“Absolutely none,” Aidan assured him.
A waitress came by and set down three beers. Aidan looked up at her quizzically. “Vinnie sent them over,” she explained, and walked away.
“So Vinnie the great guitarist is a good friend of yours?” Aidan asked Kendall, as if he hadn’t noticed her with the guy a little while ago.
“Since grade school,” she said.
“I’m not sure I get the outfits,” Aidan said. “They’re a little weird.”
Kendall laughed then. “Weird? Come on, this is New Orleans.”
“You never even knew that there was a Flynn plantation?” Mason pressed, ignoring the turn the conversation had taken.
“Mason…” Kendall said softly.
Aidan shook his head. “Never knew a thing about it. And even if I had, Flynn is a pretty common name.”
“I hear your brothers are both good musicians,” Kendall said, clearly trying to get off a difficult topic.
Aidan nodded.
“How did you escape it?” Mason asked.
“Sorry?”
“The music thing?” Mason persisted.
“The United States Navy,” Aidan told him.
“You know, you should come by for a reading,” Mason told him.
“Mason!” That time Kendall didn’t speak softly at all, and the blood actually seemed to drain from her face.
“Come by for a what?” Aidan asked, frowning.
Kendall stood abruptly. “I’m going to ask your brothers if they want to join us. Or maybe I should just go. It’s getting late.”
“Kendall,” Mason protested, “it’s eight o’clock.”
“I know, but I have to open the shop tomorrow.” She seemed agitated, as if she had chosen the wrong excuse.
“Where is your shop?” Aidan asked her. A reading? Just what kind of shop did she run?
“We’re on Royal. It’s called Tea and Tarot,” Mason answered for her.
“I see,” Aidan said slowly. Again, that strange clenching of his muscles. Tarot. Psychic readings. She was clearly some kind of a quack. He felt strangely disappointed, a feeling he chose not to examine too closely.
“We handle the work of a lot of local artists,” she said coldly, obviously reading him quite clearly.
“I’m sure you do,” he said politely.
“Listen, forgive me, I’m really going to call it a night,” Kendall said determinedly.
“Vinnie will be heartbroken. He was going to sing a new song he wrote,” Mason warned her. “He wanted you to be here for it.”
“I’ll hear it next time. I have to go. Good night.”
She turned and strode toward the door. Aidan was surprised to find himself on his feet.
“Does she live far?” he asked Mason.
“No, she lives down on Royal, too, toward Esplanade. It’s safe,” Mason assured him. The man was definitely curious, but there didn’t seem to be anything going on between him and Kendall other than friendship. No man acted that nonchalantly about a woman with whom he had something going.
“I think I’ll just make sure she gets past the drunks out there okay,” Aidan said.
Mason nodded. “Sounds like a plan. I think I’ll go introduce myself to your brothers.”
Whether Mason did or didn’t go over to the table, Aidan didn’t know, because he hurried out of the bar in Kendall’s wake.
Bourbon Street. Early on a Monday night, it was fairly quiet. Shills were out in the street, trying to entice passersby into their establishments. Good old country music was pouring from one place, while across the street, neon legs kicked up and down on a sign advertising a strip club. A group of fraternity boys, arms entwined, plastic cups sloshing, was walking past singing an unfathomable song. Two women with balloon hats on their heads giggled as they passed the frat boys.
He didn’t see Kendall anywhere on Bourbon, so he took the side street over to Royal.
Royal was almost dead quiet. An elderly couple was walking a small terrier. Aidan could see someone just beyond them, moving quickly. Kendall.
He hurried to catch up with her. He wasn’t trying to be quiet, but she must have been deep in thought, because when he touched her shoulder, she started, spinning around quickly with a little gasp.
“Oh!” she said, when she recognized him.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me, you startled me. It’s not the same thing.”
She was indignant again. Defenses all in place. Well, it was true. He didn’t think much of palm readers, tarot readers, whatever readers. He didn’t believe in any of it. And he was pretty sure she didn’t believe in any of it, either, though he couldn’t have explained why. Maybe she just seemed too levelheaded, too real-world.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She inhaled. He could tell from the visible pulse in her throat that her heart was beating too quickly. He had scared her, no matter what she said.
“So. What do you want?”
“I just thought you…I wasn’t sure…hell. I thought I should walk you home.”
She stared at him hard. “You thought I needed someone to walk me home?” Indignation and disbelief were fighting for dominance in her tone.
“It’s night. It’s dark,” he said lamely.
She looked up at him. Her tone was dry when she said, “I read tarot cards. And palms. I’m supposed to be some kind of psychic. Don’t you think I would see danger?”
“I don’t know. The Psychic Network went bankrupt. You would have thought one of them would have seen it coming.”
“I live here. I have lived here all my life. I know where I can walk without being in danger. And this really isn’t a bad city, no matter what people think. We have problems, sure. All cities have problems. I can see myself safely down the next two blocks to my home. And I thank you for your concern, but I’m not really sure that’s the reason you followed me.”
