by Lisa Jackson
CHAPTER 25
“This is where you live?” Eve looked around the small camelback house wedged tightly onto a poorly lit street. To say it needed work would be the understatement of the year, and when compared to the roomy Italianate home Cole had once owned, it was a dump. Pure and simple. Barely more than a roof over his head.
“I’ve really come up in the world,” Cole said with a quick smile. He’d stopped by his place, grabbed a quick shower, a bag of clothes and personal items on the way to the restaurant. It was odd, really; in all the time that they’d talked about marriage, they’d never lived together, just stayed overnight at each other’s places. But now, it seemed, Cole was moving in, at least for the time being, and it seemed like the right course of action.
Quite a turnaround from just a few days ago when you still thought him capable of murder.
“All set?” Cole walked out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of khakis and an open-collared dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “My wardrobe’s pretty limited,” he admitted when he noticed her eyeing him. “I think I have a ton of suits somewhere, but I’m not sure. Deeds could have sold them too. He certainly didn’t leave me with a key to any storage unit, so…” He spread his arms wide and shrugged. “What you see is what you get.”
“And I like,” she admitted, walking into his open arms and kissing him soundly.
“Careful, darlin’, you keep this up and we’ll never get to those mudbugs.”
“Can’t miss that.” She kissed him again, took his hand, and led him outside to the narrow little driveway where his Jeep was parked. There were kids hanging out, plugged into iPods and practicing jumps on their skateboards, an older man smoking on the stoop of an apartment building, and a couple of men in their twenties working on a car in a garage a couple of doors down the street.
On the corner of the next block, a sizzling sign for the local bar glowed neon green in the night. Farther south, past cross streets and old buildings, was the waterfront, where the Mississippi slowly moved toward the Gulf of Mexico. The night was clear, and somewhere above the streetlights there were stars, but Eve couldn’t catch a glimpse of many as she climbed into Cole’s Jeep and he drove her into the French Quarter. He located a parking spot three blocks from Chez Michelle then walked her inside, where the cozy wood-paneled interior was packed with patrons. The scents of tomato sauce, cayenne pepper, and sassafras made her mouth water the minute she walked through the door.
A thin, friendly waitress led them past an open kitchen where chefs in white coats worked their craft, braising meat, broiling fish and sausage, and creating sauces.
At a private table tucked in a back corner, Cole ordered the special mudbug appetizer and a pitcher of beer. “You’ll love them, I promise,” he said over the buzz of conversation and strains of jazz piped in from hidden speakers.
“You don’t scare me, Counselor. I grew up on crawdads.”
“Did you, now?” he said, a bit of the devil in his eyes. Oh, it was so easy to fall back into this routine with him, and despite the holes in her memory, she remembered clearly how much she’d loved him.
Frosty mugs of beer and a bucket of bright red, spicy mudbugs were served, and they both dug in, cracking the shells of the crayfish and dipping the tails into a succulent hot-pepper sauce. Eve ordered a spicy gumbo filled with seafood, sausage, and okra, while Cole chose the signature jambalaya.
For the first time all day, Eve relaxed, and the headache she’d been fighting for weeks retreated. She and Cole talked about inconsequential things, neither wanting to tread too close to the brutal murders, his life in prison, or the complicated layers of their relationship.
For now, they were able to push the rest of the world and the nightmare surrounding them into the darkest corners of the night. She wondered where they’d be now. What twists and turns would their love affair have taken if that one night had been different?
What if Roy hadn’t called her?
What if she hadn’t gone?
What if she hadn’t been so certain that Cole had been there, pistol in hand?
Roy’s throat had been slit, no bullet in his body, and yet she’d been shot from a handgun as yet unlocated.
“…so I’m hoping to move out of the dive as soon as I get back on my feet again,” he was saying, his blue eyes fixed on her in a way that made her shift in her chair.
“And move where?”
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe.” She smiled up at him and knew she was flirting. Don’t do this, Eve. Don’t be suckered in…. It’s too soon. Too many horrible, unexplained things are still happening.
