by JoAnn Ross
She’d also been as cold as a glacier and as unfeeling as a stone. Desiree had been ten years old when her parents had died and she’d been sent to live with Olivia Porter, her maternal grandmother. By the time she was eleven, she understood all too well why her mother had run away from home at the age of seventeen to marry Lucien—Lucky—Dupree. A fisherman from Iberville, Lucky was nothing like the wealthy young men of privilege and rank Katherine Porter had been accustomed to.
But he’d laughed easily and often and had loved his wife with a warmth and passion she’d never known. When, nine months after their elopement, Desiree was born, he’d loved his daughter, too. The only cloud in their life was that Katherine could not have any more children, but since Lucky had a large extended family, that hadn’t seemed a tragedy.
And then Katherine Porter Dupree, who’d never had so much as a cold, became ill. Unwilling to spend money on a doctor, she’d shrugged off the pain and lethargy until it was too late. Six months before Desiree’s tenth birthday, her mother had died of ovarian cancer. The funeral was held in Iberville, paid for with donations from Lucky’s friends and family. Olivia Porter, notified of her only daughter’s death, did not attend.
Two weeks after her mother’s ashes were laid to rest in the Dupree family tomb, tragedy had struck again. Lucky was on the way home from delivering nutria pelts to a buyer in Baton Rouge when the steering went out on his ancient rattletrap of a truck, sending it plummeting into the bayou. In an attempt to comfort Desiree, friends assured her that her daddy was now with her mommy.
Which didn’t provide all that much solace, since she’d been left behind. Lucky’s sister Evangeline had immediately taken Desiree in, treating her like one of her own children.
Which was when Olivia had finally chosen to put in an appearance. She’d arrived at the remote, ramshackle bayou home, court papers in hand, declaring herself custodian of her only grandchild. And although Evangeline, backed up by her husband and all eight children, had protested hotly, Olivia Porter’s considerable political clout had prevailed.
But not before subjecting Desiree to a custody fight that had made all the papers, caused her uncle Jean Luc’s fishing boat—which he’d heavily mortgaged to pay legal costs—to be repossessed by the bank and put a ten-year-old girl in the center ring of a public three-ring circus.
Roman watched the emotions, none of them pleasant, move across Desiree’s face as she related the story. “It must have been difficult,” he said. “Losing your parents at such a tender age.”
His words jerked her back to the presence. “It wasn’t what I would have chosen.” Her tone revealed not a scintilla of emotion. Her angora-clad shoulders lifted in an uncaring shrug.
But Roman, who was watching her carefully, did not miss the cloud that moved across her eyes. “I was adopted,” he said, feeling the need to share some equally intimate piece of his past.
“Really?” She remembered her grandmother talking about the Falconers—Olivia Porter had disapproved of Mrs. Falconer working outside the home, Desiree recalled—and wondered why that little tidbit had not come up. “I didn’t know that.”
“Not many people do.”
He ran his hand around the rim of the glass and remembered all too well the day he’d learned the truth himself. He’d been twelve years old. And after he’d listened to his parents’ carefully chosen words, he’d gone on a rock-throwing spree, breaking windows in houses up and down the private, gated street. One of those homes, he recalled now, had belonged to Olivia Porter.
“I didn’t take it at all well, at first,” he admitted.
At least she’d lost her parents to death. Desiree wondered how it must feel to have been abandoned by your natural parents. “And later?”
He remembered his mom and dad showing up at the police station. Remembered the licking he’d gotten from his father when he returned home. Remembered how they’d all cried afterward.
Remembered also how it had taken six months of paper-route money to pay his father back for replacing all those windows.
“It finally sunk in that whatever the circumstances of my birth, I was damn lucky to have landed in a home with parents who loved me. And wanted me.”
The part of Desiree that had spent so many years of her childhood longing for a home envied Roman. The reporter in her was curious about how he’d felt, knowing he was adopted.
“Were you ever tempted to try to find your natural parents?”
“Of course.” Roman found it a little ironic that they were having their first fairly normal conversation over something that once, albeit years ago, had caused him so much pain. “My parents assured me that when I was eighteen, they’d do everything they could to help me.”
“And did they?”
“No. Because by the time I was eighteen I was long past caring. I was smart enough by then to realize that whatever the circumstances of my birth, my real parents were the couple who had volunteered to be around to hold my head when I was throwing up with the flu, to play catch in the backyard, to clean up after the puppy I wanted so badly when I was eight and to provide that day-to-day support and stability kids need.”
He held up his hand, displaying a ring fashioned of antique gold with a onyx stone in the center. “This belonged to my grandfather. My father gave it to me after he brought me home from the police station. To underscore the point that I was a Falconer.”
“You were lucky.”
He smiled at that, the first genuine, uncensored smile she’d witnessed. “Yes.” Amazingly, the shared revelation seemed to banish the strain that had been hovering over the kitchen. And although the sexual tension that had sparked between them so quickly and so often had not diminished, both Roman and Desiree found themselves able to put it aside, for now.
