Submission
Tori Carrington
The French Quarter: when darkness falls, the games begin…The Game:SubmissionThe Players: Alan Chevalier, homicide detective. Molly Laraway, murder victim's twin.The Object of the Game: Give your lover all you've got…but take even more.When sexy Molly Laraway shows up asking about her dead sister's murder investigation, hardened detective Alan Chevalier tells her to go home and let him do his job. But with the oh-so-gorgeous lady saying she won't leave his side until he solves the case, he decides she could be useful to him–on the beat during the day, and in bed at night.Molly's no fool. She knows the tough-as-nails New Orleans detective spells trouble. But he's the only one who can track down the "Quarter Killer." Besides, something about this darkly attractive man makes her want a taste of danger. And she has no doubt that taste will only whet her appetite….
There were a few things a living, breathing male wasn’t equipped to resist…
And at the top of the list was a beautiful woman who smelled like sin and who wanted to be touched.
I swallowed thickly and slipped my hands from Molly’s lush hips to wrap them around her waist. She felt so good tucked against my body that I didn’t want the moment to end. My throbbing erection rested against her trembling stomach, making me want far more, but I restrained myself. Something I wasn’t used to doing.
I knew that if I wanted, I could have her. Walk her back to her hotel nearby and seduce my way into her bed. But some invisible force held me back. Her reaction a moment ago when she’d accidentally made contact with my police-issue firearm had shuddered through me as surely as if I was the one who’d had a cold bucket of reality dumped over my head.
I felt her hands move from where they were plastered against my back. Her fingertips worked their way under the hem of my shirt and touched my bare skin. I sucked in a breath.
“You’d better decide, Molly. Because in two seconds there won’t be a decision to make….”
Dear Reader,
When it comes to sequels, we all know that it’s hard to top the story that’s come before. But in this third and final installment in our DANGEROUS LIAISONS miniseries…well, let’s just say that our characters made our job easy, providing an explosive conclusion that pulls all three books together.
In Submission, darkly sexy homicide detective Alan Chevalier is at the end of his rope in both his career and his personal life. So far he’s arrested the wrong man, looked in all the wrong places, and the Quarter Killer seems to have singled him out for taunting. Facts that Molly, city outsider and the all-too-tempting twin sister of the first victim, won’t let him forget…in bed or out.
We hope you enjoy this journey through the minds and hearts of Alan and Molly. We’d love to hear what you think. Contact us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.net for fun drawings.
Here’s wishing you love, romance and hot reading.
Lori and Tony Karayianni
aka Tori Carrington
Submission
Tori Carrington
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bestselling, multi-award-winning duo Lori and Tony Karayianni have published over thirty novels under the pen name Tori Carrington. They are two-time finalists for the prestigious Romance Writers of America’s RITA
Award, and their personal motto is “Have laptop, will travel!” Look for the authors—and if you’re lucky, a tray of Tony’s Famous Baklava—at bookstores and conferences in your neck of the woods. For more info on Lori and Tony and their titles, visit them on the Web at www.toricarrington.net or write to them at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, Ohio 43612.
We dedicate this book wholeheartedly
to two people we encounter nearly every day—
postal workers Jeanne Murphy and Sandi Weaks.
You both make the mundane something
to look forward to. Thank you!
And to Brenda Chin’s boys, Kenai and Koda,
for inspiring a special “character” in this book.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
1
A SOUND AS GRATING AS A woman’s fingernails scratching against a chalkboard wrenched me from sleep. I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to ignore it. But like my ex-wife, it refused to go away.
I snaked a hand out from under the pillow, then dragged the telephone receiver to my ear. “What?”
“Detective Alan Chevalier, please.”
“That would be me.”
“Sir, we have a possible three-zero.” The dispatcher stated the address of the homicide.
I mumbled something that she must have taken as an okay because she hung up. On my end, it took three tries before I finally got the receiver back into the cradle. In one move I hauled the pillow from my face and sat up, then stared blearily at the closed shades drawn tight against the windows, the edges ablaze with the morning sunlight slamming against them. I squinted at the digital clock half turned away from me on the nightstand. Just after eight in the morning.
Damn.
I was late starting my normal weekday. Although the definition of normal was up for grabs.
Sometimes being a homicide detective in New Orleans’s Eighth Precinct, French Quarter, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Sometimes? Lately I’d come to view my job as a necessary evil. Necessary because, since I presently lacked the pleasure of a big-busted blonde to wake me up in the middle of the night, what else would I do with my time? Evil because lately I didn’t look much better than the victims of a killer who didn’t want to be found.
I stared at my morning erection, feeling part of yet separate from the organ that had gotten me into more trouble than it was worth. I covered it by putting on the slacks lying on the floor and then I moved into the bathroom on autopilot. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I wasn’t entirely certain what was to blame for the blurriness—the grimy mirror or the half bottle of bourbon I’d downed last night. I flicked on the light, winced at the ice pick it stuck into my skull, then switched it back off, relying on the bedside lamp in the other room to cast enough light for me to do what I had to. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much. A quick splash of water over a face that women called full of character but never handsome (although recently they hadn’t called it much of anything at all because women didn’t much factor into my life as of late): green eyes that were often mistaken for brown, sandy brown hair a month overdue for a cut and lines that may have once been laugh lines but were now just wear and tear.
I scraped my palm against the stubble on my jaw. I could get away with another day of not shaving. Anyway, a dead body waited. And while it wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, there would be others waiting for me to do my job so they could do theirs. And while my appearance wasn’t much of a priority for me, my job was. Simply because I wanted to keep it.
Shortly thereafter I walked down the two flights of stairs to the street and stood fighting against the bright morning sunlight to keep my eyes open. An interesting percentage of the Quarter’s denizens—and an even bigger chunk of visitors—liked to think of themselves as vampires. With my present aversion to sunlight, I could have been bitten by one last night.
But I knew the only thing I was cursed with was a wicked hangover.
I stepped toward my twelve-year-old navy blue Chevy Caprice, a solid car, if unsightly. A bit like me, I supposed.
Only this morning it bore a hood ornament I wasn’t used to seeing. Well, at least not without a price tag attached. And I was pretty sure that the attractive woman leaning against the front of my car wasn’t a streetwalker, if only because her clothes revealed she was from a place where autumn required a change in wardrobe. A wool suit in New Orleans in October would immediately peg anyone as an outsider. And this girl, no matter how hot, was definitely an outsider.
She spotted me when I took my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the driver’s-side door.
“Detective Chevalier?”
She knew me. Which usually meant bad news. A looker like this one, and I didn’t recognize her? Could mean one of two things: I’d met her when I’d had too much to drink or she was associated with someone else I’d met when I’d had too much to drink.
I squinted up into her face and my stomach pitched. Because I wasn’t only looking at an outsider; I was looking at a dead woman. Claire Laraway. My unsolved-murder victim from two weeks ago.
“Are you all right, Detective?” She blinked as if a thought had just occurred to her. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget how much my sister and I looked alike. I’m Molly Laraway, Claire’s twin sister. We’re fraternal, not identical, but we still always looked enough alike to…I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Startle me? Christ, she had me wondering if there was something to the upcoming Halloween celebration, one of the longest nights of the year in the city of the dead when it was believed that ghosts walked the earth.