He winked at her, and she melted inside. “We’ll see.”
They lingered over coffee and split a dessert of espresso-flavored crème brûlée and pralines.
He paid for the meal with cash. Then they walked into the balmy night. Cole linked his fingers with hers as they crossed the street. “So, what do ya think?” he asked, heading toward his Jeep.
“About what?”
“Everything that’s going on.”
“Do we have to think about it?” she asked, hating the lighthearted spirit of the night to end.
“We don’t have much choice,” he said, and the words were barely out of his mouth when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller-ID screen and didn’t bother answering it. “Television station,” she said, groaning. “I don’t want to talk to them.”
“Then don’t.”
He unlocked the door, and, just before she slid into the passenger side, she felt a little tremor in the air, as if someone were staring at her, sending her bad vibes. She paused and glanced down the street.
“What?” Cole twisted his head, picking up her unease. “You see something?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No. Just a weird day. Too many awful things going on.”
He slammed the door shut, and she kept her eyes on the sideview mirror, observing the sidewalk illuminated by streetlights.
She heard the clop-clop of hooves as a mule-drawn carriage creaked by.
A shadow appeared in the mirror.
Eve froze.
A tall, dark figure stepped out of the gloom for an instant.
She twisted in her seat, but as she stared at the circle of light from the streetlamp, a van rolled across the intersection, blocking her line of vision for second. In that heartbeat, the shadowy figure disappeared. She saw nothing.
“Something is wrong,” Cole said tensely as he slid into the Jeep.
“I thought I saw someone staring at me, but I could be wrong.”
“Let’s check it out.”
He pulled out of the parking lot, negotiated a U-turn, then drove through the narrow streets, where knots of people strolled amid slow-moving traffic. Eve’s eyes scanned each intersection, alley, and street, but no one seemed out of place.
“I guess I was imagining it.”
“I doubt it.” Cole turned down a side street. “You’re not prone to invention and paranoia.”
“Except at Roy’s cabin?” she asked.
He tensed as he nosed his Jeep around a corner. “You have to trust that I would never do anything to hurt you, Eve. Not that night. Not ever.”
“So I just imagined you there.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.
He slid her a glance and touched her leg as he shifted. “It was a strange night.”
“Can’t argue with that,” she said, still unsettled.
Her cell phone rang again, and she checked the display. This time caller ID indicated only that the call was restricted. “Maybe the reporter’s cell,” she said and turned the phone off. “Whatever it is, I’m not dealing with it now.”
But the damage was done.
Between the phone calls and Eve’s thinking someone was watching them, they were back where they’d started. The few hours of breaking away from the nightmare were over, and the real world had intruded once again.
In silence, Cole headed to the Garden Dis
trict, a place Eve had always loved. Tall, ornate houses and gardens were tended and well kept, the history of each building as lush as the surrounding grounds.
But tonight she noticed the vaults and headstones of a cemetery as they passed. In the dark the tombs seemed ominous, a reminder of the death that was stalking the city. As they turned onto St. Charles Avenue, even the castlelike universities of Loyola and Tulane appeared sinister and dark, malevolent fortresses that could surely house evil.
Stop it, she told herself. Hadn’t Cole just said she wasn’t prone to paranoia? Although she tried to tamp down the bad feeling that had crept over her, as Cole turned a final corner and Nana’s house came into view, even the familiar sight of the broad front porch, tall, shuttered windows, and curved turret couldn’t temper her unease.
Cole parked near the garage, and as Eve opened the Jeep’s door she spied a shadow dart across the yard. “Samson?” she called as the cat climbed up the back steps and paced on the mat by the door. “How’d you get out?” She picked the cat up with her good hand and held him to her as Cole unlocked the door. “You’re so much trouble, but I love you anyway.”
“Nice to know,” Cole said, opening the door and letting her step into the mudroom first.
“I was talking to the cat.”
“Uh-huh.”
