it. But first I want to see the money.”

She opened the bag and his mouth watered at the sight of all that cash. To hell with the casinos on the Gulf Coast, he’d rent himself a suite at that fancy new hotel they’d just opened and try his luck at Harrah’s. Maybe he’d even find himself a lady or two. Already anticipating the night ahead, he reached for the cash.

“Not so fast, Doctor,” she said, snapping the bag shut. “First, I want the birth certificate.”

He hesitated a moment, wondered whether he should have asked for more money for the damn thing. “You know, your daddy sure loved that little girl. Used to call her his princess. I imagine he’d have paid a lot of money to find out she didn’t die in that fire after all.”

“Unfortunately for you, my father’s dead. And I can assure you I don’t place the same value on her that he did. My one concern is protecting my family’s good name. It’s the only reason I agreed to pay you for that birth certificate.”

He tapped the envelope against his palm, gave her a measuring look. “I imagine your sister would be willing to pay a great deal to learn who her daddy was. Of course, if you was to—”

“I don’t have a sister,” she snapped. “And I suggest you quit trying to shake me down for more money, Doctor. Otherwise, I might reconsider whether or not I’ve made a mistake by not going to the police and telling them about your offer.”

“Now, hang on a second. There’s no need to go dragging the police into a little business transaction between friends.”

“You and I are not friends, Doctor. And I doubt that the police would see your proposal as a simple business transaction.”

“We had a deal and it’s too late for you to try to back out now,” he said, and shoved the envelope at her.

While he dug through the bag of cash, she stared at the paper a moment before crushing it in her fist. “You’re sure this is the only copy?”

“What? Yeah, it’s the only one,” he lied. The bitch would find out soon enough that he’d kept another copy, he thought. Eager to get to the casino, he began stuffing the money back into the bag.

“Then I guess this is goodbye, Doctor.”

Something in her voice—a cold amusement—alerted him. He looked up and saw the gun. But it was too late. Before he could say a word, she pulled the trigger.

“Lady? Lady, are you all right?”

Kelly dropped the newspaper and came spinning back from the dark alley to the table in the Café du Monde. Her heart still racing, she looked up at the worried face of her waiter.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” he asked again.

“I…yes,” she told him, although it wasn’t true.

“You sure? You look kind of…strange.”

“I’m all right,” she assured him.

Looking skeptical, he placed her beignets and coffee in front of her. “That’ll be $4.75.”

Still reeling from the vision, Kelly grabbed her camera bag and dug out her wallet. She retrieved a five-dollar bill and one-dollar bill and slapped them on the table. “There was a man who was sitting at this table earlier, the one who left that newspaper. Do you happen to know who he was?”

The waiter shrugged. “Beats me. When I came on duty at ten o’clock, the paper was already there. Figured I’d leave it in case somebody wanted to read it. But if it’s in your way, I can toss it.”

“That’s all right,” she said, while in truth she wished to God she’d never touched the thing. She didn’t want to get involved. All she wanted was to see the Mother Superior at the convent and satisfy herself that Sister Grace’s death had been a peaceful one, sign any paperwork the attorneys had for her regarding the nun’s bequest and go back to New York. But how could she ignore what she’d just seen in the vision? What if the murder hadn’t happened yet? If she did nothing, that man was going to be killed.

And what if he’s already dead? Do you really want to be the butt of all those jokes and whispers again?

Oh, God, she didn’t want to get involved. But what choice did she have? As unpleasant as it would be to open herself to the speculation and talk, she couldn’t honestly live with herself if he died because she’d done nothing. She had to do it. She had to go to the police.

“Ma’am, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” she replied, already feeling the weight of her decision settle upon her. She pushed the six dollars across the table at the waiter. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” he said, and shoved the money into his pocket.

When he started to leave, she said, “One more thing. The police station, is it still on North Rampart Street?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I’ve only been in town a couple of months.”

“It’s still there,” a scruffy-looking fellow nursing a coffee at the next table told her.

“Thanks,” Kelly told him. Using a napkin, she picked up the newspaper and shoved it into her camera bag. She stood and slid the strap of the bag onto her shoulder.

“Ain’t you going to eat those doughnuts?” the old guy asked.

“No. My stomach’s not feeling all that well,” she said honestly. “But it would be a sin to let them go to waste. Maybe you’d do me a favor and eat them?”

“Well, seeing as how it’s a favor, I guess I could do that,” the fellow said, his eyes lighting up as she placed the plate of beignets in front of him. “And no point in letting that coffee go to waste, either.”

“You’re right.” After setting her untouched coffee on the guy’s table, she hurried out of the café and prayed she wouldn’t be too late.




Two


Police Sergeant Max Russo did his best to ignore the chaos surrounding him in the precinct. Eying the clock on his desk, he willed the next twenty minutes to pass quickly so that his shift would finally be over and he could head home.

“Yo, Guthrie, this is a police station—not a dog pound,” Detective Sal Nuccio called out when an officer came through the precinct doors with a six-footer wearing a bedraggled brown fur costume and a pair of handcuffs.

“You’re a real funny guy, Nuccio,” Guthrie fired back.

“I’s a werewolf,” the culprit replied, his speech slurred from too much hootch or drugs or both.

“And I’m Little Red Riding Hood,” Guthrie replied. “Come on.”

“It’s true,” the shaggy fellow insisted. And as though to prove his point, he began to howl like a wolf.

“Knock it off,” Guthrie commanded, and smacked the fellow on the back of the head while the rest of the station laughed.

Max shook his head. Halloween certainly brought out the weirdos, he thought as the new rookie, Palmisano, marched in with three dames wearing black leather and carrying whips. Make that two dames, he amended when he noted the tall blonde had an Adam’s apple.

“Officer, you’re making a terrible mistake. I told you that we were only trick-or-treating. There’s no law against trick-or-treating in New Orleans, is there?” the flashy brunette asked.

“No, ma’am. But there is a law against offering to do the kind of tricks you were suggesting in exchange for money.”

The wolfman howled again.

“I told you to knock that shit off,” Guthrie ordered.

“Maybe you ought to get him a leash, Guthrie,” Nuccio chided.

“Up yours, Nuccio. Come on, wolfman. Let’s go get those paws of yours printed.”

The wolfman shuffled a few steps, then stopped dead in his tracks. “Say, man, I’s not feeling so good.”

Max looked at the man’s face, recognized the shade of green. “Guthrie, if I were you, I’d get him to the can first. And I’d be quick about it.”

“The can? But what—” Guthrie swore. “Listen to me, you dirtbag. You puke on me and your ass is going to rot in this jail,” the officer promised as he hauled his collar down the hall.

Max chuckled, as did the rest of the precinct, when moments later they heard Guthrie let loose with a string of four-letter words. He sure was glad he was behind a desk now and no longer walking a beat. Max stole another glance at the clock. Another fifteen minutes and he’d be heading home to his Rosie. He could already see himself kicking back in his favorite chair to watch that Indianapolis Colts game he’d set to tape before leaving home this afternoon. While he remained a die-hard Saints football fan he had a soft spot for that Peyton Manning, since the kid was from New Orleans. ’Course, he’d also watched the boy’s daddy quarterback the Saints a couple decades ago. Yep, he thought. Having Rosie serve him an ice-cold one with some of that gumbo that she’d had simmering on the stove while he watched the game was the perfect way to end this crazy day.

Whatever you do, Lord. Don’t let me get stuck with some pain-in-the-ass case that’s going to make me work late.

But Max no sooner sent up the silent prayer when he saw her walk in. A fresh-faced blonde dressed all in black and white, lugging a bag on one shoulder that was almost as big as she was. Nuccio, who thought himself a ladies’ man, wasted no time in making a beeline over to her. Not that he blamed the guy, Max admitted. The lady was a looker, even if she was a bit young for the likes of an old geezer like him. For a minute Max wrote her off as one of them college kids, then he got a better look at her face as she brushed off Nuccio and headed toward him.

Nope. The lady might be young, but those eyes were way too serious to belong to some wet-behind-the-ears kid, he decided. And he didn’t imagine any college girl would ignore the scuffle going on only a few feet from her the way she did. Nor did he suspect any college kid would appear so unconcerned by the four-letter words coming from the foul-mouthed drunk, or the way the half-naked perp was leering at her. A cool one, Max thought as she approached the desk.

“Are you the person in charge?” she asked.

“I’m the desk sergeant on duty. Max Russo. What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I’m here to report a murder.”

It was the last thing he’d expected her to say, Max admitted silently. “Why don’t you have a seat, Miss…?”

“Santos,” she replied as she sat down. “Kelly Santos.”

“All right, Miss Santos. Now, why don’t we start by you telling me who it is that was murdered and your relationship to the victim.”

“I don’t know who he is. I mean, I never met him. And I don’t know his name. But I saw…I saw him sitting inside of a car and he…he was shot.”

Max looked up from the pad he was writing on and asked, “Do you know who shot him?”

Kelly shook her head. “No. But it was a woman.”

“All right.” He jotted down the shooter was a female. “And where did you see this shooting take place?”

“I don’t know. Not exactly. It was dark and I didn’t recognize the area. The car was parked at the end of an alley. Somewhere in the French Quarter, I think, because I could hear musicians playing nearby.”

Max paused. He looked up from the paper on which he had been scribbling notes. “I’m afraid that somewhere in the French Quarter with musicians covers a lot of territory. I take it you’re not from around here?”

“Yes. No.” She let out a breath. “I was born in New Orleans, but I’ve lived away for a long time. I came back…I came back to take care of some personal business. I only arrived from New York late this afternoon.”

“Well, the city hasn’t changed all that much. Maybe if you tell me what street you were walking on when you saw the shooting, we’ll be able to narrow it down a bit.”

The lady hesitated. A strange look crossed her face.

“Miss Santos?”

“I wasn’t out walking when I saw the shooting. I was sitting in the Café du Monde waiting for coffee when I picked up a newspaper.” She unzipped her camera bag, and using a paper napkin, she retrieved the newspaper and placed it on the desk in front of him. “This newspaper. It belonged to the man I saw get shot.”

Max glanced down at the folded newspaper and then lifted his gaze back up to meet hers. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Miss Santos. What does this newspaper have to do with the shooting?”

“Everything.”

Max arched his brows. “Come again?”

She took a deep breath, released it. “Sometimes when I touch a person or a thing, I…I can see what’s happened or what’s going to happen to that person. Tonight when I touched that newspaper,” she said, pointing to the item, “I saw the man who’d left it behind. He was sitting in a car in a dark alley with a woman. She was paying him for some document, a birth certificate. Only, once he gave it to her, she pulled out a gun and shot him. What I don’t know is if he’s already dead. That’s why I came here. On the chance that you can stop her if she hasn’t already killed him.”

Max put down his pen and sat back in his chair. He’d heard some winners, but never one quite like this, he thought. “I see.” And what he saw was that the lady was either on something or a nutcase.

“Trust me, I know this all sounds crazy, Sergeant. It sounds crazy to me, too. But I’m telling you the truth. I have this…this ability to see things. Visions from the past or the future.”

