Midnight Caller

by Leslie Tentler

  They’d been together for only a few months when Rain had walked into David’s office at WNOR on a night she wasn’t supposed to be there. He had looked remorseful as he struggled to get dressed, but Ella hadn’t bothered to cover herself. Instead, she’d remained sprawled across David’s desk, her skirt hiked up around her hips and her blouse discarded on the floor.

  He’d called it a slipup. A moment of weakness that wouldn’t happen again. Still, despite David’s pleading, Rain had ended their relationship with the exception of her contractual obligation to Midnight Confessions. Time had passed and they’d managed to maintain a loose friendship for the show’s sake, but she continued to deflect his attempts at reconciliation.

  The truth, she thought as she laid her handbag on the antique table that sat just inside the door, was that at least in her mind it was indeed over. She no longer loved David, if she ever really did.

  Before David, there hadn’t been anyone in Rain’s life for a long time. She’d been busy completing her doctorate in psychology at Tulane, and then later, building up her private practice while caring for her beloved, ailing aunt Celeste. David had filled the void in her life that had become so much deeper after Celeste’s passing. He’d convinced her to do Midnight Confessions, banking on her public persona as Desiree Sommers’s daughter.

  The radio show had been a mistake. Once her contract was over in three months, she didn’t intend to renew. Rain had procrastinated in telling David, but after tonight, she knew it was something she’d have to do soon.

  She stepped farther into the house. The Greek Revival on Prytania Street held significance to her that went beyond its listing on the New Orleans’s historical society register. She’d lived there her entire life—the first two years with her mother and then later, with Celeste. She smiled faintly, aware the house’s dark history did little to neutralize the strange legacy surrounding her. But it was where she belonged. Rain walked from the parlor into the remodeled kitchen and poured a glass of red wine. She was comfortable here, and the trust fund her mother’s estate provided ensured her ability to keep up the residence.

  Rain took a sip as she decided whether she was hungry enough to make something to eat. Dahlia, a black cat she’d adopted as a stray, leaped onto the counter. Rain jumped as she caught the quick movement of the feline in the corner of her eye, splashing wine onto her silk blouse.

  “Dahlia,” she scolded, wiping at the delicate material with a napkin. The cat padded across the counter and offered her head to be scratched. As Rain complied, a fat moth bumped against the kitchen window, drawn by the interior light.

  It’s true, Rain. I’ve become quite interested in you.

  Her thoughts turned to the show’s caller and the intrusive questions he’d asked. She’d felt intimidated by him even through the distance of the airwaves.

  Putting out a dish of food for Dahlia, she gave the cat’s head one last scratch. Then taking her glass of wine, she set the security alarm and went upstairs.

  She flipped a switch, and the bedroom filled with soft light. The room had the same high ceilings and hardwood floors as the rest of the house, and a marble fireplace graced the wall at the foot of the four-poster bed. A painting of Desiree hung over the mantel. In it, she wore a black gown with a plunging neckline that revealed an expanse of porcelain skin. Desiree’s almond-shaped hazel eyes, so much like Rain’s, stared out from the canvas.

  Dante had wanted to know what it was like to share the same blood as Desiree Sommers. Although Rain was used to being asked about her famous mother, his particular wording struck her as peculiar and faintly alarming.

  She went into the bathroom to prepare for bed, returning in pajama pants and a camisole top. A television was hidden in a highboy armoire. She clicked it on, then turned back the bed’s matelasse coverlet to reveal blush-colored sheets. Rain sat against the plump cushions and throw pillows that were piled against the headboard with one leg curled beneath her. As she took another sip of wine, her eyes fell on a silver-framed photograph on the nightstand. She put down the glass and picked up the photo, tracing its image with her finger.

  Desiree and Gavin Firth looked happy together. The photo was taken thirty years earlier by an amateur’s camera—in 1981, the same year in which they’d both died. Gavin was smiling broadly, his arms wrapped around the petite redhead. Confusion filtered through Rain’s mind.

