by Lisa Maxwell
She backed up to allow me to scoot out of the car, and I took my time stretching out my sore neck and back and focusing on breathing, on letting the rest of the dream wisp away in the warmth of the day. That’s when I remembered why I’d been waiting in the car.
There was one news van still hanging around on the road, but the rest had left, apparently. The cop with the too-big gut and mirrored glasses was gone as well.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” she said.
My mouth felt like I’d been chewing on a cotton ball. “Did you find out what happened?”
Lucy didn’t look so good. Her freckles stood out more than usual against her pale skin. “They’re not sure what happened … ”
“Some reporter said there was a body.”
She closed her eyes, like she was willing herself to be somewhere else, to see something else. “It was Byron.”
My mouth fell open. “Someone killed Byron?”
“It’s bad, Chloe. They found him at the foot of the stairs in the main hall of the mansion. His neck was broken, and they think he was pushed down them.”
“How do they know he didn’t just trip?”
Lucy grimaced. “Remember the daguerreotype of Roman and Josephine they found the other day?”
I nodded.
“Those are actually printed on glass. Someone smashed it and used one of the bigger shards to stab Byron. Before he fell. There was blood all the way down the steps.”
But Lucy was so pale and her expression so distant that I knew there was more.
“What else?” I asked.
“They arrested him,” she whispered. Her eyes were glassy with tears when she looked up at me. “Someone told the police that my dad and Byron had been fighting over Piers taking the charm to Nashville. I guess it was pretty bad, and since my dad was the one to find Byron … ” She took a deep breath. “The police took him downtown in handcuffs a few minutes ago. My mom’s frantic. She’s on the phone with my uncle, who’s a lawyer in Chicago, and they’re trying to figure stuff out, but … ” Her voice broke.
“Oh my god, Lucy.” I wrapped her in a hug. She kind of slumped in my arms.
“He didn’t do it,” she said. “He couldn’t have done it.”
“I know he didn’t,” I told her, looking over her shoulder to the mansion in the distance. “They’ll figure this out and he’ll be back here in no time.”
She pulled away from me. “It has to be Thisbe,” she said. “It has to be related.”
I didn’t disagree, but I’d seen how Dr. Aimes had lashed out at Byron before and I wasn’t so sure how it was related.
“He didn’t do it,” she said again, her voice hollow and breaking. But it sounded like she was doing all she could to convince herself.
That night, Mrs. Aimes left T.J. with us so she could go downtown and try to figure out was happening with Dr. Aimes. I don’t think anyone slept much waiting for them to get back. When I did manage to drift off, I’d dream of the shadowy figure on the porch who had been waiting for the girl. Usually, it was Roman’s face I saw there, but other times it was Byron’s. And once, it was Dr. Aimes who looked back at me with cruel eyes.
Twenty-Two
By the time we woke, Dr. Aimes was back at home, looking shaken and unsettled. Not that I could blame him. Finding a body and then being accused of the murder would make anyone look like that. Still, there was something in the way he held himself all closed off and quiet that made me uneasy.
Before breakfast was even over, though, a knock at the door shook everyone up again.
Dr. Aimes answered it, and his voice carried into the kitchen where we were sitting: “I already answered all of the questions I’m going to. You can talk to my lawyer … ”
Lucy glanced at me and we both got up to go see what was happening. When we came into the front parlor, Dr. Aimes was still standing at the door, as though barring it from the two police that were standing on the porch.
“We’re not here for that, sir,” a plain-clothes detective said. “We found some things in an abandoned vehicle that we believe belong to you.” The male officer held up a clear bag. “May we come in?”
“I don’t understand,” Dr. Aimes said, taking the bag.
“The vehicle was found outside of Picayune,” the female officer told him.
Dr. Aimes took the items out of the bag—a torn envelope clearly labeled with the university’s logo, and a cube of
sea-green-colored foam that was also ripped in half—and examined them. “These are … ” His voice trailed off.
“You recognize them?” the detective asked, his face not giving away any emotion at all.
“I think I do, yes. Please. Come in.” Dr. Aimes stepped back to let the two in as he turned the foam over in his hand. He was silent as he traced the indentation inside. “I sent an artifact to be delivered by an intern of mine. I think this is the packaging,” he said, his eyes never leaving the empty foam cube. “And there was a book as well,” he added, gesturing absently to the torn envelope.
“We didn’t find anything in the envelope, sir,” the female officer said. “Can you tell us the name of this intern?”
“Piers. Piers Dumont,” Dr. Aimes answered, his voice hollow as he handed back the packaging.
“When was the last time you heard from him?” The officer asked pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.
“I sent him to Nashville on Thursday,” he told them. “He’s a student at Vanderbilt and was delivering some things to a colleague of mine there. He was supposed to help with a few tests and come back next week with the results.”
“Why was his car in Picayune?” I interrupted, dread making my stomach feel like lead.
“Who’s this?” the detective asked, looking between Dr. Aimes and me and obviously not seeing the connection.
“This is Chloe Sabourin. She’s been staying with us. She’s Piers Dumont’s girlfriend.”