“Uh-huh. And tonight when you touched this here newspaper,” he said, tapping it with his index finger, “you had one of them visions of a man being murdered?”

“Yes.”

Max rubbed a hand along his jaw. The lady was loony tunes if she thought he was going to buy this story. “Miss Santos, when was it you said you arrived in town?”

“This afternoon. I flew in from New York.”

“New York? That’s a mighty big place. That where you live?”

“Yes. I’m a photographer.”

Did those photographer types fiddle around with drugs? he wondered. “That bag there must be for your camera, then,” he said, indicating the bag she’d set on the floor beside her and wondering if a search of the thing would reveal whatever she’d been using.

“Yes, it is.”

“You mind if I take a look?” he asked.

“Be my guest,” she said, and handed him the camera bag. “But I can save you the trouble of looking for drugs. There aren’t any.”

He hesitated a moment at her response, then told himself the conclusion was a reasonable one and had nothing to do with her being able to know what he’d been thinking. But to satisfy himself, he checked out the bag, anyway. Other than the camera and film, it contained only her wallet and a lipstick. “That’s a mighty fancy piece of equipment. You here on business?”

“No. As I told you, I’m here on a personal matter.”

“So you did.” He slid the camera bag across the desk to her. “Never been to New York myself. My wife, Rosie, has though. She went with her sister a few years ago. I seem to recall her saying it was about a five-hour flight.”

“More like three and a half,” she informed him.

He ran a hand through his hair, aware that the now-salt-and-pepper strands seemed to be growing thinner on the top with each passing day. “Funny thing about flying. My Rosie, she doesn’t bat an eye when a hurricane’s coming or the streets are flooding, but put the woman on a plane and she’s a nervous wreck. But usually a glass of wine or a cocktail on the plane helps to calm her down. You one of them nervous flyers, Miss Santos?”

“No, Sergeant. I’m not a nervous flyer. And I didn’t have anything other than water to drink on the flight.”

“And what about at dinner? We’ve got a lot of good restaurants in New Orleans, probably lots of new ones since you was last here. Nothing more relaxing than to sit down to a fine meal with a glass of wine,” he said in what he hoped was a friendly, good-old-boy tone that would put her at ease. The way he figured, if the lady just fessed up to having a few cocktails and making up the story, he’d send her on her way and he could head home to Rosie, a beer and a cup of gumbo, and enjoy the game he’d taped. “You had yourself a glass of wine or two with your dinner tonight, Miss Santos?”

Kelly leaned forward, met his gaze evenly. “I’m not drunk, Sergeant Russo. And I’m not on drugs, either. What I am is wondering why you’re sitting here asking about my eating and drinking habits when I’ve told you that there’s a man out there somewhere,” she said, pointing to the street, “and if he isn’t already dead, he soon will be unless you do something.”

“And what is it you want me to do, Miss Santos?”

“I want you to try to find him.”

“And just how am I supposed to do that? You said yourself that you don’t know the man or even where he is.”

She remained silent, but an expression crossed her face. Sadness? Frustration? Max couldn’t quite read it or her.

“Miss Santos?”

Her brown eyes returned to his face. “What if I describe him and the location to you?”

Max sighed. This simply wasn’t his day, he decided as he watched the clock click within minutes of the end of his shift. May as well let her get it off her chest. “Go ahead.”

“He’s in his late sixties, a heavyset man with thinning gray hair and brown eyes.” She closed her eyes a moment and he wondered if she was going to go into one of her supposed trances. But then she continued. “He’s wearing a dark suit coat that’s too small for him, and he has a gold ring with a ruby stone on his pinkie finger. And he’s in a dark car—black or maybe dark gray. It’s a big car, four doors with a tan leather interior. Not new, an older model. It’s parked at the end of an alley next to a building with ferns hanging on the balcony.” She opened her eyes, looked at him. “He’s not from here, so the car might have out-of-state plates. Maybe from someplace along the Gulf Coast.”

“That’s quite a description.”

“I told you. I saw him when I picked up the newspaper. In fact, his prints are probably on it. Maybe if you run it through your system, you can find out who he is and get a better description of the car.”

He gave her his most indulgent smile. “I’m afraid it only works that fast on TV and in the movies. It takes a bit longer to check for prints, and if he’s not in the system, we have little hope of getting a match.”

“Then take what I’ve given you and use it. If you radio the police officers out on the street, they might be able to find him in case…in case he isn’t dead yet.”

“You honestly expect me to issue an APB on some unknown man based on what you think you saw in some sort of a vision?”

Some of his co-workers shot looks in her direction. If she noticed, she gave no indication. “I know it sounds crazy,” she told him, frustration lacing her voice. “But I’m telling you the truth, Sergeant. If that man isn’t already dead, he will be unless you do something. Please, you’ve got to believe me.”

“I do believe you,” he assured her in an attempt to settle her down. “You see, I’ve got myself this aunt, a real sweet little lady in her eighties, who likes to read those books by Anne Rice. And every time she finishes one of them books, it’s like clockwork. She’s on the phone to me in the middle of the night swearing she’s seen one of them vampires lurking around her place. But the truth is my aunt’s an impressionable woman and sometimes those vampire stories she reads…well they sort of get all mixed up in her dreams. It’s late and it’s Halloween. You’ve been traveling and I’m betting you’re tired. Maybe you had yourself one of those waking dreams a body has when they’ve had an extra-rough day.”

“I didn’t dream that a man got shot, Sergeant Russo. I saw him.”

“I’m sure it seemed real enough, Miss Santos. Just like my aunt’s dreams about those vampires seem real to her. But that doesn’t mean it was real.” Deciding to put an end to the nonsense, he stood. He was more than ready to get home to his Rosie, kick back in his chair with a brewsky and a bowl of gumbo to watch the game. “Maybe what you need is a good night’s sleep. If you’d like, I can have an officer escort you back to your hotel.”

She stood. “I don’t need an escort to my hotel, Sergeant,” she snapped, and there was nothing remotely girlish about the look she slanted at him. But the last thing he expected was for the lady to reach over and grab his arm.

“What the hell—”

“What I need is for you to stop wasting time thinking about kicking back in your easy chair, eating gumbo and drinking beer while you watch some dumb football game and try to find that man before it’s too late.”

Max jerked his arm free. He could feel the color drain from his face. He dropped back down to his chair. “How in the hell did you know that stuff?” he demanded, his voice a harsh whisper.

“I told you. I can see things, sense things.”

Sweet mother of God, he thought, shaken by her response. No, it couldn’t be, he reasoned. There had to be an explanation.

“Hey, Max. Everything okay over there?” Nuccio asked.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” he muttered before turning his attention back to the woman. He narrowed his eyes. “You had me going there for a minute. That stuff you just said about the gumbo and beer and the game, you were guessing, right?”

“No.”

“Then you must have heard me say something to one of the guys earlier,” he offered, wanting, needing to believe that’s what had just happened, even though for the life of him he couldn’t recall saying a thing about the gumbo to a soul.

“We both know I didn’t overhear you saying anything to anyone.”

“Then how…”

Kelly resumed her seat across from his desk. She clasped her hands together in that ladylike way women did and met his gaze evenly. “I tried to explain, Sergeant Russo,” she began, a weariness in her voice that matched her expression. “Sometimes when I touch a person or an object, I can see things.”

He looked down at his shirtsleeve where she had grabbed him only a few moments ago, then back up at her. “And when you touched me, you read my mind?”

“Not quite. It was more a case of reading what you were imagining. In this case, you were seeing yourself sitting in a big brown leather easy chair with your feet kicked up. The room had gold shag carpet and there was a small round table next to the chair with a bottle of beer on it. You were watching a football game on TV and you hit the pause button when a woman came into the room,” she told him. “She had red hair and she brought you a tray with a steaming bowl on it. She said the gumbo was hot, but that she didn’t want you using that as an excuse to have another beer.”

Max swallowed hard and tried to digest the fact that the woman had just described his living room and his wife. “That’s my wife, Rosie.” And Rosie was never going to believe him when he told her this story. After a moment, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started over. “Why don’t you describe that car for me again.”

Jack Callaghan ambled over to his police locker the next morning and the first person he saw was Sal Nuccio. Just what he didn’t need, Jack thought. After tossing and turning most of the night and feeling like shit over how he’d handled things with Alicia the previous evening, the last person he wanted to deal with this morning was Nuccio. The guy had been a pain in the ass since they were kids. And ever since he’d beaten Nuccio for the starting quarterback position in high school, the man never missed a chance to try to one-up him at everything from the type of car he drove to the women he dated, and now to see which one of them made detective second grade first. At thirty-three, the adolescent games had long lost any appeal for him. Unfortunately, Nuccio couldn’t say the same.

“Hey, Callaghan. You hear about all the excitement here last night?” Nuccio asked him.

“No,” Jack replied. Not bothering to even look at the guy and hoping he would just go away, Jack worked the combination on his police locker.

“Well, you missed it. Yes sirree, we had ourselves quite a show here at the station last night.”

Jack yanked open his locker. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t need to take my word for it. Ask some of the guys who were here busting their asses last night and pulling extra shifts while you and your partner got the night off.”

Irritated, Jack slid his gaze over to where Nuccio was leaning against the wall, nursing a cup of coffee. The guy fit the caricature of a lazy cop, Jack thought, from the beefy jowls and beer belly to the straining buttons on his jacket and the sloppy look of his clothes. “If you’ve got something to say, Nuccio, why don’t you just spit it out.”

“Just making an observation. That’s all.” He tossed his foam cup into the overflowing trash can and shoved away from the wall.

Determined not to let the guy get to him, Jack stowed his running shoes in his locker and made no comment. He’d learned from experience that there was no reasoning with Nuccio. What would be the point in telling the prick that the reason he and his partner had scored two days off was because they’d worked fourteen days straight and had cracked a three-year-old homicide case? Nuccio would only argue that it had been the Callaghan family name currying favor for him. Which was what he’d claimed to be the reason they were both competing for promotion to detective second grade, even though Nuccio had put in two years more on the force than Jack had. The truth was, his name being Callaghan hadn’t helped him one iota—a fact that the captain had made sure he understood the day he’d joined the force as a rookie.

“Besides, the way I see it, you and Vicious might have wrangled the night off, but you also missed out on all of the fun around here.”

Jack clipped his shield on his belt, then slammed the locker door shut. “If you say so.”

“It’s true,” Nuccio insisted, obviously irritated by his response. “Things were really hopping here last night and you missed it.”

“Hear that, Leon?” Jack called over to his partner, homicide detective Napoleon Jerevicious, affectionately known among his fellow officers as Vicious, the nickname he’d earned on the college and pro football fields. “Nuccio says we missed all the fun last night.”

Leon slammed his own locker shut. The former pro football running back, who had been both his partner and friend for the past two years, walked over to join him. “I don’t know about that. I had me a pretty good time last night. Tessa and I took the kids trick-or-treating. And after we put them to bed, we did some trick-or-treating of our own, if you get my drift.”