As if he didn’t like being in the middle of their discussion, Samson wriggled out of her arms, hopped to the floor, and shot through the open door to the kitchen.
“There was a time you said something like that to me,” Cole reminded her.
Her heart clutched, and she had a fleeting memory of riding horses across a flat expanse of field at her father’s house. It was after her father’s trial, after he’d been acquitted of any wrongdoing. It was a glorious spring day, just before sunset. She and Cole had bet on whose horse was faster then raced back toward the barn. She’d been on the swifter little mare, but Cole had convinced his horse to jump a downed tree and somehow ended up at the barn a stride ahead of her. Still breathless, he’d claimed victory. She’d accused him of cheating, and he’d climbed off his horse, pulled her from the mare and, before her booted feet had hit the ground, kissed her so hard she’d scarcely been able to stand.
“It’s time you paid up, Eve, or I might just have to take the winnings out of your hide.”
“Promises, promises,” she laughed, goading him.
“Is that a dare?” Eyes as blue as a west Texas sky had sparked, and beneath a day’s worth of stubble, one side of his mouth had lifted a bit.
“Take it whatever way you want!”
“Dangerous talk, lady.”
“Oh yeah, like you scare me.”
“I should.”
She’d laughed as he’d kissed her again. Hard. And when he’d finally lifted his head, she’d held his face in her hands. “You are so much trouble, Cole Dennis, but, damn it, I love you anyway….”
Now he was staring at her with those same blue eyes, the same laser-sharp intensity that caused her stupid heart to pound. She tried to talk, but for a second her voice refused to work, and she had to clear her throat. “Let’s just not go there, not tonight.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“I love you, Eve.”
There it was. Hanging in the air between them, and all flirtatiousness, all signs of playfulness that had been with them through the night, were suddenly dispelled. Here, in this dimly lit room off the porch, Cole Dennis had bared his soul, and as she looked into his face, she saw that he was raw. Naked. His feelings exposed.
She swallowed back an impulse to blurt out her own feelings.
Cole’s jaw was working, his hands at his sides. He was waiting for her to respond. To say what was lodged so deeply in her heart.
Tell him. Tell him you love him, that you’ve always loved him, that you’ve known all along that he couldn’t have raised a gun at you. That you were wrong. That you are sorry for all the pain you caused him. Tell him, Eve.
The words stuck in her throat. How long had she ached to hear that he still loved her?
“We should be careful,” she said, her own words rushing through her head. You love him. You do. Tell him. For God’s sake, Eve, don’t blow this!
She had loved him. There was no use denying what was so patently obvious. There was a chance she still loved him, had never really stopped.
He touched her on the side of the face. “Take your time, Eve,” he said, and she had to fight not to fall against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His finger slid along the side of her throat then lower, hooking on the neckline of her blouse, his skin warm against hers. Leaning forward, his lips a hair’s breadth over hers, he whispered, “I’ll wait.”
Oh dear God.
Tears, unbidden, touched the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of him. Would not break down. Her skin tingled where he touched her, and she had thoughts of wrapping her arms around his neck and then stripping off his clothes. In her mind’s eye, she saw them together, kissing, touching, sweat-soaked, naked bodies entangled in the sheets of her bed. Would it be so wrong? Would it?
Grabbing his hand, she wrapped her fingers around his. “I think we should take this slow,” she said carefully.
“I’m not sure there’s any ‘slow’ with you.”
“Cole…”
“Stop fighting me,” he said urgently.
Eve gazed at him. She wanted him. She tried hard to remember that she shouldn’t have him, but all she could see was Cole, the man she loved. “Okay,” she said on a shaky laugh.
Her sudden capitulation surprised and delighted him. He kissed her hard then grinned. “I’ll go get my things. Meet you upstairs.”
She turned and nearly ran through the kitchen, along the hall, and up the stairs, the cat following close behind. Was she crazy? Out of her mind? All she could think about was making love to him. Should she strip and lie naked in the bed?
