by Maria Luis
Sarah sighed. “You’re just trying to boost up my ego since Tom dumped me two days ago.”
Tom Townsend, number three on Ambideaux’s list.
Like every other crook in New Orleans, Tom had made Café Vieux Carre his regular stop. We came in at different times of the day—him in the mornings, me at night since I worked the graveyard shift. Had worked the graveyard shift. Grimacing, I tipped the Styrofoam cup up to my mouth again, and then said, “I told you, I’d take care of him.”
That prompted a laugh from her. “If murder wasn’t totally illegal, I’d take you up on it.” Chin down, she shrugged. “Humor me, how would you do it?”
I lowered the cup to the counter, throwing a glance behind me to ensure there wasn’t a line building up. Satisfied that there was no one there, I shrugged my shoulders. Casual. “Gators, maybe. Let them do the heavy-lifting.”
“Oh, my God, that’s so gross.”
Yeah, it was.
I rubbed the scars on my cheek with the heel of my palm, and bit back a hiss. Ambideaux’s little pistol-whip had done more than rattle my brains—it’d created a new scar to overlay the old, turning my profile into something beginning to resemble Frankenstein. On a good day.
Saluting with my coffee, I stepped back. “Think about what I said.” I jerked my chin toward Carvino. “His name’s Marco, he’s interested, and I can almost guarantee he won’t break your heart the way Townsend did.”
Sarah blushed. “That’d be nice . . . I’ll think about it.”
I paused outside the café, draining my coffee, tossing the cup into the metal trash bin to my right.
The door swung open behind me. “Thanks, my man.”
I didn’t glance in Carvino’s direction as he stepped up next to me, our shoes parallel on the cobblestoned sidewalk. “Deal’s a deal.”
The Daquiri King audibly swallowed. “I didn’t really think Sarah would even look at me. Honest to God, I’m not some creepy fuck, lusting after her. I’m just . . .”
“In love.”
He released a heavy sigh. “Yeah, maybe. Okay, yeah that sounds about right. Between her dating Townsend and then having the hots for you, I figured I didn’t even have a shot.”
“Congratulations, now you do.” My gaze caught on a familiar figure walking down the street, a nondescript gym bag slung across his back. Right on time. Perfect. “How much dope is he picking up?”
Beside me, Carvino fiddled with his laptop bag. “Two ounces. Small run this time. He’s, uh, desperate for some quick cash.”
I almost laughed at that. Two ounces of heroin would have been a massive haul if I were at work. Officer of the Month, type massive, complete with a gift card and a damn plaque to hang on the wall with my name engraved in gold. But when you were a man like Tom Townsend—or a distributor like Marco Carvino—two ounces was chump change. Hardly anything worth mentioning.
“Listen, Asher, man”—Carvino cleared his throat—“I know it’s not my business or anything like that, but you coming back into the fold? I, uh, never thought I’d see the day.”
Neither did I.
But Jason Ambideaux knew how to bend me to his will, and if the last week had shown me anything, the bastard wasn’t above manipulation tactics to get exactly what he wanted. And what he wanted was me playing executioner to his king.
“Go back inside and talk to Sarah,” I said, already starting in the direction that Tom Townsend had taken, toward the back of the Quarter.
“I owe you!” Carvino called out.
I laughed, the sound hollow and devoid of all emotion. Nah, I thought as I held a finger up in the air as a see-ya-later, I owed him.
It wasn’t every day that one of the city’s top drug lords helped to arrange the murder of his number-two buyer, all in the name of a female who wouldn’t even give him the time of day until she’d learned that he was loaded.
Then again, even Carvino feared Ambideaux.
And as Marco Carvino had personally witnessed one of my more notable “deals,” before I’d joined the NOPD, he feared me too.
If knowledge was power, and power was survival, then fear ruled as king.
In exactly twenty-six minutes, I’d reclaim my crown—all for a woman who didn’t give a shit that I was even alive. But blood was blood, and even if my mother refused to acknowledge my existence, I wouldn’t be responsible for her death.