The conversation flowed smoothly, moving from a discussion of her work at WSLU to social gossip about people they both knew to his previous career as district attorney.
“Did you enjoy working as a prosecutor?”
“I enjoyed putting the bad guys away.”
“From what I’ve heard and read, you were obviously very good at your job. But then you left.” She eyed him curiously over the rim of her wineglass. “Why?”
“The reason wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. I always wanted to write, and I suppose the stories I came up with were a natural outgrowth from my work.”
“Writing crime novels isn’t that unusual for a former cop or prosecutor,” she agreed.
“True.” He nodded. “At the time, I was accused of being burned out from dealing with man’s inhumanity to man on an everyday basis.” A column about him had run in the Times Picayune the day after he’d announced that he was retiring. Roman had found the rationale in the piece ridiculously simplistic. “Actually, it was more the frustration of having reality not live up to the fantasy I held. I didn’t want to accept the fact that I couldn’t win them all. And of course, when I did get a conviction, it was often too late for the victim.”
“Ah.” Desiree thought she understood. “You had a Superman complex.” In that one way he reminded her a lot of O’Malley.
“I don’t know about that.” He shrugged, looking vaguely embarrassed. “I do know that when I’m writing a book, I control the world I’ve created. And the characters in it. Nothing happens without my consent.”
That was not precisely true—not any longer. But Roman was damned if he was going to share that lethal little piece of information with her. “And when the book’s finished, the good guys have won.” Lord, he hoped so.
“I’ve always liked happy endings,” she agreed with a smile, even as she wondered at the reason for that shadow that had drifted across his eyes again.
Shaking off the renewed gloom, Roman launched into a wicked description of a recent book tour he’d recently completed—”a trip to hell and back in fourteen days”—that had Desiree in stitches. One of his more outrageous stories, regarding a reader who stood up in the Oprah audience and swore he was her
long-lost husband, broke her up completely.
“I think I know her husband,” she said at last, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “I was married to him in a past life.”
“You believe in past lives?”
“No.” Her grin was quick and bright and lit up her eyes in a way that made them gleam like a pair of antique gold coins. “But he does.”
“Ah.” He nodded and refilled their glasses with the last of the merlot. “Another secret admirer. Perhaps he’s the one who sent the flowers.”
“Perhaps.” She felt a sudden chill she knew had nothing to do with the December night. Enjoying herself too much to dwell on the rapist who had yet to contact her again, she shook it off.
He caught the faint change in her mood and wondered at its cause. A vision flashed at the front of his mind—a vision of Desiree, standing beside a small pond. She was wearing a filmy white nightgown that was being blown against her by an icy wind. Her hair was loose and free, tumbling around her bare shoulders like flames. She was clutching a bouquet of bloodred roses to her breast.
When he viewed the tears shimmering in her wide eyes and trailing down her cheeks in long silver ribbons, Roman felt as if someone had suddenly stuck a stiletto into his heart.
“Roman?” She watched as he closed his eyes. His mouth was twisted in a grimace of something that looked a great deal like pain. “Are you all right?”
Perhaps he’d looked so dreadful when she’d first shown up because he was ill. She was considering asking if she should call a doctor when he dragged his hand down his face and finally answered her.
“Yes.” The single word was muffled by his palm. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”
“Your book?” He’d alluded to a new book he was working on, but hadn’t told her anything about the plot.
“Yeah.” It was true, as far as it went. Roman wondered what she’d say if he told her that somehow his rebellious muse had altered certain physical and behavioral characteristics regarding his heroine until she bore a striking similarity to Desiree.
“I’m sorry.” He shook off the disturbing feeling and tried to remind himself that only moments before he’d actually been enjoying himself. “It’s just that sometimes, when I’m deep in a book, my mind suddenly drifts back to it.”
“I can understand that.” Deciding that her imagination was playing tricks on her again, she opted to put the problem aside. For now. “Is the book you’re working on going to be set in New Orleans?” The other four that she’d read had all been located in and around the city.
“Mostly. Along with quite a few scenes in bayou country.”
That had been another surprise. As was his habit, honed during years of law school, then of working as a prosecutor, Roman planned out his plots in exacting detail. In his previous books, he hadn’t deviated from the synopsis. This time not only had his heroine recently taken on the characteristics of Desiree Dupree, but another character had risen full-blown from the murky depths of his imagination. A dark, destructive devil born in the mysterious mists of Louisiana’s bayou.
Desiree shivered at the involuntary image created by his answer. “I can tell this is going to be another book I’m going to have to read with all the lights on.”
He shrugged. “As my agent always says, sex and violence sells.” He provided violence. In spades. While Desiree handled sex.
“That’s what they say,” she agreed. His eyes had narrowed in an expression she couldn’t interpret, but which left her feeling uncomfortable nevertheless.
A silence stretched between them as Roman waited for her to reveal her secret writing success and Desiree wondered yet again if he knew she was the author of those books of erotica she’d found in his library. No, she assured herself. She’d hidden her tracks too well.
“My villain this time is a rapist,” he volunteered.
Considering the fact that a serial rapist was currently running loose in the Quarter, Desiree found the coincidence less than comforting.
