Phantom of the French Quarter

by Colleen Thompson

  It was hard for him, what with that stomach, but after a moment he stood in front of Marcus. As he did, he underwent a visible transformation, his jaw tightening and his face reddening, an animal-like fury burning in his eyes.

  Paine was clearly humiliated, Marcus realized, something a man known for his temper didn’t suffer lightly.

  “Just tell me. Tell me what you want,” Paine ground out.

  “I want you to stay miles away from Caitlyn Villaré,” Marcus warned him. “Don’t go near her. Don’t call her. Don’t stir up any trouble for her.”

  “So you’re sleeping with her, are you?” Paine’s snort was dismissive. “You’d hardly be the first. That Villaré girl’s a tramp just like her mother. Hardly worth the —”

  Marcus slammed Paine backward, into the open doorframe, where he held the man pinned, his muddy brown eyes popping wider.

  “Do I have your full attention now?” Marcus seared him with a hard stare, until Paine nodded quickly, his sneer turning to a look of terror. “You’re done insulting Caitlyn. You’re finished threatening her. And if you even think of doing worse, I’ll be back. Understand that? I’ll be back when you least expect it, maybe when you’re sleeping.”

  Another rapid-fire nod.

  “And I absolutely will destroy you.” Marcus let his gaze bore into terrified eyes. Let Paine think about what he was saying and feel the truth of his vow.

  Marcus wished to God it were true, that he could stick around to enforce his threats against this coward. But he had nothing to hold over the maggot, nothing except whatever fear he might instill, for however long it lasted.

  Beyond that…

  Disgusted by the uselessness of his own actions, the bleakness of the wasteland that opened up before him with his violence, Marcus let go of Paine’s shirt and shoved the man away. “Go and sin no more.”

  As he turned to leave, he wasn’t certain whether he had meant the quote for Josiah Paine or himself.

  He was still pondering the question when he heard a sound behind him. A metallic noise that came an instant before Paine opened fire.

  Chapter Ten

  With Reuben away on a brief trip to pick up his mail and check on his house, Caitlyn set up a box fan in the attic, but although the sun had gone down, the stifling breeze did little except to stir the dust.

  She sneezed and blew her nose, then started digging through the boxes she and Jacinth had spotted not long after their move. At the time, they hadn’t paid much attention to the single carton marked with their mother’s name. To the sisters, their grandmother Marie had been the mystery, not the familiar mom who had moved them back to her Ohio hometown and raised the two of them with loving care.

  But Max Lafitte’s cruel comments, his insistence that her mother was a tease and her father quick with his fists, had gotten Caitlyn wondering. Was there more to her mom—a mother Caitlyn never once remembered going on dates, much less flirting shamelessly—than she had ever guessed?

  A wave of guilt struck at her doubt, sweeping her against a solid wall of grief. She struggled not to think of her mother’s last days, before swift-moving cancer took her, and not to feel disloyal for questioning a past that the former Sophie Sinclair had more than earned the right to leave behind.

  Caitlyn’s fingers smeared the dust atop the box, revealing only her mother’s first name, in slashing, angry-looking letters. Had her grandmother packed up the last unwelcome reminders of her murdered son’s bride? What had happened to cause such bitterness between the two that Caitlyn’s mother forever after refused to speak of the place she’d once called home?

  After switching off the fan, she carried the box down two flights of stairs and into the kitchen, the one room where the dying AC had made a respectable last stand. At the breakfast table, she made short work of the dust and used a knife to slit the yellowed packing tape.

  She had only pried up the first flap when she heard the screech of tires in the street out front.

  Fear pinching inside her, she glanced reflexively at the countertop, where Reuben had insisted on leaving a loaded pistol in case she needed it in his absence, though Caitlyn had sworn she would never touch the thing. Ignoring it in spite of her fear, she hurried into the formal living room and cautiously peered past the heavy curtain covering one of a pair of impressively tall windows.

  Directly in front of the house, an older pickup truck had pulled into the spill of light beneath an antique-style street lamp. Though she had never seen the vehicle before, she gasped with the shock of recognition as Marcus struggled out, the shoulder of his white shirt gleaming black.