No matter how many times she begged for me to let her die.
Early the next morning, with the sun barely grazing the horizon, I drove back from my first Basin run in twelve years. Pulled over somewhere around the Gonzalez exit, halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Rounding the trunk of my car, where I’d stored Townsend’s body in a zipped bag—courtesy of Ambideaux—I collapsed on my knees behind the shelter of my car, my knuckles digging loosely into the damp soil.
And like I had on my sixteenth birthday so many years ago, I retched until there was nothing left in my stomach but utter self-loathing.
17
Avery
“Tom Townsend, Owner of Kicks for Chicks, Goes Missing Late Tuesday Evening, confirms Police Chief Manuel Harlonne.”
I stared down at the front page spread of the Times-Picayune, my heart in my throat as I sat on my couch.
He’d done it. Asher had actually done it.
Suddenly, the meat-loaf sandwich on the plate before me looked entirely unappetizing. I shoved it away and pulled the newspaper closer. Fingers tracing the words, I skimmed the length of the three columns written up about the third man listed on Asher’s damn list.
“Townsend recently came under fire for possession of heroin.”
“Three weeks ago, Townsend and Jason Ambideaux, local real estate mogul, went into a bidding war for a 3,000 square foot, Art-Deco property on N. Rampart Street.”
“Townsend was last seen entering one of Marco Carvino’s popular daquiri shops in the French Quarter, this one located on Bourbon Street, around 9 p.m. Witnesses claim that he did not stay long, but his whereabouts afterward remain unknown.”
Dread sank into my bones, heavy and unforgiving.
Not to mention the guilt—if I had slept with Asher prior to learning about his checklist of the damned that would have been one thing. But, no, I’d jumped his bones after finding it in his desk drawer, like some sort of hussy who couldn’t even maintain her composure around an attractive man.
What did that say about me?
Nothing good, that was for damn sure, especially if I could hook up with a murderer and then still wonder when I’d have the chance to do it all over again.
“That doesn’t look like some light reading.”
And then there was Katie. My step-cousin. A girl who had no idea that she lived with a sort-of relative . . . well, if you factored in that her uncle was my stepfather. Former stepfather? The newspaper crinkled in my grasp.
Man, today was shaping up to be shitty.
Katie plopped down next to me on the sofa. Picking up my rejected meat-loaf sandwich, she set the plate on her lap and then took a huge bite of my store-bought masterpiece. Her face scrunched. “This is horrendous.”
My gaze locked back on the newspaper. “Blame the deli at Rouse’s. I picked it up on the way home.”
“Ooo,” Katie whistled, nudging me in the arm. “Were you with your secret admirer again?”
“No! I—”
“No need to be embarrassed about it, Ave. I mean, I saw him at the club. Can I get an H-O-T, please? Hot damn, he was sex on a stick.”
I shouldn’t have assumed Katie had missed me leaving the club with Asher. Critical error on my part. She hadn’t even been home long enough to pee before she’d shaken me awake with the order to, “Spill, sister. I orgasmed just looking at him looking at you tonight.”
Katie knew nothing about Asher, save that he was a cop, and I planned to keep it that way. In fact, after what I’d just read in today’s newspaper, I figured the less she knew about him, the better. As for m
e . . .
“Did this guy ever come into the club?” I asked, pointing at Townsend’s name printed in bold on the front page.
Katie’s eyes narrowed in thought as she shoved another bite of the sandwich into her mouth. Around the meat loaf, she said, “Hell if I know. It’s so busy in there I don’t even have time to look at the credit cards as I take them. Unless they look like they’ve never seen the inside of a bar before, I don’t care.”
“When the cops come around for another raid like they did last summer, you’re going to be kicking yourself in the foot for not checking ID’s.”
“All right, Miss I-Have-So-Many-Fake-IDs.” Katie laughed, her blond hair bouncing in its tight ponytail. “Listen, if we get raided, I now have the perfect out.”
“Flashing your boobs didn’t work for you last year . . . you do remember that, right?”