“Your last book had a rapist for a villain,” she responded. “If you’re not careful, Roman, you’re going to get in a rut.”
“The guy from Killing Her Softly escapes.”
“Peter Harrington escapes? From prison?”
“From the infirmary. It’s a very clever getaway.”
“Why?”
“Why does he escape? For the same reason anyone else goes over the wall. He doesn’t like being locked up.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” She sent him a cool, speculative look that was mostly feigned. “Why are you writing about him again?” The man was one of the most evil fictional characters she’d ever encountered. The thought that anyone like him might be running loose in real life was more than a little discomfiting.
“The truth?” he asked. How could he explain that he had no choice? That he was driven to witness his villainous character’s latest rash of increasingly brutal crimes? Crimes that, as impossible as it seemed, were turning out to be all too real.
She nodded.
“I don’t know.”
His reply was only three little words. But although it made not a lick of sense, Desiree detected a hidden meaning beneath them. Another silence settled in the room, lingering until she didn’t know whether to scream or to cry. She was just about to do both when a sudden sound shattered the suspended mood.
“Saved by the beeper,” Roman drawled with heavy irony as she practically leapt from the table and retrieved the black device from her purse.
“It’s one of my producers. Adrian Beauvier.”
“Does he usually call you—” Roman glanced up at the clock “—this late?”
“He’s like the Café du Monde. Open all night,” she answered. “May I use your phone?”
“Of course.” He realized that any plans he might have had for taking advantage of their newly established congeniality would have to be postponed.
“Hi, it’s me,” she said when the voice on the other end answered.
“It’s him again.” The producer did not need to elaborate. Desiree began rubbing her arm with her free hand, to ward off the sudden chill. “They found the girl in Whooping Crane Pond at Audubon park.”
“In the pond?” she asked with surprise, drawing a sharp glance from Roman.
“I mean in the pond. The cops are being real coy on the radio, but it looks as if our rapist has upped the ante. He killed this one, Des.”
It was what she’d been dreading. As she hung up the phone, Desiree decided that she could no longer honor the deal she’d made with O’Malley.
If the city council didn’t care enough to protect the innocent women of New Orleans from this monster, then she was going to have to warn them of the dangers.
And if it took reaching out to the rapist-turned-killer, offering him a chance for the publicity he’d been seeking, well, she’d do that, too.
9
THE SCENE WAS much the same as it had been at the cemetery.
Lights lit up the park like daylight. There were numerous patrol cars along with an ambulance. Yellow police tape marked the boundary.
Desiree, who’d learned to observe such things, noticed that there were also differences. Unlike the other night, the driver this time was standing beside his red-and-white ambulance, smoking a cigarette, which suggested that his services were not going to be immediately needed.
Also, most of the uniformed officers had been kept on the civilian side of the yellow tape, the better, Desiree knew, to protect the crime scene.
Adrian was right. With this strike, the French Quarter rapist had obviously upped the ante.
O’Malley, unsurprisingly, had responded accordingly.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Dupree.” One of the officers, whom she recognized as a rookie patrol cop in the Garden District where the park was located, stopped her as she tried to duck under the tape. “But I’m not supposed to let anyone past. Detective O’Malley’s orders.”
She felt the familiar surge
of frustration, considered arguing the standard line about freedom of the press, then almost immediately decided that Michael was right on this one. As much as she wanted access, she wanted this monster stopped even more.
“I understand.” She did, perfectly. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. There was also no way she was going to leave without a story. She turned the possibilities around in her mind and decided nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Could you please do me one little favor, Officer?”
Her voice lowered in that silky, soothing tone that had served her well during her tenure at the station. It was her I-want-to-be-your-friend voice. A voice that assured and calmed even as it encouraged compliance; a voice designed to help her get her way in sticky, difficult situations. It was also, undeniably, the voice of a woman coaxing a man into doing what she wanted him to.
There had been times, in the beginning, when Desiree experienced a bit of guilt for using her feminine wiles to get a story. She’d finally decided that if any man was chauvinistic enough to drop his guard simply because she was a woman, he deserved what he got.
As it had in the past, the smoky tone began to work now. She watched the slight softening of the young man’s jaw, saw the faintest relaxation in his guard-position stance.
“If I can, Ms. Dupree.” The qualification reassured her. She wouldn’t want to think any one of New Orleans’s finest was a pushover for a pretty face and a dulcet voice.
“Could you please ask Detective O’Malley if, when he can spare a moment, I could speak with him?”
The cop glanced over his shoulder at the bustling crime scene, then back at Desiree. Then his attention was drawn to a new arrival.
Desiree turned as well, viewed the man climbing out of an unmarked black sedan and realized that the fact that the medical examiner had arrived so soon proved yet again how seriously everyone was taking this latest escalation.
“I was ordered to stay here,” the rookie said as he lifted the tape to allow the M.E. to pass. “To guard the perimeter.”
“But surely it would only take a moment.” She refrained, just barely, from putting her hand on his arm. “I promise not to move from this spot.”