by Jana DeLeon
“You said not officially,” Hustle said. “What about unofficially?”
“Unofficially,” Jackson said to Shaye, “work the streets with Hustle. If you get a lead, let me know. If there’s anyone you run across that makes you look sideways at them, let me know. I can run everything through our databases and let you know if I get any hits.”
“How much trouble will you be in if Vincent catches you?” Shaye asked.
“A shitload,” Jackson said, “but since Vincent’s lazy, I can always pass it off as information-gathering based on things I picked up from street kids. Not like Vincent is going to get out of his chair and talk to them, so he’ll never know the difference.”
Shaye frowned. “Be careful. I don’t want you losing your job. We need more people like you with the department, not less.”
Jackson blushed a little. “Vincent won’t catch on. I’ll make sure of it.”
They stood there looking at each other for a couple of uncomfortable seconds, then Shaye smiled. “Well, I guess we better get to work. I’ll let you know if Corrine comes up with anything. Or if Hustle and I do.”
Jackson nodded. “And this goes without saying, but you be careful, too. There’s worse things out there than Vincent.” He turned to Hustle. “Nice meeting you.”
“You too,” Hustle said as Jackson turned and headed down the sidewalk.
Hustle watched him walk away, then turned back to face Shaye. “He your boyfriend?”
“What? No!”
Hustle raised his eyebrows. “You sound kinda defensive.”
“I’m not defensive. I just don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”
Hustle grinned. “If the wrong idea is that the dude is into you, then I’m betting if you’re in the same room, people are gonna get it.”
Shaye stared at Hustle in dismay. “You’re as bad as my mother. Why are people always trying to set me up?”
Hustle held his hands up in the air. “I ain’t trying to set up nothing. I was just saying what I seen.”
Shaye huffed. “You think he’s into me?”
Hustle nodded. “Totally. I don’t blame him. You’re cool and smart and you’re a solid dime. That’s not easy to find.”
“A solid dime?” Shaye’s smile finally broke through.
Hustle shrugged, looking a little embarrassed.
“Well, let’s see if all these smarts can ferret out some information on Jinx.”
“What do you want to do now?” Hustle asked, looking relieved at the change of topic.
“Let’s cruise the square for a couple of hours and see if anything else catches your attention, then I want you to show me where she stayed at night.”
Chapter Five
Jinx jerked awake when the door to the basement opened, and she ducked into the back corner of her cage, watching as the masked man’s legs appeared on the stairwell.
“Is it the bad man with the mask?” Peter whispered.
“Yes, hide in the corner and be quiet,” she whispered back. Not that she thought hiding or being silent would help the situation, but something about the man’s voice haunted her, as if it contained his cruelty.
The mask appeared and the man stepped into the basement. Jinx let out a breath of relief when she saw his empty hands. No more prisoners. Not yet.
The man stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back, and a second set of legs appeared. This set wore black slacks. As the rest of him emerged, Jinx squinted, trying to get a good look at him. He was tall—as tall as the first man, but thinner, even though both had decent mass. Along with the black slacks, he wore a black long-sleeved shirt. His face was covered with the same mask the first man wore.
Black Slacks walked up to the cages and leaned over, peering into both of them. Jinx tucked her arms around her legs and watched as his brown eyes studied her like someone would a rat in a cage, then he moved to the other cage and peered inside. Peter tucked his head in between his legs and covered it with his arms.
“Damn it!” Black Slacks straightened up and whirled around to face the other man. “This isn’t the boy I selected.”
“I know,” the other man said, “but the client wanted this one. He paid double.”
“It won’t make a difference if he paid five times over if snatching this kid gets us caught.”
“Nobody saw anything. We were careful.”
“Careful like you were with the last one?”
“We used the regular dose. How was I supposed to know he’d need more? The second one took him out fine.”
“And he’s been out for a day and a half now. We can’t keep him inside the house much longer. It’s too risky. If he doesn’t gain consciousness by delivery time on Monday, get rid of him.”
“You want me to get rid of the boy, too?”
Black Slacks looked at Peter and cursed again. “And lose the fee? I don’t think so, but he’s got to go. He’s seen too much. Put him on the delivery schedule for Tuesday night. I want him out of here as soon as possible.”
“I don’t know if the client will be ready by Tuesday.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.” Black Slacks stepped right up to the other man. “If anything like this ever happens again, it will be the last stupid thing you ever do.”
The first man was way bigger and Jinx figured he could have easily beaten Black Slacks in a fight, but Black Slacks must have been the boss, because the first man just nodded and they both headed back upstairs, slamming the door behind them.
“Jinx.” Peter’s voice sounded in the inky black. “What’s a client?”
“I don’t know,” Jinx said, but her mind was filled with answers that she didn’t want to think about. The kind of answers that began with someone paying for the abduction of a ten-year-old boy.
* * *
After several long, hot hours of cruising the square and coming up empty, Shaye and Hustle finally headed out of the French Quarter to check out Jinx’s nighttime hideaway. Hustle had talked to a couple of street kids, but no one had seen Jinx in days, and no one could offer up any idea why she would have left or where she would have gone. No one else in the square caught Hustle’s attention, so finally, Shaye decided to move on to the next phase of investigation.
