Out of Body

by Stella Cameron

  This was the dead time in New Orleans. Apart from the tourist shops, much of the city’s retail had closed up and although it was getting darker, the lights in the Quarter didn’t show up enough to work their magic.

  She had been paid by check. Although she told Lenny she needed the cash, he said they couldn’t spare the change. That was a lie. He knew the banks were closed and figured he had a chance of floating what little she earned at least until tomorrow. Lenny was so tight with money she had to ask for hers every week, and he made her wait around until she was almost too embarrassed to stay at all.

  It was past the point when she could ride her bike home before complete darkness fell, but she didn’t have the price of a cab. Her dad had a deal that she was always to call if she wasn’t sure she’d be safe on the trip home. He would get out his old Ford truck and drive to pick her up, peering over the steering wheel because even with glasses he didn’t see so well. They lived in Marigny, close to Kenner. She wanted her own place, but didn’t have the heart to leave her father completely on his own.

  With the helmet her dad insisted she wore, Pearl walked toward the far end of the alley where she locked her bike in a rack pushed back in the covered entry to a mostly unused warehouse. The place kept the bikes out of easy sight and so far she’d been lucky enough not to have it stolen. A small, dark-colored van just about blocked the exit to the street, but she figured she could get past.

  Mist started to turn into rain. She tipped up her face and smiled. Rain made the ride slower, but she didn’t mind—unless it got really dark.

  The van’s engine turned over and the vehicle moved toward her, but very slowly. Pearl waved and pointed toward the warehouse. The driver gave his horn a light tap and waved at her out of his window. He stopped on the other side of the entrance.

  Pearl kept going, anxious to get started toward home. A hot bath and whatever her dad had made for dinner was a friendly beacon to head for.

  She broke into a run, not wanting to keep the van driver waiting.

  Her dad would be mad when she turned up after dark, but she could always talk him around.

  Traffic on the cross street passed with a steady hum, the headlights starting to shine on wet pavement.

  Pearl glanced at the van when she veered left to get her bike, but she couldn’t see the driver through the windshield. Just the same, she waved again and mouthed, “Thank you for waiting.”

  The building doors, almost always shut, were wide-open. Usually Pearl didn’t like that because she couldn’t see very far into the gloom. This evening a light shone just inside. Just as well since someone had shoved the bike rack inside, complete with her bike.

  She checked over her shoulder, expecting to see the van drive on, but it stayed where it was.

  Her stomach tightened and sweat popped out along her hairline. This was no place for people who scared easily. She’d get going and take the main streets rather than the smaller, more deserted ones that were her shortcut.

  Although the warehouse wasn’t huge, it was big enough and it didn’t make sense that it was completely empty. Empty with the doors open, a light on and heavy shadows blanketing all but the area closest to Pearl.

  As usual, the padlock key had hidden itself among the small things in the bottom of her bag. She felt around but finally held the zip wide-open and peered inside.

  The light went out.

  The purse slipped through her fingers.

  Pearl turned toward the doors, just in time to see them swing shut. Blackness saturated everything.

  She dropped to her knees, searching for her bag—and heard a sound, like breaths passing in and out through an off-key harmonica.

  Two fiery red gashes bobbled toward her.

  24

  Fine rain fell steadily in gathering gloom by the time Gray and Marley left the precinct house. “I want to come with you,” Gray said.

  With Winnie’s chew under her arm like a military baton, Marley hurried along the wet street. She was visibly preoccupied.

  “Marley, say something.”

  She squinted up at him, her expression very intense. “This is life or death,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to the Court of Angels.”

  “Someone must have had a sense of humor when they called it that,” Gray said.

  “Meaning?”

  Once again he should have kept his thoughts to himself. “Nothing. Just an odd name for a place is all.”

  She gave him a long look. “Odd because you don’t think it fits the kind of people who live there? Angels are interesting. You should read about them.”

  This time he kept his mouth shut.

  The dog panted.

  Gray scooped her up and barely suppressed a grin. He’d found the way to slow Marley down. In fact, she skidded to a halt and frowned. “She doesn’t like being picked up by other people.”

  Winnie settled her wet nose into the skin where his T-shirt met his shoulder and sighed.

  Despite the satisfaction he got out of the pup’s defection from her mistress, Gray knew when he was on dangerous ground. “She’s tired,” he said seriously, stroking the dog’s damp, seal-like coat while she snuggled closer. “She missed you all day and then she got hauled all over the place. And she probably doesn’t like being in Nat’s dungeon office.”

  Marley’s tongue was in her cheek and her eyes narrowed. “Hold the leash then,” she said and stuffed it into his hand.

  For an instant their fingers met and seemed joined by fire.

  Marley bowed her head and muttered what sounded like, “Really inconvenient.” He could have misheard.

  “I’ll take her from you at the shop,” she said. “But you don’t have to carry her and come with me if you don’t want to. We’ll be just fine.”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you mean, nope?” She was motoring again.

  “You’re not going on your own.”

  “Do you know how you sound? You can’t tell me what to do.” Her voice rose a notch. “You hardly know me.”