  Not truly black, she knew instinctively. If she had a light to shine on it, it would glow with the deep red of fresh blood.

  She was halfway to the front door before caution kicked in. What if the blood she’d spotted wasn’t his? What if he had killed again, as he was accused of doing in Pennsylvania? As the detectives and Reuben believed he might have done here, too?

  Indecision froze her in place, and she could almost hear Reuben’s gravelly voice ordering, Call 9-1-1.

  From out front, she heard the gate creak, and her own instincts shouted loudly, It’s Marcus, and he’s hurt. Get out there and help him.

  With her stomach in knots, she ran back to the kitchen, her hand reaching toward the gun that lay there gleaming coolly, its black metal reassurance crafted for only one purpose: shooting down a human being. But as squeamishness gave way to self-preservation, she picked it up and held it out before her, hating its cold touch, yet feeling its seductive power flowing through her.

  She reached the front door just before his knocking started, loud and urgent. As she had before, she opened it but kept the chain in place and the pistol out of sight.

  This close, she smelled the blood on his shirt and saw that the wound was on his upper arm rather than his shoulder. Pain had leached the color from his handsome face, streaking it with perspiration.

  “Oh, Marcus. I’m calling you an ambulance.”

  “No—no police, no ambulance.” His hand trembled as he reached toward her. “Just let me inside, please. I waited ’til Reuben left, but I really need some bandages or clean towels. I’ll be okay if I can stop the bleeding.”

  Her hand shot to the chain, where she hesitated as she looked into his desperate eyes. Hesitated as the meaning of his words slammed through her. He had waited—despite the condition he was in—for Reuben to leave her all alone.?…

  And he was on the run for burning down his fiancée’s home to hide her murder.

  Could he have feigned this wound, even gone so far as to hurt himself, to get her to let her guard down? She imagined the mansion in flames, her own body lying inside it.

  Heartbeat drumming in her ears, she forced herself to tell him, “I’m sorry, Marcus, but I’m either calling 9-1-1 or you’re going to have to leave now. And if that’s your choice, don’t bother coming back.”

  “Caitlyn, listen to me. It was Josiah Paine who did this.”

  Why would Paine…? She let go of the thought, shaking her head. “I know who you are, Marcus. I know what you did in Pennsylvania. So which is it? Do I make the call now and get help for you? Or are you leaving—”

  “I swear, I never…” Behind his eyes, a wall came up, and he turned to stagger away. “You’re right. I should leave now. Better for both of us this way.”

  The pain in his voice, the bitter disappointment, was nearly her undoing. Closing the door as he walked away, she leaned against it, pressing a hand against her throbbing temples.

  And then she heard the crash a minute later.

  Acting on pure instinct, she unchained the door and ran outside, to where Marcus’s pickup had knocked down a section of the iron fence and come to rest between the massive live oak and the smaller magnolia in the front yard. Though the truck didn’t appear badly damaged, he was slumped over the steering wheel, apparently unconscious.

  “Marcus!” she cried as she rushed nearer. She looked around fra
ntically for help, but she spotted no passersby or neighbors, and only one car, which first slowed down and then squealed away when the frightened driver, a horrified-looking young Asian woman, saw the gun in Caitlyn’s hand.

  Caitlyn called his name again, but Marcus didn’t stir until she nudged the arm hanging limply from the open window.

  He roused, barely lifting his head, and even in the dim light, she saw how colorless his lips were, how unfocused his dark eyes. “Inside, Caitlyn. Tie my hands—whatever you want. Just help me stop the bleeding.”

  She stood very still, feeling balanced on a knife’s edge, knowing that whichever way she moved, the decision would slice her to the bone.

  THE NIGHT SPINNING AROUND Marcus stank of blood and sweat, overlaid with the sweetly floral scent of a magnolia blooming nearby. When the world came to rest, he saw that Caitlyn was still staring, the anguish of uncertainty written in her green eyes.