  She’d been only two years old at the time of their deaths. All she knew about them were the memories that Celeste, Desiree’s older sister, had shared with her and what she’d read in the tabloids about her parents’ passionate but tragic love affair. Her eyes focused on Gavin, the man who was her father and who’d taken away the one thing that mattered most to a child.

  He’d murdered her mother in cold blood before killing himself.

  Rain fell asleep that night thinking of her mother and wishing she’d been given even a brief time in which to know her. A ringing phone woke her a few hours later, but when she answered in a voice husky with sleep, there was no one on the other end of the line.

  4

  “Dr. Patel, he’s waking up again.”

  Trevor felt someone squeeze his hand. Slowly, he opened his eyes and squinted into the room’s severe brightness, finding it hard to focus.

  His sister leaned over him. She stood next to a white-coated man who appeared to be of Indian descent. Trevor flinched as the man flashed a penlight into his eyes, holding first one of his eyelids open and then the other as he waved the torturous beam back and forth.

  “Pupil response is still a bit sluggish.” The doctor flipped off the light. “Can you tell me your name, sir?”

  Trevor uttered his name. His throat felt as if it had been scrubbed with sandpaper.

  “And what is today’s date?”

  He attempted to swallow before speaking again. “May eighteenth.”

  The doctor smiled. “We’ll let that one pass. But it’s after midnight already, so you’re a day off. You’ve been down for the count, as they say.”

  Trevor tried to sit up, but a firm hand on his shoulder held him back.

  “Not so quickly. You’ve got a head laceration and a probable concussion, although your CAT scan rules out intracranial bleeding. You’re lucky you didn’t break any bones. Regardless, you’re going to be our guest for the next twenty-four hours.” The doctor scribbled on a clipboard, then hung it in a compartment at the foot of the gurney. To Annabelle he said, “We’ll be moving him to a private room shortly.”

  Pushing back the curtain to leave, he added, “In the future, Agent, I recommend looking both ways before crossing the street.”

  Once they were alone, Annabelle poured water from a plastic pitcher into a cup. She put a straw into the liquid and helped him take a sip. The water felt cool against his dry throat.

  “You’re at All Saints Hospital, in case you were wondering.”

  Trevor touched the small bandage near his hairline. He felt sluggish and sore. “How long have I been here?”

  “An hour, maybe. You’ve been in and out of consciousness. You were dehydrated, too.” She frowned at the IV line attached to his forearm. “Do you even remember what happened?”

  Trevor fell silent. He’d been running in the darkened French Quarter. But it was as if the rest of his memory was cloaked in heavy fog.

  “You ran out in front of a car,” Annabelle supplied, a faint tremor in her voice. “You were in front of Dad’s bar, at Mallory’s. Trevor, what were you doing there?”

  The staccato bursts of pain in his head intensified. He closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking.

  Sleep was broken into intervals by the night nurse. Routine procedure for a head injury, she came by to check his pupils and assess how easily he awakened. Each time Trevor was prompted to open his eyes, he saw Annabelle in the vinyl recliner next to the bed. At one point when she shifted uncomfortably, he recalled mumbling something to her about going home, that Haley needed her. When he awoke again to the early-m
orning sky outside the room’s window, she was gone.

  The acetaminophen had only slightly eased his headache, but at least his double vision had cleared. He located the button that raised the top of the hospital bed. As he sat up, Trevor realized he was being observed from the doorway. True to Annabelle’s words, Brian looked clean and sober. Although he was still thin, he’d lost his formerly gaunt appearance.

  “How’s the patient?” he asked, sounding uncertain.

  “The patient wants the hell out of here.” Trevor couldn’t remove his gaze from his younger brother. Brian came into the room and sat in the recliner Annabelle had vacated, his expression serious.

  “You didn’t have any identification on you. If the accident hadn’t happened outside of Mallory’s, no one would’ve known who you were.”