“No?”
“No,” she said flatly. She sighed, as if genuinely weary. “So I’ll ask you again. What do you really want from me?”
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t lie. It would be foolish.
“I want to know more about you.”
“Me?”
“You—and the time you spent with Amelia. And what went on at night. What she saw, what she dreamed, what she said, and just what it was that scared her—and you.”
She stared back at him.
“Ghosts?” she suggested softly, almost as if she were mocking herself.
“You believe in ghosts?” he asked her.
It seemed like a genuine question, she thought. He wasn’t mocking her; he just seemed curious.
“No, of course not,” she told him.
And that was the truth, wasn’t it?
They started walking, and he mentioned that one of the reasons he had always loved the city so much was its architecture. She started telling him stories about some of the buildings they passed, and ten minutes later, they were still talking.
In her apartment.
Kendall couldn’t figure out how she’d managed to invite him in when she didn’t even like him, but he was definitely there.
She lived on the first floor of a beautiful old house built in 1816, a large shotgun that provided the current owners with four rental units, two on each side of the hallway. Her door opened into the formal parlor, and the parlor opened onto a hall that passed both bedrooms, one of which she used as an office, and then ended in the kitchen and family room, both of which had been tastefully modernized. A long counter stretched across the back of the kitchen, separating it from the family room, which opened onto the courtyard. Rather than sliding glass doors, double French doors led out to a patio and yard, which had originally been the front of the house. An alley ran behind the picket fence that marked the property line, and there was still a gate; people had once come visiting by way of what was now the rear.
“Nice,” Aidan commented.
“It’s home,” she said.
“You own it?”
“I rent.”
“Your shop does well?”
“Yes.”
“I guess people really do come here to dabble in voodoo and the occult,” he said.
“Most people only do it for fun,” she told him.
He turned and walked back into the kitchen, where he perched on one of the bar stools.
“What about the people who don’t do it just for fun?”
She took a long sip of her own drink, vodka and cranberry. “Voodoo is a recognized religious practice.”
He lifted a hand, dismissing her comment. “I can go online and become a minister of half a dozen different religions. Doesn’t make them real.”
“Voodoo was the religion of Haiti. It’s a mix of old African religions and Catholicism. Its practitioners pray to, or through, the saints. They believe in a supreme being, in God.”
“And that they can injure a man by sticking a pin in a doll, and that a priest can bring people back from the dead as zombies.”
“Do you have a secret communication going with the Supreme Being, God, Allah, Jehovah, or whatever you want to call him—or her?” she asked.
He had the grace to smile at that. “It’s not people’s beliefs that worry me. It’s people who play off others’ beliefs.”
She shrugged. “I…don’t mean to insult you here—honestly—but I’m not sure why you’re so convinced there’s something terrible going on. Not just bones, but whole rotting bodies were floating in the Mississippi not so long ago.”
“I know. And it was a horrible tragedy.”
“We’re still picking up the pieces on a daily basis. It just takes time. Not a day or a week, or even a month or a year. It’s going to take years—plural. And a lot of commitment.”
“I know.”
“But you’re still convinced that something’s going on.” She flushed. “Besides bums living on the plantation and me not even being aware of it.”
He shrugged, and a rueful smile played across his lips as he lifted his glass to her. “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad about that. You were just two people, one of them old and dying, in a huge old house on a big piece of property. Hell, you didn’t have to be a caregiver, though I’m grateful that you were, and you sure as hell couldn’t have been a grounds-keeper, as well. So why does all this bother me? Call it a hunch. Or maybe the bone I found at the house only seemed suspicious because of the one I found earlier, by the river.”
“Bones can turn up anywhere in this area.”
“Yes, they can.”
“But…?”
“Tell me about Amelia,” he said, surprising her with the change of subject.
Kendall’s giant black Persian cat, Jezebel, chose that moment to walk in and rub against his legs, purring so loudly that Kendall could hear her from ten feet away.
She found herself almost leaping across the room to pick up the cat, silently chastising her. I guess I didn’t name you Jezebel for nothing, she thought, shooing the animal toward the front of the house as she set her down.
“That’s a beautiful animal,” Aidan commented.
“Thanks,” Kendall said curtly.
He didn’t comment on the fact that it seemed to bother her that her cat had been affectionate to him.
“Amelia?” he said.
“She was exceptionally kind to me—always. We had a bond, I guess. She was intelligent, sweet, a really fine woman. She died of cancer, though I guess the lawyer told you that.”
“She took a lot of morphine for the pain, I take it?” he asked.
Kendall nodded. “Yes,” she said warily, knowing exactly what he was implying.
“And she saw things?”
“Yes.” More wariness.
“And you did—or you didn’t?” he asked. So much for pleasantry. Those eyes of his were on her again, deep blue touched by frost, and his tone had changed.