  But it was the pistol in her right hand that tormented him even more than the pain of the gunshot wound to his arm. Until now, he’d thought of her as his angel, an innocent to be protected.

  More like an innocent to be corrupted by her association with him.

  Because she’d learned the truth—or what she thought to be the truth—of his past, now she was terrified to trust him. Too afraid to let him come inside, even at gunpoint.

  Resolve hardening her eyes, she reached out and opened the truck door, her answer written on her face.

  “In the house,” she said. “Quick—before anybody sees you. And don’t think for a second I won’t defend myself.”

  He staggered ahead of her, using the railing to pull himself up the front steps.

  “Go ahead,” she urged. “Go on in.”

  He continued to hesitate at the heavy wooden front door, positioned between two of the massive columns. It was the kind of entrance built to keep the likes of him out.

  The hell with that, he thought, blinking away the dizziness and yanking the door open with his good arm. In the entryway, his footsteps echoed off the marble, and above his head, he caught glimpses of a chandelier, and the classical fauns and satyrs dancing in the dome above it. He noticed, too, the imperfections, the peeling paint and crumbling plaster, the rust-colored stain in the hallway ceiling and the subtle scent of mildew that hinted at a leak.

  Run-down or not, had any Le Carpentier ever rested his head inside a house as grand as this one?

  “You might want to grab a towel,” he warned. “I’m dripping.”

  She returned with one in seconds and looked relieved to see him still standing where she’d left him. “Water’s out in the downstairs bathroom. Can you make it upstairs?”

  At his nod, she explained, “At least I’m well-stocked with plenty of antiseptic cream and bandages. Someone’s forever getting bruised or scraped up trying to keep this place from falling down around our ears.”

  Though she sounded stressed, he heard affection in her voice, too, as well as pride in the faded grandeur of her home.

  He shoved the damp hair from his eyes. “Let’s just use the kitchen—I don’t want to make a lot of trouble for you. I just need to explain—”

  “Up the stairs, and hurry,” she insisted, gesturing with the pistol.

  Why was it she wanted him up there so badly? Her eyes offered no clue. He read only anxiety, probably because she wasn’t used to handling a weapon. Reminding himself that made her twice as likely to squeeze off a shot from nervousness, he decided not to argue and instead did as she asked, his injured arm throbbing in protest.

  Still, he felt uneasy as the steps creaked under his footsteps. He walked ahead of her, his hand gliding along the rich mahogany banister. When he spotted a small bathroom and started inside, she said, “No, not there. All the way down on the right.”

  They passed several huge wooden doors before he peered inside a warm and stuffy bedroom, dimmed by a pair of heavy crimson curtains on a window he realized would face the side of the house next door. Among the shadows, he made out the hulking forms of a heavy carved bed and a large dark wardrobe, and a ladies’ vanity set with a mirror and a stool.

  “My grandmother’s suite,” Caitlyn explained, ushering him inside. “The bathroom’s there, to the right. You’ll have everything you need.”

  Before he could ask a single question, the bedroom door snapped shut, leaving him alone. He heard a key rattling in the lock beneath the crystal knob. Uselessly, he tried the door and called out, “Caitlyn?”

  The only answer was the rhythm of fast-receding footsteps, followed by the fainter sound of feet descending the stairs.

  Had she left him trapped here so she could call the authorities? Or maybe she was waiting for her pit bull to return.

  His heart thundered, its every wild beat shooting agony through oozing flesh and perforated muscle. The pain of her betrayal, though he understood it rationally, hurt him even worse.

  The thought of being locked up sent panic ripping through him. These past four years, for all their emptiness, he’d had nothing to his name except the sense that he was acting freely, making his own choices, as difficult as they were. Including the decision to come here, both for help and to warn Caitlyn that Paine was every bit as violent as she feared.

  Except now she had made her own choice, closing the door, quite literally, on him forever. And potentially robbing him of any control over his own future—or his family’s.

  He rattled the knob again. With a burst of strength flooding his veins, he hurled his uninjured left shoulder several times against wood so heavy and solid, it barely creaked with the impact. Cursing in frustration, he gave up and staggered, breathing hard, into the bathroom.