“I was hoping I could talk to you,” she said.
The only thing that could be worse than confronting the ghost of a victim whose murder you hadn’t solved was dealing with the sibling of one.
I inserted the key into the car door and opened it. “Call the office.”
I climbed inside, but a cleverly positioned bag with sequins on it prevented me from closing the door. “I have called the office. Countless times. And I always get the same response—I’ll hear something when there’s something to hear.”
I grimaced, recognizing the words as my own.
It wasn’t that I was a cold person. It was just that in my job nearly every victim came with well-meaning relatives attached. Wives, husbands, children, friends. And they all thought the killing of their loved ones elevated them to detective status; at best, making themselves pests; at worst, hindering my investigation.
I stared at her bag and where it was still stuck in my door. I hadn’t meant to go farther than that, but I found my gaze taking in the fullness of her breasts beneath the brown wool of her jacket, the flare of her hips, the length of her legs—which looked great in heels not too high to be impractical but not too short to be sexy.
“Detective Chevalier, I need to know what’s going on in the investigation of my sister’s death. I want to help find her killer.”
I moved her bag out of the way. “Go home, Miss Laraway, and let me do my job.”
She replaced the bag with fingers I couldn’t exactly slam in the door. “From what I can see, you’re not doing that job very well.”
Now that would get her far. Pretty much as far as she’d gotten.
“Remove your hands from my vehicle, Miss Laraway, before I remove them for you.”
She stared at me as if gauging my willingness to do just that. She removed her fingers.
I closed the door and started the engine.
A knock at the window.
I pushed the button to open it a crack.
“Here,” she said, holding a card through the slit. “This is my contact information. I’m staying at the Ritz.”
I didn’t take the card.
She didn’t retract it.
“Detective Chevalier, I think it only fair to warn you that I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for the duration. However long it takes to find my sister’s killer.”
“Alan,” I said automatically.
I took the card.
She smiled at me.
I wished I hadn’t taken the card.
“I’d like to treat you to lunch today if you can spare the time,” she said.
“I’m busy.”
“Dinner, then.”
I thought of the two nickels I had in my pocket and grimaced.
“Coffee?”
“Look, Miss Laraway, I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by coming down here from…”
“Toledo.”
Was that even a real place? I thought it was something made up on TV. “The best way you can help is by letting me do my job.”
“How does coffee prevent you from doing your job?”
My hangover-dulled mind couldn’t produce a response to that.
She said, “Eleven o’clock, then. At Tujague’s in the French Quarter.”
Tujague’s happened to serve the best beef rémoulade in New Orleans, if not the whole of Louisiana. And it had been a while since I’d had it.
I knew I should refuse the invite. But damn if I could come up with a real good reason why.
“I’ll be there if I have the time.”
I put the car into gear and pulled away, looking into the rearview mirror at the woman with legs that went all the way up to her beautiful neck. I told myself she was nothing but trouble with a capital T.
But it had been a long time since I’d gotten myself into that kind of trouble. And so long as she wasn’t married to my superior, well, maybe this kind of trouble was just what I needed….
MOLLY LARAWAY STOOD staring after the departing Chevy, feeling frustrated and defeated and intrigued all at once. Detective Alan Chevalier was everything and nothing she’d imagined him to be. Oh, the cavalier attitude she’d expected, since she’d received as much from him on the phone. But there was something more about the rumpled man, something that niggled under her too-warm jacket and her damp skin. Something that made her itch more than the worsted wool did.
She glanced at her watch. She’d been in town since yesterday morning and, aside from coaxing the detective’s home address out of a desk sergeant at the Eighth Precinct with a few crisp bills and collecting her sister’s things from FBI agent Akela Brooks, she hadn’t accomplished a lot. Of course, what had she expected? To come down here and have Chevalier lay the case out on a table in front of her? To see a pattern in the evidence and immediately pinpoint the killer’s identity?
“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time, girl,” her mother had said last night when Molly had called her from the hotel to tell her where she was. “You always were a little too ambitious for your own good.”
She’d heard the sentence more times than she could count over her twenty-seven years, but she’d always taken it as a compliment. At least someone in their family was determined to do something with her life.
But last night she’d taken the comment as an insult.
Probably because she’d been in a strange room in a strange city, alone and without anything to occupy her but the box of Claire’s meager belongings.
She realized she was still standing on the street staring after a car that had long since left. She’d found herself in similar positions in the past two and a half weeks—being somewhere and forgetting why she was there and where she needed to go next. But right now, part of the reason was that she didn’t have anywhere to go next.
Her head jerked up, a chill running up the backs of her arms. She had the odd sensation that she was being watched. She scanned the windows of the houses and apartments squashed together on the narrow street. Not a face or a moving curtain among them.
She regained her bearings and turned around, going back the way she’d come, toward the spot where the taxi had let her off near the French Quarter.
Where should she go next?
It was said that twins shared a special connection, but she’d never really believed it. Claire had. She’d spent many a conversation trying to convince Molly that she knew how she felt, what she was thinking. But while Claire may have had some sort of insight into her thoughts and feelings, Molly had never understood the same of her sister. When they were younger, Claire had spent the majority of her time outdoors—usually with boys—while Molly had stayed indoors, taking care of the house while their mother worked or reading in the room she shared with her twin. When they were in high school, Claire had dated the football captain and had gone to all the “in” parties, while Molly had studied hard, graduating at the top of their class. She’d been offered scholarships at three different universities and had picked the one closest to home for practical reasons.
No, she’d never felt any sort of paranormal connection to her twin sister…until two and a half weeks ago.
Molly caught herself rubbing her neck. She’d known the instant Claire had died. Had felt the knife that had taken her twin’s life as surely as if the cold blade had been pressed against her own throat. Had experienced her sister’s horror, dread, then felt the life slipping from her body just as the blood had flowed from her wound.
Every minute of every day Molly felt her twin’s ghost haunting her, demanding that she find her killer.
And Molly intended to do exactly that. Either with or without Detective Chevalier’s help.
2
I PULLED THE OLD CHEVY to the curb outside Hotel Josephine in the old section of the French Quarter. The place had become familiar to me lately. Not because I’d ever stayed there but because just over two weeks ago another body had shown up in one of the rooms. A body that had looked remarkably like the woman I’d just left standing in the street outside my apartment.
I got out of the car, grabbed my hat from the front seat, then stood staring at the four-story structure not unlike countless others in the Quarter. It was probably at least two centuries old—and looked it.
A uniformed NOPD officer who’d arrived on the scene before me hiked up his pants as I approached the door.
“What do we got?” I asked.
“Thirty-C. Room 2B.”
Damn. The thirty indicated homicide. The C indicated homicide by cutting, which meant this victim might very well be connected to the one before.
The pretty hotel owner, Josie Villefranche, was standing near the front desk, her honey-colored skin looking pale. Not that I could blame her. I’d heard business had taken a nosedive after the first unsolved murder. Now that there was a second, Lord only knew how she’d manage to keep afloat.
“Miss Villefranche,” I said.
“Detective Chevalier.”
