Deadly Night

by Heather Graham

  She didn’t know if she started to dream because she’d been thinking so much about Amelia, or because she’d fallen asleep watching The Addams Family.

  At first, it was a whimsical and fun dream. She was outside at the Flynn plantation, and she was so light that she almost floated as she moved. She glided up to the front door, where the knocker smiled, then giggled and said, “Ouch!” when she reached for it.

  She realized she was dreaming and groaned, mocking herself. It was Through the Looking Glass all over again! She couldn’t even come up with an original dream.

  The door opened on its own, beckoning her in, and she headed for the staircase. From the ballroom, she could hear singing, so she stopped to look in. Vinnie and the Stakes were playing, floating in mid-air. Vinnie waved and tried to get her to come sing with him. She shook her head and moved into the next room. The dream grew darker then. The room looked like a mad scientist’s lair. Someone in a lab coat was hanging bone pieces on a wire frame in the shape of a skeleton. The head was in place, and it was talking, empty eye sockets turned in Kendall’s direction.

  She quickly slammed the door. Somehow she knew that she was supposed to go upstairs, so she forced herself to move on to the stairway.

  When she looked up, there was a woman at the top of the stairway. A woman in white. And she was beckoning Kendall to follow.

  Kendall didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop herself from gliding upward. She couldn’t really see the woman’s face, but she heard her words.

  “You have the diary!” The tone was accusing.

  Kendall tried to jolt herself awake.

  Yes, she had the diary, but she was planning to give it back. She just hadn’t finished reading it yet.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to wake up. Even though nothing overtly threatening had happened, she was terrified that something would happen to her if she didn’t—and didn’t they say that if you died in your dreams, you would die for real?

  She felt a gentle touch. The woman in white was gone and now Amelia was there.

  “They just need help,” she said. “We have to help them, Kendall. Don’t you see?”

  There was a sudden scream in the night. A loud, horrified scream.

  “If I’d only had the strength to help them,” Amelia said, shaking her head slowly.

  Her touch on Kendall’s cheek felt so very real….

  I have to wake up, Kendall told herself. I have to wake up!

  The awful scream came again.

  Amelia’s image faded away, and the scream faded with her.

  Kendall found herself falling, falling because the stairway had disintegrated to dust and there was nothing but a giant black abyss beneath her.

  She woke with a start, covered in a sheen of sweat. For long moments she gasped, the dream still terrifyingly vivid in her mind.

  The sound of the television pulled her back to reality. An infomercial had come on. Couples were expounding on the joys of an erectile dysfunction pill.

  She leaned back, almost smiling at herself. She knew she should never drink more than one or two beers, at the most. She just couldn’t hold her liquor. She was all right; she was just combining thoughts of her recent life with visions from some of the more inventive authors she loved.

  Everything made sense when she thought about it that way.

  She started to go to sleep again, but she still wanted the TV on, so she flicked it to a channel that was showing old cartoons.

  When she straightened her legs, getting comfortable, she felt something at the foot of the bed.

  “Jezebel, you little rat. You’re scaring me,” she said, half laughing and half angry.

  But even as she spoke, she saw Jezebel across the room, sleeping on one of the throw pillows Kendall had tossed onto the floor when she got into bed.

  She frowned, then felt around under the comforter to find out what was in the bed with her.

  She looked at what she’d found, then gasped and jumped back so fast that she slammed against the headboard.

  It was the diary.

  The diary she had taken from the Flynn house.

  The diary that should still have been in her backpack.

  Jonas was hiding something, Aidan thought.

  An affair? Maybe.

  But there was no reason why he should have been as defensive as he had been. Of course, he’d been drinking, and if he’d been drinking a lot, that alone might have made him feel paranoid.

  Aidan didn’t know what kind of reaction he was going to get when he paid a visit to Jonas the following morning, but he knew he couldn’t sit idle.

  He’d never worked in the office here, but he’d gotten help from the Bureau staff before. He knew that in a country full of various and competing law enforcement agencies, there were bound to be a few bad eggs. But in general, people who went into law enforcement did so because they wanted to uphold the law, because they believed in their country and its legal system, and wanted to be helpful. Still, due to the kinds of cases they worked, the FBI tended to be more guarded than most other agencies, other than Homeland Security, and they saw a threat in everything. That was what they were paid to do.

  Aidan arrived at the office early on Wednesday morning. He asked to see Jonas Burningham, half expecting Jonas to try to evade him, just as Jon Abel had done. He’d brought in the vial of dried blood yesterday, and Jonas had sighed wearily, but he had taken it. Aidan was certain, however, that it hadn’t been given priority.

  Jonas came out to the main reception area to shake his hand and ask him back to his office. Once there, he closed the door, took his seat behind the desk and rested his forehead on his palm. “What now? More blood? More bones? Did you dig up a whole body?”

  “No.”

  Jonas looked up suspiciously. “What are you here for, then? I hope you’re not about to give me a lecture on the pitfalls of Bourbon Street.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’ve gotten strange.”

  “I haven’t gotten strange.”

