by Stacy Green
“I don’t know,” Cage said. “But as I’m sure your sister told you, several different things point to a London Club member, specifically—”
“The doubloons.” Carson’s lips twitched into a smile. “Our friend back there didn’t buy my father being willing to share the information.”
Cage laughed. “I thought I sold that pretty well.”
“My father’s stubbornness is the stuff of legend. Fortunately, he’s not the only one who might be able to help you. The London Club turned one hundred in 1960. The doubloons not only marked Atlas’s first parade throws, but they were a centennial gift as well.”
“How many were made?”
“That’s the tough part,” Carson said. “We were originally founded by four men who wanted to celebrate Mardi Gras with less debauchery.”
“Philip Redmund being one of them,” Cage said.
“I believe all four families still had a male member in 1960. The board of governors, president and vice president likely would have received doubloons as well.”
“Sounds like it could be a big list.”
“Not necessarily. Chances are the legacy members overlapped into the other positions.”
“Don’t you keep paper records?”
“We do.” Carson smiled wryly. “My father is the historian.”
“Are all of the original families still represented?”
“Not currently,” Carson said. “But the next male will be automatically granted membership, should he pledge. Unfortunately, trying to get the information from my father is a waste of energy. Let me ask around and see what I can come up with.”
“Thanks,” Cage said. “I appreciate the help. Unexpected, but thanks.”
“I’ll be chewed out for sure. But I want to get to the bottom of this, and I want to make sure my sister’s name is cleared.”
“You don’t find it odd that she went to Holt late at night, by herself, for a patient she’d met only once?”
“Not if you know my sister. She’s been independent since she took her first steps. And she’s devoted to her patients—too much so, at times. She absorbs all the negative emotions and energy. And that influences her decisions.”
“Some people don’t believe empaths exist.”
“Those people need to open their minds. We all know hypersensitive people. Empaths just have a stronger ability to tune in. I think that’s why Ginger is both an empath and … you know.”
“Her abilities don’t concern me,” Cage said. “I’m just doing my job.”
“I understand.” Carson hesitated, chewing his lower lip. “I doubt this means anything.”
“You never know,” Cage said.
“Please keep this between us.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Carson glanced around, his gaze on the security camera, and then edged closer to Cage. “Pretty sure that thing doesn’t pick up sound, but just in case. A couple of months ago, rumor went around that some junior member was blackmailed by an escort.”
“Who?”
“No idea,” Carson said. “I assumed it was gossip. But now I wonder if information was exchanged.”
“What about the escort?”
“Her name never came up. Just that she was a natural blonde, if you know what I mean. Athletic and plenty of stamina.”
Layla, and she passed the information to Zoey?
“Thanks.” Cage handed him his business card. “Call me as soon as you get any of those names.”
“I’ll do my best, but I’m leaving tomorrow for a week-long conference. I won’t get to this until I get back.”
“I appreciate the help.”
“You should probably leave before my father shows up. Our treasurer—he answered the door—called him immediately.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
Carson shuffled his feet, hands in his pockets.
“Something you want to say?”
“Ginnie would kill me for telling you this, but I think you need to hear it. She’s ‘just known’ things since she was little. My parents didn’t pay much attention until she marched up to my dad and asked him why the old black lady with the blue tignon kept coming into her room at night and tried to tuck her in. The lady spoke French, and the only word Ginnie understood was cheri. That’s the only time I’ve seen my father genuinely scared. When he was a child, the head housekeeper Theodosia always wore a blue tignon and spoke Creole often, although she spoke English as well. He was particularly attached to her and insisted on her tucking him in before he would go to sleep. Theo would come in, give him a kiss and say, ‘Bòn nwi cheri, fè bon rèv.’” Good night, sweet dreams, baby.
A shiver trailed down Cage’s spine. “She must have been told about Theo before?”
“Ginnie was four years old, the same age my father was when Theo passed. She was ancient—she started out as Philip’s nursemaid and stayed on. But my sister and I had never heard of her. Of course, when Dad got his wits back, he told her to stop playing games, and he didn’t want to hear any more about this lady.”
“Did she see her again?” He didn’t actually believe this, did he? Ginger might have everyone else convinced, but Cage worked in reality.
“Right up until the day she went to college. Theo came and spoke often to her, along with other spirits. She never told my parents, but I knew.”
“Why did you believe her?”
“I didn’t, until she was ten years old. She pulls me aside before school and says Grandma came to her this morning to tell her goodbye. Ginnie specifically remembered her pink nightgown with flowers. A few hours later, we’re called home. Our maternal grandmother had a stroke during the night and died in her sleep.”
“In the nightgown.” Ginger probably saw her grandmother in the same nightgown plenty of times. People dreamed of relatives passing all the times, especially if the person was ill. His mother insisted she’d been visited by Cage’s grandmother the night she passed. She’d been with a son who’d died young. Family always comes to take you to the other side, she’d say. Sometimes they come more than once, until you’re truly ready.