  “Doesn’t feel like that, though, does it?”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “So many problems.”

  She broke into a jog and he lengthened his stride. “I’ll help any way I can,” Gray said. “I hope you’re not going to try what Nat wants. Solving this case is his job, not yours.”

  “You don’t know anything about…” She didn’t finish.

  “Explain it, then, whatever it is.”

  She scuttled in her hurry to make conversation impossible.

  “I’m not just going away,” Gray said. “You can run, but I can run faster.”

  “Chauvinistic drivel.”

  “I’ve got your dog and she likes me. Run away and she’s mine.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’re magnificent when you’re mad.”

  “Get some original lines.” Marley looked both ways and crossed Royal with Gray right at her side. Headlights slicked across rain-soaked road. “This is serious. I don’t know why you can’t understand that I need to be alone so I can think and make decisions.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. I know a softy when I meet one. You’re a softy, Marley. You’re going to do anything to try to get those women back.”

  Once again, she stopped running. “Of course I will,” she said, hands on hips, pointed chin raised. “What kind of person wouldn’t go to any lengths to help someone else get back to safety?”

  “Would you like to take down names?”

  She threw up her hands and caught Winnie’s chew just in time. “I’ve never based my decisions on the way other people behave.”

  “I just bet you haven’t. You’re special, Marley.”

  Their eyes met. “Really special,” he told her. “Are we going to have some time together—just the two of us?”

  The shop was a few yards ahead. “Can we talk about that later?” Marley said.

  “Whatever you say.” But he would rather know now. “
We’re supposed to have dinner tonight.”

  “First things first. Something’s happening. I’ve got to hurry. Give me Winnie and I’ll call you later.”

  He held the dog against him. He was liking the feeling of her in his arms. “What does something’s happening mean?” Whatever it was, it made him nervous.

  She bounced on the soles of her feet. “Only…nothing. I just meant there’s a lot going on.”

  “No, you didn’t. Do you think there’s a new development? Are you getting vibes or whatever?”

  “When you face up to your own vibes you won’t find them so funny.” Her teeth came together sharply.

  “More mysteries?” he said, but he did get feelings. The only true surprise about this conversation was that Marley seemed to know what he did or didn’t feel.

  She didn’t enlighten him.

  “What’s worrying me is that you could do something that’s dangerous.”

  “I’m not your responsibility.”

  “I think you’re getting to be my responsibility—I like it that way.” He didn’t see any way to step back and make this a leisurely game of “getting to know you.” In fact, he wasn’t even going to try pussyfooting around. “You’re not getting to be my responsibility. You are my responsibility. So give it up. Hey, just say the word and I’ll be your responsibility, too.”

  “You already are,” she said. Her blush was furious. “Please give me Winnie,” she said quietly. “I promise I’ll call you. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”

  Gray reached for her, but let his arm drop to his side again. “One woman is dead. You heard Nat. She died hard and I’m not standing by and risking your life. I won’t do it, Marley, I mean it.”

  “How can you stop me?”

  “I’ll go to your family and tell them what’s going on.”

  She laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it. “We’re a tight family. We stick together.”

  “Good. Tell me how you go about this out-of-body stuff.”

  “What?” She gave him an amazed stare. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t explain something to you when I wouldn’t know how to explain it to anyone else.”

  “You leave your body and go somewhere else.”

  Marley looked right and left, grabbed his elbow and towed him into the shop. She closed the door resolutely behind them, but the bell jangled on.

  “Hello,” someone called from deeper in the shop. “Can we help you?”

  “It’s Marley, Uncle.”

  “Good, good, I’ve been looking for you.” A man came into view. Husky in a toned, muscular manner, he was handsome with definite signs of the same genes as Marley. He shaved his head, but his brows were auburn and his eyes a glowing green. He wore a green jacket over an open-necked shirt and green plaid cravat.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, frowning, his attention ricocheting between Gray and Marley.

  “Gray Fisher,” Gray said, smiling, keeping a firm hold on Winnie and offering his hand. “Marley’s one of a kind. I don’t blame you for being suspicious of any man she brings home. Ouch!”

  Marley had, very surreptitiously, stepped on his toe. Apparently he’d said something wrong.

  His jaws tightened, but Gray kept on smiling. “You are, sir?”

  “Pascal Millet.” He shook Gray’s hand. “Marley’s uncle and guardian.”

  Oh, yes, and there was ice in those words. “You’ve done a great job raising her as an honorable person, sir.”

  “How would you know? Marley, who is this guy? He’s trying to impress me and we both know what that means. You and I need to talk.”

  “Gray is my friend, Uncle,” Marley said.

  Gray nodded and tried not to look too smug.

  Another man entered the shop from upstairs. This one also exuded health, but he didn’t have Pascal’s elegance. The newcomer wore sweatpants and a muscle shirt. Blond tips scattered his hair and complemented sharply defined, male-model features.

  “Pascal,” he said. “I could hear you two floors up. You have to consider your blood pressure. Let me make you an energy drink.”

  “Anthony,” Pascal said, indicating the man. “My trainer.”