Jinx’s sleeping place was in the back apartment of an abandoned building in the Upper Ninth Ward. The area had sustained heavy damage from Katrina, and most of the surrounding buildings were crumbling. Every block or so, Shaye saw an occupied structure, but none of them looked safe enough to live in. The block Jinx’s building was on contained no occupied structures, by either people or businesses.
Shaye looked up and down the street and a feeling of helplessness rushed through her. Most people looked at the damage and saw only rotting buildings and littered streets, but Shaye saw what used to be people’s homes. Where people slept at night. Where people bought milk from corner stores. Now it was practically a ghost town. It was a good place to disappear. Unfortunately, it was also a good place for no witnesses.
“This way,” Hustle said as he clicked on his flashlight and led her through the building to the rear. He stopped at the end of the hallway, moved a piece of plywood to the side, and opened the door.
Shaye stepped inside, shining her flashlight around the room. It had once been a studio apartment. No bigger than five hundred square feet, but it felt even smaller. The windows had been boarded up on the outside of the building, but someone, maybe Jinx, had nailed dark blankets over them inside the room. Shaye guessed it was so that light couldn’t be seen through the cracks on the outside boarding. Light in an abandoned building would be a dead giveaway that someone was inside.
An old mattress was tucked into a corner, a stack of blankets on it. Next to it was a crate that looked like it contained some clothes. Hanging on a nail on the wall was a coat. An ice chest contained a partially eaten loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Shaye pulled out a plastic bag and removed the jar from the ice chest.
“Can you get
fingerprints off of it?” Hustle asked.
“Yeah, but the question is how many. I’d bet ten or more people touched that jar. If Jackson ran a bunch of prints, someone would notice and ask why.”
She didn’t add that fingerprints wouldn’t do any good unless someone had reported Jinx missing, because she knew that between her and Hustle, that went without saying. No one had ever filed a missing report on Shaye, and she was hardly an anomaly. Plenty of people on the street weren’t missed by anyone.
Shaye turned around, shone her light on the front door, and saw a new dead bolt in place. There was no other access point to the apartment.
“She wasn’t taken from here,” Shaye said. “This dead bolt is secure, there’s no other entry, and there’s no sign of a struggle.”
Hustle nodded. “Jinx wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.”
Shaye walked over to the kitchen and checked the cabinets, but they were all empty. She flipped through the clothes in the crate, but no secrets lay between the couple of threadbare T-shirts and worn jeans. If Jinx was hiding anything that linked her to her previous life, it wasn’t in an obvious place.
As she started to move away from the bed, Shaye paused and lifted the corner of the mattress up and peered beneath. A dark rectangular object lay just at the edge. “What’s that?” Shaye asked and pointed to the object with her free hand.
Hustle dropped onto his hands and knees and reached under the mattress to extract the object. Shaye dropped the mattress and looked at it.
Holy Bible.
Shaye looked up at a worried Hustle. “I think it’s time for me to talk to that priest.”
* * *
Father Michael.
It took Shaye a bit of searching images on her iPad to locate the church where the priest Hustle had identified worked. It was a smaller church located in Bywater, and had two priests assigned to it. Shaye spoke to a bored-sounding woman who informed her that Father Michael was busy with his street ministry that day and unavailable for a consultation, but he would be performing service the following morning.
Hustle had been disappointed when Shaye suggested they call it a day, but she’d promised him that she’d be at mass the next morning to talk to the priest and would let him know what she discovered. She made Hustle promise to be careful and to call if he saw anything that looked out of the ordinary.
She was leaving Bywater when her phone rang. Her mother. Hoping Corrine had found something on Jinx, she answered the phone.
“I’m so glad you answered,” Corrine said.
“What’s up?” Shaye asked. Her mother’s tone hovered somewhere between slightly frantic and more than slightly irritated. Never a good sign.
“I need a date for the charity event tonight. It’s the Freedom Auction.”
Shaye’s stomach clenched. “Nooooooooo! What happened to your gay artist friend? He lives for that crap.”
“He got a better offer.”
“Pizza delivery and X-Files reruns?”
“No. A talented masseur named Frank. Since I have neither the professional ability nor the requisite body parts to compete, I’m on my own.”
“Can’t you just stay that way?”
“Shaye Archer! Are you really suggesting I fend for myself in that jungle of pettiness?”
“Maybe?”
Corrine sighed. “I know these events are like fingernails on a chalkboard to you, and trust me, I’d pretty much rather be getting a root canal, but I need someone there to make excuses for me when I need to bow out. You know how that crowd is.”
A twinge of guilt coursed through Shaye. Her mother still wasn’t a hundred percent after the attack, and the event would be mentally taxing. If Shaye was there and insisted her mother cut out early in order to rest, the charity biddies would talk about what a lovely daughter Shaye was, looking after her mother. If Corrine tried to leave on her own accord, the charity biddies would accuse her of avoiding them and her civic duties.
The charity biddies were the worst.
“What time?” Shaye asked.
“It starts at six.”
Shaye looked at her watch. “It’s almost five already. I’m not at home and I have to shower and change into something awful. Can I meet you there?”