“Talk about lame,” Nuccio declared with a snort. “I’d have thought a hotshot former jock like you could find something better to do than chase after a couple of snot-nosed kids and bang your old lady.”

“Hey man, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Leon advised him, unfazed by the other man’s derisive tone.

“No way,” Nuccio replied. “I’ve got better things to do with my time. But anytime you get tired of palling around with Callaghan and want to have some real fun, you just let old Sal here know. And I’ll introduce you to a few of my ladies, make sure they show you a good time.”

“That’s real nice of you, Sal,” Leon said in that low, easygoing voice of his that still held a trace of his Arkansas roots despite the years he’d spent in New York playing football for the Jets.

“Anytime.” Nuccio puffed up his chest. “Just say the word and I’ll make a few calls, set something up for you.”

“I appreciate that,” Leon told him. “I really do. But the thing is, I’m afraid having you set me up with your ladies would be a problem.”

“Say, if you’re worried your old lady’s going to find out, don’t sweat it. These gals are discreet.”

“I’m sure they are, but that’s not the problem,” Leon explained.

Nuccio frowned a moment, then his eyes widened. “Holy shit! Don’t tell me you’ve never screwed around on your wife?”

“Come to think of it, no. I haven’t.”

“Hot damn, if that don’t beat all.” Nuccio let out a hoot. He slapped his leg. “Instead of calling you Vicious, they should call you Choirboy. What in the hell’s wrong with you, man? Here I am offering to cut you in on my female turf and you’re turning me down because you’re married?”

“Actually, that’s only one of the reasons I’m turning you down. The other reason is I don’t pay women for sex.”

Jack muffled a laugh. But the other guys hanging around the lockers didn’t. And as the whoops of laughter rumbled around the locker room, Nuccio’s face grew beet red. Jack almost felt sorry for him. Almost but not quite, since the jerk had been riding him for months now—ever since Jack had gotten a citation for his efforts in solving an eight-year-old murder that had languished in the cold-case files. A case to which Nuccio had once been assigned.

Nuccio glared up at the much taller Leon. “Up yours, pal.”

“No thanks,” Leon said, and flashed his pearly white teeth.

“Some sports hero you are. The only woman you’re making it with is your own wife.”

Leon’s smile widened. It was the smile of a man who was content with his life and with himself. A man who wasn’t going to be rattled by the barbs of some sorry ass jerk like Sal Nuccio. “Like I said, don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Or maybe you don’t have any choice, because the chicks aren’t impressed with washed-up football stars. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that you never were a babe magnet—not even during your playing days,” Nuccio continued with a laugh. “No wonder the chicks ignore you now.”

“Nuccio, my man, you’ve been reading way too many groupie magazines,” Leon said patiently. “The truth is, the ladies don’t ignore Napoleon the Vicious. But when I tell them I’m married, they naturally put the moves on my pal Jackson here.” Leon slung his arm around Jack’s shoulder, dwarfing his six-foot-two, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame. “Ain’t that right, Jackson?”

“Sure,” Jack responded.

“Yeah, right,” Nuccio told him.

Leon released him and drew himself up to his six-foot-six height. “It’s the truth. Jackson here is a real player. Why, just last night he was at some fancy party at the Royal Sonesta, and the man had to practically fight the ladies off with a stick. Ain’t that so, Jackson?”

“Sure is,” Jack said, going along with his partner’s story but wondering how Leon knew about the fund-raiser he’d attended since he hadn’t mentioned it to him.

“In your dreams,” Nuccio countered. “Maybe the chicks give Mr. Ex-Football Star here a second look because he used to be somebody, but no way do they notice your sorry ass.”

“According to Tessa’s friend Milly, they were noticing a lot more than his ass last night,” Leon informed him.

“No shit! That true, Callaghan?” a first-year rookie named Doug called out. “You really have women crawling all over you last night?”

“I don’t know if ‘crawling’ is the right word. But there were about a hundred women at the party,” Jack said, doing his best to keep a straight face as he referred to the fund-raiser his mother had guilted him in to attending. “And by the time the night was over, I’d say that at least half of them had hit on me.”

“Aw, man,” came a comment from behind.

“Some guys have all the luck,” someone else grumbled.

Nuccio narrowed his eyes. “You expect us to believe you had fifty women trying to jump your bones last night?”

“Actually it wasn’t my bones they were after,” Jack confessed. Although, in truth, Alicia Van Owen had made it clear to him that she was more than willing to resume the steamy affair that he’d put the brakes on two months ago. “It was my checkbook. Most of the ladies were members of the Junior League or friends of my mother’s or both. And they were hitting me up all evening for donations.”

Leon roared with laughter. So did the other guys gathered around who’d been listening to the exchange. The only one who didn’t seem to find the story amusing was Sal Nuccio.

“You’re a real comedian,” Nuccio told him.

“Thank you,” Jack said, and took a bow.

“Maybe you ought to turn in your badge and try using that smart mouth of yours to earn a living. Oh, wait a minute,” Nuccio continued, a hard look in his eyes. “That’s right. You don’t actually have to worry about earning a living like the rest of us ’cause your daddy left you a shit load of money. All you gotta do is have your mama make a phone call and wave her checkbook. And the next thing you know you got yourself a citation and the press makes you out to be some kind of hero.”

Jack sobered instantly. “I earned that citation, Nuccio. And as far as the press is concerned, I don’t have any control over what they write and neither does my mother.”

“Uh-huh. And we’re all supposed to believe that the Callaghan bucks didn’t influence any of it.”

“They didn’t.”

“Yeah, try telling it to somebody who doesn’t know any better. The truth is, that if it weren’t for your family’s money you’d still be a beat cop.”

Jack shook his head. And that was the crux of Nuccio’s problem with him, the same problem the guy had had since they were kids—even before he’d shared the quarterback slot in high school. His family had had money and Nuccio’s didn’t. “It still burns your ass that my family has money, doesn’t it, Sal?”

“The only thing that burns my ass is the way you get special treatment because of it,” Nuccio told him.

When Jack started for him, Leon clamped a hand down on his shoulder. “If I were you, Nuccio, I’d go crawl back under that rock where you live before I set Jackson here loose and he turns you into the city’s latest homicide.”

“You think I’m afraid of him? Of either of you?”

“You should be,” Jack told him, his voice deadly soft in contrast to the anger racing through him.

“Why? Because you’re gonna sic your big black partner here on me?”

“No. You should be afraid because I’m going to whip your fat white ass.”

Nuccio made a show of laughing at the remark, holding his sides and wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “You hear that, fellows? Callaghan thinks he can whip my ass.” When none of the other cops gathered to share his amusement, Nuccio curled his lips in a snarl. “Go ahead and turn him loose. And let’s see who whips whose ass. I’ve yet to meet a rich boy who knew how to handle his fists.”

“This one can,” Jack assured him.

“Come on, guys, ya’ll are cops. You’re supposed to fight the bad guys. Not each other,” one of the other police officers pointed out. “Besides, if the captain gets wind that you’ve been fighting, you’re both gonna be in a heap of trouble.”

“The kid’s right,” Leon said. “I’d listen to him if I were you.”

Jack said nothing. He simply stood there, temper and adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Leon tightened the hand he had on Jack’s shoulder. “Let it go, Jackson. He’s not worth it.”

His partner was right. Jack knew he was. But the urge to plant his fist in Nuccio’s face was so strong, Jack nearly gave in to it. And he would have if the door leading to the lockers hadn’t suddenly burst open.

“Callaghan! Jerevicious,” the lieutenant called out. “The captain wants you in his office.”

“What’s up?” Nuccio asked as he followed them through the door.

“Looks like the sarge’s psychic lady from last night was right after all. Someone just reported finding a stiff in a parked car with a bullet through his chest.”




Three


What a night, Kelly thought as she sat in the parlor of the convent the next morning and waited for the Reverend Mother. After the chaos at the police station the previous night, the quiet serenity of the convent was a welcome contrast. She sighed, wondering if reporting her vision had made any difference.

Had they found the man in time? Or had she opened herself up to all the speculation for nothing?

It was too late now to second-guess her actions, Kelly told herself. She’d done what she’d had to do. Doing her best to forget about what had happened, she focused on her surroundings. The dark heavy drapes that hung from the windows had been pulled open, allowing morning sun into the somber-looking room. She could smell the hint of lemon on the freshly polished furniture, and the tile floor gleamed as though it had just been waxed. Shelves of books lined one entire wall, while another wall was adorned with an oil painting depicting the Blessed Mother’s Assumption. Ivory candles and a vase of pink roses with baby’s breath rested on a table beneath the portrait.

Wandering about the room, Kelly trailed her fingertips across the open Bible lying atop a table. Her lips twitched as she caught herself remembering Sister Grace’s infamous white-glove tests in the rooms at St. Ann’s. Not a smidgen of dust to be found in here, Kelly mused. Which came as no surprise. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years at St. Ann’s it was that the nuns truly believed in that old adage, “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Ms. Santos.”

Kelly swung around at the sound of the nun’s voice, surprised that she’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the nun enter the room. “Not at all, Reverend Mother,” she told the tall, energetic woman in the flowing blue-and-white habit. “I only arrived a few minutes ago.”

“That’s good. I’m afraid we had a little problem with the choir practice after mass and it has my whole morning running behind schedule.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sister Wilhelmina. I’m supposed to be the one who keeps everything in line here at the Sisters of Mary Convent, although I’m not at all sure I succeed.”

“From what Sister Grace told me, you do an excellent job,” Kelly said, already liking the woman. She shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You’re most gracious as well as lovely, Ms. Santos. Thank you.”

“Please, call me Kelly.”

The nun bowed her head. “As you wish. Why don’t we have a seat over here,” she said, motioning to the settees grouped around a coffee table. “I’ve asked that tea be brought in for us.”

Kelly took the seat indicated. “I appreciate you agreeing to see me on such short notice, Reverend Mother.”

“Nonsense,” the nun told her as she sat down across from her. “I only wish it could have been under happier circumstances.”

“So do I.”

“Since I’ve only been here for a short time, I’m afraid I didn’t know Sister Grace very well. But I do know she was devoted to ‘her girls,’ as she called her former charges from St. Ann’s. She was particularly proud of you and your success as a photographer.”

Kelly swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Thank you for telling me.”

The Reverend Mother dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Ah, here’s Bess now with our tea,” she said as a plump, rosy-cheeked woman brought in a tray bearing a silver teapot, china cups and serving pieces. She placed it on the table. “Thank you, Bess. I’ll pour.”

“Yes, Reverend Mother,” the woman replied, and quietly exited the room.

As the Reverend Mother served them both tea, Kelly experienced a moment of déjà vu. Suddenly she was ten years old again, seated in the parlor of St. Ann’s on Christmas Eve. The other girls had all departed for the weekend to spend the holiday with extended family members while she had remained at St. Ann’s because she’d had no place to go, no family to visit. Evidently Sister Grace had picked up on her loneliness, because shortly after the last of the girls had left, she had called her down to the parlor. When she’d arrived, the nun had prepared a pot of tea for them and had served it in the convent’s good china cups. It had been the first of many holiday afternoons that she had spent in the nun’s company.