I knew she kept an illegal sawed-off shotgun behind the front desk, which probably explained why she was partial to standing near it at all times.
Since I couldn’t ask questions until I actually had them to ask, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. Another uniformed officer stood outside the door to 2B, guarding it.
“John,” I said, recognizing him.
“Alan.”
I stepped into the doorway and stared inside the room. And for the second time that day I saw a ghost. Because the victim stretched across the bed, her head hanging over the foot, was in the same position and had the same throat wound as Claire Laraway.
I’d never been one to buy into coincidence. If it looked like a crawfish, smelled like a crawfish and tasted like a crawfish…well, it was a goddamn crawfish.
I rubbed my closed eyelids and took a deep breath, then stepped farther into the room, pushing aside the similarities between the last victim and this one and instead focusing on the differences. Number one, I knew this victim. Her name was Frederique Arkart and she was a streetwalker, not a new resident to the city. Number two, she was African-American. I slowly crouched down, taking in the way her eyes seemed to stare at a point I couldn’t see. For all intents and purposes, she couldn’t see it, either, but it was apparent that she’d been looking at something—or rather someone—while her life was being taken away from her. I blindly reached for a rubber glove in the pocket of my trench coat and put it on my right hand. Number three, the wounds were different, I found as I lightly probed the victim’s neck. Laraway’s had been made with a sharp instrument, while the blade used here had been duller, making a sloppy job of it.
I took off the glove and sat crouched for long minutes, staring at the floor in front of me.
New Orleans ranked pretty high in the nation when it came to murder statistics. I knew this not because I read the papers but because I was kept busier than most other detectives in bigger cities. I’d seen more than my share of murders and had no fewer than a dozen actively open cases sitting on my desk at any one time, with a countless number of others that had been marked cold cases and filed away.
“Looks familiar.”
I craned my neck to look at the chief of forensics, Steven Chan, then stood up. “Yeah.”
“You think we’re dealing with the same killer?” He put his box down in a corner where it was least likely there would be any trace evidence.
“That’s your job, not mine.”
“Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that.”
He was right. Usually I would be telling him that it looked as though the wounds were different somehow. But I thought it was a good idea if I was a little more careful nowadays. I’d arrested the wrong man in the Laraway murder and didn’t want to be placed in that position again anytime soon. Especially considering that my career already hung by a very thin thread.
“Let me know what you come up with,” I said. “I’m going down to talk to the owner.”
MOLLY SAT AT A BACK table at Tujague’s and stared at her watch. It was a quarter after eleven and Detective Chevalier was late.
Either that or he’d never planned to come.
“Decide yet?” the young waiter asked.
“I’m waiting for someone,” she said again.
He smiled at her in a way that said he knew she was waiting but he’d approached her to see if she’d given up and decided to eat anyway.
She pulled a menu in front of her.
A cordially shouted greeting drew her attention toward the door. She was mildly surprised to find Alan Chevalier stepping inside, his overcoat as wrinkled as it had been earlier, holding his hat as he shook hands with the portly man behind the bar—apparently the issuer of the hearty welcome.
Molly was both glad and nervous that he’d decided to come. The mix of reactions intrigued her. His being there meant he might include her in the investigation, or at the very least keep her informed on his progress.
Her gaze mingled with his across the already crowded dining room and she swallowed hard, aware now, as she had been earlier, of the strange chemistry that seemed to exist between them.
His being there also meant that he might feel the same pull.
It took him a few moments to make it to the table. She expected him to take off his overcoat—her own wool jacket was on the back of her chair—but he didn’t. He merely sat back in his chair, staring at her silently, his arm stretched out so that the hand that held his hat lay on the table between them.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said quietly.
He didn’t say anything, almost as if he was as surprised to be there as she was to see him there.
Finally he leaned forward and placed his hat on the empty chair to his right. “Yes, well, this happens to be one of my favorite places. I might have been planning on coming here anyway.”
Molly had given up all pretense of reading the menu and looked him over instead. She’d noticed this morning that he’d looked a little ragged around the edges. It had been at least a day since he’d shaved, and he was in need of a haircut. His clothes…well, it looked as if he might have slept in them, the wrinkles and creases speaking of a man who was either too busy to make or uninterested in making an effort with his appearance.
Strangely this lack of concern for the way he looked appealed to her on a level she hadn’t been aware of until now. She usually went for the well-groomed types. Career-driven, gym-obsessed overachievers in pressed suits who carried expensive briefcases and drove cars that cost more than some houses.
But Alan Chevalier…
She realized she was staring and dropped her gaze to the white tablecloth.
“Has anything—” she began, then stopped, realizing the futile nature of her question.
“Happened in your sister’s case since I saw you a couple of hours ago?” He shook his head. “No.”
“Hello, Detective Chevalier. The usual?” the young waiter asked the man across from her.
“Yes,” he said. “And bring the same for the lady.” He considered her. “Unless you’re a vegetarian?”
Molly said that whatever he’d ordered was fine.
The waiter disappeared, leaving them alone again.
Well, alone really wasn’t the applicable word. The small restaurant was packed with other diners, despite the early hour. But as far as Molly was concerned, they could have been alone in the popular eatery.
“So, Miss Laraway, what is it that you do for a living?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You seem surprised.”
“Your career doesn’t impact me one way or another, Miss Laraway.” He shrugged. “Which branch of law?”
“Right now I’m assigned to business law at the firm where I work.”
“But you hope to…”
“Eventually move on to criminal law.”
He nodded, as if expecting the answer. “A defense attorney.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
He looked over her suit as if trying to put the pieces of her together. “Getting off the same people I bust my ass trying to put behind bars?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t have a problem with that.”
Molly tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “Anyway, my career isn’t the reason we’re here, is it?”
“Ah, yes.” He leaned forward, folding his hands on top of the table. “Your sister.”
Had he forgotten?
She realized with some interest that it appeared he had. And that he didn’t seem concerned about the fact, either.
An unwelcome thrill raced through her bloodstream as her gaze took in his hands. Strong hands, clean, nails clipped and neat, dark hair peppering the backs of his thick, square fingers. They were capable hands, manly.
And she was paying them far too much attention.
Molly cleared her throat and took a notepad from her bag.
“Were you and your sister close, Miss Laraway?”
“Molly, please.” She pulled out a pen and laid it against the pad. “And, no, unfortunately my sister and I were never very close. Despite the belief about twins, she and I were nothing alike. And when she moved down here last year, we pretty much fell out of touch.”
She didn’t like admitting that. Seeing as they’d been the only two siblings in their single-parent household, she thought she should have made more of an effort. Called her sister. E-mailed her. At least kept track of how she was doing.
“Do you know if she was dating anyone at the time of her death?”
Molly shook her head, unable to bring herself to meet his gaze.
“Isn’t that the type of thing a sister—forget a twin—would usually know?”
“Do you have any siblings, Detective Chevalier?”
He seemed taken aback by her response. “That’s not at issue here.”
“And my closeness to my sister is?”
He squinted at her, bringing out the crinkles at the sides of his eyes. Were they brown? No, they were green, she realized. A deep leaf green.
“I thought you wanted to help find the person responsible for your sister’s death.”
