A Haunting Desire

by Julie Mulhern

  This was what came of talking to ghosts. Your long lost father decided you were as crazy as a June bug in May.

  “No, thank you.” Trula took a deep breath and straightened her spine. The freckled ghost and his unsolicited advice were best ignored. “While you were wondering, I was being passed between Venice and Paris and a drafty villa in Tuscany. I wasn’t happy. Not remotely. Both my parents abandoned me.”

  “I am sorry, Trula. More sorry than you can imagine.”

  His eyes reflected real regret. But sorry didn’t change anything. She shook her head. “I know you faced a difficult decision, but I can’t help how I feel.”

  “Forgive him.”

  Was it possible to slap a ghost upside the head?

  “I can’t change the past.” The duke’s forehead sank to his hands. He looked defeated. “I wish I could.”

  “Do you?” Trula almost pitied him. Then she remembered the chill of a Tuscan villa in January and the winter in her grandmother’s eyes. “Would you choose differently?”

  “Forgive him.”

  “If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t make that promise.” The duke looked at her, his eyes beseeching. “I regret telling your mother so baldly, so badly. I sent her running to the Continent. I regret not following her. I had no idea what would happen to you. I made a mistake. I’m sorry, Trula. Please forgive me.”

  Her father stared at her, his eyes soft, his hands outstretched. Her father.

  “You were so young,” he said. “I tried to provide for you. I did. I should have done more, made certain someone looked after you, taken an active role in your life. I should have acted like your father. I thought Antoinette would” —he shook his head— “never mind.”

  He’d believed her mother would actually take care of her? Believing such a thing was patently ridiculous. Although, when Antoinette lived with the duke, she’d lavished love as if she drew the emotion from an inexhaustible well. How was he to know that well would run dry when he sent them away? Losing the man she loved had changed Antoinette. The loving mother disappeared, replaced by a cold, grasping woman who didn’t care for anyone—especially not the daughter of the man who’d hurt her.

  Was her father’s betrayal any worse than her mother’s? A woman who dumped her in Paris so she could pursue an affair with a Venetian count. And what of her grandmother? The woman had sold her into the demi-monde. Of the three, he was the only one who’d sought her out or asked her forgiveness.

  Trula dropped her gaze to her hands. What was she to do? Her anger had kept her warm for decades. Could she let it go? Should she even try? Did she want to spend the rest of her life holding on to bitterness?

  “Forgive him.”

  She whipped her head around, her mouth already open to give the impertinent ghost a piece of her mind.

  “He’s your father.”

  Why was this intrusive spook so interested in her relationship with the duke? The sharp words died on her lips. The ghost was right. Her father had wounded her, but she sensed he wouldn’t hurt her again. He wanted to make amends. He’d searched for her, found her, and asked for her forgiveness.

  Could she do it? Could she forgive him? Should she?

  Perhaps she should get to know him, at least a little bit. Saints knew she’d rather forgive a live father than one who lingered past death like Warwick Lambert.

  “Forgive him.”

  Trula ignored the ghost.

  “Trula?” Her father’s brow was wrinkled with concern. “Are you all right?”

  She smiled at him. “I’m fine, thank you, Father.”

  Behind her, she heard the ghost sigh, a satisfied huff of air. Meanwhile, her father’s smile shone as brightly as the hundred electric bulbs in Tom Anderson’s bar. A weight, heavy as one of Earleen’s cast iron skillets, lifted from her heart. It might be rather marvelous to have a father. One who’d come looking for her. One who was willing to live in a house full of rambunctious children rather than stay in a place she wasn’t welcome. Her smile broadened. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the little boy’s triumphant grin. It reminded her of Zeke. The new glow in her heart faltered, flickered, and almost died.

  …

  Friday was the busiest night of the week. Most girls working the district turned eight to ten tricks. The crib girls turned more. Trula’s girls entertained one gentleman and they took their time at it, making the man feel as if his pleasure was all that mattered. A man left Trula’s house satisfied and secure in his belief that the world revolved solely around him. He came back to reclaim that feeling.