“Kelly?”

At the sound of her name, Kelly shook off the memories. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I asked if you’d like sugar with your tea?”

“No, thank you. Just milk, please.”

“You looked as though you were a thousand miles away just now,” the nun pointed out as she added milk to Kelly’s cup and then to her own.

“I was remembering Sister Grace,” Kelly admitted. “She served me my very first cup of tea in a silver pot very much like that one. And we had old-fashioned English scones and lemon curd with it.”

“Well, I’m afraid we don’t have any scones,” the Reverend Mother informed her, a smile in her voice that matched the one in her hazel eyes. “But Bess’s chocolate-chip-walnut cookies are excellent. Would you like to try one?”

“Yes, thank you,” Kelly replied, and took one of the cookies from the dish and placed it on the plate beside her tea.

The nun placed a cookie on her own plate and sat back. “So tell me about your tea party with Sister Grace. Was it for a special occasion?”

“Actually, it was Christmas Eve,” Kelly told her. “It became sort of a ritual, you might say. After that, every year, whether I was at St. Ann’s or in a foster home, she and I would still meet to have tea and scones together.”

“It sounds like a lovely tradition.”

“It was,” Kelly replied. And instead of dreading the Christmas season because she had no family to share it with, she’d come to look forward to her time with Sister Grace.

“Were you and Sister Grace able to continue your tradition after you left New Orleans?”

“No,” Kelly admitted. “When I left St. Ann’s, I left New Orleans.” And she’d sworn never to return. Kelly put down her teacup and broke off a piece of the cookie. “This is the first time I’ve been back since I left ten years ago.”

“I see. I seem to recall Sister Grace mentioning how demanding your job is. She said you traveled a great deal.”

“Yes.” But her traveling and her job hadn’t been her reason for staying away, Kelly admitted silently. “I should have come back to see her.”

“I’m sure Sister Grace understood about the demands of your career, Kelly. I do know that she was happy that you and some of her other girls stayed in touch with her.”

“I still should have come,” Kelly replied, unable to take any comfort in the nun’s words. She met the other woman’s eyes. “A couple of months ago Sister Grace asked me to come. She said she needed to talk to me about something. But I…I put her off and took an assignment in Europe instead.”

“And now that she’s dead, you feel guilty.”

Kelly nodded. She returned the untouched cookie to her plate. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.” The Reverend Mother put aside her tea and leaned forward. “But there was no way any of us could have known that she would be taken from us so soon. You have no reason to feel guilty for your decision.”

“I have every reason to feel guilty,” Kelly insisted. “I could have turned down the assignment and come back like she asked me to do. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to come back here.”

“Why not?” the nun asked.

“Because I knew coming here would dredge up unhappy memories,” Kelly confessed. She clasped her hands. “Except for Sister Grace, there were few bright spots in my life here. I swore to myself that as soon as I was old enough, I’d leave and start over. Build a new life for myself, a happy life.”

“And did you succeed?”

“I enjoy my work and I’m good at it. And I’m not unhappy,” Kelly responded, knowing as she spoke the words that the description of her life left much to be desired. “But I wish…I wish I had known how ill Sister Grace was. If I had, I’d have come.” And if she had, maybe she wouldn’t be plagued with such a sense of loss.

“I suspect that she didn’t want you to know. As I told you on the phone, Sister Grace’s heart wasn’t strong. She’d been on medication for quite some time.”

“But she died so suddenly.”

“I know, my child. But that’s how heart attacks are,” the Reverend Mother told her. “You must try to take solace in knowing that she’s with our Lord now in paradise.”

Kelly knew the nun was right. Yet it did little to ease the ache in her heart. When the church bells sounded, Kelly stood. “Thank you for your time, Reverend Mother. And for the tea.”

“You’re most welcome.” The Reverend Mother rose and escorted Kelly from the parlor to the entrance door. “Will you be returning to New York now?”

“Probably in a few days. I have to meet with Sister Grace’s attorneys first and I want to visit her grave.” And just saying those words made her want to weep. She still couldn’t imagine never hearing Sister Grace’s voice again, never receiving another one of her letters.

The Reverend Mother touched her arm. “Sister Grace is at peace now with our Lord, Kelly. Try not to grieve for her, but be happy for her.”

“I’ll try,” Kelly promised. But even as she left the convent to go visit the nun’s grave, she knew that it wasn’t for Sister Grace that she grieved, but for herself. Because now she was truly all alone.

Jack surveyed the stripped-down, older-model Lincoln in the alley that contained the city’s latest homicide. The car’s hubcaps and wheels had been stolen, along with the license plate. He stripped off the disposable gloves he’d put on to check the scene for evidence. “Any ID on him?” Jack asked the cop who had been first on the crime scene, where a man had been found with a gunshot wound to his chest.

“No, sir. His wallet’s gone and he’s not wearing any jewelry.”

“Chances are whoever took the wallet, took the jewelry, too,” Jack remarked. “What about registration papers on the car?”

“The glove box was empty, too.”

Which meant any papers identifying the car’s owner were gone, too. “Get a couple of officers and start canvassing the area within a six-block radius. Maybe someone saw or heard something,” Jack instructed, even though he suspected that with all the Halloween hoopla going on last night, they were likely to get more than a few reports of strange happenings.

“Yes, sir,” the young cop replied, and started to head off.

“Officer, one more thing,” Jack called out.

“Sir?”

“Check around with some of the shop owners and residents, find out which street musicians usually hang out around here,” Jack instructed, recalling the statement Sarge had taken from the woman, in which she’d claimed there was music playing on a nearby corner. “Question them, see if anyone remembers seeing or hearing something that seemed odd—even for Halloween.”

“Yes, sir,” the police officer said. “Anything else?”

“No, you’ve got enough to keep you busy for a while. Get back to me or Detective Jerevicious if you find anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once the beat cop was gone, Jack walked over to Leon, who had already questioned the woman who had reported the abandoned car with the body and was now conferring with the crime-scene team. “Find out anything new?”

“Not really. Looks like a robbery-homicide. They’re dusting the vehicle for prints now.”

“M.E. give a time of death yet?” Jack asked.

“I asked and she nearly bit my head off. Figured I’d let you charm her and see if she’ll give you an answer.”

Jack strolled over to where the medical examiner was finishing up her preliminary look at the victim. “Nice seeing you last night, Doc. I almost didn’t recognize you in that red number you were wearing.”

“You didn’t look so bad yourself, Callaghan,” Dr. Jordan Winston declared as she checked the vic’s pupils. She flicked off her penlight and motioned for the body to be loaded into the coroner’s van.

“What can you tell me about the vic?” he asked.

“White male, probably late sixties, two gunshot wounds to the heart delivered at close range. Small caliber weapon, probably a .22. I’ll let you know for sure when I get the bullets out.”

The doc was good, Jack thought, because he’d already figured the gun was a .22 himself. “Any idea on the time of death?”

“Based on lividity, my best guess is sometime between eleven o’clock and one o’clock this morning. I’ll be able to narrow it down once I get him back to the lab and run some tests.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“By the way, Callaghan, I liked your lady friend. Very classy. And smart.”

“Yes, she is,” Jack said, deciding there was little point in denying that Alicia had been his date last night since everyone—including his mother and Alicia herself—had placed them together as a couple. With any luck, last night he had finally got the message across, at least to Alicia, that they weren’t meant for each other.

“She put me onto a sweet little Victorian that’s about to go on the market. If the place is half as good as she says it is, I’ll be giving her a call and making an offer on it.”

“I’m sure Alicia will appreciate your business. You’ll let me know when you can pinpoint the exact time of death on our John Doe?” he asked, eager to change the topic.

She gave him a pointed look, as though she knew exactly what he was doing. “Check with my office this afternoon.”

As Jordan Winston returned to her team, Leon walked over to him. “Any luck on getting an ETD?”

“Piece of cake. I don’t know what your problem is with the lady,” Jack teased, knowing that it had taken him years to establish an easy relationship with Jordan Winston. The lady took a long time to warm up to people and she was still putting Leon through hoops. “She couldn’t have been more cooperative. Maybe you should try changing your cologne.”

“There’s not a damn thing wrong with my cologne. The woman just flat-out doesn’t like me,” Leon fired back, and grumbled something about female doctors who had a thing for blue-eyed men. “So are you going to tell me the time or not?”

“Between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.”

“Well, what do you know. According to the captain, Sarge’s psychic came in around midnight,” Leon reminded him.

“Yeah, I know,” Jack replied as he recalled the description given of the woman named Kelly Santos who’d come into the station last night. He knew in his gut that it was the same Kelly Santos who had gone to school with his kid sister Meredith—the same teenage girl he had rescued from punks in the park years ago. The same girl who had spooked him when she’d announced that he should ditch law school and become a cop if that was what he wanted to do. Since he’d been wrestling with that dilemma for months and hadn’t breathed a word about it to anyone, not even the woman he’d been engaged to marry, he hadn’t known what to make of her. Nor had he known what to make of her telling him that she was sorry, but his fiancée wasn’t going to stand by him. Only months later did he recall that the girl had been dead right on both counts.

“Kind of weird, don’t you think?”

“What’s weird?” Jack asked, pulling his thoughts from the past back to the murder scene at hand.

“You know, that woman claiming to have had a vision of a man being murdered in a car and then a stiff meeting her description turning up dead in a car just like she said.”

Jack shrugged. “I guess so. Strange things happen sometimes.”

“Come on, Jackson. Don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind that the woman knocked the guy off and then came into the station and fed Sarge that line of bull about having some kind of vision to cover her ass.”

While Leon’s comments made perfect sense, the idea of the sad-eyed girl he remembered killing anyone didn’t set well with him. “It’s a possibility,” he conceded. “But if she did kill the man, it seems the smart thing would have been to just keep quiet.”

“Like I said,” Leon began as they headed down the street toward the car. “Maybe she did it to take suspicion off herself.”

“Or maybe she really did see him get offed,” Jack offered.

“Don’t tell me you believe in this psychic shit.”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind,” Jack informed his partner.

They both stopped on the corner, waiting for traffic. “Then try opening your mind to the possibility that the lady might have killed the vic, decided to make up all that crap about a vision to cover her tracks, and to drum up some business for herself at the same time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this so-called psychic stuff. Come on, man. You’ve seen how many of them are lined up around the Square. Imagine how many people would be flocking to this Santos woman if word got out she’d predicted a murder.”

“She’s not one of those scam artists,” Jack defended as they crossed the street.

“Hang on a second,” Leon said, catching his arm and stopping them both in the middle of the block. “You telling me you’re buying her story? That you think this Santos dame really did have some kind of vision?”

“I’m not saying any such thing.” Jack jerked his arm free and resumed walking. “All I know is that we’ve got a dead body and a witness who says she saw the murder.”