“I really don’t know what you want me to say. For about two weeks before her death, she seemed to be afraid all the time. I had dragged a cot into her room, to be with her at night. Sometimes she woke up screaming about the lights. I was always still half asleep, so I honestly don’t know if I saw the lights or not. We’re not talking huge, the-aliens-are-landing lights, just pinpricks of lights out back and from the area of the cemetery. Or sometimes she would hear things, and again, I’d be half asleep. Did I hear anything out of the ordinary? I’m not certain.”
“What did you hear?”
“Wind, sometimes. It can sound like a cry when it moves through the old oak trees. Rustling sounds—again, possibly the wind, or maybe squirrels. Everything can be explained, I’m certain. Except, then, at the end…”
“At the end…what?”
He was a good interrogator, she thought. His voice had softened in a gentle and encouraging way.
She took another sip of her drink. “I was only afraid at the end, I guess.” She hesitated for a long moment. “You can make fun of me, if you like. But most of the time…I felt completely safe at the plantation. As if it were…protected by the past, by a benign spirit or something. Maybe it’s just the beauty of the area, I don’t know. But at the end, Amelia did unnerve me a few times. I mean, at night, it really feels like the plantation is in the middle of nowhere. And despite the feeling of being safe in the house, I kind of grew uneasy about there being something…evil, I guess, going on around it, but if I kept quiet and stayed in bed, I’d be safe. Maybe I did hear things, maybe I didn’t, but I did sleep with a baseball bat at my side.”
“You needed a gun.”
“That would be just great. I don’t know how to shoot. I’d have blown a hole in myself or Amelia.”
He smiled at that. “You should learn how to shoot—especially if you plan on spending any more time at derelict plantations in the middle of nowhere. You know, there’s a lot worse out there than ghosts. Real live monsters.”
“Well, I don’t plan on sleeping in the wilderness anymore, so I guess I’m okay without being a sharpshooter,” she said.
“Go on. Tell me more about the end.”
Inadvertently, Kendall shivered. She hated herself for it, knowing he was watching her every move. “Nothing happened at the end. She just started talking to people I didn’t see.”
“Saying what?”
“Different things at different times.”
“Go on.”
“It sounded as if she was teaching a history class. She talked about Reconstruction—after the Civil War—and World War I, World War II, Martin Luther King…all kinds of things. She talked about being proud of the old house. She seemed happy. She seemed to be talking to…”
“Ghosts?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But she was on a lot of morphine.”
“Of course…. I wasn’t alone with her at the end, you know. She didn’t want to die in a hospital. She’d been born in that house, and she wanted to die there. But I’m not a nurse, so I hired an RN to stay with Amelia when it was clear she was getting near the end. Still…”
“What?”
“She had been unconscious, in a coma, when she suddenly opened her eyes and sat up. She looked right at me and said goodbye, and that she loved me. Then she reached out, as if she were taking someone’s hand—you’ll never convince me she didn’t see something, someone—and she said, ‘It’s time. I’m ready now.’ And then she died.”
“Morphine,” he said softly. He actually said it as if he were trying to reassure her.
She looked directly back at him. “Sure.”
And then she suddenly felt uncomfortable. He was standing some distance from her, and he wasn’t threatening in any way. In fact, he was being extremely decent, almost kind. Humoring her? Maybe not. He seemed sincere, and when he smiled, or even when he just looked though
tful, he was astonishingly appealing. It might have been his self-confidence, the fact that he didn’t just pretend not to care what others thought; he really didn’t give a damn. His height and the breadth of his shoulders made him naturally imposing, and the hardness of his features somehow made the sculpted strength of them more intriguing. There was a leashed energy about him that seemed to emit a heat, even a sexual charisma.
She wondered once again what had happened to his wife.
But she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask him.
She told herself that her sudden unease was ridiculous. Just because he was an unattached man and she was an unattached woman, that didn’t mean they were about to jump one another. Oh, God. What a bizarre thought to have pop into her head. She had disliked him the moment she met him, and she still didn’t like him. It was just that she’d stopped believing his horns and tail popped out when he was alone.
And she was aware that as a man…
As a man what? she asked herself irritably. He thought she was a fraud.
Well, weren’t there times when she thought so herself?
She needed him out of her house. She was weary. She felt a strange weakness, and she didn’t like it. She needed the logical portion of her mind to come leaping forward, and she felt just too tired to manage it.
She cleared her throat. “I really need to get some sleep.”
“Sure.” He seemed to recover a bit himself. He had been staring at her, just as she had been staring at him. How long? Something seemed to pass across his eyes. A flicker. As if he had seen something inside her that he actually liked.
“Of course.”
He set his glass on the counter, and avoided touching her as he walked by.
“Thanks for the drink.” The words were polite. Distant. And she didn’t follow him as he walked away down the hall.
When she heard her front door close, she walked slowly to the front of the house and locked it.
To her surprise, the expected pleasure in being by herself in the apartment, with time to relax and sleep, didn’t come. Instead…
She felt uneasy.
And ridiculously, she wished that he were still with her. Her apartment usually seemed so welcoming.
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