Phantom of the French Quarter

by Colleen Thompson

  A car that looked to be the size and shape of Reuben Pierce’s dark sedan.

  Several houses down, Marcus pulled over to the broken curb and bailed out, cell phone in hand. Halfway through dialing Detective Robinson, he stopped himself, wondering if the whack to his head had blown out one of his fuses. Surely she would think him insane if he bothered her without a single shred of evidence.

  Half hope, half prayer, his conviction that she was here grew as he rushed toward the gray shroud, keeping his head low to lessen the chance he might be spotted through a crack between the boards covering the windows.

  Reaching the vehicle, he grabbed the cover and began lifting—an instant before shots echoed loudly from inside the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the split second it took Reuben to release her hair and grab for her arm, Caitlyn kicked out with the force of desperation. Whether by blind luck or instinct, she caught the back of Reuben’s knees. As his legs collapsed, he went down with a shout of rage.

  Springing to her feet, she raced down the short hall, turning to the right, away from the locked door, just as Reuben started blasting away, cursing her with every shot.

  She wildly searched the dark space for even the tiniest fleck of sunlight, anything that might suggest a blocked window she might break through to escape. Before she found what she was looking for, the shooting came to an abrupt halt.

  She tried but couldn’t think back to count how many shots he’d fired—or how many bullets the pistol might hold. Could the gun have jammed? And if it had, would he have a backup weapon, maybe a second gun strapped to his ankle?

  Straining her ears for the slightest sign of movement, she heard only the old woman’s keening, “My hip, my hip. Please come help me, Reuben.”

  Do it. Play the good son. So what if she’s as insane as you are?

  As Caitlyn felt her way around what might have served as kitchen counters, she heard the soft clunk of a door closing, cutting off the dim illumination cast by the lantern in the doll room. Had Reuben closed himself inside with his injured mother, or shut the door against her cries in order to stalk Caitlyn in the darkness?

  She shuddered, biting back a scream at the thought of him grabbing her at any moment, a deadly game of blind man’s bluff. If he was in here somewhere with her instead of seeing to his mother…

  Her head jerked to the right. Had she heard the scrape of a rough breath? The echo of a footstep? Rushing in the opposite direction, she cried out as she knocked the point of her hip against something hard and unyielding. A porcelain sink? A stove?

  She heard his gloating laughter closing in on her, an obscene parody of all the easy chuckles they had shared these past few months. As she bolted out of reach, she heard a voice, muffled but unmistakable, from the other side of the wall.

  “Caitlyn? Are you in there? I can’t get in! The doors are all locked!”

  “Marcus!” she cried, scarcely believing he had found her. That he was still alive. “Marcus, it’s Reuben! Call the police. He has a—”

  A gun, she’d meant to say, before bullets drilled the air around her and the burnt-powder scent filled her nose. Once more she lurched away, not knowing or much caring whether she’d been hit or not, only that her legs worked.

  “Where the hell are you, bitch?” Reuben shouted. “Tell me now and I won’t shoot.”

  As she groped her way to the other side of the room, Caitlyn encountered something wooden and upright. A loose board? No. It felt more like furniture. Realizing that the table was upside down and she’d encountered one of its legs, she planted one foot on the underside of its top and yanked at the loose piece until it came away with a satisfying crack…?.

  A crack that informed Reuben exactly where she was. Still shouting at the 9-1-1 dispatcher, Marcus raced back to the truck and tossed his cell phone onto the seat beside him without even bothering to disconnect. He cranked the engine and jammed it into gear, his panic mounting with the knowledge that every second wasted might be Caitlyn’s last.

  He couldn’t allow himself to think she might be dead already. That any of the shots he’d heard could have pierced some vital organ. Instead he jammed his foot to the floor and lurched forward, the truck’s front right corner catching and tearing off the bumper of the abandoned car ahead of it, flinging the metal in its wake. Slewing to the right, the pickup jumped the curb and roared toward the padlocked shack.

  The four-wheel-drive jounced forward, gaining speed with every foot it chewed up. Both hands clenching the steering wheel, he aimed toward the side of the house farthest from the spot Caitlyn’s voice had come from. A moment before impact, he braced himself and flung a desperate prayer to heaven that he wouldn’t end up doing more harm than good.