“Why would his car be in Picayune?” I asked again, panic clawing at me.
“I’m sorry. We can only divulge information to family.”
“His parents are out of the country for the summer. He doesn’t have any family in town right now,” I told them, dazed.
The officers just frowned.
“Where is he?” I asked. Vaguely, I felt Mrs. Aimes’s arm go around my shoulder, and the freely offered comfort had the words dying in my throat. I looked at Lucy, and her eyes were filled with the same worry I felt choking me.
“We’re still trying to piece things together,” the detective told me.
“So you haven’t heard from Mr. Dumont since Thursday?” the female officer asked. She exchanged another silent glance with the detective.
“I spoke to him after that,” I said. “On Friday.”
“Did he confirm that he’d made it to Nashville?”
“I … ” Had he? I couldn’t remember. The conversation had been so short, so gruff, that he didn’t tell me much of anything. “I think so.”
The officer looked at Dr. Aimes, dismissing my information and me. “What was the value of the artifacts?”
My stomach sank at the implication in her words. “Piers would never have stolen those,” I argued.
“Chloe … ” Dr. Aimes warned, his voice serious. Then he turned back to the officers. “I’m not exactly sure. With items of historical significance, often it can be hard to put an exact dollar amount on them.” His voice grew darker. “But they were valuable to the historical record. To this property.”
“We can help you fill out a report,” the detective offered.
“What about Piers?”
The detective looked up at me and then pulled a card from his pocket. “If you hear from him, you should contact me immediately.”
“You’re not going to look for him? He wouldn’t have done what you’re suggesting. He could be in trouble somewhere—hurt.”
The female officer frowned. “There wasn’t any sign of trouble other than the packaging we found. There’s nothing to
indicate that Mr. Dumont was in any distress. You’re welcome to come downtown and file a missing persons report if you’d like, though.”
Anger lashed through me and I felt a breeze brush against my skin, but I forced myself to tamp my anger down and not lash out. “Thank you. I will,” I said.
The house on Desire Street looked the same as it did a couple of days before, so I didn’t understand why I was so nervous. But the longer I hesitated out on the sidewalk, the more I started to think that the whole plan was a really bad idea. I’d left Lucy behind at Le Ciel to look into the registers, but she thought I was filing a police report, not doing this.
I turned on my heels. “Stupid,” I said to myself, starting back toward my parking spot a few blocks over.
“What’s stupid?” called a voice from behind me.
I cursed under my breath and turned back to the house to find Odane standing at the top of his porch steps, grinning like someone who knew exactly what effect his smile had on people.
“What brings you to my side of town?” He didn’t bother to come down the steps, just kept his place at the top of his porch, the king of his would-be castle.
“I … ” Shit. I didn’t have any good excuse for being there except the real reason—the one I’d just decided not to go through with.
His brows drew together and that always-present smile of his disappeared. The look that replaced it was a new one—a sincere one—and damn if that wasn’t a thousand times more dangerous.
“What is it?” he asked as he jogged down the three steps and came out to where I was standing. “Did something happen to Aunt Odette?”
“No, Mama Legba—your aunt—she’s fine.”
He was right up close to me now, so close I could detect the warm, woodsy scent of him. It reminded me of the way a forest smells at night—dark and wild with the bite of pine cutting through—and the memory sent little shivers of awareness through me.
I locked those down. Hard. I didn’t need any shivers of anything, especially not coming from him.
“Then what is it?” he asked, still all sincere concern.
“Nothing. I changed my mind.”
He cocked one eyebrow and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “And you think I’m gonna let you get away without telling me what you changed your mind about?”
I shook my head and turned to keep walking.
“Hey,” he said, his words as gentle as the hand that grabbed my arm to stop me. He turned me to him gently, but his hands were steady on my arms to keep me in place. “Really. Tell me what’s up. You didn’t come this far out of your way for nothing.”
I pulled away, but I didn’t go any farther. I’d come this far, hadn’t I? He was being so nice, so concerned, that I almost did want to tell him.
“Admit it,” he said after a few seconds of undecided silence from me. “You couldn’t stop thinking about me. You want me.”
My head whipped up before I could stop myself. “You—” But the words died in my throat when I saw the laughter in his eyes. “You’re kidding.” Which was about the dumbest, most obvious thing I could’ve picked to say.
“Maybe.” His mouth turned up at the corners. “Maybe not.” He gave me a wink, and when I rolled my eyes at him, his expression went serious again, changing the whole layout of his face. With his eyes focused on me, his mouth in a grim line, and his whole attention turned toward sincerity, he almost looked like a different person. “I already volunteered to help you. Why don’t you come on in and tell me what’s what?”
I glanced back up at the house—the steady droning rattle of the window air conditioner, the crooked shutter, the warmth the whole place seemed to be surrounded by.
I didn’t belong there.
“Come on,” he said. Not giving me time to refuse, he took me by the hand and led the way up the steps.