“You promise you’ll show?”
“Unless I die or have a horrible accident before I can get there.” One could always hope.
“No fair if you do either on purpose.”
“You know me too well. Please tell me my black cocktail dress will work for this? I think it’s the only dressy thing I brought with me when I moved.”
“That works fine. You know, we could always go shopping sometime and pick you out a couple more items for these sort of events.”
“Ha! Then you’d expect me to wear them and go. No thanks. I’ll see you at six.” Shaye disconnected before Corrine could think of anything else Shaye “needed” to do. Corrine tended to come up with those mother sort of things for Shaye—find a man, settle down, quit that dangerous job, move back home—it was a long list of things that Shaye had zero intention of helping her mother check off.
She headed home, took a quick shower, put her hair up, and slapped on a bit of makeup. The black dress was plain silk, nothing sparkly, so she put on a pair of dangly black-and-diamond earrings and a matching necklace. She looked in the bathroom mirror and smiled. The earrings and necklace had belonged to her grandmother, and even though Shaye hadn’t had the opportunity to meet her, she’d heard enough about her from Corrine to know she would have loved her. Everything about her was casual elegance. No flash. Just class.
She tossed her license, a credit card, and lip gloss into a black evening clutch and headed out. Five minutes until six. She was going to be late, but hopefully by only a few minutes. She drove to the hotel where the event was being held and made her way to the Grand Ballroom. She’d barely stepped inside when Corrine hurried up to her.
And she wasn’t alone.
“Shaye.” Derrick Oliver flashed his million-dollar smile at her and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”
“Yes, it has,” Shaye replied, and if she’d had her way, she wouldn’t have seen Derrick again until the next life.
She glanced over at her mother, who gave her an encouraging smile, and held in a groan. Did Corrine honestly not see how horrible Derrick was? His overly white teeth. The fake blue eyes, and he didn’t even need corrective vision. The perfectly groomed hair. The spray-on tan. The garish and ridiculously expensive watch, in case you didn’t know he was one of those Olivers.
Derrick paused a moment, clearly waiting for her to ask him about his law practice and his bid for state legislature. When nothing was forthcoming, he tried a different tactic. “Your mother tells me you’ve opened your own private investigative firm.”
“Yes.” She smiled. One-word answers vexed people like Derrick. It gave them no opportunity to segue the conversation over to themselves.
“And how do you like it?” he asked, refusing to be stonewalled.
“My first case was a stalker who murdered at least four people that we know of. The police are still unraveling his background. The body count is likely to rise.”
Corrine choked on her drink, and Shaye patted her on the back. The smile disappeared from Derrick’s face and his nose wrinkled, almost as if he’d smelled something bad.
“Well, it was great seeing you again,” he said. “I see my father motioning to me. We’ll catch up more later.” He gave them both a nod and hightailed it across the ballroom, in the opposite direction of where his father stood. Shaye managed to hold in her laugh until he was far enough away not to hear it, but then it spilled over.
Corrine frowned at her. “Do you have to be so rude?”
“Yes. Nothing else shuts down Derrick-I-am-one-of-those-Olivers. And don’t even ask me to apologize, to you or to him. It serves you right for putting him in my face like some dating service.”
Co
rrine’s eyes widened. “I was not—”
Shaye held up one hand. “Don’t even try it. We both know your ulterior motive. I can appreciate your desire, but your choice in men is so sadly lacking it’s frightening.”
Corrine sniffed. “Okay, so maybe he’s a bit of a bore.”
“And a huge snob. And an elitist. All of the things you claim to hate about New Orleans society.”
Corrine sighed. “Fine. I won’t try to set you up with anyone else.”
“Ever?”
“I can only promise tonight. My willpower doesn’t allow anything beyond that.” Corrine looked past Shaye and groaned. “Margaret Babin is headed this way.”
Margaret was the completely useless and overbearing daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the state. She was the head of every committee that would have her. Most didn’t have much of a choice.
“Time for me to find a drink and some dinner,” Shaye said and fled before Corrine could grab hold of her arm.
She hurried across the room to the drink station and gathered a glass of champagne, then snagged a plate of cocktail shrimp and two cookies and moved over to a corner of the room where no one could accost her without her seeing them coming. The usual crowd of big wallets wandered around the room, complimenting each other on their appearance, inquiring about children or a new vacation home, and generally trying to one-up each other.
Shaye did her best to stay tucked in the shadows, hoping no one would recognize her and want to talk. Once the sign-up for the silent auction started, she and Corrine could place their bids, then Shaye would insist her mother leave for the much-needed rest and the entire ordeal would be over. She glanced at the entrance, watching as people continued to make their way into the ballroom, then did a double take as Jackson Lamotte stepped inside.
He looked gorgeous and slightly uncomfortable in his black suit—a bit James Bond, a bit schoolboy. He looked around the room and frowned, clearly out of his element. Shaye couldn’t help but wonder why he was there. It didn’t seem like the type of thing he’d be interested in attending. For a moment, she wondered if he was meeting someone, but then he looked her direction and when his gaze locked on hers, he smiled and headed straight for her.