“In a vision,” Leon reminded him.

“Vision or not, right now she’s the only lead we’ve got,” Jack told him as he unlocked the car. “So I say, let’s go interview our witness.”

But interviewing their witness proved more difficult than he’d anticipated, Jack conceded later that afternoon. The lady had been out when they’d arrived at the Regent Hotel and had yet to return. Not that he and Leon hadn’t been busy. They had. In between calls to the hotel, they had spent the better part of the day chasing down leads in the murder investigation. And so far, they’d come up empty. He told himself it was the reason he was more determined than ever to nail down the interview with Kelly Santos. He hit the redial button on his cell phone.

“Good afternoon, the Regent Hotel.”

“Has Ms. Kelly Santos returned to the hotel yet?” Jack asked.

“One moment, sir,” the operator said. Seconds later, she came back on the line. “Yes, sir. She has. Would you like me to ring her room for you?”

“No, thanks,” Jack said, and ended the call.

“She still out?” Leon asked, some of the frustration they were both feeling echoing in his voice.

“Nope. She’s back,” he told Leon, and they both climbed back into the car. He started the engine.

Fifteen minutes later, he and Leon entered the hotel lobby and approached the front desk. “Good afternoon. I’m Detective Callaghan. This is my partner, Detective Jerevicious. We need to know what room Ms. Kelly Santos is staying in.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give out that information. But if you’d care to use one of the house phones over there…” she began, indicating the row of phones on the far wall. “The operator can connect you to Ms. Santos’s room and she can give you her room number.”

As discreetly as he could, Jack showed the woman his badge and her friendly smile faded. “Actually, it wasn’t a request. We need to ask Ms. Santos some questions and would prefer not to announce ourselves. So if you’d just give me that room number, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Officer. Detective,” she amended. “But I’ll need to get my supervisor.”

And after a brief chat with the clerk’s supervisor and Jack’s assurance that there was no problem with the hotel’s guest, Jack and Leon stood in front of Kelly’s hotel room door. Jack knocked on the door and it was opened almost immediately.

“Yes?”

For a moment, Jack thought he’d made a mistake. The woman who stood before him bore little resemblance to the scrawny teenage Kelly Santos whom he’d rescued a decade ago. The ivory sweater and coffee-colored skirt she wore skimmed along enticing female curves. Her hair was still blond, but instead of hanging like a curtain behind which the young Kelly had hidden, this woman’s hair was styled in layers that fell to her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and perfect, her cheekbones high and the unsmiling mouth too wide for her narrow face. Then Jack looked into her eyes. There was no mistaking those eyes. Big haunting brown eyes that had seemed too old for a young girl’s face. Wary eyes filled with secrets. She was the Kelly Santos from his past. And for the space of a heartbeat, he waited, wondering if she would remember him. But if she did, she gave no indication.

“Ms. Santos? Ms. Kelly Santos?” Leon asked, stepping forward to break the silence.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Napoleon Jerevicious with the New Orleans Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Callaghan. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

A look of utter hopelessness flickered across her features. “You found him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Him?” Leon prompted, and Jack didn’t miss the suspicious note in his partner’s voice.

“The man in the car. The one I saw get shot. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Jack said. “And we need to ask you some questions.” When a door opened down the hall and the woman who exited cast a curious glance their way, he suggested, “It might be better if we came inside where it’s more private.”

“Yes, of course,” she replied politely, and opened the door wider, allowing them to enter. Once they were in the room, Kelly directed them to the sitting area. “Please, sit down.”

Leon opted for the small sofa, his large frame taking up most of the space, while Jack chose one of the two armchairs that had been grouped with the sofa around a coffee table.

“There’s probably some soda or wine in the minibar. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Jack said, not bothering to point out that they were on duty.

“Nothing for me, either, ma’am,” Leon replied.

“All right.” Kelly took a seat in the other chair and clasped her hands together. “You said you had some questions for me.”

“We need to go over a few details in the statement you gave to Sergeant Russo last night,” Jack began. For a moment, he debated reminding her that they had met before, but decided against it. Best to keep things professional, he reasoned.

They went over the details of her statement again and Kelly related the events of the evening—picking up the newspaper, having a vision of the man in the car with the woman in black, of that woman removing a gun from her bag and shooting him. And given Kelly’s stricken expression as she related the incident for them, Jack concluded that whether she’d had a vision of the killing or had seen the thing firsthand, the experience had been real for her.

“And you have no idea who the victim or the alleged woman with the gun were?” Leon asked.

“None at all.”

“You have to admit it seems kind of strange that you should know every detail about the man’s murder, but not know who he or his killer was.”

“Believe me, Detective, I’m aware of how strange it sounds. But it’s the truth. I’ve never laid eyes on either of them before I picked up that newspaper in the café. And even then, I didn’t see them in the traditional sense.”

“What about a description of the woman?” Jack asked. “Can you tell us what she looked like?”

Kelly shifted her somber brown eyes to his face. “I’m afraid it was dark inside the car and she was wearing some kind of cloak with a hood that shadowed her face. I never got a clear look at her. Only of her gloved hand reaching for the gun, then pulling the trigger.”

“You said she called the man ‘Doctor,”’ Jack pointed out, approaching it from a different slant. “Do you think you’d be able to recognize her voice if you heard it again?”

Kelly paused, seeming to consider his question for a moment. “I doubt it. She spoke very softly, almost a whisper. And the man, well he was breathing kind of hard, like he was winded or maybe had asthma or something. Plus with the street noise and music, she could be sitting across the table talking to me right now and I don’t know that I’d recognize her voice.”

“What about—”

Leon’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, and answered the phone. “Jerevicious. Yeah? Hang on a second.” He stood. “I’m going to need to take this call.”

“If you want some privacy, you’re welcome to go into the bedroom,” Kelly offered.

“Thanks,” he told her, and disappeared into the adjoining room.

When they were alone, Kelly said, “I see you decided to follow your dream after all.”

“I didn’t think you remembered me,” Jack told her, unable to mask his surprise.

Kelly gave him a slow smile. “I was an impressionable teenager the last time I saw you. It’s not likely that I’d forget the man who saved my most valuable possession.”

Jack swallowed, taken aback by her candor. He also worried that the event had traumatized her more than he’d ever suspected. “Actually, I don’t think those punks would have really done anything to you. At heart, they were cowards who got their kicks out of scaring young girls. I doubt they’d have taken things any further.”

The smile turned into a chuckle. “I wasn’t referring to my virtue, Detective Callaghan. I was talking about my camera. I’d worked after school and on weekends for six months to buy it. It was my most valuable possession.”

Jack flushed, felt like an idiot for overreacting.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t resist,” she said, stifling a grin. “From your expression, it was obvious that you were worried I’d been permanently scarred by that incident in the park. I wasn’t.”

“You could have been.”

The smile faded from her lips. “Trust me, Detective. Benny Farrell and Reed Parker weren’t the first ones to think that, because no one else wanted me, I was fair game for them to do whatever they pleased to me. I never lost any sleep because of them. I’m tougher than that.”

Because she had had to be. Admiration and anger ripped at him as he thought of what her life must have been like. “I’m sorry. I never really thought about what it was like for you growing up at St. Ann’s.”

“There was no reason for you to,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “You come from a close-knit family, but I don’t. That’s not anyone’s fault. It’s simply the way things are. It’s certainly not something you should feel guilty about.”

“I don’t. I’m just sorry that your life was so tough.”

“Don’t be,” she informed him, her voice turning chilly. She stood, crossed her arms. “I’ve done just fine for myself. So you can save your pity, Detective. I don’t need it or want it.”

Jack shot to his feet. “First off, the name’s Jack. Since we share some history, I think we can dispense with the formalities. Second, you can quit trying to put words in my mouth. I don’t feel guilty because you grew up without a family and I sure as hell don’t pity you. I admire you. I did back when you were a kid. And I do now because you obviously did make something of yourself.”

She opened her mouth then clamped it shut, as though his remark had taken the wind out of her sails. After a moment, she whooshed out a breath. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say with all the enthusiasm of someone who’d just been poked with a needle.

Jack chuckled. “I get the feeling that you don’t do that often. Apologize,” he explained.

“I don’t.”

“Don’t make many mistakes, huh?”

“Hardly,” she said. “I make tons of them. But I try not to do or say things that I’ll regret.”

“Guess that explains why you look as though chewing a bucket of nails would have been preferable to telling me you’re sorry,” he teased.

Streaks of color raced up her pale cheeks. “It would have,” she admitted. “I guess I’m a little sensitive about my heritage. Or lack thereof.”

“A little sensitive?” he prompted, hoping to get her to smile at him again.

“All right. A lot sensitive,” she conceded, and rewarded him with a hint of that smile he’d wanted. “Anyway, I really am sorry for—”

“Jackson, we’ve got to roll,” Leon said, exiting the other room.

The homicide detective in him took charge. “What’s up?”

Leon looked from him to Kelly and back again. “The vic’s wallet turned up. We’ve got an ID on the man.”

“Who was he?” Kelly asked. When Leon hesitated, she said, “Please, I’d like to know. ‘Seeing’ things like I do—it makes me feel somehow connected to the persons involved.”

Leon glanced at him again and Jack nodded. “His name was Martin Gilbert. He was from Pass Christian, Mississippi.” Leon paused a moment. “And until five years ago, he was a doctor.”

“What happened five years ago?” Kelly asked.

“His license was revoked for performing illegal abortions on minors.”




Four


“Please have a seat, Ms. Santos,” the receptionist at the law firm of Callaghan and Associates told Kelly as she was ushered into an office to wait for Peter Callaghan late Monday morning. “Can I offer you anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Very well. Mr. Callaghan will be with you shortly,” the young woman said, and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

Still unsettled by her encounter with Jack the previous day and the disturbing vision that had led to it, Kelly looked at her watch. She felt as though she’d been in New Orleans for weeks instead of just a few days. Eager to put those days behind her as quickly as possible so she could return to New York, she stared at her watch. And she waited. When several minutes ticked by and Peter Callaghan still hadn’t made an appearance, she tapped her foot, growing more restless by the second.

Patience was not one of her virtues, she admitted. The fact that she was being forced to wait in a lawyer’s office only added to her discomfort. One of those psychological hang-ups from her childhood, she guessed. All she knew was that Peter Callaghan’s office made her think about those countless offices she’d been in and out of as a kid. Social workers, child psychologists and various state agencies—all insisting on regular evaluations of her. Granted, Peter Callaghan’s office was a far cry from the cramped, dreary bureaucratic offices she’d been sent to as a child. But there was still something about the scent of all those law books, about seeing them lined up on the shelves along with the legal documents hanging on the walls, that triggered her old feelings of being trapped and helpless. Just as she’d felt trapped and helpless all those years ago as she’d been shuffled through the state and legal systems.

But you’re not a child anymore. They no longer have any power over you.