She pointed the meat loaf in my direction, and a dollop of BBQ sauce splattered on the plate. “Good news,” she said, moving her knees so the plate was more evenly balanced, “you’re now hooking up with a cop. Thank you so much for giving me the instant out I never knew I was missing.”
Yeah, definitely not an instant out if he was a serial killer.
My heart lurched at the thought. How many murders constituted serial-killer status, anyway? Two deaths? Three? Thank God I hadn’t even had the chance to take a bite of the meat loaf because I was feeling insanely nauseous now, just with the direction of my thoughts.
“So, no?” I pushed again, completely ignoring Katie’s sneaky methods at getting me to spill my guts about Asher. “The name Townsend doesn’t sound familiar?” I angled the newspaper to better face her, then stabbed a finger at a photo of the man in question. With dark hair and equally dark eyes, he looked like an attorney. Clean and impossibly stuffy. The kind of guy who liked his creature comforts and would never consider leaving them, unless the “leaving” was done involuntary. “Not ringing a bell at all?”
Katie flashed me a considering glance and then trained her attention on the black-and-white image. After a moment, she said, “Maybe he looks a little familiar. I don’t know. I can’t say for certain.” She gave a loose-shouldered shrug. “Unless they look like your hot cop, every guy who waltzes into that place might as well be a copy-and-paste version of the last. So, maybe I’ve seen him. Why does this matter so much to you?”
Because of Tabby.
Because I can’t be attracted to a killer—that sort of irony I couldn’t handle. I wouldn’t live my life in a cycle, and I wouldn’t be blindsided by a fired gun in the middle of the night with my young daughter watching on.
I couldn’t tell Katie any of this, of course, and so I fed her a lie: “No reason. I guess I’m always used to hearing the gossip at the square. You know how everyone knows everything about everyone there. But yeah, there’s been nothing about this and it’s Thursday. Just odd, that’s all.” Folding the newspaper back in half along its crisp line, I jumped up to my feet. “I’m going to head down to Jackson Square now, actually. Get in a few extra hours.”
“Want some company?” Katie asked. “I don’t have to go into work until second shift tonight.”
On any other night, I would have said yes.
Tonight, I just wanted answers.
“I might be stopping to see you-know-who beforehand.”
Katie’s blue eyes lit with excitement for me, and the knife of guilt twisted a little deeper. “Want a condom or two to take with you?” She tapped her forehead, then pointed at me. “Just thinking proactively.”
“What? No!” Heat rushed up my neck. “No condoms are necessary.”
“No condoms, eh? If you get pregnant, can I be the godmother?”
Waaaayyy too close to home for comfort there.
Stuffing the newspaper into my backpack, I slung the bag over my shoulder and stepped into my boots. “And on that note, I think it’s time for me to head out.”
“Is that a no?” Katie hollered at my back.
Hand on the doorknob, I cast a glance back. Katie half hung over the side of the couch, looking up at me while she was upside down. Her grin tipped the scale of shit-eating, and I laughed.
“You’re insane.”
“Nothing new there,” she said, still grinning, “but is it a no?”
“It’s a maybe.”
When I shut the door, it was only to hear her exclaim, “I’ll take it!”
18
Avery
The last time I’d stepped into the eighth district police station, Asher had been two steps behind me.
Now, I entered alone but with a very clear mission in mind: I wasn’t leaving until I had either a phone number or a physical address where I could find him. I wasn’t dumb enough to assume that I could influence him in any way, but I just . . .
My eyes briefly squeezed shut at the truth.
Whatever the reason, it felt imperative that I prove that he wasn’t the man behind Tom Townsend’s disappearance. The how’s of managing this without giving myself away were murky right now.
Sometimes the best course of action was just to get out there and do, and that was exactly my plan as I entered the station, my gaze quickly skimming the lobby area.
“Can I help you, miss?”
I turned toward the voice, then spotted a bulky male officer seated behind a desk opposite the gift shop. I stepped forward, paused, and glanced back. A gift shop? How had I not noticed that the last time?