  There he tore open drawers and cupboards in search of the supplies she had promised. But as he dug them out, the question repeatedly echoed through his mind: Should he clean and dress the wound, or risk his neck attempting to climb out the second-story window in a bid for freedom?

  And would it be worth it for the sake of the brother who had cost him everything he’d ever loved?

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time Caitlyn grabbed her purse to hide the gun and reached the pickup, her next-door neighbors had come over to check out the commotion. Dread knotted in her stomach, not because she didn’t like the aging gay couple or wish them well in renovating their new purchase for a bed-and-breakfast, but the two men were so relentlessly friendly that any conversation could easily stretch into an hours-long chat-fest over cocktails.

  Thinking quickly, she came up with a lie involving a ne’er-do-well boyfriend who’d had one too many.

  “And not a word to my uncle about this, either, please,” she added, mentally crossing her fingers as she referred to Reuben. “He already can’t stand Stefan, and he’s going to be furious about the fence.”

  Chuckling, the neighbors gave their word and even helped her back the truck out of her front yard and hide it in the mansion’s dilapidated carriage house.

  “Now that we’re coconspirators, you’ll have to come and visit us more often.” The tanned, still-handsome Ernest winked, the ice cubes clinking in the highball glass he’d brought out with him.

  “If I pull this off, the drinks are on me,” she promised, though she’d never really taken to the taste of alcohol.

  The moment they disappeared from view, she readjusted the purse on her shoulder and made a beeline for the back door, so she could check on Marcus. Finding it locked, she cursed, then used the driveway to walk around to the front…

  Where she found Reuben standing outside his still-running car and studying the damaged fence.

  Zeroing in on her, he glared and asked, “What the hell good are those deadbolts if you unlock them and start walking around outside?”

  Her anxiety spiked, seeing him back so soon. If he discovered Marcus in the house, all hell was bound to break loose. How could she keep the two of them apart? “I heard the crash, but by the time I looked out the window, the car was speeding off, so I came to ch
eck the damage.”

  He turned on her, clearly furious. “I asked you to stay inside, not to even answer the door. Two women killed, one of them left for you right on this lawn, and you still don’t listen to one damned thing I tell you. Are you stupid, crazy or just plain suicidal?”

  “Last I checked, you worked for me.” Caitlyn narrowed her eyes, but try as she might to look and sound tough, her heart sagged at the pain that flared in the huge man’s eyes. Still, she went on hurting the man who loved her and kept her safe—all for the sake of a virtual stranger she had no business trusting. “You might’ve been my dad’s friend, but let’s get one thing straight. You’re not my father. You’re an employee. And as of right this minute, you are off the clock.”

  “Caitlyn, Caitlyn, chère. I know I get outta line sometimes. I’m sorry. But you can’t afford to do this, not now. It’s not safe.”

  “Go home, Reuben. Go, and…” Her voice gentled. “And I’ll call you in the morning, okay? I just need a little time to cool off.”

  “I’m not leavin’ you on your own. I’ll sit out front in the freakin’ car if that’s what it takes.”

  Caitlyn huffed out an exasperated sigh, then nearly choked at the sight of the dark side window of her grandmother’s room, with its curtains fluttering in the breeze. Had Marcus opened the window to cool the stifling room, or was he attempting to escape? Her throat tightened, and her eyes stung. Weak as he was, he would fall for certain, maybe to his death.

  Turning her attention to Reuben, she offered him a peek at the gun inside her bag. “See, I have the gun you gave me right here. I listened to you, and I’m carrying it wherever I go.

  “Besides,” she added, “we both know you can’t keep sleeping on that awful sofa forever. I know it’s killing your back. You’re hunched over like an old man.”

  She had offered him an upstairs bedroom, but he’d refused, so he could better listen for any attempted ground-floor break-in.

  “That’s all you see here? An old man?” Anger flashed through his expression, and pride pushed out his chest. “I can sleep there ’til this lunatic who’s stalking you is in jail. Or buried, if I’ve got anything to say about it.”