Kelly drew in a steadying breath, released it. She wasn’t a child anymore. Nor was she trapped in the system, she reminded herself, echoing the voice in her head. She was the one in control of her life now—not some judge who saw only another unwanted child dependent upon the juvenile system. She didn’t have to shift in and out of a string of foster homes and St. Ann’s any longer. She didn’t have to subject herself to any court-appointed psychologist. Nor did she have to allow anyone to poke around in her mind, asking her a bunch of stupid questions and then diagnosing her as a troubled girl who made up stories about visions to get attention.

What am I doing? Why am I even thinking about all of this stuff now?

Because she was back in New Orleans.

Coming back had triggered all those unpleasant memories that she’d left the city in order to escape. And just as soon as she finished her meeting with Peter Callaghan and collected the items that Sister Grace had left her, she’d escape again, she promised herself. She’d take the first flight back to New York and forget all about the past and the last few awful days.

Too restless to sit, Kelly stood and began to wander about the room. It really was a beautiful room, she realized, noting the expensive drapes, the plush rug with an inlaid pattern, the artwork. She paused to admire a group of Calder prints that adorned one wall and the marble sculpture that sat on a stand in the corner. Moving over to the credenza she found herself studying the array of framed photographs. There was one of Peter Callaghan with a beautiful brunette woman taken in a garden lush with spring blooms. Another shot featured the elder Mr. Callaghan with a smiling Peter dressed in his graduation cap and gown, holding up his law school diploma. She moved to the next photograph, which depicted the entire Callaghan family—Mr. and Mrs. Callaghan, Peter, his sister, Meredith, and Jack.

Given how young Meredith looked in the picture, Kelly suspected it had been taken more than a decade ago, probably back when she and Meredith were still in high school together. There was something warm and moving about the picture of them as a family unit, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to share such a family bond—to look at another person and see a resemblance of yourself in them, of them in you. To know that you belonged.

After hesitating a moment, she picked up the photograph for a closer look. There wasn’t an ugly one in the bunch. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, they had toothpaste perfect white smiles and elegant bone structure. Every one of them was gorgeous. But Jack, she mused as she traced her fingertip along his face, Jack seemed to have been blessed with an extra dollop of everything. An extra inch or so in height over his father’s and brother’s six-foot frames. His hair was a darker shade of blond, his eyes a deeper blue. Even his smile was a fraction wider, a touch brighter.

“Ms. Santos, please forgive me for keeping you waiting,” Peter Callaghan said as he hurried into the room. “I’m afraid I got tied up in court,” he told her as he dumped his briefcase next to his desk and strode over to her with his hand extended. “I’m Peter Callaghan.”

Kelly quickly returned the photograph to the credenza and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Callaghan.”

Surprise flickered in his blue eyes. He arched his brow a fraction. “We’ve met before?”

“A long time ago and only briefly. I’m not surprised that you don’t remember,” she said, and already wished she had never mentioned it.

“Well, I am. I can’t imagine how I’d forget someone as lovely as you. Tell me, was I temporarily blind?”

“No,” she said with a chuckle. Another charmer. Just like his brother, she thought, and she couldn’t help wondering if it was part of the Callaghan’s genetic makeup, since even Meredith, whom she’d always considered a bit self-centered, could be charming when she chose to be. “It was more than ten years ago and I wasn’t all that memorable.”

“Now, that I don’t believe.”

“Trust me, it’s true.” While her looks had changed little over the years, her fashion sense had. And if she was at all memorable now it was due in large measure to her learning how to select the right clothes and making sure she wore the clothes instead of vice versa. That alone had been one of the nicer perks about the business of selling beauty, she thought.

“Now you’ve got me curious. Where was it that we met?”

“At your sister Meredith’s high school graduation. I was the scrawny girl with stringy blond hair who gave the valedictory address. Afterward, you were kind enough to compliment me on my speech and wished me good luck. As I said, I wasn’t particularly memorable.”

“But you were,” Peter insisted. “And I do remember you now, and the speech you gave. About ending one journey and beginning another, and about family and heritage. I especially remember you saying that genetics determined a person’s looks and even the number of brain cells, but it didn’t determine who a person was or who they would become. You challenged your classmates to become the person they wanted to be, to forge the future they wanted for themselves.”

Kelly flushed, both embarrassed and pleased that he could recall the heart of her speech. “You have a very good memory, Mr. Callaghan.”

“Please, it’s Peter,” he said with a smile. “And in order for me to be a good attorney, I have to have a good memory. But that’s not why I remembered your speech. I remembered it because I thought your remarks were quite profound for someone so young.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He nodded. “I assume from the fact that you’re working in New York that you followed your own advice. I understand from your conversation with my assistant that you’re a photographer now.”

“That’s right. Mostly magazine layouts, some print work and occasionally some portraits. I have to travel a lot and only returned from Europe a couple of days ago. It’s the reason you weren’t able to reach me,” she said, still regretting that she hadn’t been there for Sister Grace.

“It sounds like an exciting job.”

“I enjoy it and it pays the bills.” And it also kept her too busy to dwell on the fact that she had little in the way of a personal life. But then, after the disastrous mistake she’d made with Garrett, she hadn’t exactly opened herself to the possibility of a new relationship because she hadn’t trusted her judgment.

“I see you’ve been checking out my family’s rogues’ gallery.”

“A professional drawback,” she said, shoving thoughts about Garrett aside. “I find it hard to pass a photo without checking it out. This one of your family is very nice.”

“Thanks. It’s one of my favorites. And judging by how young we all look here, we’re long past due for another family portrait.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, looking from him to the photograph and back again. “It doesn’t look to me like you or Jack have changed all that much.”

“You’ve seen my brother recently?”

“Yesterday,” she told him, then wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Deciding she should explain, she continued, “I was a witness in a police matter and he was the detective assigned to the case.”

“Jack’s a homicide detective,” Peter pointed out.

“Yes, I know. I saw a man get shot.”

Peter winced. “Talk about an unpleasant welcome home. I’m sorry, Kelly.”

He didn’t know the half of it, she thought. Eager to change the subject, she said, “This really is a nice picture. If you do decide to take another family portrait, I’d recommend using the same photographer.”

“All right, I can take a hint. I won’t pry.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful that he hadn’t pressed her.

“Unfortunately, the photographer who took that relocated to L.A. about five years ago. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in the job?”

“I appreciate the offer, but besides not having my equipment, I don’t expect to be here very long. You shouldn’t have problems finding someone else though. Even an amateur photographer would have an easy time of it, since you and your family are so photogenic.”

Peter groaned. “Whatever you do, don’t let Meredith hear you say that,” he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “A few years ago, she was on this kick to become a model and nearly drove all of us crazy.”

Kelly saw no point in informing him that she already knew about his sister’s modeling aspirations since Meredith had paid her a visit in New York, positive that Kelly had some inside track. Meredith had been a female steamroller, she recalled. And despite the fact that the two of them had been acquaintances and not friends, she had made a few phone calls on Meredith’s behalf. But after Meredith had landed a few print ads, she’d disappeared almost as quickly as she’d appeared. “Is she still modeling?”

“Not at the moment. She’s all wrapped up in opening a boutique in the French Quarter. But with Meredith, one can never be sure. She’s my sister and I love her, but the woman has had nearly as many careers as I’ve had cases.”

“Now, that I don’t believe,” Kelly informed him.

“All right. Maybe I’m exaggerating. But my sister has a short attention span. I’ll let her know you’re in town though, because I’m sure she’ll want to see you. Where are you staying?”

“The Regent Hotel.” But Kelly didn’t really expect Meredith to come by to see her. Why should she? The two of them may have attended the same school, but that was the only thing they’d had in common. Meredith’s family had been able to afford the private school tuition. Whereas, she had been there by means of a scholarship. But even without the monetary differences, her living situation and her ability to see things that others couldn’t had set her apart from Meredith and the rest of her classmates. She remembered all too well that on those few occasions when she’d let something slip, the other girls had been freaked out.

“I’ll make myself a note to give Meredith a call and tell her you’re here.”

“Actually, Peter, it’s probably not worth mentioning. I mean, I don’t expect to be here long. In fact, once we’re finished our business, I’ll be heading back to New York.”

“And if I let you leave without telling Meredith you’re in town, she’ll kill me,” he said as he put down his pen and stuck a sticky note to his phone. “Besides, if I know my sister, she’ll convince you to extend your visit for a day or two.”

She wouldn’t count on it, Kelly thought silently.

“But be forewarned. Meredith’s like a puppy with a bone where this boutique of hers is concerned. She’ll probably drive you nuts talking about it. I know I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about women’s fashions and accessories and marketing.”

“You don’t approve of her opening a boutique?” Kelly asked.

“I’m all for it—if that’s what Meredith wants and it makes her happy. It would be nice to have her stick around this time,” he said. “But then, that’s enough about my sister. I’m sure you want to get this business with Sister Grace’s will out of the way. So if you’ll have a seat, I’ll get a copy and go over the particulars with you.”

As surreal as it seemed to be chatting with Peter Callaghan like he was an old friend, the reminder of why she was in his office in the first place was sobering. Kelly sat down in the chair across from his desk. “I was surprised to learn that Sister Grace even had a will. I just assumed whatever she had would go to her order or to the church.”

“Most of it did. But Sister Grace came to my father a few years ago and asked him to draw up a will with some specific bequests. As you probably know, my parents were very fond of her,” Peter began. “And although I didn’t know her as well as they did, l did like her. I’m sure she’ll be missed by a great many people.”

“Yes, she will,” Kelly murmured. And she already missed the nun more than she’d ever dreamed she would miss anyone.

“The terms of her will are pretty straightforward. Sister Grace had very little in the way of assets. She left directions that any personal savings she had at the time of her death be given to the Catholic church and earmarked for use in the education of children.”

Which is what she would have expected of Sister Grace, since the nun had put a great deal of stock in the importance of education. She’d called it the great equalizer.

“With the exception of a few items that she left to other nuns in her order, Sister Grace left the remainder of her personal possessions to you. I’m afraid their value is more of a sentimental nature than a monetary one.”

“I understand.”

Peter opened the file folder on his desk and pulled out an official-looking document. “I’ll dispense with reading the entire will and just skip to the part that pertains to your bequests, if that’s all right with you.”

“That’s fine,” she told him.

“To my former student and beloved friend, Kelly Santos, I leave my rosary given to me by my own mother when I took my vows. I also leave to her my watercolor titled Serenity, which has brought me much pleasure…”

As though in a daze, Kelly sat in silence while Peter read from the will. The pain and emptiness she’d felt upon learning of Sister Grace’s death washed over her anew. Only years of learning to discipline her emotions stopped her from blubbering like a baby in front of the attorney.

“…Finally, I leave to Kelly Santos all my correspondence and journals to do with as she wishes. It is my hope that she will remember me with fondness when she reads them and that through my words she will someday discover the bonds of family that she so richly deserves.” Peter put down the document and looked across the desk at her. “You were obviously very special to her.”

“She was very special to me, too,” Kelly told him.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Kelly.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Kelly nodded.

“We have the items she mentioned here and can turn them over to you now if you wish. Or if you’d prefer, I can arrange to have everything shipped to you in New York.”