Molly drew in a deep breath. She did. That was the whole reason she was there.
Appetizers were served and Alan chatted with the waiter for a couple of moments, talking about what had been brought in this morning. After the young man left, Chevalier motioned for her to help herself.
“It’s meant to be shared,” he said.
She accepted a small plate on which he’d placed two of the thick shrimp scampi—or did they call them something else down here?
“I have three sisters,” he said, looking at his food rather than her as he spoke. “All younger. And I couldn’t tell you much about what’s going on in their lives, either.”
Molly felt as though he’d just pressed a thumb against a low pressure point, releasing the tension there.
She smiled easily. “Thanks.”
He shrugged, considering her warily. “Don’t mention it.” He ate for a couple moments, then asked, “So when do you go home?”
Suddenly Molly stiffened again, because it was obvious he’d meant as in today or tomorrow, the day after tomorrow at the latest.
He leaned closer to her, his expression intense. “Look, Miss Laraway, I know your intentions are good, but the fact is, there’s nothing you can do down here. You might as well go back home and resume your life. Nothing you can do can bring your sister back.”
Molly leaned forward, as well. “Tell me, Detective Chevalier, how many unsolved homicide cases do you have open at any one time?”
His eyes narrowed.
She picked up her purse and took out a photograph. “This is a picture of me and my sister taken at our college graduation.” She put it on the table in front of him. “Look at it.”
“Miss Laraway—”
“Look at it,” she repeated.
He sighed and picked up the shot.
“My twin, my sister, was a living, breathing human being, not just a crime victim.”
He tried to hand the picture back.
“No, you keep it. Put it on top of the countless ones you probably have of her postmortem.” She crossed her arms. “The sooner you accept that I’m not going anywhere, Detective, the sooner we can push aside all the BS and get down to the business of catching this killer before he takes the life of someone else’s sister.” She swallowed hard. “And before you have someone else like me to deal with.”
He seemed unfazed by her words, looking at her much the way he had when he’d first sat down at the table.
Molly searched for more arguments with which she might convince him. “I’m a lawyer, Detective. Familiar with the law. Use me. I can do legwork you might not have time for. Investigate far-fetched angles you’ve already ruled out that might still be viable. Make sure you’re not without a cup of coffee at all times.”
“You’re personally attached to the case,” he said.
“Which means I’m doubly committed to seeing the job gets done.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Coffee, huh?”
His lopsided smile made her retract a few claws. But just a few. Because she had the feeling that if he did take her on, he’d send her out for coffee…permanently.
Still, her options were few. “If that’s what it takes to be included in the investigation…yes.”
“Well, then,” he said quietly, “while department policy prevents anything official, it looks like you’ve got yourself a job.”
Her pulse leaped.
“But let’s get a few things straight. I define the job as we go along. I’m the boss and you’re the subordinate. And you cannot tell anyone else about this, ever. Do anything I tell you not to and our little arrangement ends. Do I make myself clear?”
She nodded, incapable of words.
“Good, then.” He grinned, although his eyes remained watchful. “My first order is that we enjoy this meal before we get down to the gritty details….”
3
I STOOD ON THE CURB outside Tujague’s and watched Molly Laraway walk toward the nearest intersection, her jacket folded over her arm as she hailed a cab. The woman was a stunner, that was for sure. She had a swing to her walk that caught not only my attention but the eye of every breathing male within a two-block radius.
I stared at the guy next to me watching Molly in the same way I was, then grimaced and patted my front shirt pocket, even though what I was looking for wasn’t there and hadn’t been there for years: cigarettes.
Truth was, I wasn’t sold on the idea of having a loose cannon like Molly running around doing Lord only knew what. But I admired her spirit. And I had the feeling that no matter what I said or did or threatened her with, she would go ahead with her own investigation into her sister’s death. Might as well try to channel some of that energy to my own advantage…and keep her safe at the same time.
I patted my coat pockets and took out my cell phone. By directing her actions, I could keep her away from anything remotely dangerous. Not that I thought she was in danger, but at this point I wasn’t taking any chances.
And if working with her also kept her in close physical proximity, where I could continue to admire those great legs and possibly charm my way between them…well, I wasn’t complaining.
I pressed the auto dial for Steven Chan.
“Tell me you’re not calling about this morning’s body,” he said by way of hello.
“It was worth a try.”
“I haven’t even unpacked the samples yet.”
“Yeah, well, do it. I need the results yesterday.”
I closed the phone and walked in the opposite direction from where Molly had gone.
MOLLY CHECKED THE address on her notepad. A modified pickup truck sat in front of the place in question, and a guy was carrying a box out and putting it in the truck bed.
“Excuse me,” she said, approaching him as she tucked the pad back into her bag. “I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find Joann Bennett?”
The guy stared at her. “What’s it to you?”
“I’m Molly Laraway, Claire Laraway’s sister.”
Since he didn’t seem to recognize her, she suspected that he’d never met her twin.
“Oh, yeah. Joann’s ex-roommate. You’ll find her inside.”
Molly looked over the items already crammed into the back of the truck. “Thanks.”
She stepped over the curb and nearer to the door, knocking on the jamb when she found the door was open.
“Miss Bennett?” she called out.
A woman carrying another box came out of what looked like a bedroom, the small living room before her empty of furniture. She looked at Molly, then put the box on top of another one, flushed from her activities. “Are you here to see the apartment?” she asked, pushing her hair back. Then she seemed to get a closer look at Molly and her face went white.
“I’m Claire’s twin,” Molly said quickly. “I was hoping you might have a couple of minutes.”
“Jesus, for a minute I thought you were her.”
“I’ve been getting that a lot lately.” She moved out of the way of the guy, who was coming back inside. “I won’t keep you long, I promise. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions.”
Joann looked at the man, who shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” She sighed. “I’d offer you something to drink, but I’ve already cleared out the kitchen.”
“Moving?” Molly stated the obvious.
“Yes. I was having a hard time finding another roommate and, well—” she lifted her left hand “—my boyfriend proposed.”
Molly smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
She moved aside again as the guy—apparently the fiancé—hefted another box and made his way back outside. “I’m sure Claire would have been happy for you.”
“I don’t know about that. Claire never met Nick.”
“So you two didn’t spend a lot of time here?”
“More like Claire didn’t spend a lot of time here. Do you mind if I work while we talk?”
“No. Go ahead.” Molly moved nearer to the door she’d disappeared into. “So you and my sister weren’t close?”
“No, unfortunately, we weren’t.” Joann wrapped a ceramic knickknack and placed it in an open box. “Truth is, we never got much of a chance to get to know each other well. She only moved in two months before she…died.”
Molly remembered her mother giving her the change of address, although she’d never had cause to use it herself.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked. “Living with someone you don’t know well?”
Joann shrugged as she wrapped another item. “I’ve had at least seven roommates throughout college up until now. I’ve never run into any problems. Well, not many, anyway, you know, beyond loud nighttime activities and a piece of jewelry or designer clothing going missing. But even that didn’t happen often.” She began closing the box. “It’s hard to make the rent as a single nowadays, as you may know.”
