The Forbidden

by Heather Graham

  “Uh, sure, thanks, and...please come in,” Boris said.

  “Thanks.”

  Their visitor came into the courtyard. He nodded to all of them as he found another chair and drew it up to the tiled table.

  “You’re all still together,” he noted.

  “Well, not all of us, but...um, yeah,” Boris said. “But you, or Mr.—Detective—Stapleton questioned all of us. I’m not sure what any of us can tell you that we haven’t said. We cared about Cindy. We were just talking about her. Do you—do you know what happens now?”

  “Well, I’m not sure when, but the medical examiner will release her body to her next of kin. Ryder told me that she has a cousin coming, Myrna West.”

  “They have the same last name,” Brad said, looking at the others.

  “We just want... We want her to have a funeral. And to be remembered,” Avalon said.

  “Of course,” Fin said. “I’ll find out what I can for you. But now that you are all together, maybe you can help me. I’m trying to reenact your night out.”

  Boris sighed. “Well, we were all over. Some of us headed at one point to the Cat’s Meow—karaoke lovers here, which I’m assuming you might guess.” He pointed at Avalon, Kevin and Leo. “Actors, you know. They need a spotlight.”

  “Was Cindy with you then?”

  “Yes,” Avalon told him. “But we didn’t start there. We were at Pat O’Brien’s first.”

  “We were doing a lot of wandering,” Brad told him. “I hadn’t been to New Orleans or anywhere in Louisiana before this project. I think I’m the one who kept us moving.”

  “What about others in the cast and crew, or the family from the island?”

  “Oh, well, yes, we ran into that group several times,” Avalon said.

  “That Julian Bennett—he’s a party boy. Charming guy, and he likes to spread his charm,” Lauren said. “He was meeting people everywhere he went. I kind of feel sorry for the other cousin—Kenneth is just...awkward. I think Julian was trying to help his cousin out, but every time he joined in on a conversation, well, the girls wandered off.”

  “They weren’t with you, but they wound up with you in a number of places?” Stirling asked.

  Avalon saw the others were as pensive as she was. They hadn’t been thinking about who was with them when. Yes, they saw the Christy heirs often during the evening, but Avalon had been ready to go back to the hotel most of the evening—she’d stayed out to be with her friends, who all seemed to need the diversion. They worked long, hard hours...especially Boris, who was there for every minute of filming. And they’d learned early that they were in a business where knowing people—and helping friends along—could be very important.

  No one else was answering, so Avalon spoke up. “The area we were prowling around is pretty small—I’d say we checked out places from Conti down to the Cat’s Meow, all on Bourbon Street. And I think they were in the last bar we visited, though we weren’t sitting together. At least, I think they were there. I believe I saw Cara talking to one of the bartenders, so maybe she was ordering for the rest of them, or maybe she wanted to keep going when the others went back.”

  “I saw her...and her husband,” Kevin offered. “But I’m not sure about the other two—Julian and Kenneth.”

  “That’s when Cindy left us,” Lauren said quietly. “She was cryptic—gave me a wink and said she had one last stop to make. Before any of us could even ask if she wanted us to come with her, she’d taken off. We lingered a bit...” She shrugged. “Cindy was a responsible adult. I didn’t have the right to tell her she had to stay with us. But I should have been looking out for her.”

  “We should have done something,” Avalon whispered.

  “But who in the world would have thought someone was out there, stalking her, stalking us?” Boris said.

  “You will catch whoever did this, right?” Kevin demanded.

  “We’ll do our best,” Stirling promised. “That’s why I need your help. After she left the bar, none of you saw Cindy again, right?”

  “Until we found her,” Avalon said.

  “And you were together the rest of the night?” he asked them.

  They looked around at each other.

  Avalon couldn’t help feeling accused...and defensive.

  “You’re looking in the wrong place. Check out the hotel security tapes—we were at that little boutique hotel and they have security cameras in the lobby and the elevator.”

  “They are being checked,” he assured her. “And, actually, Miss Morgan, I’d appreciate it if you would do a little cruise of the area where you were last night with me.”

  “Me?” Avalon asked.

  “Just Avalon?” Kevin asked, moving a bit closer to Avalon.

  Finley Stirling nodded. “I need someone who was there, can’t go asking questions with a whole group, and I think it’s better when it’s a duo.”

  “Lauren knew Cindy better—” Avalon began.

  “No, Avalon, please!” Lauren said. “I don’t think I can do it. It’s too hard thinking that maybe we could have kept her with us.”

  Avalon forced a smile. “All right.”

  “Good. Thank you,” Stirling said.

  “Avalon?” Kevin said.

  “I’m fine. I’ll catch up with you all later.”

  She stood, not at all sure why he had chosen her, and more than a little nervous that he had done so.

  He couldn’t possibly suspect her, could he?

  “I’ll just get my bag,” she told him.

  “I’ll bring her back safe and sound,” he told the others. She grabbed her bag quickly, telling herself the faster she went, the faster she’d be through with the man.

  Special Agent Stirling was waiting for her by the gate from the courtyard to the street.