Kelly swallowed past the lump of emotion in her throat. “I’d like to have the rosary now. And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d appreciate it if you would just ship the rest of the items to me in New York. I’ll reimburse you for any shipping charges involved.”

“I’ll see to it.” He buzzed his assistant, gave her instructions about the shipping and had the rosary brought to his office. “May I?” he asked, indicating the plain satin pouch that contained the rosary.

“Of course.”

Peter opened the pouch and emptied the prayer beads into his palm. The clear crystal beads and pewter crucifix glimmered beneath the light of the desk lamp. “Very pretty.”

Kelly thought of all the times she’d seen Sister Grace fingering the beads of that rosary. And when Peter started to return it to the pouch, she said, “Please, I’d like to see it.”

Peter dropped the rosary into her open palm.

Kelly closed her fingers around the beads. And without warning, the world seemed to spin out from beneath her. Suddenly she was no longer sitting in Peter’s law office. Instead, she was in an empty church—no, a chapel—she realized as she looked around at her surroundings.

And then she saw Sister Grace. Kelly’s heart stopped as she realized the rosary had connected her to the nun. And there was Sister Grace, kneeling in the pew, her head bowed and her rosary beads in her hands.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst all women, and blessed art—” Sister Grace stopped mid-prayer and started to turn around.

“No! Don’t turn around, Sister,” a woman’s voice said from behind her.

A flicker of anger raced through her blood. “What are you doing here?” the nun demanded.

“This is a church, Sister. I thought everyone was welcome.”

“This is a chapel and the evening services are over,” the nun countered. “What do you want?”

“Maybe I want to pray. Since God has seen fit to throw this nasty little surprise at me and mess up my life, I thought maybe if I prayed real hard, He’d make the problem go away. What do you think, Sister? Will God listen to my prayers?”

“God hears all of our prayers.”

“Ah, but the question is does He answer them?”

“He answers them. But the answer isn’t necessarily the one we want,” Sister Grace replied.

“I guess that means you haven’t changed your mind about giving me her name.”

“I’ve told you, your information is wrong. I can’t help you.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. And since I can’t risk having you warn her about me, I’m afraid I have no choice but to make sure that you keep quiet.”

And before Sister Grace could move, the woman plunged a needle into her neck.

“Kelly? Kelly, are you all right?”

Kelly dropped the rosary. She felt the world spinning beneath her once more. And then someone was gripping her by the shoulders, calling her name. She blinked, tried to regain her balance. Finally when she was able to focus, she saw Peter standing in front of her, a worried expression on his face.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” he informed her. He picked up the rosary, returned it to the pouch and handed it to her. “You want to tell me what happened just now?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, unsure of what she had said, what she had done.

“One minute you were holding that rosary and the next minute you seemed to…to zone out.

“I can’t explain it. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” After stuffing the pouch with the rosary into her bag she stood, eager to leave. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“Kelly, are you sure you’re all right? You’re as white as a ghost.”

“I’m okay. Really,” she assured him. “Thank you for everything, Peter,” she said, and after shaking his hand, she raced out of the office.

Once she stepped outside into the cool November air, Kelly attempted to hail a taxi while she digested what she had just learned.

Sister Grace hadn’t died of a heart attack. Someone had murdered her.

Anger churned in Kelly’s stomach as she recalled the nun’s last moments and her fear. Somehow, some way, she had to find out who was responsible. She owed Sister Grace that much.




Five


After being briefed that no arrest had yet been made in connection with the city’s latest murder victim, and the police department’s only lead was a self-proclaimed psychic, District Attorney Alexander Kusak sighed as he climbed the steps of City Hall. Just what he needed, he thought and wondered for the thousandth time what had ever possessed him to take this job.

But he already knew the answer. Tom Callaghan had been the reason. The man had taken the badass punk, with a chip on his shoulder, under his wing. Mr. Callaghan had made him believe he could be someone who could make a difference. And most of the time, he admitted, he felt that he did make a difference. He just wished that taking the job hadn’t come with the price of his privacy and, in particular, revealing his past. A past that included having a drunk and a whore for parents. Although he’d made something of himself and his life that he was proud of, having all that garbage dug up during the campaign last year had opened old wounds. It had also caused him to see himself through other’s eyes—through Meredith’s eyes. He hadn’t liked what he’d seen. It was the reason he had pushed Meredith away. And she’d done what he’d expected—she’d run off. Again. Only now she’d come back and was making noises like she intended to stay.

Alex started down the nearly deserted hallway toward his office. And when he stepped through the doors and spied all the empty desks, he headed for Edna’s station. “Where is everybody, Eddie?”

Edna Boudreaux, the stalwart office manager he’d inherited when he’d taken the office last year, glanced up from the reports on her desk. The woman did a hell of a job. She’d run the office for the retired D.A. for more than twenty years. Alex had been only too happy to keep her on since she knew anyone and everyone, and could cut through bureaucratic red tape faster than a hot knife through butter. He’d also never met a more dedicated employee. But damn if he didn’t feel like a punk running from the law again whenever she looked up at him with that “what have you been up to” expression on her face.

The way she was looking at him now.

“It’s lunchtime, Mr. Kusak. They’re at lunch. As am I,” she advised him, referring to the sandwich and pickle slices that sat next to the reports. “And I really do wish you would dispense with that ridiculous nickname. My name is Edna or Mrs. Boudreaux. Not Eddie.”

Alex sat on the corner of her desk, helped himself to one of her pickle slices. “Come on, Eddie. Didn’t the late Mr. Boudreaux ever call you anything but Edna?”

She waited a moment, then said, “He called me Buttercup.”

Alex bit back a grin. With her tidy bun, granny glasses and prim suits, he couldn’t imagine Mrs. Boudreaux as anyone’s Buttercup. “I think I like Eddie better.”

“So you’ve said, Mr. Kusak.”

Alex sighed. Even after working side by side for nearly a year, the lady refused to call him by his first name. As she’d informed him when he’d first suggested she do so, she’d never called the former D.A. anything but “Mr. Newman” in the entire twenty years she’d worked for him. She saw no reason to resort to any such familiarity now. And though he doubted she’d admit it, he had a feeling he was growing on her. “You know, Eddie, one of these days you’re going to slip and call me ‘Alex,’ and when that happens our secret’s going to be out.”

“And what secret would that be, Mr. Kusak?”

“Why that we’re madly in love with each other.”

“If you’re finished talking nonsense, why don’t you tell me what it is you wanted.”

Alex flashed her a grin. “I need to get a brief typed,” he began, and proceeded to explain what was needed. As he spoke, he loosened his tie. Despite eight years in the D.A.’s office, first as an assistant and now as the district attorney, he still hated wearing the things. He might have come a long way from his days on the opposite side of the law, but he’d never gotten used to being trussed up like a turkey with a scrap of cloth choking him. “Do you think you can get it finished for me to take to court in say, forty minutes?”

Mrs. Boudreaux lifted her gaze from his mangled tie and Alex didn’t miss the disapproving set of her mouth. Although she said nothing, he was sure she was comparing him to his predecessor, who’d been a dapper dresser known for his bow ties. “I’ll have it ready.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Eddie. I could kiss you.”

“I’d suggest you save your kisses for the young lady in your office,” she told him dryly.

“Does the lady have a name?”

“Miss Callaghan,” she informed him.

His body went on full alert at the mention of Meredith’s name. She’d been driving him crazy from the time she’d been in a training bra and he’d been a juvenile delinquent on a fast track to trouble. “Did she say, uh, what she wanted?”

“Since she doesn’t know that I saw her sneak in there while I was getting my sandwich from the kitchen, I didn’t bother to ask.”

“You going soft on me, Eddie?”

She shrugged. “The girl looked so pleased with herself because she thought she’d gotten by me that I didn’t have the heart to ruin it for her.”

“Well, what do you know? You are a buttercup after all.”

She straightened her shoulders, gave him that prim look, but Alex thought he saw a bit more color in her cheeks. “Mr. Kusak, if you expect me to get this brief typed, I suggest you let me get to it.”

Alex eased off the edge of her desk and started for his office.

“Oh and one more thing, Mr. Kusak.”

“Yes?”

“You might want to suggest to Miss Callaghan that the next time she wants to get by someone unnoticed that she’d be wise to leave the red trench coat at home.”

“I’ll do that,” Alex told her, and opened the door to his office. He stepped inside. And there she was—sitting behind his desk wearing that scarlet-red trench coat and a pair of killer black heels that she had propped up on his desk.

“Hello, Mr. District Attorney.”

“Hello, Meredith,” he said with a calmness he was far from feeling. Some men had a weakness for booze. Others for drugs or gambling or even sex. For him, his weakness had always been Meredith Callaghan. She was like a fever in his blood, impossible to cure and equally fatal. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

She gave him a pout and tossed her strawberry-blond hair so that it fell across her shoulders. “I didn’t realize I needed a reason to visit an old friend.”

They’d been a great deal more than friends and therein lay the problem, Alex thought as he felt his body responding to her already. “I don’t have time to chitchat now. I’m due back in court in less than an hour.”

“I didn’t come by to chitchat,” she sniffed. “I came by to remind you about my mother’s birthday dinner tonight. She’s expecting you.”

“Jack already reminded me. I’ll be there.”

“Good,” she said, giving him another one of those slow smiles that tied him up in knots.

When she made no attempt to leave, he said, “Now that you’ve delivered the message, I’d appreciate it if you’d get your feet off my desk and your pretty little rear end out of my chair. I need to get back to work.”

She beamed at him. “You think my rear end’s pretty?”

“I think the coat’s pretty.”

“You should see what I have on underneath it.”

Alex bit back a groan, because he knew every damn inch of her body. “No thanks.” He managed the words out of a throat that had gone dry with lust. “Now, move it.”

“Not until you tell me why you haven’t returned any of my calls. I’ve left you at least a dozen messages over the past two weeks.” She’d actually left only three, but he didn’t bother correcting her. “And that Simon Legree secretary of yours keeps telling me you’re unavailable.”

“Because I’m not available. I’m busy,” he told her, and began thumbing through the mail stacked in his “in” box.

“Bull! You’ve been avoiding me, Alex Kusak, and you know it.” She swung her legs off of the desk and came to her feet. “I’ve been back in town for three months now and we haven’t been alone together for five minutes.”

“With good reason,” he admitted. Giving up any pretense of reading the mail, he dumped the envelopes back into the tray. “You and I both know what happens whenever we’re alone together.”

She came over to him, draped her arms around his neck, and looking up at him out of those big green eyes, she whispered against his lips, “I know what I want to happen.”