Actually, Molly didn’t know. Straight out of high school she’d interned at a law office that had hired her part-time. Then in college she’d become a P.A. and later assistant to a local appellate-court judge. She’d never been rolling in money, but she’d never had a problem making the rent. And she’d always been single.
Joann passed her with the box she’d been carrying when Molly had arrived. “Would you like me to bring this one?” she asked.
“Sure. Thanks.”
Molly picked up the other box and followed her out into the living room, where Nick took the carton out of her hands and disappeared outside again.
“You wouldn’t happen to have come across anything more of my sister’s while you were packing, would you?” She adjusted her purse still slung over her shoulder.
“Funny you should mention that.” Joann put down the box and walked into the kitchen. A moment later she came back with a key on a ring that held a pink-haired troll with a blue ink stripe across its face. Molly immediately recognized it as belonging to Claire. She’d bought it to top off a Christmas gift years ago, and her sister had lamented that she’d put a pen mark on it during a phone conversation shortly thereafter.
Molly hadn’t paid much attention. Until now.
She took the key.
“I don’t know what it opens. Not the apartment. I already tried. And Claire didn’t have a car.”
“Maybe it’s to the place she lived before?”
Joann shrugged. “Maybe. But Nick thought it looked more like a locker key—you know, like the type you see at the bus station? Only it doesn’t have a number on it or anything.”
Molly ran her thumb over the top of the key, noticing where a line of jagged orange plastic seemed to indicate something had been removed. Nothing but the name of a popular key company was imprinted on the key itself.
“Is there maybe something you’ve remembered since Claire died?” Molly asked. “Something you haven’t told the police?”
“No. I’ve told them everything I know.”
Nick came back inside for the last box. “You ready?” he asked Joann.
“Yeah, give me a sec to double-check.”
Molly stood exchanging glances with Nick as cupboard doors were opened and closed in the kitchen, then in the bathroom. Within moments Joann was back in the living room.
“That’s it.”
“Lock up. I’ll be in the truck.” Nick disappeared again for a final time.
The key bit into Molly’s hand where she held it so tightly.
“Hey, look,” Joann said. “I’m really sorry for your loss. I mean, what happened to Claire…” She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands over the bumps that dotted her skin. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”
“Thanks.”
Joann began to pass her.
“Would you mind if I asked for your forwarding address? In case I have any other questions?” Molly asked.
Joann looked hesitant.
“I promise I won’t call unless I’m absolutely convinced you can be of help. In fact, chances are you’ll never hear from me again.”
Molly pulled her pad and a pen from her purse. And, after a sigh, Joann took it and scribbled down an address and a phone number.
“Thanks,” Molly said again, unsure how any of this helped her but glad that she’d caught Joann before she’d left.
Molly led the way outside, then stood watching as Joann climbed into the truck cab, gave a final wave and drove away.
THE GOOD THING ABOUT being a homicide detective was that you didn’t spend a lot of time at the office. The bad thing about being a homicide detective was that when you did need to be at the office, you were at a desk in a room shared by a dozen others.
Phones rang, voices chattered, computer printers printed. And one of the younger narc detectives was even trying to figure out how to use the manual typewriter in the corner—and not having much luck, judging by the occasional string of profanities he muttered.
At least I was no longer the center of attention. Ten months ago I couldn’t walk into a precinct room without it going completely silent, everyone staring at me.
I guess that was what happened when you bedded the captain’s estranged wife.
While few incidents could trump the losing card I’d dealt myself with that stupid move, the more time passed, the more people moved on with their own lives, leaving me alone to see to the ugly details on my own. Although I’m sure an office pool was running to see when the captain would finally fire my sorry ass.
And that day would be soon if I didn’t catch a break in the Quarter Killer case.
I edged my chair closer to my paperwork-covered desk and leafed through the mess that threatened to topple over into my lap. Actually, it appeared to have slid onto the floor and been piled back up by someone, because it was messier than usual. I sighed and started sorting through it, knowing it was too much to hope that somewhere in there I would find the clue I needed to solve the Laraway and Arkart murders.
The phone on the corner rang. I ignored it.
“Chevalier, line two for you,” a junior detective called out.
“Take a message.”
“Take your own damn message. What, do I look like your secretary?”
I glared at him, wondering when he’d grown a pair of balls when only a short time ago he’d been all about pleasing everyone, then snatched up the receiver.
“What?”
“Alan?”
A female voice. More specifically, a female voice belonging to the oldest of my three sisters, Emilie.
I took a deep breath. “Now’s not really a good time, Em. Can I call you back?”
“Normally I would say yes, but what I have to say really shouldn’t wait.”
I rubbed my forehead, wishing for a cup of coffee. “What is it?”
“Zoe hasn’t been back to her dorm room in two days.”
My hand froze.
Zoe was the youngest of the Chevalier family, although at twenty-one she liked to pretend otherwise. Em and Laure had long ago tried to convince me that they were overcompensating for the loss of their parents by spoiling her, but neither of them had seemed capable of doing anything differently. After all, Zoe had only been eleven at the time, and while they both had their own ghosts to wrestle with, it seemed easier to focus their attention on their youngest sibling than address their own needs.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“I talked to her roommate.”
“Does the roommate have any idea where she might have gone?”
“Not a clue. Her overnight bag is still there and nothing seems to be missing.”
Another junior detective called out. “Chevalier? Call on line four.”
I gritted my teeth.
Emilie said, “That’s not like Zoe at all. She usually lets everyone know where she is and what her plans are. Including me.”
She was right. From a young age, all of us had drilled into Zoe the importance of keeping in contact at all times. And she’d complied. Probably because the one time she hadn’t, when she was fifteen and had gone to the movies with a male friend, she’d found half the NOPD drawing guns on her in the middle of the theater.
“I’ll stop by sometime this afternoon,” I told Em, then rang off.
I grabbed my hat and started to get up, half relieved that I wouldn’t have to tackle my desk just then.
“You still have that call waiting on four,” the junior detective shouted.
I picked up the receiver again and punched the button for line four. “What?”
No one said anything.
Good. They’d hung up.
“Alan?”
Another female voice. But this time it didn’t belong to one of my sisters. It belonged to a person I’d never expected—scratch that, never wanted—to hear from again.
Captain Seymour Hodge’s wife, Astrid.
4
THE WOMAN WAS A certifiable nutcase.
And as much as I wanted to hang up the phone, I couldn’t, because essentially she had my nuts in a case.
“Um, hello. How are you?” I said lamely.
I looked around the room, but no one seemed to notice my sudden distress. I sat back down in my chair, the paperwork on my desk nothing but a blur as I tried to recall what had motivated me to get involved with this woman, who had caused far more trouble than she’d been worth.
“I’m sorry, Alan. I didn’t mean to call, but I had to.”
I opened my desk drawer, looking for aspirin to quell the headache that had been with me since I’d gotten up that morning and that had just doubled in size.
“I mean,” Astrid continued, “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I thought we both agreed that further contact wouldn’t be wise.” My exact words the last time we spoke had been Talking to you again would be akin to professional suicide, but I didn’t like thinking the words, much less saying them again.
“I want to see you.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ll keep calling until you come over.”
I winced. “So call.”
