Bitter Reckoning

by Heather Graham

  He was an incredible lover, knowing when to tease, when to move like wildfire, whisper just the right words…

  Forge together as one, writhe, twist, thunder…then hold her when the world exploded into beautiful crystals, and it was time to drift back to reality.

  She curled against his naked body, stroking the dampness of his chest, feeling his heart beat, feeling him breathe.

  “Early morning,” he murmured.

  “Very romantic,” she said, and he laughed softly. Then he grew serious, drawing her up to look at him and rising on an elbow.

  “I want to get into and out of New Orleans and then see Trent Anderson as soon as I’m back.” He hesitated, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Do you want to come with me? It might be best.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, it’s not that I don’t want to come with you. I just think I’m better off staying here.”

  “Don’t go—”

  “’Walking into any spooky old woods alone?’” she said with a wry smile. “Trust me—I won’t. But I do think I should be here. With Colleen—and just listening and gathering whatever it is we might get. I’ve barely touched the books and the diaries, and there might be something in them.”

  He nodded. “Okay.” He touched her hair gently and drew his fingers down her face. “I guess our being back on this so quickly…”

  “Sex…business…it’s the way it goes.”

  He frowned as if pained and she quickly added, “Quinn, it’s not like we have normal jobs. What we do is…unusual. I guess my dad made it a real vocation, a passion, and I like to believe, we get to make a difference. That we are a force for good.”

  “We are,” he told her. “Your father would be so proud. I guess, in our lives, I can believe he is proud—somewhere in the great unknown, looking down.”

  “Thanks!” Danni said. “I like to think so,” she whispered, and she curled back against him.

  It was really late, and she was really exhausted. Despite that, she was afraid she wouldn’t sleep with so many questions racing through her mind.

  She barely laid her head on his chest before she was out, sound asleep.

  ***

  Morning’s light was just dimly breaking through the curtains when Quinn awoke with a start. He could feel Danni was no longer at his side. He bolted up, his heart racing.

  But she was there.

  He saw her at the desk, a pencil in her hand, a pad of the lodge’s stationary before her. He knew she wasn’t awake. It had happened before; Danni sleep walking—and sleep drawing.

  She was really a wonderful artist; her scenes of New Orleans were becoming legendary. Colleen hadn’t just wanted her work for the lodge because they were friends—Danni was good. Exceptionally good. She could somehow breathe life into a stationary scene.

  This was something new, though. Ever since coming into her own as a collector of the bizarre and evil, she had taken to this sleep drawing upon occasion. He was careful, when they were home, to have a robe ready at all times, lest she wander downstairs at the house and shop on Royal Street in nothing but her birthday suit to sit down and sketch when they were in the midst of a case.

  He walked over to her, looking over her shoulder to see what it was she was drawing.

  A pendant.

  He thought it was like the one he had seen on Daphne Alain. Maybe it was a little bit different; he wasn’t sure. But it was detailed in every way, a drawing of an elegant pendant on a chain. The fleur-de-lis, a symbol for New Orleans and much of Louisiana.

  Like the one on the woman in the picture from the book, she’d said.

  She added a final touch and sat back in the chair at the desk, her eyes sightless. He knelt down before her, touching her knees, waking her gently.

  “Danni, Danni!” he whispered softly.

  She blinked; her eyes opened wide. She stared at the drawing on the desk and turned to him.

  “Quinn! I…I was…”

  “The pendant. I think we have found our talisman,” he said. “But as Daphne told us, there could be hundreds of imitations around.”

  She shook her head. “Go to the house. Ask Billie to get to my dad’s book. See what’s in there. He may have had some experience with this…there are answers in the book.”

  She’d known nothing about her father’s book until Angus had been dying.

  He had to admit, he’d known nothing about it himself, but Angus—while trying to maintain a life of innocence for his daughter—had prepared for his death. He had catalogued many objects he’d come in contact with along with warnings about those he’d heard about—but never found.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll take Billie the picture; he can get on it while I’m with Larue and driving back.”