  With an enormous crash, the pickup tore into the little house, the airbag exploding into Marcus’s face before the truck jerked to a stop. He recovered within seconds, then threw open the door to see only clouds of dust swirling like smoke all around him, to hear only the creak and clatter of settling roof timbers, and the drip of water somewhere.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, he peered into the settling dust and spotted a host of arms and legs, bent at impossible angles and torn from lifeless torsos, some of them crumpled on the truck’s hood. And glittering green glass eyes, all wide with accusation. Wide and utterly empty.

  What the hell? Dolls?

  Flaxen-haired dolls of every size and type he could imagine lay scattered everywhere. Yet something drew his gaze to the twisted arm of one of the largest, jutting from beneath a slab of collapsed roofing a few feet in front of where his truck had come to rest.

  Oh, God, no. He saw the blood now. A pool spreading from one mostly buried body. He ran to lift the limp wrist, too slender to be Reuben’s. Had his actions taken Caitlyn’s life?

  Beneath his searching fingers, no pulse fluttered. But he quickly realized that this arm—this wrinkled, bony, lifeless limb—was far too thin and frail to be—

  “Marcus!” Caitlyn shrieked behind him. “Help me. Please make him—let go, you sick, demented—”

  With every word, he heard the heavy thunk of something hard impacting flesh. Lurching toward the sound, Marcus peered through the choking dust, and spotted Caitlyn beating Pierce’s back and shoulder with a squared-off length of wood while he clung desperately to her ankle with one hand.

  The other, Marcus saw, was reaching for a gun.

  Clambering through a snow of insulation and over fallen two-by-fours, Marcus reached the prone man and grabbed him by the back of his neck. Despite Reuben’s greater weight and Marcus’s own injuries, he yanked Pierce back, rolling him over and slamming his fist into the ex-cop’s face.

  As the impact of the blow crunched bone, an arc of blood flew from the killer’s smashed nose. Barely feeling the agony radiating up his arm, Marcus pounded him again and again until the man fell completely limp.

  “Is he…?” Caitlyn managed to ask.

  “Out cold, thank God.” As hard as Marcus had hit him, he wasn’t sure Reuben would ever wake again. Not that he gave a damn about that.

  Kicking away the gun, Marcus turned to haul a dirty, bruised and weeping Caitlyn into his arms. “Are you hurt? Did he shoot you or…?”

  “I—I’m all right, I think, or at least I will be once I… Marcus, are you really here, or did I dream you?” Shudders racked her body, yet her breath was warm in his ear. Warm. Alive. And to Marcus, that was everything that mattered. His limbs were shaking with relief.

  “You’re awake, Caitlyn. Awake and safe, and the police are on their way.”

  She clutched at him. “Please don’t run again. Please don’t leave me here alone with them.”

  The terror in her voice made his gut clench, filling him with regret for the times he had been forced to flee when she needed him.

  “I’ll stay until I’m sure you’re safe.” He squeezed her tighter, then softly kissed the slightly damp hair at her temple. “And someday, Caitlyn, if I’m able and you�
��ll have me…”

  She pulled back to look into his eyes. “If I’ll have you? What do you mean, Marcus?”

  “I know I have no right, but I’m saying that I love you, and I want to be with you. Forever.”

  Her beautiful green eyes flared, and his heart sank. He realized how unwelcome his offer must be, when he had so little to offer. With almost nothing to his name but risk, he had been right from the beginning. He couldn’t drag her into his cursed life.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, each word costing a chunk of his soul. “I can’t do this to you. Because you deserve the white horse and the carriage. The fancy dinners and the roses. The Bourbon Street dates and the jazz bands and every single thing you’ve ever wanted, leading up to a proposal on bended knee. And you deserve all of it from a man who’s able to give you the kind of future that will make you happy.”

  “You think I want dates, Marcus?” she asked. “You think I’m standing here this minute expecting a bouquet, a tuxedo and a ring? Or a crystal ball to guarantee a perfect future?”

  “You should want all those things. God knows, I want them for you.”