  Bits of Trevor’s memory clicked together. He recalled the neon beer sign in the bar’s window, its orange glow casting a reflection on the sidewalk below. Then seconds later, headlights blinding him as he started across the street.

  “Dad was there last night, at the bar,” Brian continued. “There were people gathered and he came out to see what was going on. He recognized you.”

  Trevor said nothing. He didn’t like to think of James Rivette standing over him on the filthy French Quarter street.

  “He called the loft. I wasn’t home, so Alex talked to him. Alex went to stay with Haley so Annabelle could come to the E.R.” Brian’s lips thinned and he studied his hands before speaking again. “He called Alex a faggot, of course. He also said he wanted a hundred dollars for making the 911 call to report your accident.”

  Trevor nearly laughed at Brian’s statement. He’d think it incredulous if he didn’t know his father. Still, his hands tightened on the sheets.

  “Were you going to the bar to see him?”

  “No,” he lied. The truth didn’t make much sense, either.

  “Trevor—”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I wouldn’t understand,” Brian echoed softly, his voice edged with disbelief.

  Brian hadn’t even attended their mother’s funeral, too high to show up. The last time they’d seen one another, it had been a few months before Sarah Rivette’s death. Since then, loving, forgiving Annabelle had been the only connection between them.

  “I’m sorry about rehab,” Brian said, as if he could sense the direction of Trevor’s thoughts. “I know that place cost you a lot of money. I guess I just wasn’t ready.”

  Trevor didn’t reply. An orderly in green scrubs and Air Jordan sneakers entered, carrying a food tray that he deposited on a mobile table before leaving.

  “You want some breakfast?” Brian stood and moved the table closer.

  “Annabelle says you’re clean.”

  His gaze didn’t waver. “Almost two years.”

  “You’re working again?”

  He nodded. A space of silence hung between them. After a few moments, Trevor said, “I’m glad you came by, Brian.”

  Brian walked a few steps from the bed. He looked out the window, its metal blinds bending under his fingers. “I didn’t just come by. I’ve been here most of the night, like Annabelle. I came straight from the airport.”

  Had he been so out of it he hadn’t noticed Brian’s presence? Trevor remembered seeing Annabelle and the night nurse. But at times he’d been vaguely aware of others in the room, disembodied voices and shifting gray shapes against the monochrome walls.

  “You’ve been here?”

  “Does it surprise you that much?” Brian shook his head. “You got hit by a car last night, Trev. Knocked out cold. You could’ve been roadkill.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Your radio wasn’t so lucky. The paramedics wanted me to tell you it’s toast. They didn’t even bother turning it in.”

  Another piece of the puzzle snapped into place. Trevor had been wearing a slim silver radio on his bicep, attached with a Velcro strap. He’d been listening to a talk show, and one of the callers had put his senses on high alert.

  You could say I’m a little older.

  How much?

  Older than you can possibly imagine.

  The man had called himself Dante. The name fit with the goth undertones of the killings. Perhaps even more significant, the taunting notes Trevor had received over the last several months were signed with the letter D. It was a distinct possibility he was grasping at straws, but he was driven by the need to find out what else the caller had said. Pushing back the sheets, he lowered his legs over the side of the bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have to go talk to someone.” Wincing, he pulled the IV needle from his arm. A drop of blood splashed onto the tile floor. He stood, feeling shaky, but Brian blocked his path.

  “You haven’t been discharged. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I have to. It’s important.” Trevor sidestepped him and found the running clothes and sneakers he’d been wearing the night before inside a closet next to the sink. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Only if I want Annabelle to flatten me. What’s so important?”

  Trevor ripped off the hospital gown and began getting dressed. “Not what. Who. A radio-show host. I was listening to her last night when I ran in front of that car.”

  He searched his slowly returning memory. “Her name was weird—something like Storm Showers.”

  Brian suppressed a smile. “You mean Rain Sommers.”