  “You used to be thorough. But now you’re a pit bull.”

  “Can’t help it. It’s my nature. And I didn’t come to torture you. I just wanted to see if you had any open missing-persons cases.”

  Jonas stared at him. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how many people are still missing after the storm?”

  Aidan shook his head. “I want recent cases. Women who might have been in this area or headed for this area when they disappeared.”

  Jonas sighed.

  “Come on, Jonas. Humor me.”

  Jonas nodded slowly. Aidan had the feeling that he was going to help, not because Aidan was a good investigator, but because he wanted him to go away.

  “I’ll call Hirshfield, my assistant, and ask him to get you the relevant files from the last year. Will that do?”

  “That’ll be great. Thanks.”

  Jonas didn’t use his phone to call his assistant; he left the room. Was he going to ask Hirshfield to filter the files he was going to let Aidan see? Why would he do that?

  He was gone a long time. So long that Aidan began to suspect that he might have led him on just to ditch him somehow anyway. After all, he was under no obligation to give Aidan any help. Aidan’s relationship with the Bureau remained good, but once you were gone, you were off any kind of priority list. Friendship was all he had left.

  Just when Aidan was about to give up and leave, Jonas returned. He seemed nervous. He ran a finger beneath his collar and handed a stuffed manila envelope to Aidan. “This is everything that might be helpful in any way. Everything.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  “So, Bourbon Street is your new hangout, too, huh?”

  “I don’t really have a hangout.” Aidan hesitated. “Seems like folks are drawn to that bar.”

  “One local frequents a place, others follow. Locals go there because they know they’ll find other locals there. T
hat’s the way it goes. Or are you saying there’s something spooky going on? Shit, maybe you’re right. Maybe people are drawn there. Who the hell knows?” He changed the subject. “Are you going to move out to the house?”

  “I hadn’t intended to. There’s a lot of work going on there. We hired a contractor after the engineer gave us a thumbs-up,” Aidan told him.

  “Well, good luck with it.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Aidan took the files with him back to his hotel, where he hesitated, then gave Jeremy a call. Odd, they were a close family, but they each had a different place in the city where they preferred to stay. He was at the Monteleone, which was family-owned and where the current boss had gone above and beyond for his employees after the storm. Jeremy preferred a small place on the other side of Jackson Square called the Provincial. Zach was especially fond of a certain bed-and-breakfast.

  “Hey. How’s it going?” he asked, when his brother answered his cell phone.

  “Well, I visited my friends at the police station,” Jeremy told him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going through the information I got. You?”

  “I got what I could from Jonas. I’m about to start going through the files now. Where’s Zach?”

  “At the house, with the contractor. He’s been playing on the computer, says he has some facts and figures that might prove interesting. He said we should meet at the house tomorrow. He’s convinced the place can be ready by the end of the month, so we can host that benefit for displaced kids.” Jeremy’s tone showed how grateful he was that at least one of his brothers was embracing his cause.

  Strange, Aidan thought. We all look so damned normal and even strong. But every one of us gets obsessed, as if somehow we can erase the horrors of our past.

  “Good. We can talk more tomorrow.”

  Jeremy agreed. Aidan rang off and started on the files.

  Jonas had been as good as his word. He hadn’t held anything back. He had in fact given Aidan far more than he’d needed to. Most of the files were worthless; they were just reports that had gone out, and the person might have been anywhere. Many looked as if no foul play was involved; they concerned people who had wanted to break with the past and start over somewhere else. Some were of people who had apparently disappeared, only to reappear.

  But there were a few that seemed relevant, and one of those caught his attention right away.

  Jenny Trent.

  She’d left Lafayette for New Orleans three months ago, planning to spend one night before heading for the airport early in the morning. Her disappearance hadn’t been reported for over a month, because she was a teacher on summer vacation and had only one living relative, her cousin’s widow, Betty Trent. Betty, raising three children on her own, hadn’t reported that Jenny was missing until the school had called her, as next of kin, to find out why Jenny hadn’t returned to work.

  Jenny was described as standing five feet three inches tall and weighing one hundred and ten pounds. At twenty-eight, she’d worked hard and, after six years of teaching, saved up for her dream trip to South America, where she had planned to remain for twenty-eight days. An investigation of her home computer had shown that she’d printed her boarding pass; checking with the airlines had shown that she’d never boarded the plane that was to take her to Caracas via Miami.

  No one knew where she had stayed—or planned to—in New Orleans. Her credit card receipts hadn’t led the police anywhere.

  If she was dead, it had only been three months. Not time enough for her body to have decayed down to nothing but bone. Unless the process had been given some help. If she’d been cut into pieces, then left out in the intense, baking heat of New Orleans or hidden in a shallow grave, it might just be possible. He wasn’t a forensic expert, but he’d been around enough crime scenes, and five-three would fit the length of the first bone he’d found.

  He was grasping at straws, he knew, but he just had a feeling, and over the years, he’d learned to trust his gut. As he read the file, he felt a surge of indignation. Here was a young woman who had done all the right things: she’d studied, landed a good job. She’d worked; she’d saved. She’d planned a long-dreamed-of holiday—and she had disappeared. And with only an in-law—a woman trying to raise a family alone—to pursue what had happened, the trail had grown cold and the case had been shelved.