His stomach bottomed out as he remembered his mother’s final days. Full-blown Alzheimer’s made it easy not to read into anything she said—even though she reached out into empty air, calling for Cage’s murdered sister at the same time of day for three consecutive days. She’d died a few minutes after the final time.
“That’s when I knew she really did see things, and it’s just one of many stories I could share. My point is, she’s the real deal,” Carson said. “If she gives you a warning, you should take it seriously.”
Cage wiped his clammy hands on his jeans and turned the air conditioning on high. Maybe spirits of loved ones could return and maybe Ginger Hughes did see them, but she wasn’t some fortune-teller. Cage wasn’t about to be scared of this investigation.
He grabbed his buzzing phone out of the center console and cursed. Brooks Hughes worked fast: Agent Rogers and Commander Dumas had left multiple messages, and Rogers’s included a text filled with expletives. The last message was from Annabeth, her tone semi-apologetic. She’d be at The Black Sheep tonight watching Remy’s show if Cage wanted to talk.
He definitely needed a drink.
19
Carnival season meant every inch of the Quarter teemed with tourists. Cage left his car at Annabeth and Lyric’s place and headed down Decatur. The walk would give him time to clear his head. Clear skies meant cold wind off the river, but that didn’t stop the partygoers. He lost count of how many cheap Mardi Gras masks bobbed past him, and he’d already tallied nine who’d bathed in glitter and face paint. Most wore enough beads to anchor a boat. Didn’t they know Fat Tuesday was still weeks away?
He dodged a bachelorette party whose poufy, colorful wigs took up more space than their white dresses. Some of them looked more like lingerie. The entertainment thinned out as he neared Esplanade, and his brain fired back up.
An athletic blonde had alle
gedly blackmailed a junior member of the London Club. Had he solicited The PhoeniX and slipped up about his pedigree? Finding out a client was a London Club member had to be like dangling a mouse in front of a farm cat.
Where did Zoey come into play? Had Cage bought into the silliness surrounding the social club, or did her knowledge of the Leighton’s legacy status mean something more? Even if it did, why murder Masen? Who else knew he had the blue book? Masen might not have even known what it meant, although his insistence on the trafficking ring made that unlikely.
If Masen’s discovery of The PhoeniX put him in someone’s crosshairs, sticking the doubloons in Masen’s pocket put the spotlight on the London Club, which made no sense if the killer was trying to protect The PhoeniX and its clients.
Masen might have stolen them, but an addict knows something valuable when he sees it. He would have pawned them off. The killer put them there, but why?
Blackmail. Whoever blackmailed the junior member of the London Club somehow got her hands on the doubloons. But with that kind of weapon, she could keep demanding money for years. Why leave them with Masen? To send a message to the London Club member to keep his mouth shut? But she had the doubloons …
The more he thought, the more tangled it all became.
He zipped his jacket against the cold wind and stuck his hands in his pockets. Shit. He’d left the gris-gris bag at work. Unease washed over him, and then he laughed. Some herbs and a root weren’t going to keep him safe.
A redhead with long legs leaned against one of the shuttered businesses, phone to her ear. She had her back to him, her head bobbing with her conversation, but she had the right build, right hair. What would Zoey be doing hanging out on Decatur while her friend was missing.
“Excuse me.”
She turned around and glared at him.
Definitely not Zoey. But the guy’s fine, angular features made him an attractive woman—save for the five-o’clock shadow peeking through the heavy foundation. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
A swarm of spring breakers came toward him, laughing and shouting at each other.
Nope.
Cage cut left onto Chartres. Taking the long way to Frenchman was worth the extra time to avoid that clusterfuck.
Thanks to the lack of bars, Cage had the sidewalk to himself.
Zoey. Who was this girl? Had she expected to find Masen at Holt? Why would she want to kill him? Her fingerprints weren’t on file in the criminal database, and they hadn’t been on the vodka bottle.
The doubloons. “Sonofabitch, sonofabitch. Sonofabitch.” He kicked a seashell out of his path. He’d always carried a chip on his shoulder for uppity folk, as his dad called them, and being a cop turned the chip into a boulder. People with money and prestige expected preferential treatment, especially in the small town he’d grown up in. Cage refused to bend over for them, which usually pissed everyone off and got him chewed out, and then the cycle started over again, because Cage wasn’t giving in to their entitled asses.
His wife had been warning him for years the attitude would eventually backfire on him, and it had finally happened. The stupid social club and its exclusivity, the audacity to butt into an investigation—the very air Brooks Hughes circulated in—got under his skin like some kind of infection. Everyone insisted those doubloons had to come directly from someone in the London Club—no chance they’d been pawned. Even Hughes didn’t argue that fact.
He didn’t know how three college kids living in a dorm and a shitty apartment would have come by the doubloons—unless one of the girls had been the one to blackmail the London Club member.
Ginger’s fingerprints weren’t on the doubloons, but he never thought to check the three people who found Masen.
But whoever blackmailed the guy had to know the doubloons were worth money. Why leave thousands of dollars in a dead guy’s pocket?