  He drew her from the chair, holding her for a moment. But holding her wasn’t a good idea—it could lead to other ideas.

  “Go back to sleep,” he told her.

  “And you?”

  “I’m going to get Larue and get going. I’ll let you know as soon as we’re on the way back. I’ll come for you before meeting up with Trent Anderson.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “Danni, I—”

  She set a finger to his lips. “Get going!” she told him, and she hurried back to the bed they’d shared, plunging beneath the covers.

  He dressed quickly. When he had done so, he paused by the bed to say goodbye and smiled.

  She was asleep.

  He wasn’t certain whether to be grateful—or slightly insulted and worried. He kissed her brow and headed out, her drawing of the fleur-de-lis medallion tucked into the files he carried beneath his arm.

  He reminded himself cases were seldom solved in a day. Investigations could take weeks…months. Sometimes, they weren’t solved. But this…

  He wondered again if there had been someone who intended something evil against Daphne Alain the night before. If she might have been an intended victim. Maybe if they hadn’t stayed to wait for her, they might have awakened to discover bodies had been set as scarecrows on the fairgrounds.

  He didn’t know. But he did believe this case didn’t have months, weeks, or even days.

  They had to solve it quickly.

  If not…

  Someone else was going to die.

  No, two people would die. And once again, “scarecrows” would drip with blood.

  Chapter 9

  Danni was still half asleep when she heard her phone buzzing on the bedside table. She had set it on silent the night before, knowing the reverberation on the table would wake her anyway.

  She quickly answered it, surprised to see by the caller I.D. that it was Billie McDougall—her father’s assistant who had stayed on with her, and was an integral part of her shop on Royal Street, The Cheshire Cat—and of their lives. He really could star as Riff-Raff in a production of “The Rocky Horror Show.” Perhaps as a crazed scientist in any version of “Frankenstein.” But she loved him—he was like the great-uncle she never had.

  “Billie! Hi!” She glanced at the time. Quinn couldn’t possibly have gotten to New Orleans yet—he’d been gone less than an hour.

  “Hey. Danni—”

  “Quinn is bringing you a sketch. I need you to get into Dad’s book in the basement. I’m trying to find out if a medallion—a stylized fleur-de-lis—might mean something. He’ll—”

  “Danni!” Bill interrupted, the soft burr of his voice strong. “Lass, he figured he wouldn’t waste time. He took a picture of the drawing with his phone and texted it to me.”

  “Oh—of course. Why the hell didn’t I just do it?”

  “He said you were sleep-sketching. You were probably still half-asleep,” Billie said.

  “No excuse. But you’re calling me. What did you discover?”

  “I found Angus wrote a whole chapter on such objects and I read it,” Billie said. “But even so, I recalled such a situation years ago. Years and years ago, when your father and I were in Ireland…he’d been c
alled by a friend of your mom. People were dying horribly in County Cork. Seems they were plagued by a strange, antique brooch. But, lass, here’s the thing—such an object only seems to be lethal in the wrong hands, which is why years and years had gone by before anything bad began to happen. Then this bloody bugger got ahold of it who had been thinking of doing-in his wife. She’d had the brooch, but he ripped it off her in a fight, and it seemed to do something to his mind. He killed her…and then set off on a murder spree when others questioned him, and well, suffice it to say, your dad figured it all out, we got hold of the brooch, and the killer still sits in prison. Ye’d feel sorry for the bugger, excepting that he’d been a wife-beater from the get-go and known to harass lasses and all. Anyway, Angus saw to it that the brooch was melted down, and the gold and the stones were buried about an old cemetery in so many places it could never be put back together again. You need to be getting hold of whatever that fleur-de-lis is, lass. Oh—and I looked into it, too. Naturally, lass, it will not be easy. The fleur-de-lis is so common a symbol here in New Orleans and all about the French areas of Louisiana. The one you drew has a special little curly-cue at the bottom petal—take a good look at it. That’s what you’re going to be looking for. Of course, like others, it’s probably been copied, so be looking for the original, but I know you know that you must be looking for the right one.”