Then I did something I also didn’t think was wise and hung up.
MOLLY SAT IN THE MIDDLE of her hotel-room bed. She’d showered and had on the hotel robe, her hair up in a towel, even though it was only six o’clock. The contents of the box of things she’d gotten from FBI agent Akela Brooks were spread out in front of her, her sister’s diary the focal point. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to concentrate. Instead her gaze kept going to the key in her hand, and her mind kept retracing a path to her lunch with Alan Chevalier earlier.
She’d wanted to call him, tell him of her find. But they’d already agreed to meet at a nearby bar on Bourbon Street tomorrow night to trade any information either of them had come across, even though she had a pretty good idea she’d be the only one trading anything. She supposed it could wait until then.
Besides, she knew the instant she told him about the key he’d take it, and she’d likely never see it again, much less find out what was in the box it opened.
Of course, she actually had to find the box first if she hoped to learn anything, an impossible task given her outsider status in the investigation. Bus station aside, she wouldn’t know where to begin looking. After all, there was the little matter of the number that had been removed from the key.
How many lockers were at the bus station? Was there only one station or were there several? Did the airport have lockers? Could it be there?
“For all I know, the box could be in Toledo,” she said aloud.
She stretched out her arm and put the key on the nightstand, then rubbed the arch of her left foot. Lunch aside, she’d been pretty much upright all day, pounding the pavement in shoes that were made for walking but not to the extent she had walked in them. She had blisters on her heels, and her toes looked swollen to twice their normal size. So on the way back to the hotel she’d stopped inside a shop and bought comfortable flats, a couple of pairs of casual slacks and lighter-weight blouses, a wardrobe more conducive to the type of work she’d be doing in the days to come.
She’d also bought a flirty dress that she had no business buying. A deep-red number that looked more like a slip than a dress, really, and felt like a cloud against her bare skin—and left a lot of that skin bare to the naked eye.
It had to be the city. She’d never been one to dress so provocatively—not even when she was younger—much less give herself over to such an impulsive buy. She’d always been practical to the max.
No, the purchase would have been much more something Claire would have made, even if it meant maxing out a credit card. “Retail therapy,” she’d called it.
Molly had called it stupid. If you didn’t have the cash, you didn’t need the buy.
Molly certainly didn’t need the dress, yet she’d gone ahead and bought it anyway. Perhaps with thoughts of seeing the look on Alan’s face when she wore it.
She sighed and slid from the bed. What was she talking about? She wasn’t interested in the burned-out detective. She was the girl next door; he had a dark, edgy side. He appeared to have little ambition beyond what he was going to eat that day; she had a list of fifty things she hoped to accomplish before she was thirty and was aware of that list at all times. She put attraction and physical chemistry on the back burner; he put it out there for anyone to see, no matter the consequences.
Molly swallowed thickly. That was what she was really responding to, wasn’t it? The fundamental call of attraction. It had been there in his eyes as he’d sat across from her. No need for words, for his movements and expressions spoke for him.
She absently tidied up the room. She wasn’t used to that. That…knowing. More often than not she was genuinely surprised to find a man interested in her. Oh, not so much because she didn’t think she was attractive. But because in the Midwest, men—people in general, really—tended to keep their true emotions in check. Perhaps it was tied into pride. Or maybe she just wasn’t really good at reading emotions because she’d spent so little time contemplating her own.
But today had shown her that she didn’t need a degree in sociology and human behavior to know Alan Chevalier had been attracted to her.
Or that she had been just as attracted to him.
What remained was whether or not she acted on it. Because another thing Alan had made plainly clear was that she held all the cards. It was up to her to ante up or to fold and walk away from the table. He would not force her hand. Would not sandbag or bluff or try anything underhanded to get her to do what he wanted.
No. In his case, what you saw was what you got.
And Molly found something undeniably appealing about that. She really hadn’t encountered it since her sister. Whatever Claire had been thinking, feeling, you knew it the instant she did. While Molly didn’t believe in any sort of paranormal connection to her twin, they had been closely connected. Partly because of the emotional unavailability of their mother, who’d gone through her share of pain in her lifetime—the first and foremost her unexpected pregnancy with them when she’d still been in high school and no support system of her own when her family members had turned their backs on her.
While later on they’d grown apart, she and Claire had been tighter than tight while growing up.
And she was seeing the same potential in her attraction for Alan. She sensed the possibility for a connection that went beyond the physical.
And her need to explore that possibility loomed almost as large as her desire to find her sister’s killer.
OF ALL MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, I counted my sisters as the most important.
Of all my failures, my sisters ranked number one by a long shot.
Years ago the department shrink told me that was to be expected. Most parents experienced mixed feelings when it came to their children. Both of us had known at the time that my family situation wasn’t supposed to be the topic of conversation; rather my shooting of a minor holding what had looked like a handgun but had turned out to be a water pistol was. But her psychological digging had turned up the conflicts I’d been facing at home.
Both of us had also known I wasn’t any kind of parent, either, although it was the role I’d been forced to take ten years ago, when I was twenty-six and my sisters were sixteen, thirteen and eleven. When my father had been targeted by carjackers and had decided his secondhand Mercedes was more important than his life and his wife’s, my stepmother’s. The incident was what had inspired me to become a homicide detective rather than a beat cop.
It was also what had made me the unprepared parent to two teenagers and a preteen.
My father’s family was among the first to settle here when my great-great-grandfather was assigned a judgeship by none other than Jefferson himself back in the early 1800s. With ancestors who were among the first important founders of the city, my father felt our family bore a certain responsibility. But his take was one I’d never really subscribed to. Probably because my own mother had been of questionable heritage (read: she’d been a stripper on Bourbon Street when my father had met her) and had thrown his unnamed title into his face when she’d left us both when I was four.
So when my father and his wife had died, I’d moved back into the mammoth house that had been in my family since my ancestors had moved down to Louisiana from the Boston area, and tried my best to be a surrogate parent to my three younger sisters.
It was that same house I now stood in front of, experiencing myriad mixed feelings.
Emilie and Laure still lived there. It was where Emilie had gotten married two years ago and now had a child of her own. A house that Zoe hadn’t seemed to be able to get out of fast enough when she was eighteen and moved to a dorm on the campus of Tulane. I rubbed the back of my neck, marveling at how similar her actions had been to my own so long ago. Before I was forced back into that house and into the role of “guardian.”
“Thank God you’re here,” Emilie said, opening the door at my first knock. “I still haven’t heard anything from Zoe. She’s not answering her cell phone, and Laure hasn’t had any luck getting anything out of her friends.”
It also appeared Emilie was having problems in other areas as she bounced one-year-old Henri on her hip, the toddler’s face red and damp from tears.
She led the way back to the kitchen, where they had always spent a great deal of their time. There, Emilie’s young husband, James, was making what looked like dinner by way of sandwiches, and Laure was on the phone, apparently talking to another of Zoe’s friends.
I put my hat on the rectangular table that sat six and shrugged out of my overcoat, taking Henri when Emilie thrust him at me.
“He’s teething,” she said.
I went to the sink and placed the toddler on the counter next to me while I washed my hands, then picked him back up.