  Sirens wailed like lost souls in the distance, so many that he wondered if the whole police force was closing in on their location.

  Blinking away tears, Caitlyn draped her arms around his neck and leaned close so he would hear her. “I know exactly what I want. A man who’s loyal, who’s proven that he values family—even family members who have hurt him deeply. A man who’s braver and stronger than anyone I’ve ever known before, who makes me feel things no one else ever has. A man just like you, Marcus, who’s saved my life and absolutely won my heart.”

  She turned to meet his lips, and within that damaged, crumbling house of evil, something pure and perfect pierced his grief.

  When at last their lingering mouths parted, she smiled up to tell him, “I would love to be with you, only you, forever.”

  Epilogue

  Three weeks later…

  In an old French Quarter cemetery that cradled saints and sinners alike, twilight stained the western sky bloodred. As she led her tour group through the gates, Caitlyn’s imagination cut a swath through the ghost of a lost morning’s fog, which sent soft eddies of memory swirling all around her.

  Heart pounding, her gaze darted forward, traveling toward the gravesite where a false ruby flanked with “diamonds” had once winked in the dawn’s light.

  Toward the place where she had discovered a stone-dead body and a soul-deep love.?…

  “Miss Villaré?” a soft voice prompted, causing her to blink and nod to Jimmy, the strapping young intern she had taken on to help with the business.

  She began to talk, regaling her audience with tales of the old Vieux Carré, as many locals called the Quarter. Soon she was responding to eager questions and pointing out the differences between the different types of tombs. But the longer she explained the various funerary symbols on them—the lambs and weeping willows, the anchors and the open book—the more her gaze kept straying to the ethereal angel Marcus had photographed with such skill, hoping to conjure the man himself back from his trip to square everything with Pennsylvania authorities and risk a face-to-face discussion with Samantha’s vengeful father. She’d been scared to death, barely able to sleep or eat, until Marcus called to reassure her that the former criminal was a changed man, a man who had renounced his violent past and finally accepted that nothing could ever bring back his daughter.

  Feeling a presence behind her, Caitlyn glanced over her shoulder, then gasped at the silhouette of a tall and well-formed figure, a man she knew even before his face emerged from shadow.

  “Marcus, you’re back!” She raced to throw herself into strong arms she’d longed to feel again.

  As Jimmy deftly led the tour group out of earshot, Marcus hugged her to his chest and kissed her temple.

  “I’ve missed you so much. I was all set to fly back, and then I received word that my mentor, Isaiah Jericho, was dying.”

  “Isaiah Jericho?” she asked, recognizing the famed photographer’s name.

  Marcus nodded. “He was asking for me, fading fast, so I raced to the airport and grabbed the first flight I could.”

  “Did you make it?” she asked gently.

  “Just in time,” he said, the line of his mouth somber. “Thank God. And then I got the next flight to New Orleans, and here I am.” He pulled her closer, then said, “And I have some good news, too.

  “Isaiah left me some money. Quite a lot, actually. And before he died, he released a statement confessing to collaborating with me as he passed on his techniques. I was expecting the worst when he admitted misleading buyers, but I’ve been amazed at the outpouring of support. He left a trust to compensate any collectors who felt deceived, but so far, there haven’t been any takers.”

  He sounded both awed and grateful. “My new agent says I have a great shot at making a living with my photography.”

  Heedless of the dead around them, he dropped to one knee before her. “And now that I have something real to offer the woman I’m in love with…”

  Noticing that her group of tourists—along with her new intern—had turned to smile her way, Caitlyn whispered furiously, “Get up, Marcus. Please. Everyone is watching.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” he told her. “I only care about making you believe that from this point on, wherever you are is my home. You’re my life and my future, as long as you’ll have me.”

  When she looked into his dark eyes, she saw the passion in them, the intensity of a bond that would carry them through the years together…

  And through the birth of the child she would tell him later that they were expecting. But for now, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but tug him back onto his feet and kiss him.

  The first kiss of a forever she could not wait to begin.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1254-1

  PHANTOM OF THE FRENCH QUARTER

  Copyright © 2011 by Colleen Thompson

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