  There were a few other files that appeared interesting, but Jenny Trent’s seemed to be the most on the money.

  He picked up the phone and called Jeremy.

  “I thought we were meeting in a few hours,” his brother said.

  “We are. Do you have anything on a Jenny Trent?”

  “Yeah, I have that file right on top, as a matter of fact.”

  “What I have says there are no credit card receipts for a hotel, motel or bed-and-breakfast. I don’t have any of the other charge records. Do you have anything?” Aidan told him.

  “I have a list of merchants. Most of them we’d have to track down, but…get this. She has a charge from a place we know and love,” Jeremy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “The Lair of the Undead.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to Aidan. “And that is…?”

  “The corporate name for the Hideaway—the bar where I played last night.”

  “Ah,” Aidan murmured. He wondered why the owners didn’t just call the place The Lair of the Undead. It seemed a lot catchier. “What do you have for next of kin?” Aidan asked.

  “Mrs. Betty Trent, cousin-in-law, Lafayette.”

  “Same as I have. I think I’ll go talk to Mrs. Trent.”

  “It’s a two-hour drive, Aidan.”

  “I know. I need you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Drop by Tea and Tarot, on Royal.”

  “To see the very impressive Miss Montgomery?”

  “Impressive?” Aidan asked. Yes, she was impressive, he admitted. But why was Jeremy saying so?

  “Oh, that’s right. You missed her performance last night,” Jeremy said. “She’s quite a singer. I wonder why she’s running a psychic place,” Jeremy mused. “So…why am I going to see her?”

  Aidan looked at his watch. He needed five hours.

  “Tell her I’ll pick her up at her place at seven-thirty.”

  “Okay.” Jeremy didn’t ask why, but the question was in his voice.

  “I think she can tell me more about the Flynn plantation.”

  “Sure,” Jeremy said.

  “And…I’d like to find out more about her relationship with Vinnie.”

  “Vinnie from the Stakes?” Jeremy asked.

  “Yeah. Your buddy. How well do you know the guy?”

  “Not well at all, really, other than musically.”

  “Doesn’t he seem a little weird to you?”

  “The costume?” Jeremy asked, amused. “Hell, brother, it’s Bourbon Street.”

  “Hang around for a while. See if you can find out more about Vinnie and Mason Adler.”

  “Because they know her and hang out at the bar? Aidan, you’ll have to get to know half the people in the city if that strikes you as suspicious—the place is a local hangout.”

  “Might as well start with two out of the tons, huh?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Whatever Jeremy was thinking, he didn’t say more. They rang off, and Aidan called down for his car.

  Kendall felt like absolute hell. It wasn’t a hangover; it was the lack of sleep, or rather, the unmercifully restless sleep she had endured after discovering the diary in her bed.

  She couldn’t escape the feeling that it wanted to be read.

  Ridiculous. People wanted other people to read books; books themselves didn’t ask to be read. But no one had been in her apartment in the last few days, except for Aidan Flynn, and he had never been alone in her room.

  Besides, as much as she resented the man, she couldn’t see him sneaking into her bedroom to slip a book beneath her covers. Pe
ople sometimes did things subconsciously, so she must have taken the book out of the backpack herself, and for some bizarre reason, put it in her bed, then forgotten what she’d done. Easy enough, a sensible answer. She must have been thinking about something else and remembering that she hadn’t finished the diary, absentmindedly picked it up and tossed it on the bed. She should have been more careful with it. The diary was remarkably well-preserved, but it was still over a hundred and fifty years old and probably very valuable.

  And it definitely needed to go back to the heirs.

  But not until she finished reading it.

  She thanked God that morning that she never opened until ten, that Mason was capable of taking care of things until she showed up, and that things would probably be slow, since it was a Wednesday. Weekenders might take off a Friday, or even a Thursday, to create a mini vacation. Or, they might stay over Monday, or even Tuesday, in the same vein. But Wednesday was usually the deadest day of the week. Once she pulled herself together and went in, she might even be able to make herself a cup of tea, munch on a pastry and chill out in the back, reading, all day. Not especially good for the bottom line, but today, it would work.

  She wrapped the diary in a protective book cover stitched by a local artist, slipped it into her large carryall and headed out.

  When she reached the shop, Mason was there and hard at work, dealing with boxes strewn all over the place.

  “Halloween,” he said happily, as she entered. Then he paused, looking at her. “Coffee is brewed. And you look like shit.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “Hangover?” he teased.

  “If I had a hangover, it would be all your fault. But, honestly, I just didn’t sleep.”

  “Coffee will help,” he said. “We have to deal with all this. We’re running late getting the decorations up.”

  So much for her dream of spending the day in reading and recovery.

  They were running late. Even with Vinnie’s help, Mason couldn’t do everything, and she had been gone so much when Amelia was ill. Even though her friend had died several months ago now, Kendall still felt as if she were playing catch-up.