  She joined him and he opened it for her. “Miss Morgan.”

  “Avalon,” she said, giving him a smile with no humor.

  He headed toward the river first, leading the way to Bourbon Street. They walked in silence, then reached the street, where he paused, staring at her.

  “You see the dead,” he told her.

  “What?” She blinked, not believing this man was saying the words to her. His sharp green gaze softened.

  “It’s all right. I talk to them, too. When they have something to say and choose to be seen. You’re not the only one. It’s just one of those special instincts people have that they don’t discuss with others lest they be locked away.”

  Avalon froze, just staring at him.

  They were on Bourbon Street, which was busy despite the time of day. People were passing by, laughing, enjoying themselves. A man was walking around with a sign that warned everyone they were going to hell if they didn’t quickly repent; he was being ignored.

  People didn’t tend to be mean at this time of day.

  Later, when a few had imbibed too much liquid pleasure in the bars, they could become surlier.

  They were all a haze to Avalon.

  “Look, it’s all right.” Fin sounded impatient. “I was informed by a friend at the cemetery that you were...gifted. A dead friend. Here’s the thing—your talent may give us an edge up on what’s going on.”

  Avalon turned and started walking down the street. He caught her arm. She looked at his hand, and then into his eyes.

  He was sincere; he wasn’t teasing her. He wasn’t making it up, trying to get a rise out of her.

  “I—I didn’t want to film at Christy Island. I didn’t want to be there... I knew there would be restless spirits. But Cindy being murdered... They might have been around, watching.” She lowered her head. “I mean, no. I—I can’t help!”

  “All right,” he said gently.

  She’d wondered all her life if there were others like her, or if she simply had a strange touch that she just n
eeded to accept. She’d learned early not to share anything regarding her strange encounters.

  She looked up at him suspiciously. Finley Stirling looked perfectly sane. In fact, he might not like it, but he looked like the perfect law-enforcement agent—tall, built like steel, with those eyes that could seem to see to the soul, and a face that could register both empathy and dead-set determination.

  He was probably testing her. Maybe someone had suggested she was a little crazy, maybe he was doing this to see...

  “Avalon,” he said softly, as if reading her mind, “please, believe me, I’m not trying to make fun of you, I’m not trying to grill you, I’m not doing anything to hurt you in any way. There are others. We seldom know about each other because we’re such a small percentage of the world, and we, as humans, tend to mock or disbelieve that which we don’t see or can’t understand.”

  She inhaled, not knowing what to say.

  “Come on—I know a quiet place a block down. Let’s talk, and then we’ll get started on our hunt through Bourbon Street.”

  She still didn’t speak. He hurried her down to a small boutique hotel on Chartres Street, where there was a tiny, intimate café/bar. He brought her to a small table in the corner, then went to the counter and returned with two cups of café au lait and a plate of beignets.

  “Um, thank you,” she said.

  “Do you like beignets?” he asked her.

  “What’s not to like? Two tons of sugar,” she said, trying for a smile.

  He smiled in return. “I knew it from the time I was very young. My folks had me see a psychiatrist before I went to first grade,” he said dryly. “They’re great, loving people, they just thought I took my imaginary friends a step too far.” He offered her a rueful smile. “When my mom’s sister passed away from cancer, she stood next to me and watched her own funeral, and then asked me to let my mom know she was okay and out of pain, but might hang around to watch out for others for a while. Both my parents were angry at first, thinking it was a weird thing to make up, but then Aunt Shelley asked me to sing this little song my grandmother had sung to them when they were kids. And then my mother believed me, and my dad even believed, but they warned me to keep it all to myself. It’s a harsh world and people would mock me and maybe lock me up.”

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep sip of his coffee. Then he quietly continued his story. “But when I was in high school, I was approached by a desperate man, right in the middle of the football field. During a game. Unfortunately, I missed a pass. This man told me he’d been caught up in a drug deal that had gone bad. He’d been sunk in the bayou with chains and rocks and he feared the killers were going after his family. He left behind a wife and two little girls. I wasn’t sure the police were going to believe anything a high-school running back had to say, so I invented a conversation I’d overheard before the game, said that it might not have been anything, but I heard a man’s name... Anyway, it turned out he’d been reported missing. He’d been a police informant, and they found his body and sent officers to his home in time to stop the dealer’s enforcers from breaking into their home. One of them spilled the beans on everything.” He offered her another dry smile. “The bad guy went down, and one of his daughters is now a prosecutor for the state and the other is a country-western singer living in Austin.”

  Avalon still felt numb. It was hard to accept the events of the last day and a half. Cindy, dead. An FBI agent telling her his story about seeing the dead.

  “That’s...great,” she said. “Except for the man being killed and sunk in the bayou. I’m glad his family is doing well.”

  “The reality is, after that, I felt it wasn’t such a terrible thing—that I had something I could use. In college, I majored in criminology, spent a few years with the police force out in DC, and from there I knew I wanted to apply to the FBI Academy. Then I happened to be visited by a man I had worked with on a case—the field head for the Krewe of Hunters unit—and he recruited me. I’ve only been with them for about a year.”