Or put on a sexy piece of lingerie? Dear God, did she even own a teddy or flimsy nightgown? Surely she had something…. Not that he would care.
Samson shot ahead of her, bounding up the final flight to her turret room. Downstairs, she heard Cole reenter the house. She’d have to work fast if she wanted to surprise him with a sexy piece of lingerie.
This was nuts! But wonderful.
She was up the remaining flight in an instant. Heart pounding, gasping for breath, she pushed open the door to her bedroom, crossed the dark room, and snapped on the bedside lamp.
Then she saw the doll.
In the wash of warm light, Charlotte was posed in the same position as she had been at the old hospital: facedown, half dressed, red slashes marring her stuffed body, lying in the middle of Eve’s bed.
But this time there was blood everywhere. And there was a message in blood on the wall. For her.
A strangled scream ripped from her throat. Loud and long, it echoed her terror through the house.
CHAPTER 26
The scream ricocheted down the stairs.
Eve!
Cole dropped his bag, bolted through the house, and took the steps two at a time, nearly tripping on the damned cat that was streaking down as he ran up. He reached the turret room just as Eve was backing out of it. Her hands covered her mouth. She turned to face him, her eyes round with terror. Without thinking, he grabbed her, held her tight, and peered into the room.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she moaned. Then he noticed it, the words scrawled in blood on the wall near the baseboard: DENNIS SINNED . In block letters, bold and dripping. His stomach clenched, and revulsion forced him to step back as he recognized the mutilated doll and what appeared to be blood drenching the bed and dripping onto the floor. Bile burned up his throat.
He couldn’t pull Eve down the stairs fast enough.
“How?” she whispered. “Who?” She was trembling in his arms. “Why would anyone…”
“Someone who’s seriously deranged,” he said.
Dennis sinned.
Someone knew.
“Come on.” He hustled her into the kitchen then handed her a butcher knife. “I don’t think anyone’s still here, but I’m going to check. Where’s the gun, the one you pointed at me?”
“The revolver…Uh, I put it back in my grandfather’s desk in the den,” she said vaguely. Then, with more awareness, “But it’s not loaded. I don’t think we have any bullets.”
“That’s probably a good thing. What about a rifle or shotgun?”
“No. Nana sold them a long time ago.”
So all he had to worry about was whatever weapon the psycho brought with him. If the madman was still around. “Okay. Now”—he grabbed the handheld receiver, quickly dialed 911, then handed the phone to Eve—“have them send someone out and have them locate either Montoya or Bentz. Can you do that?”
She nodded, but he wasn’t convinced.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” She held the phone in one hand, still clutching the butcher knife in the other.
“I’ll search this floor first then go upstairs.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No, Eve, stay here and—”
“This is Eve Renner,” she said into the phone, then rattled off her address, begging Cole with her eyes to stay put until she was finished. “I’d like to report a…a break-in…. No, I don’t know if anything was taken, but the person left me a sick message of some kind, a doll soaked in blood and…and…” She glanced up at Cole but couldn’t force the words of the damning message over her tongue. “Please have Detective Montoya or Bentz call me…. Yes…. No, I’ll wait here…. No, I’m not alone. I’ll be safe.” She hung up, and, clutching Cole’s hand in one of hers and the knife in the other, joined him in searching the main floor. Nothing was out of place. With trepidation they mounted the steps to the second floor, but it too was empty. Undisturbed. The unloaded revolver was where Eve had hidden it in the desk drawer.
Only the turret bedroom had been bloodied and scarred.
Cole’s thoughts raced. What kind of fiend was hell-bent on frightening Eve? On using his name? With mind-chilling certainty, Cole realized these murders were more than a killer looking for prey. Whoever was behind this had a fixation with Eve. She was his ultimate target. Someone wanted to terrorize her. And they didn’t like him being close to her…. Why else write his name in blood, for Christ’s sake? All the murders, starting with Roy Kajak’s, were because of this madman’s fascination and ultimate need to control the woman Cole loved.