“Random, isn’t it?” said the officer. “You wouldn’t imagine the people we get through here.” Chuckling low, he added, “Tourists, mostly.”
“And they want NOPD gear as a souvenir?”
He grinned, his teeth shining pearly white. “I think they’d rather take an officer home, but they’ll make do with the T-shirt.”
It was the perfect opening to ask about Asher, and I laughed like I hadn’t done that very thing in taking an officer home. Minus the T-shirt, obviously.
Approaching the desk, I let my hands fall loose by my sides to keep from awkwardly fiddling with the straps of my backpack. “I actually have a question about one of your officers . . . a sergeant.”
Immediately, the man’s shoulders snapped straight and the laughter faded from his expression. “Are you wanting to file a complaint?”
“What, no! No, of course not.” Although if my suspicions were correct . . . Well, I figured it was better not to think of all that just yet. Innocent until proven guilty—wasn’t that the way it worked in the justice system? And I truly, truly wanted to believe that Asher was innocent. I settled my hands on the lip of the desk, knuckles turning white with nerves. “Actually, this is going to be so embarrassing so I hope you’ll forgive me beforehand, Officer”—I glanced at the gold tag pinned to his breast, above the shiny NOPD emblem—“Templeton.”
He shifted awkwardly, his broad chest puffing out with clear indignation. “We don’t normally give out any information about our officers, miss.”
If working in Jackson Square had taught me anything, it was the skill of reading between the lines and deciphering what people wanted to hear. I tapped into that now, moving my hand so that my weight rested entirely on my right palm.
“I fully understand why so much information is off-the-record, sir. Privacy is integral, especially with what y’all do for a living.” I offered a slow smile, hoping to put him at ease. “The thing is, I really need to speak with Sergeant Asher, and silly me, I never got his phone number.”
The man’s face contorted with an expression I couldn’t even begin to read. “Sergeant Asher isn’t here. I can give you his extension number, but I can’t guarantee when he’ll call you back. He’s been . . .” He trailed off, muttering something incoherent beneath his breath.
Curiosity piqued, I leaned in some more. “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.” Tugging on my earlobe, I teased, “Let’s just say that I made the mistake of listening to a street band for a few minutes before I came in. Great trombone usage. Unfortunatel
y, all I hear is ringing. Would you mind repeating that?”
At his frown, I cringed. Okay, way too thick on that go round. Rein it back, girl. Dial it down before you give yourself away. I could fix this, I absolutely could.
“Just kidding!” I laughed loudly, only for it to peter out awkwardly when Officer Templeton didn’t even crack a grin at my expense. Go big or go home—hadn’t that been Katie’s motto for the longest? I wasn’t going home without Asher’s phone number, and with no other way to contact him—aside from stalking the station until he came in to work, whenever that was—it was time to roll out the dice and take a gamble.
I palmed my belly and took a deep breath. “Officer Templeton, I’d like to start over.” Rubbing my stomach, I faked a hitched breath and powered on. “It’s been so hard for me to come here, especially because I’m not the type of girl who likes to admit to making a mistake. The thing is, I’m pregnant.”
Templeton’s mouth fell open unceremoniously.
Time to make the magic happen.
My left hand joined my right on my stomach, and I mentally toasted Katie for giving me the idea for this plan in the first place. If acting politely didn’t get you far, then faking a pregnancy would absolutely do the trick.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I rushed to say, curling my shoulders inward as though parting with a very, very big secret. “Ash—I mean, Lincoln doesn’t even know yet, which is why I need your help. It was all so casual between us, but then . . .” I dipped my chin, patting my flat stomach. “You can see how uncomfortable this all is, for me and for everyone else, including you.”
“I-I—” Officer Templeton coughed into one hand, his face the color of a Ponchatoula strawberry at the height of the growing season. “I never thought Asher would have children.”
Since I was going to hell, anyway, I lied yet again. “He likes to say that he can’t have them, but really he’s just an inner softie. Didn’t want to tell anyone that he was just waiting until the right woman came around. I’d say that he’s changed his mind, don’t you think?”