  “Good idea, Anthony,” Marley said. “Please look after Uncle Pascal’s nerves. Gray and I are going up to my workroom. He’s interested in the restorations I do.”

  “Is he really?” Pascal said, his voice entirely too soft.

  “Sit, sit, at once,” Anthony told him, pulling a chair over.

  Marley and Gray left the two of them. They arrived at her workroom and she unlocked the door.

  “Any reason why you keep that locked all the time?” Gray asked. It seemed odd to him.

  She didn’t answer. He walked into the workroom behind her and she locked them in.

  “I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m working,” Marley said abruptly. “What I do calls for concentration.”

  He nodded. How did you argue with that?

  “You’re going to wait a few minutes, then leave,” Marley said. “Thanks for bringing me back.”

  He sat on the same stool he’d used before and Winnie crawled higher on his neck.

  Watching her dog, Marley frowned. “I don’t understand what she’s up to.”

  “She likes me. Some women do.”

  “I like you,” Marley said. “I’ve got a bunch of questions about you, but I do like you.”

  “More than like me, maybe?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “D’you have any more of those chocolate-covered coffee beans?”

  “You’re stalling,” Marley said, but she went to her big, cavernous cupboard and delved inside. Then she spun around. “We left without the fresh pralines from Aunt Sally’s. Will they eat them down there?”

  She looked so stricken, he laughed. “If they do, I’ll get you some more.”

  “Oh.” More crumple and shove followed and she emerged with the coffee beans and a bag of broken chocolate pieces. She gave him the beans. “Take those with you,” she said.

  He put the box on the floor and started eating.

  Marley sat down in her leather chair and leaned forward. “Did you notice anything about Pipes Dupuis when you saw her this morning?”

  He frowned.

  Marley pushed up the long sleeves of the black T-shirt she must have roasted in all day and rotated her arms to show the angry-looking welts on her wrists. “Pipes has some of these on the back of her neck. I told you that before you went into the house.”

  “Damn, there was too much going on.” He stood up, furious with himself, but still clinging to Winnie. “I forgot. Why didn’t you explain to Nat?”

  “He doesn’t believe in me. If he wasn’t desperate, he wouldn’t have asked me to help.” Her tight smile worried Gray. “People should know better than to doubt just because they’ve never seen something. If they can’t touch and smell, they pooh-pooh. Skeptics are always so righteous—until they start feeling foolish because they’re proved wrong.”

  That was what he’d been afraid she’d say. “Don’t blame Nat. His job is to look for proof. If he doesn’t have evidence to show, the people he works with, and for, don’t want to know. It’s all about proving things in a court of law.”

  “But he’s against the wall so he asked me for help.”

  “Because he’s too good a cop not to go after anything that could help.”

  Marley wagged her head. “I guess.”

  “How do we get to Pipes Dupuis? She knows something.”

  “She surely does,” Marley said. “But I don’t think she wants to talk about it.”

  “Why wouldn’t she if she’s scared?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought about it. “And I could be mistaken about what those scratches are. Either way, she has to want to talk to us about it.”

  “Nat needs to know.”

  “Does he? If I tell him about Pipes having those marks, I’ll have to talk about the ones I’ve got. I don’t want to talk about mo
re details until I’m ready.”

  “Why, if you say you want to help? You already told him the main stuff about you.”

  “I’ve been laughed at before. And it wouldn’t help because they’ll ignore whatever I say. You said they work on proof so I’ll get them proof, then I’ll tell them more if I think it’ll help.”

  Without intending to, she had confirmed his fears. She intended to go searching for a killer—again. And if she could sustain the visible wounds she already had, was it so unreasonable for him to be scared sick for her life?

  He thought about the corpse of Shirley Cooper.

  Winnie squealed. He had squeezed her too tightly.

  “Don’t worry,” Marley said, sounding softer than he’d heard her before. “I know what I’m doing.”

  A glance at her face didn’t reassure him. “You want to believe that,” he said. “I wish I could.” She wasn’t convincing herself and he knew he was right to be skeptical.

  The dog wiggled and he set her down.

  And he gathered himself to come up with more persuasive arguments for Marley.

  She wasn’t looking at him. Or listening to him. He frowned, watching her face change. All expression smoothed away and her eyes didn’t appear to see anything. He wasn’t sure she even remembered he was there.

  Her hands rose, fingers extended, and Marley stood up. The focus in her eyes completely dulled. How small and shaky she seemed.

  Marley had not started what was happening. Of course he could be wrong, but he thought she would have preferred to wait for him to leave first.

  Gray wanted to take her in his arms, to shake her and plead for her to let go of whatever had started to lead her away.

  Faintly, he heard a hum and inside the hum, a rustling. The rustling had patterns and he strained to understand what they might mean.

  Marley stood in front of her workbench. Her hands came together, the fingertips steepled, and she touched the elaborate roof of an old red dollhouse on the bench. Chinese-looking and like nothing he’d seen before. Three stories with silhouettes of people behind shaded windows and set in what was left of a garden surrounded by a stone wall. It had a corner door, like a shop, with a window on either side. What looked like baked goods were heaped there.