  She nodded. “I...well. I’ve never done anything useful with it at all,” she said, then shrugged. “I was working on a show for an internet channel once—believe it or not, a musical about the lives of those who had been at the Alamo when they knew Santa Anna was coming. It sounds ridiculous, but the writer took history seriously and it was truly a good and heartbreaking little bit of filmmaking. That’s when I met Brad Fallon—he was the cameraman for the show. Anyway, the ghost of the wife of one of the men who fought to the end was there and...well, she helped me. She was just twenty-two with three children, and she had to flee back to Louisiana and her parents’ home, and she never remarried. She returned to Texas, determined to be part of whatever came. She gave me insight, but I...”

  “Yes?”

  “Never helped anyone,” she said.

  “But you did help her. You helped tell her story.”

  She gave him a weak smile, still a little shell-shocked, and in disbelief that she could be having this conversation. With him. Mr. FBI. Mr. Take-charge Masculinity. And he was proving—when he smiled—that he was very attractive, as well, and real, and...

  She wanted to draw back a bit. Those eyes of his, like green gems, saw far too much, and he was here, with her, because he wanted something from her.

  Help. In catching a killer.

  She let out a long breath just as someone walked by and opened the nearby door.

  A gust of wind came through.

  They hadn’t touched the plate of beignets yet.

  The sudden gust of wind seemed to touch every speck of powdered sugar on the plate and suddenly it was swept up and around them.

  His dark suit jacket was now as covered in sugar as his bronzed face and eyebrows. And she realized, she was covered in the sweet powdery bits herself.

  They both started to laugh.

  “I’m sorry!” she said.

  “Don’t be,” he told her, then added, “Not your fault. We should have eaten the suckers—there’d have been a little less. Anyway, let’s—”

  The young woman behind the counter rushed over to them with dish towels. “I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen a gust like that—”

  “It’s okay, truly,” Fin assured her. “And thank you.”

  He wiped his face and grinned at Avalon. “We’ll just pay a visit to the facilities and—and you know, Avalon, they are great beignets. We should have eaten them.”

  “I can pack some up,” the young woman offered.

  “No, thank you, and not to worry.” Fin looked across the table at Avalon. “We’ll be back,” he said quietly.

  Avalon found herself nodding.

  “Yes, thank you, we’ll be back. I haven’t been in here before, but it’s great.” She offered the young woman a warm smile. “We’ll come back.”

  She knew it was time they began their hunt for whatever they were seeking on Bourbon Street.

  * * *

  Avalon Morgan had a good memory—which wasn’t always the case when going back over a night on Bourbon Street.

  Finley felt she seemed to have accepted him, and what he had said to her. She hadn’t offered much of her own story, other than having met the ghost of a woman sent from the Alamo before the fighting began. But he didn’t want to push; she was with him, she was being helpful, and that was what he needed.

  They’d been to three places so far and he showed Cindy’s picture to the staff at each, asking if they remembered her, and if they’d seen anyone watching her, or coming on to her.

  “I’m amazed you remember this all so clearly,” he told Avalon as they left the third place. Her phone was filled with photos of all the known players in the case, including pictures of Julian Bennett, Cara and Gary Holstein, and Kenneth Richard.

  So far, at the three establishments they visited, managers remembered—vaguely—seeing the group, including
the Christy family.

  “I guess I wasn’t feeling much like getting wild,” she told him. “Don’t get me wrong—my friends are great, and when you’ve been working sixteen-hour days many days in a row, you need a break. And I love Kevin and Lauren—we’ve been friends for years now. And Boris was great to all of us. With so many things happening out there now, it’s still a very competitive industry. But a supportive one. I’m not making a lot of sense. Anyway, being out with them night before last meant a lot because we were getting close to a wrap and people had a break.”

  “How well have you gotten to know the four who own the island now?”

  “The Christy family?” she asked, sounding surprised.

  She paused in the street, looking at him. “I can’t say I know any of them well, but they have all been nice, and they’ve been excited about the filming. They thought the movie having been filmed there would add value and prestige to the island as they’re trying to sell it. I—I don’t know what this will do. I’m sure the media is reporting on it already.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I think it’s...well, it’s hard to get used to the fact that Cindy is... That it’s not just something terrible that happened, but it happened to a friend.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s strange. Lauren had just as much experience and she’s valued in her field. She’s a true makeup artist. Brilliant when making someone beautiful and equally brilliant when it comes to blood and guts and making someone incredibly horrifying or creepy. She and Cindy were similar as far as reputation and caliber goes, but neither cared who had the better title—they worked together well. They could give each other breaks.”

  “Nothing except friendship and support between them?”

  Avalon nodded. “And I’m not being overly...gushy,” she said, after seeking the right word and not feeling that she’d found it. “They were friends, and this was one of the most supportive projects I’ve ever been involved in. Not that most aren’t supportive, but this was mainly Boris’s money. And a true group effort.”