  “You know who she is?”

  “Yeah, I do. But why can’t this wait?”

  “Because I think she might’ve been talking to my unsub.”

  5

  Sunlight spilled across the four-poster bed. Rain groaned and buried her face against the pillow, then raised her head to squint at the clock through a haze of red-gold hair: 7:45 a.m.

  Shit.

  She threw back the covers, causing Dahlia to scurry from the mattress. Oliver Carteris was her standing Friday-morning appointment, and Rain wanted to be dressed and have had her coffee by the time the teenager arrived. With Oliver, she’d learned it was crucial to be on her toes.

  An empty wineglass sat on the nightstand. After the phone rang in the middle of the night, Rain had been unable to go back to sleep. Unnerved by the silence on the other end of the line, she’d gone to the kitchen and poured another glass, then stayed up watching late-night television. Some psychologist, she thought. Trying to solve the jitters with an expensive Pinot Noir.

  She’d just stepped from the shower when she thought she heard the faint creak of a floorboard.

  “Is anyone there?” Rain was aware of the sounds old houses made. Feeling foolish, she wrapped a towel around herself, then opened the bathroom door and peered into the bedroom. It was unoccupied except for Dahlia, who’d returned to the rumpled coverlet and was basking in a fat streak of sunlight. The door to her bedroom that led into the hallway was half-open, but Rain couldn’t remember if she’d left it that way. A drawer in her dresser bureau hung agape as well, with silk undergarments in various shades draped over its edge like strands of Mardi Gras beads.

  Get a grip, she told herself, and went back into the bathroom to dress.

  Standing on the staircase twenty minutes later, she realized it hadn’t been her imagination. Oliver Carteris lounged on the chintz sofa in her parlor, sipping from one of her Wedgwood cups.

  “I made coffee.” His voice held a faint British accent, and his dark eyes reflected intelligence. “I needed the caffeine.”

  “You’re early,” Rain pointed out. A half hour early. It unnerved her greatly that Oliver had managed not only to get through a locked door but also to bypass her home security system. She gave him a hard look as she came the rest of the way downstairs, then walked to the sideboard in the dining area, where she poured a cup of chicory-laced coffee from the thermal French press.

  “You don’t wait to be let in?” She sounded tense as she came back into the room.

  Oliver g
ave a practiced shrug. His longish hair was glossy black, and today, shot through with streaks of red. Despite the New Orleans heat, he had on dark jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that advertised an industrial-metal band. Scuffed leather boots were on his feet. Since he didn’t seem interested in moving from the sofa, Rain sat in the armchair across from him.

  “Want to tell me how you got in here?”

  “Old houses.” He nodded toward the glass-paneled door. “Piece of cake to snap the locks.”

  Rain knew about Oliver’s background of B and Es that were part of his sealed juvenile record. Now that he was eighteen, however, the predilection was causing considerable concern for his father, a respected cardiac surgeon.

  “And my security system?” she asked.

  “You keep the pass code taped inside a cabinet door in the kitchen.”

  “You’ve been going through my cabinets, too?”

  “Just looking around.”

  Despite the casual discussion, she felt furious that Oliver had sneaked into her house and had been snooping. But she’d spent months trying to build a rapport with him, and she was hesitant to lose the progress they’d made.

  “We need to have a discussion about boundaries, particularly when it comes to my home, Oliver. Did you take anything from my bedroom?”

  “I wasn’t in your bedroom.” Avoiding her gaze, he picked at the black polish on his fingernails.

  “If you were, just tell me—”

  “I said I wasn’t there.” He glowered at the chandelier that hung from the parlor’s high ceiling. “This is bullshit.”

  “What is?”

  “These lame counseling sessions.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Rain placed her cup on the end table. “I was under the impression our sessions were helpful. Regardless, your attendance is court-ordered—”

  “Who’s David?”

  The question came from out of the blue. “Why?”