Alex could feel himself growing hard as she pressed herself against him. He breathed in her scent, something wild and exotic like her. He wanted her so bad he ached. It had always been that way with Meredith—ever since that first time on her eighteenth birthday. Even now, he couldn’t believe he’d fallen for the lame story she’d given him that night about having a problem and needing to talk to him. He’d left the society bash inside her parents’ home and gone with her to the gazebo to talk. And then she’d told him the problem—that the one thing she wanted for her birthday only he could give her. She’d wanted him to make love to her. It was wrong. He’d known it was wrong. But he’d found her impossible to resist. They’d been off-and-on lovers for years, and because they hadn’t wanted to freak out family and friends, they’d kept the secret between them. She’d matched him sexually in every way, and since neither of them had been looking for a long-term commitment, the relationship had suited them both just fine.

And then a couple of years ago, something had changed. He still wasn’t sure if it was he or Meredith. Whatever there was between them had become more than friendship, more than just good sex. He cared about her, maybe too much.

“Want me to tell you what I’d like to do?” she whispered in his ear. She nipped his lobe with her teeth.

Alex felt himself weaken. Then he remembered the way Meredith had looked at him when all that sordid stuff about his parents had come out during the campaign. There had been pain in her eyes. Pain and shame. For him? For herself? It didn’t matter, he told himself. He had no intention of starting things up again—no matter how tempted he was. With a strength he hadn’t known he possessed, he caught her wrists and pulled them away from his neck. “It isn’t going to happen, Meredith.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Because I said no.”

Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “Is there someone else?”

“What if I said there was?”

Temper flared in her green eyes, turning them nearly black. She grabbed his tie, yanked his face close to hers. “Who is she?” When he didn’t answer, she repeated, “Who is she, Alex Kusak? Is it that little witch Alicia Van Owen? Has she been trying to sink her claws into you now?”

“Alicia?” he responded, surprised at the mention of the woman who’d been dating his best friend. “I thought she was dating your brother.”

“Jack dumped her.”

“You sure about that?” He uncurled Meredith’s fingers and attempted to smooth his tie. “When I saw Jack at the courthouse earlier, he told me that Alicia would be at the dinner party for your mother tonight.”

“That’s because she and my mother refuse to get the message. Both of them are hearing wedding bells. Well, she isn’t going to marry my brother. I refuse to have that woman as my sister-in-law.”

“Ah, you don’t like her,” he said.

“No, I don’t like Little Miss Perfect.”

The truth was, he didn’t care for the woman, either. Maybe because beneath all that polish, he picked up her disapproval of him. She wouldn’t be the first person to think the likes of him had no business being friends with someone like Jack Callaghan. For reasons he’d never understood, Jack and his family had felt differently.

“So help me, Alex. If I find out you’re sleeping with that woman, I swear to God I’ll cut it off and throw it into the Mississippi River.”

Instinct had him lowering his hand to protect his manhood. “You shouldn’t go around threatening the D.A., Meredith.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a promise. I mean it, Alex,” she told him with all the passion with which she did everything. “If you’ve been stupid enough to let Alicia get her hooks into you, I’ll kill you both.”

Damn if she didn’t look adorable when she was mad, he thought. “Put away your weapons. Alicia’s not interested in me, and I’m not interested in her.” There was little chance he’d ever fall for an ice queen like Alicia Van Owen. How could he when Meredith Callaghan had been keeping him tied up in knots for years? “And before you start grilling me again, I’m not seeing anyone.”

Her face lit up and she gave him a sultry smile that made the temperature in the room shoot up ten degrees. Moving closer, she speared her fingers through his hair and gazed up at him. “Well, what do you know? Neither am I. So you see, there’s really no reason we can’t be together just like old times.”

“No,” he informed her.

Ignoring him, she murmured, “I’ve missed you so much, Alex. Have you missed me, too?”

“No.”

She pressed her body closer. When her knee nudged his erection, she laughed, that husky laugh that made a man think of hot sex and sin. “Liar.”

She was right. He was lying. But he forced himself not to respond to her.

She traced his lips with her tongue. “Are you going to deny that you want me?”

“No.” What would be the point in denying the obvious? he reasoned as he eased her away from him. “But I’m not going to do anything about it. I told you, Meredith, it’s over. Accept it.”

“I won’t accept it. We’re good together, Alex. You know we are.”

“The sex is good, but we’re not,” he said gently, the hurt in her eyes ripping at him.

“We could be.”

And for a short time, he’d almost convinced himself that they could be together. Then had come the campaign, the nasty publicity and slams at Meredith’s reputation, the shame and pain in her eyes. “You need to get on with your life. We both do. We’ll always be friends, but the rest of it…it’s over.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Suit yourself. But I’m not going to change my mind.”

Her expression hardened. A steely look came into her eyes. “You wanna bet?”

“Meredith—”

“I’ll see you tonight, Alex.” She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and slid her hand between their bodies.

“Meredith,” he warned, then ruined it by groaning as she stroked his shaft.

“Think of me,” she whispered against his lips, then dashed from the room in a whiff of perfume.

Alex leaned back against his desk. He had little choice but to think of her, he admitted. In fact, he’d be damn lucky if he’d be able to think of anything else.

Mary Ellen Callaghan stood in the dining room of her family’s home later that evening and surveyed the table. She’d ordered that it be set with her fine china, crystal and sterling silver for the small dinner party she’d orchestrated to celebrate her seventieth birthday.

Seventy!

Heavens, such a large number of years. Good years, happy years, even if the last two had been lonely without her beloved Tommy. Feeling melancholy at the thought of her departed husband, Mary Ellen pushed the sad thoughts aside and reminded herself that just last week at her annual physical Dr. St. Pierre had declared her to be in excellent health. The constitution of a woman ten years her junior, he’d said. And she certainly didn’t think she looked like a woman of seventy. Or at least she hoped that she didn’t. Except for a mini eye tuck at sixty, she hadn’t had any work done like so many of her friends. And she’d always taken good care of herself and her skin. Besides, she had no intention of joining her Tommy anytime soon—not when she still had so much that remained undone.

Returning her focus to the evening ahead, she studied the table. Her grandmother’s lace tablecloth had been the right choice, she decided, noting how the light from the chandelier picked out the delicate fleur-de-lis pattern. As she moved about the table inspecting the place settings, she straightened a silver spoon, adjusted one of the place cards. She caught the scent of the peach roses that she’d clipped from her garden that very afternoon and had arranged in Waterford vases. Satisfied all was ready, she smiled.

It was perfect. Elegant, tasteful. Perhaps even worthy of a page in Southern Living, she mused, pleased with the results of her handiwork. Trailing her fingers along the edge of the lace tablecloth, Mary Ellen marveled at its beauty. She sighed as she remembered when she’d inherited it from her grandmother as a young bride. Oh, she’d been so sure that she would have passed it on to her own daughter or to the wife of one of her sons by now. But neither Meredith nor Jackson had married. And Peter…poor Peter’s marriage had been brief and had ended tragically.

But soon all that would change, she promised herself. If all went as she hoped it would, she would get her birthday wish and it wouldn’t be long before she’d be helping to plan her son Jackson’s wedding. He and Alicia made a lovely couple, she thought. Since her little nudges hadn’t been working, she’d decided it was time she gave that boy of hers a little push. Surely Jackson would see, as she did, that Alicia was perfect for him. Once he did, he’d ask her to marry him. And then, God willing, the two of them wouldn’t waste any time making her a grandmother.

“There you are,” Jack said as he entered the room and walked over to her.

“Jackson, darling. I was just thinking about you.”

“Were you now? Good thoughts, I hope.”

“Yes.” And because she was Catholic, she couldn’t help thinking her son’s appearance now was a sign.

“Happy birthday, Mother,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

“Thank you, dear. But I do think this is a first. You’re early and you’re never early for parties.”

“That’s because it’s your birthday. Besides, you said this wasn’t going to be a party, just a simple dinner with family and a few friends.” He eyed the table suspiciously. “This doesn’t look like a simple dinner to me.”

“Of course it is. But we’re having cake and champagne, so that makes it a party, too,” she explained. She straightened his tie and couldn’t help thinking how much he looked like his father. “You looked so handsome at the charity ball on Halloween. And wasn’t Alicia just beautiful?”

“Yes, she was.”

Disturbed by the lack of enthusiasm in her son’s voice, Mary Ellen said, “She’s a lovely young woman, Jackson. She’s well-bred and talented. And smart, too. Why look how well she’s done for herself since she moved here. She picked up that Devereaux house for a song and turn it into a showplace. And according to Phyllis Ladner, Alicia’s already among the top real estates associates in her firm.”

“As you said, she’s talented and smart,” Jack replied with that same lack of conviction.

“It still amazes me that any daughter of Abigail Beaumont could be so sweet-natured,” Mary Ellen told him, referring to the former debutante she’d had the misfortune of calling a sorority sister at Vanderbilt. The other woman had been the coldest, most calculating female she’d ever met—and she had met quite a few in her seventy years. “I can only think that Alicia must have taken after her father. I only met him once or twice, but Charles Van Owen seemed like a nice man.” Suddenly ashamed of her uncharitable thoughts about Abigail she said, “Listen to me. You must think I’m a mean-spirited old biddy, speaking ill of a dead friend that way.”

“You couldn’t be mean-spirited if you tried,” her son informed her. He held her by the shoulders, pressed a kiss to the top of her head and looked at her out of eyes that reminded her so much of her Tommy’s. “And I certainly don’t think of you as old or a biddy.”

She patted his cheek. “You’re a charmer, just like your father was,” she told him, and sighed wistfully.

“You still miss him, don’t you?”

Mary Ellen nodded and attempted a smile. “We were married for more than forty years. I was lucky we had so long together. Not everyone is as lucky,” she pointed out, thinking of Peter’s short marriage and the death of his wife to melanoma. “When the right person comes along, waiting isn’t always the smart thing to do.”

“Mother,” Jack began.

Deciding to ignore that “don’t go there” note in his voice, she forged ahead. “I know that you’re too old to have your mother telling you what to do. And you certainly don’t need me to tell you how to run your love life.”

“No, I don’t,” he said firmly.

Taken aback by his bluntness, she said, “Fine. Then all I’m going to say is that Alicia Van Owen is a wonderful young woman who obviously cares a great deal for you. I don’t know what that little spat was the two of you had the other night, and I don’t want to know.”

“We didn’t have a spat, and I don’t want to discuss this.”

Irritated with him for being so stubborn, Mary Ellen poked a finger at his chest and gave him a quelling look. “We’re not discussing it. I’m simply telling you that whatever’s wrong, I suggest you fix it and fix it fast. Because if you keep dragging your feet and acting like a horse’s rear end the way you’ve been doing, some other man is going to come along and steal her right from under your nose.”

Her son said nothing, but judging by the way his mouth had tightened, he was none too pleased with her remarks. Too bad, Mary Ellen thought. But when a rap came at the door, she was grateful for the interruption.

“What?” Jack snapped.

Alexander Kusak stuck his head inside the door. “What’s your problem, Callaghan?”

“Oh Alexander, you came,” Mary Ellen cried out, genuinely pleased to see the young man who was practically a third son to her.

“Of course I came. Did you really think I would have missed your birthday?”

Pleasure washed through her. “You’re such a busy man these days and it’s been months since you’ve come to dinner. I was afraid you might not be able to get away tonight either.”





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