  “Thank you, Billie,” Danni said. “Does that mean if a decent person—or a person just not capable of murder—gets their hands on it, then it’s…nothing?”

  “Exactly, lass, exactly,” Billie told her.

  “Thank you, Billie!”

  “Take care, lass, take care.”

  “Always, Billie,” Danni promised.

  “Larue is taking Quinn by the murder site and the bed and breakfast where the poor murdered lass was staying, and then he’ll be getting right back to you, you know!”

  “Yes, thanks, Billie.”

  “No nothing crazy, eh, lass?”

  “Nothing crazy,” she promised, and bidding him goodbye, she ended the call, rolled over, and popped out of bed.

  She had no intention of doing anything crazy. She just meant to be social.

  Someone here had a cursed fleur-de-lis medallion. She thought it might have once been an innocent piece of jewelry, owned by Yvette—and turned at the time of her murder.

  Copies were made to look like the real thing. But she hadn’t been exposed to antiques all her life not to recognize the real from the fake.

  As she finished dressing, the phone rang. It was Quinn. She grabbed it quickly.

  “Where are you?” he demanded gruffly.

  “In the room. I haven’t headed out yet,” she told him.

  “Danni, Larue and I found an abandoned sedan—a car service sedan. We traced it back to a car service.”

  “What service?”

  “A place called ‘Fleur-de-lis Limo Corporation.’ Danni—the company traces back to a major holding company. A company held by another company and that company owned by—”

  “Trent Anderson,” she said.

  “Right. Larue has called Peter Ellsworth. Ellsworth is going to be picking Trent Anderson up now. We’re starting to believe the man killed at the cemetery was the driver, but we don’t know that for sure yet. None of the drivers have been reported missing—and the car wasn’t scheduled out. Anyway, I’ll let you know more as soon as I know anything.”

  “Is Trent Anderson being arrested?” Danni asked.

  “Brought in for questioning. There’s no direct evidence he had anything to do with it.”

  “But…he’s local, he’s…rich. He could pull it all off!”

  “Yes, Danni, and there’s no law that says you get to arrest a guy because he’s local and rich. He’s a person of interest, but nothing solid suggests his guilt.”

  “Okay, well, did you talk to Billie? See if he has a fleur-de-lis medallion, necklace, or not a necklace anymore just the medallion.”

  “Yes, I talked to Billie. Danni, there is no guarantee it is Trent Anderson, though I hope they’re going to keep him for at least twenty-four hours. Stay careful, right?”

  She sighed softly. “Of course. You, too.”

  “You got it.”

  The call ended. She stared at the phone and then headed out into the hallway.

  To her great surprise, she almost ran right into Trent Anderson, who was just closing the door to a room down the hall as she was hurrying along.

  ***

  They had barely left the area before Quinn saw the car.

  It had been shoved into a canal of Bayou Teche—though the brush growing around it was high, the water hadn’t been high enough to cover it completely.

  Quinn was somewhat surprised he’d seen it at all, other than they’d expected the car had been abandoned somewhere, either that or—since no one had gotten a plate number off it—it had simply been driven back to where it had come from and gone back into service.

  While Larue reported to Ellsworth, Quinn crawled through the swampy ground and into the water, determined to get a plate number and search for the ornament old John Appleby had described.

  The plate number was easy enough.

  The ornament was gone.

  Larue reported the plate number; a tow truck was being sent out. CSI would go over the vehicle, though Quinn doubted they would get much from it.

  They stood by Quinn’s car, staring at the water and the car.

  “Trent Anderson is a local—guess he’d be up on all the legends,” Larue said. He looked at Quinn. “And—like anyone else—he could have gotten from NOLA and out here easily enough. Two murder scenes, two nights.” He let out a sigh. “Guess we’re lucky there weren’t a few murders last night. What the hell is this, Quinn? If it’s not Trent Anderson, do we have to worry about every cemetery in the country? A sick idiot killing people and disinterring them.”