“Is there some way you can trace her cell?” Laure asked, disconnecting from her call.
“Only if she answers it,” I told her.
Henri had taken to chomping on my index finger. I winced, discovering that a tooth or two or three had already broken through his tender gums and were now breaking into my flesh.
Out of the three girls, Zoe was the one most capable of taking care of herself.
And the other two had been old enough when their parents had died that the trauma of losing loved ones had never completely left them.
Suddenly every eye was on me, including the two big blues of the baby in my arms.
“What?”
Laure waved her hand. “What what? What have you done since Emilie called this morning?”
I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t done anything. “I was waiting until I came over here for details.”
“You already have all the details,” Emilie said, taking Henri away from me as if he’d been a gift she was now rescinding.
I shared a look with James, who immediately went back to making sandwiches that for all intents and purposes had been done five minutes ago.
“So what are you going to do? Have you put an APB out on her? Have you gone to the dorm?”
“I’m guessing you already have,” I said.
“Of course we have. But we don’t have badges.”
“I don’t think Zoe would appreciate my flashing my badge around campus.”
“I don’t care what Zoe appreciates—and that’s assuming everything’s okay.”
Laure shuddered and wrapped her arms around her slender torso.
“Look,” I said, picking up a piece of salami and putting it into my mouth, “this isn’t the first time Zoe’s pulled something like this.”
Actually, it wasn’t the second or third, either, but I wasn’t going to point that out. To do so would be to hurt Emilie and Laure by trivializing their concern, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.
“Two days isn’t all that long a period of time.”
“But what if she’s been kidnapped?” Emilie asked.
Her fear must have manifested itself physically, because Henri suddenly started crying.
James took him and mumbled something about changing his diaper as he disappeared from the room. Neither of my sisters appeared to notice.
“If she’d been kidnapped, then surely a ransom demand would have been made by now.”
As if on cue, the phone rang, echoing eerily throughout the silent house.
Laure and Emilie raced for it, while I put the top on one of the sandwiches and took a bite. Hey, I hadn’t eaten since lunch and I was hungry.
“Hello?” Laure said, winning the race.
Her tensed shoulders relaxed as she listened to someone who was apparently not a kidnapper.
“Hi, Rose. No, no word yet. I want to keep the line open in case…she calls. I’ll let you know the minute we hear anything.”
She hung up again and looked back to me.
There were few things that could floor me. But the two women staring at me as if waiting for me to pull answers out of my sleeves like a magician’s never-ending scarf was one of them.
“All right, I’ll look into it,” I said under my breath.
Emilie hugged me, and Laure looked more relieved than I felt comfortable witnessing.
Was it really only yesterday I’d been helping Laure with her homework while Emilie had braided Zoe’s hair in this very kitchen, a pot of gumbo on the stove while the radio played tinny zydeco or jazz?
Yesterday and ten years ago.
“Thanks, Al,” Emilie murmured, her cheek soft against my stubble-covered one.
“Not that I think it’s going to accomplish anything. Watch and see if our renegade little sister doesn’t call herself before I can find out anything.”
“We can only hope that’s the case,” Laure said.
The telephone rang again. James walked back into the room with a still-wailing Henri, and Emilie went to put the sandwiches on plates.
Laure picked up the phone. “Oh, hi, Valerie. No, no word yet. Yes, yes, he’s here now.”
My ex-wife.
I dry-washed my face to hide my frown from Em. “You called Valerie?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said from the other side of the counter. “Even though you two are divorced, Val’s still like family to us.”
“No, not yet,” Laure was saying. “We’re going to call around to the hospitals now.”
An image of my father’s slack face where he’d lain in a curtained-off area of the hospital emergency room flashed through my mind.
And for the first time I knew a fear that my sisters’ concerns might be warranted.
5
“IT APPEARS YOU HAVE significant contacts, Miss Laraway.”
Molly wasn’t sure if the smile prosecutor Bill Grissom was giving her was genuine, but she was certain his words were. She’d spent the better part of the morning on the phone with the Toledo law office where she worked, probing who knew whom and what help their extended circle of professional acquaintances could offer her. She’d lucked out when it turned out a junior partner’s wife’s family was from New Orleans and her father-in-law was a prominent judge in Jefferson Parish.
A few more phone calls later and she was standing in the prosecutor’s office, shaking hands with him.
“Do you have any suggestions on what I might send Judge Giroux by way of thanks?”
Grissom chuckled. “A good bottle of bourbon should do the trick. In fact, a case wouldn’t be turned away.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Please, have a seat.”
She did, and then he rounded his desk and sat down, as well.
“So what can I do to help you, Miss Laraway?”
“I need to know what information you have on my sister’s murder case.”
He clasped his hands tightly on the desk before him. “Ah, yes. I was afraid when I heard your last name that’s what you would be interested in.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but even if you were related to the president of the United States, I couldn’t share information like that with you.”
Molly frowned. “Mr. Grissom, I assure you that I’m not on a vigilante mission. I’m merely interested in seeing that my sister’s killer is brought to justice.”
He returned her stare.
“I understand that a Claude Lafitte was originally arrested for the crime.”
“Yes. And he was promptly released.”
“Why?”
He smiled patiently. “Because we ascertained that he couldn’t have committed the crime.”
“And the evidence that supports that?”
“Is in my file.”
“Does that mean there’s another suspect under investigation?” Molly held her breath as she considered the possibility.
“Not per se. Let’s just say that the evidence pointed us in a different direction.”
“But you don’t have any one person under consideration.”
“Not at the moment, no.” He gripped his chair arms and sat back. “I understand you’ve been in contact with the detective in charge of the case.”
“Alan Chevalier. Yes.”
He nodded. “And he’s being accommodating?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
His expression registered brief surprise. “Well, then, he’d be more the man to talk to. Whatever happens goes through him before reaching this office. And until we do get that one suspect…”
“I understand,” she said, rising. “I just thought it would be a good idea to touch base with you. Let you know I was in town and willing to help in any capacity I can.”
“I appreciate the gesture.”
She shook his hand again. “And I appreciate your hospitality. Thank you for meeting with me.”
Molly walked out of the office and released a long sigh. She’d suspected that meeting with the prosecutor wouldn’t yield much. But surprisingly it had given her more than Alan had. So Claude Lafitte had been released because evidence had pointed in another direction. What evidence? And in which direction did it point?
She’d put on her suit for the meeting and decided to make a trip back to the hotel to change. Which would also give her the opportunity to call FBI agent Akela Brooks. Perhaps she could get the answers to those two questions before meeting Alan tonight at the bar on Bourbon Street.
“DETECTIVE CHEVALIER? I have another emergency call for you. I’ll patch it through.”
I nearly snapped the cell phone in two.
This was the sixth call I’d received in three hours. It seemed Astrid was keeping her promise to keep calling me until I agreed to stop by and see her. During my last brief, tense conversation with her, she’d said she wouldn’t try anything; she just needed to see me.
Somehow I didn’t believe her.
I quickened my step as I walked from the precinct to my car and climbed inside. At least she hadn’t told dispatch who she was. I could be thankful for at least that much. But there was no telling how long that would last. Astrid Hodge was a woman used to getting what she wanted. And for some godforsaken reason she wanted me.