Twenty-Three
Across the Mississippi from the Quarter is a neighborhood called Algiers. It’s been around as long as New Orleans has been a town and has seen as much as any other bit of land around these parts. It’s the first land slaves saw after being kidnapped from their native countries and the place they were kept until they were sold. It’s where the Acadians were held after they fled from Canada when the British conquered it three hundred years ago. It’s a land that’s soaked up all sorts of blood and pain and suffering over time, and at the very tip is a place that was once called Slaughterhouse Point, which was where we were heading.
By boat, it would have only taken a few minutes to get over there, but by car, it took closer to half an hour from Bywater, where Odane’s family lived. I, for one, was happy to have the time to think. Everything had happened so fast—once he had me settled with a sweet tea, I’d started talking, and once I started talking, I couldn’t make myself stop. So we were going to see his father—Ikenna Gaillard—a man I wasn’t none too sure about meeting.
“When we get there,” Odane was saying, “you let me do the talking.”
“Excuse me?”
He glanced over at me as he drove. “It’s not that I don’t think you can handle yourself, but I know how his mind works.”
“Why are we doing this again?”
“Because he’s the only person I know who can help you break into your dreams if Aunt Odette won’t.” Odane’s jaw ticked as he focused on navigating the truck through the last bit of traffic in the Quarter and headed for the Crescent City Connection Bridge.
“You don’t like this any more than I do, do you?”
“Not overly,” he admitted, “but Auntie O can be stubborn—sometimes too stubborn. Just look at the whole mess between her and my mom.”
“Yeah, about that. They obviously care about each other, but it doesn’t look like they can stand being in the same room for more than five minutes.”
Odane gave a soft grunt of agreement. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“So, what’s the story there?”
“It’s family stuff … ”
“I told you my family stuff,” I said, a challenge in my voice. “Seems like it’s only fair that you do the same.”
He hesitated for the length of a few blocks, but then finally gave in. “It goes back a long ways, but the bottom line is that Aunt Odette was always the oldest and because of my mom’s leg, she was always looking out for her baby sister. When her baby sister didn’t want to be looked out for anymore, they had words.”
I studied his profile. “There’s more to it than that, though.”
“A little bit. See, they were supposed to be going into business with each other. Aunt Odette’s shop used to be my grandfather’s, and he was supposed to pass it on to both of his girls. His name was Luke Turner—he claimed to be a nephew of Marie Laveau. Although, I have to say, half the Hoodoo doctors in a fifty-mile radius say the same, so I don’t know if it’s true or not.
“Anyway, my grandfather willed the two girls his shop, because they both seemed to have the touch when it came to the spirits. Everything was all set, from what I understand, and then my father came strutting in and messed everything up.”
“Messed it up how?” I asked.
“First he tried courting Auntie O, but when she realized he was more interested in the shop than in her, she turned him down flat. Then he turned his sights on my mom. Auntie O tried to warn her off, but my mom wouldn’t hear any of it. She was convinced that her sister was just jealous that my father chose her instead.
“She let Ikenna sweep her off her feet, and before she knew it, she had me on the way and no ring on her finger. When she pressed my father to get married, he wanted to have his name added to the lease of the shop—as a gift for the wedding, or so he said. When Auntie O refused, it caused a big fight. The sisters haven’t been the same since then. My mom asked Aunt Odette to buy out her half of the shop, since she didn’t want anything to do with her sister or the shop anymore. Aunt O refused, saying half the business was still and always would be hers. My mom refused to have anything to do with it, a
nd now they don’t talk much anymore.”
“Did he end up marrying your mom?”
Odane shook his head. “Nope. Once Ikenna found out that Aunt Odette wasn’t going to budge, he cut my mom off almost completely. He must have heard through the grapevine that my mom had a son, because when I was thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, he started coming around trying to make nice with me—offering to buy me smokes or liquor or take me out on the town. Make a man of me, he used to say.”
“Charming,” I drawled.
“Yeah.” His voice went dark, dangerous, like there was barely leashed anger skimming across the surface of it.
“And you still think going to see him is a good idea?”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t call it a good idea, but it’s the one I’ve got. If Aunt Odette is dead set against helping you figure out these dreams you’ve been having, and if you’re dead set on knowing what they’re trying to tell you, he’ll be able to help. For a price.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I told him, shifting uneasily on my side of the truck. “This price of his—how much will it be?”
“No way to tell until he names it,” Odane said as he steered us onto the bridge. To the right and left of us, the Mississippi’s dull waters glinted in the sun. “We don’t have to accept what he offers, though. If we don’t like his bargain, we’ll walk away—no harm, no foul. If it seems doable, we maybe can learn something.”
Odane navigated through a residential area before finally pulling up to a small neighborhood bar. It was painted white with decorative wrought-iron bars over the dark windows. The sign read Crossroads in scarlet over a design that looked like a compass rose without the points.
“This is it,” Odane said, shutting off his truck and peering out through the windshield. His arms resting on the steering wheel, he looked at the entrance to the bar with apprehension on his face.
“We don’t have to do this,” I told him. “I can find another way.” Now that we’d arrived, part of me wished that he would take the out I was offering him.
“Maybe,” he said as he opened his door. “But we’re here, and he probably already knows it. Might as well go in and see what’s what. Otherwise, he’ll think we’re running scared.”