  Quinn leaned on the car, looking over at Larue. “Here’s what bothers me, which is why I wanted to get into New Orleans. Ally Caldwell was associated with Colleen’s site and lodge. The young woman killed in New Orleans was also on that site. I want to see the room where she was staying—and talk to her landlady. Also, the woman who still lives at the mansion—all that was done in her cemetery and she didn’t hear a thing? Why no security cameras?”

  “There are cameras in the house—but not on the grounds. Sure, cemetery vandalism takes place, but most small museums or historic homes, the money spent on that kind of security isn’t worth it. Most people don’t wake up planning on killing people and hiking them up on poles in a cemetery.”

  Quinn nodded; he saw a car driving to their position, pulling off the road. It was Peter Ellsworth; a tow truck wasn’t far behind him.

  He strode toward them, eyeing the car in the marshy water.

  “Trent Anderson isn’t at his home,” he said. “I have officers on the lookout for him; we’ll bring him in for questioning. You know, though, unless I have some evidence that places him—not a company—at a murder site, I can’t hold him more than twenty-four hours. Do you have anything more? Anybody get anything out of the car company in NOLA?”

  “The car should have been in the lot. There were no drivers assigned to it on the night Ally disappeared,” Larue told him.

  “Well planned,” Quinn murmured.

  “And still making no sense to me,” Larue said, staring at Quinn.

  He really didn’t want to know a fleur-de-lis medallion might have made a not-so-nice person into a lethal person. Quinn just shook his head, because it really wasn’t making sense yet to him, either.

  “What do we do from here?” Larue asked Quinn.

  Peter Ellsworth nodded toward Quinn, indicating his sopping and muddied clothing.

  “I’m thinking Quinn might want a shower and a change,” Ellsworth said.

  “In NOLA,” Quinn said. “It’s important that I talk to a few people there.”

  “You want to take a two-hour drive—” Larue began
.

  “Yes.” Quinn turned to Ellsworth. “You can definitely hold on to him for twenty-four hours once you have him? His money and his clout won’t get him out? We can do what we need to do and be back here in six hours.”

  “Go,” Ellsworth said. “If I have to sit on him myself, he’ll be at the station. Assuming, of course, that we find him.”

  “Let’s move then,” Quinn told Larue. He nodded to Ellsworth, “and thanks.”

  “Hey—I want this damned thing solved to. Preferably, before we have any more corpses!”

  ***

  “Danni!”

  Trent Anderson seemed sincerely glad to see her.

  “Hey, Mr. Anderson, nice to see you,” she managed.

  Wasn’t he supposed to be with the police by now?

  “Mr. Anderson? Please, Danni, this is a place where we’re all supposed to become friends,” he said. “Trent. Just Trent. I’m glad to run into you.”

  They were alone in the hallway. She wasn’t feeling particularly comfortable.

  “Would you have some coffee with me?” he asked.

  “Sure.” The coffee bar, yes, surrounded by people. “I would love coffee right now!”

  “I heard you and Mr. Quinn wanted to talk to me.”

  “You heard that already?”

  “Of course. Police were out to take a report from Daphne Alain last night, and I’m the one who owns the fairgrounds; and my company hires the managers, makes the arrangements…all that. Anyway, I think you’re right.”

  They were in the elevator then. Alone. He hit the button for the ground floor.

  “We’re right?” Danni asked.

  He nodded somberly.

  The elevator “pinged” and the doors opened. He held the door, letting her precede him. She stepped out, and he came to her side as they walked to the coffee bar together greeting others they passed on the way.

  “Let me get the coffee. What would like?” he asked her.

  She smiled. “Coffee. Just coffee.”

  She took a table. People were leaving the line with their cups of espresso, mochas, and lattes; many smiled nervously her way, some greeted her.