“Hello, Alan.” Her voice came through the tinny speaker dripping with self-satisfaction.
My every bone tensed.
“You know, your calls can be traced via your home number,” I said. “What’s your husband going to say when he sees the bill?”
“I’m calling on my personal cell. And he doesn’t have access to the bill.”
Which made her intent doubly suspicious.
“When are you stopping by, Alan?”
“Never. I value my job too much.”
She made a tsking sound. “More than me.”
“Much more than you.”
“That hurts.”
“Not any more than you’ve hurt me over the past ten months.”
“We both know that what happened between us was mutual.”
Was it? I was no longer sure. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I’d believed that in the beginning. But as time wore on, and after she’d accidentally told her husband—my captain—about our affair of one night, I was beginning to wonder if I’d fallen into some sort of dark trap designed to help Astrid spice up her marriage.
“Give it up, Astrid. I’m not coming over.”
She started to say something, but I clicked the phone shut on her.
I sat for long moments in the car, staring at everything and nothing. All I could do was hope that she’d finally give up and stop calling. But a part of me knew that she wouldn’t. That eventually she would win and I would have to go over to her place.
The sex hadn’t even been that good.
I put the car into gear and pulled from the curb, my destination Hotel Josephine. I’d received an anonymous tip that the hotel’s only guest wasn’t who he claimed to be. While the owner, Josie Villefranche, had told me Drew Morrison was in town for a convention, it turned out her guest’s intentions weren’t quite that innocent. A few calls had verified that while he was registered at the Innovation in Auto Parts convention at the Marriott, his area of expertise wasn’t car engines; it was in getting people to sell what they didn’t want to. Namely he was there to convince Josie to sell her hotel.
While it didn’t make him suspect material—especially since the Quarter Killer’s first victim, Molly’s twin sister, had been killed more than two weeks ago—it did shine a poor light on him. And it was worth checking out if only to see what else Mr. Morrison might be lying about.
The cell I’d dropped into my lap chirped again. I hated these damn devices. There was a time not too long ago that you could escape the telephone. When you walked away from the office, you were out of contact. Period.
At the very least, couldn’t they make the damn things sound like a real phone?
“What?” I barked after fumbling to answer it.
“Alan?”
My ex-wife.
MOLLY MADE ARRANGEMENTS to meet with FBI agent Akela Brooks in Jackson Square at three. It was a week before Halloween, and she guessed that this time of year was a busy one for the city, second only to Mardi Gras for pulling in visitors. People clogged the tourist attractions, signs all over touting the weeklong All Hallow’s Eve festivities beginning tonight. A group of five individuals of about her age brushed past her dressed in full-out vampire gear, their faces painted white, their black capes flapping in their wake.
Molly gave a shiver.
“Takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”
She turned at the sound of Akela’s voice. She’d met the agent when she’d picked up the box of her sister’s things upon her arrival. While the meeting had been brief, Molly had liked her. She was direct, no-nonsense and friendly. And the fact that she’d held on to Claire’s things even though their mother hadn’t wanted them to be forwarded to her spoke volumes.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Sure.” Akela looked over her shoulder toward the Café Du Monde. “You want to get some coffee and walk while we talk?”
Molly agreed, and after they stood in line at the popular spot, Akela handed her a coffee and a sugar-covered beignet.
“You can’t come to New Orleans and not try the Café Du Monde beignets,” she told her.
Molly smiled and accepted both.
“So, what’s on your mind?” Akela didn’t waste any time getting to the point as they walked across the square.
“I met with the prosecutor this morning.”
“Ah, Grissom.”
“Yes. And he mentioned something about Claude Lafitte being released from custody as the result of specific evidence pointing in another direction.”
Akela looked at her as she ate her own beignet and sipped her coffee. She didn’t say anything.
“I also understand you have a personal interest in the case.”
The agent sighed. “Well, I guess that wouldn’t be too hard to find out.”
Molly pinched off a piece of the French doughnut and put it into her mouth, not answering until she’d swallowed. “You’re right. It wasn’t difficult. All I had to do was access the Times-Picayune between the time of my sister’s death and now.”
Akela nodded. “Yes, I do have a personal interest,” she said. “Let’s just say that I’m as interested in finding the Quarter Killer as the NOPD. More so, actually.”
“Are you working the case?”
“In an unofficial capacity, yes. You see, until the real killer is found, Claude won’t be completely ruled out as a suspect.”
“So the evidence pointing in another direction isn’t that strong.”
“Strong enough to get the department to release him but not enough to completely take him off the suspect list.”
“I see.” Molly squinted at her through a shaft of sunlight. “You wouldn’t happen to want to share that piece of evidence, would you?”
Akela made a face. “I don’t like playing coy, but right now that evidence is about my only ace in the hole.” She cleaned her hands with her napkin after finishing her beignet. “You do know there’s been another Quarter killing, don’t you?”
The coffee sliding down Molly’s throat turned bitter.
“It’s all over the morning papers and the news on TV.”
She’d been so busy, she hadn’t thought to read the newspaper or watch local television since her arrival. Especially since she was in the middle of chasing down leads in her sister’s case.
But if there’d been another murder, that might mean more evidence.
“Yes, Chevalier questioned Claude on it this morning. But I got the impression the action was somehow just his covering all the bases.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I think he doesn’t necessarily believe the two murders are connected, even though they took place at the same hotel and, apparently, in the same way.”
“The victim’s neck…”
“Was cut,” Akela finished when Molly didn’t.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
Yesterday morning. That meant that Alan had known about the killing before he’d met with her for lunch. The coffee hit her stomach like a stone. She’d known that she couldn’t rely on his sharing everything with her, but concealing that there had been another murder went beyond the mere protection of important facts.
Or was Akela right in that he didn’t believe the two murders were linked?
Whatever the reason, she fully expected him to share what he knew when she met up with him tonight. And she would do everything in her power to see that he did.
6
DREW MORRISON, THE ONLY guest at Hotel Josephine, didn’t have anything to do with Frederique Arkart’s killing, of that much I was sure. But right now everything was up for grabs. Because ruling out Morrison didn’t change the fact that I had two dead women on my hands and zero solid suspects.
I drove through the narrow streets of the Quarter, heading in a direction I didn’t want to be heading as I checked my cell phone. I typically leave it in the car when I’m questioning a potential suspect or witness because there are few things like a shrill chirp and an unwanted caller to throw me off my game and put me back to square one when it comes to any kind of rhythm in my questioning tactics.
There was an art to getting what I wanted out of someone. A certain way of phrasing a question, pausing for just the right amount of time, that netted me information I wouldn’t get otherwise. I had taken great pride in that talent at one time.
But now I seemed to be just going through the motions, more aware of the shadows lurking behind me, trying to catch up and pull me into the darkness, than what lay in front of me.
Two messages from the precinct indicating emergency calls had come in while I’d been at the Josephine. Astrid, it had to be. My sisters had my cell phone number, so there was no reason for them to go through dispatch. I stopped at an intersection and scrolled through the calls. My ex-wife’s number popped up and I winced. Probably she was calling about Zoe again.
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