The blackmail hadn’t been about money or even silence. It had been about something much more personal.
Pop, pop, pop!
Cage hit the ground, gasping for air. More rapid pops were followed by cheers. Some asshole nearby was setting off fireworks.
Heat burned his cheeks as he picked himself up and dusted the grit off his jeans. A fresh twinge rippled through his back.
Another round burst into the dark sky.
Pain in his chest, as though someone repeatedly punched him. His mouth dried out like a shriveled prune. His heart beat too fast, and his own skin seemed to trap him. Was he having a panic attack?
He took deep breaths, the air burning his lungs. He’d been shot before—this time had been no different.
Spider preparing to execute him had been a first, but Cage didn’t want to think about it. He’d survived, and now he had shit to do.
He made his feet move. Live music drifted from the clubs just a couple of blocks ahead. The hair on the back of his neck fired to attention. Footsteps came up fast behind him, quick and light.
His back pulsated as though the bullet had slammed into the Kevlar all over again. He spun around, his gun in his hand, even though he hadn’t made the conscious decision to grab it.
“Goddammit! Don’t point that thing at me.” Lyric glared at him, unfazed by the gun inches from her face.
Was his hand shaking? He holstered the gun and tried to ignore his racing pulse. “I could have shot you. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I called your name three or four times. Fireworks really do sound like gunshots, don’t they?”
Had he really zoned out that much? “I tripped.”
“And I don’t need lifelong therapy.”
His wits slowly returned. “You’re not even in therapy right now. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Remy’s band. Lead singer’s supposed to be hot.”
“You’re lying.” Fifty-fifty shot and worth taking with Lyric.
“Whatever.” She shrugged. “You ordered me to call you anyway. What’s so urgent?”
He was back on solid ground and in control. “I found something in your room.”
“What were you doing in my room?” The dark flash in her eyes would scare most people.
“Why do you have that book about The PhoeniX?”
Lyric didn’t flinch, her expression still cold—save for the anger burning in her eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone into my room.”
He’d violated the precious, private space she’d been denied during captivity. “I wasn’t thinking. And I’m truly sorry.”
“What did you think you would find?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I had a gut feeling you knew more than you were telling me. And I need you to tell me everything you can about that book.”
Her stare made him feel naked, but he wanted her to know he wasn’t just saying the words and she could still trust him.
Ten long seconds passed before she spoke. “Buy me a drink, and I’ll tell you.”
20
A noisy crowd packed The Black Sheep, most waiting to see the band. Deandra managed to find them a tiny table in a far corner, with no view of the band.
“I wanted to see the hot singer.”
“Go up to the stage like the fangirls.”
“Pretty sure I’d scare them, which would be fun.”
Cage drained half his beer bottle in one drink. Had Lyric really been yelling his name? How did he not hear her? Maybe she was lying. It would be just like her to sneak up on him and not admit it.
She sipped her gin and tonic. “I saw the book at one of the strip clubs and swiped it.”
“Which one? And why?”
“Can’t remember. I’m not looking for a job, if that’s what you’re asking. But you never know when you’re going to need leverage.”
He couldn’t argue that. “What do you know about it?”
“That whoever’s behind it has it locked up tight.”
Cage took another drink to hide the impatience surging through him. Best interrogation advice he ev
er received came from a retired sheriff’s deputy with a stellar track record for confessions: lead the conversation, but don’t let the other person know it. Let them think they’re in control.
Lyric wouldn’t fall for it. She was too skilled at reading people, all her senses perpetually on high alert. Surrendering his best trick for a fifty-fifty shot at the right outcome felt like pissing in the wind and expecting no spray back.
“Masen thought his girlfriend had been trafficked. He had a book just like yours.”
“The news is calling his death a probable suicide since he killed his girlfriend.”
“It wasn’t suicide,” Cage said. “And we don’t know that he killed her.”
“Then why is the news saying that?”
“Because of pressure from assholes who think they’re powerful.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Lyric squeezed the lime juice into her drink. “Going to tell me who the assholes are?”
“I’d prefer not to.”
“Who kills themselves like that? OD is easier and less painful.” Her flat tone made it clear she’d given the idea plenty of thought.
“There are minors listed in that book.”
“What else is new?” Her intense gaze made him feel like he was the one being questioned. “I sound like a cold bitch, and I am. It’s how I survived.”
“I get that, but—”
Cheers bordering on squeals came from the stage area. The band kicked into a song, and Hart’s voice filled the room.
Lyric moved her head in time with the music. “Nice voice. Is he as hot as Annabeth says?”
Cage drained the rest of his beer. “He’s pretty smoking.”
A ghost of a smile flickered on her lips. She scooted her stool close enough he could smell her shampoo, her elbow next to his and her face almost as close. Her voice barely carried over Hart’s baritone. “Why did you get shot?”
He fought to hide his surprise. Lyric had never been this physically close to him—he’d never seen her this close to anyone. “Drug bust.” He sat very still. Spook her—or worse, make a big deal out of it—and she’d clam up for good.