  By eleven, both parlors had filled with business owners, high-stakes gamblers from the riverboats, and men who’d made their fortunes from the Spindletop oil well. All eager for a fine time and willing to pay top dollar for it.

  Vera Boog’s nephew, Edison, pounded piano keys. One of his buddies blew a horn. The girls danced, the men drank, and unshed tears clogged Trula’s throat. Why couldn’t she excise the part of her heart that Zeke had claimed? She ought to cut him clean out. She’d resolved to forget him at least a hundred times in the past hour alone. Where was he? Did he have so little regard for her that he’d take her to bed and then drop her without a word? Apparently he did.

  She listened to Jerome Payne’s latest publishing woe. Perhaps his troubles would disappear if he put down the glass of straight bourbon permanently attached to his hand. His bleary eyes sized her. “You ain’t lookin’ like yourself, Miss Boudreaux. Is somethin’ troublin’ you?”

  Trula blinked back her surprise. She’d assumed he was so drunk he wouldn’t notice if she swung naked from the chandeliers. Careless of her. Drunk or not, the man still made his living observing people and writing about it.

  “I suppose the murders have me on edge,” she said. It wasn’t even a lie.

  Payne sipped his bourbon and regarded her with open skepticism.

  “The last one was at Emma’s. That’s just down the street,” Trula said.

  He hiccupped.

  It was eminently reasonable for her to be concerned with the murders. Why did he look at her as if he knew she was lying? The fingers on his right hand twitched as if searching for a pencil, all the better to jot down a character study of the nitwit madam who fell for a handsome stranger. Trula squelched the desire to babble. “If you’ll excuse me, I must check with the bartenders.”

  She slid away before his once sharp eyes caught a glimpse clear through her.

  Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind a glass of bourbon herself. A drink might ease the tension that gripped her temples, circled her neck, coiled round her empty stomach, and ended at the tip of her toes. Her emotions swung like the pendulum on a tightly wound clock. Zeke Barnes had pursued her relentlessly, and when he’d caught her, he’d lost interest. Trula didn’t care if half the sportsmen in New Orleans lay dead in the street, he could still take a few moments to call on her.

  She moved blindly through the crowd, a brittle smile pasted on her face. She flirted with half-drunk men and offered introductions to available girls until a hand closed on her arm.

  “You look as if you’ve been rode hard and hung up to dry. Take yourself off to bed.” Hattie’s voice held an unmistakable note of concern.

  “What time is it?” Trula asked.

  “Goin’ on three.”

  He wasn’t coming.

  Zeke had acquired a new toy, played with it briefly, and then discovered he didn’t want it anymore. A fist squeezed her heart.

  If only she hadn’t been the toy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “I brought you breakfast, Miz Trula.” Willa Rae stood at the door to her bedroom balancing a tray.

  Trula opened an eye, judged the afternoon, and found it lacking. Her lid fluttered shut.

  “I got hot coffee, eggs, and chicken fried steak here.”

  The delicious aroma of fresh coffee drifted past Trula’s nose and her empty stomach rumbled. “Biscuits?”

  “Yes, ma’am.
I even got Tupelo honey. Earleen tole’ me you don’t like gravy.” She shook her head at such an incomprehensible preference. “Also, someone done sent you a note.”

  Trula opened her eyes. Willa Rae stood next to the bed. Her eye was still swollen from Emma’s slap. Despite that, the girl looked more hopeful than when she’d arrived. Her back was straighter and her lips flirted with a smile. Trula tried to smile back. She couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Where is it?” Trula held out her hand for the note. Was it from Zeke? An explanation at last?

  Willa Rae held it out as Trula pulled herself into a sitting position and adjusted the pillows behind her.

  With shaking fingers, Trula tore open a plain white envelope. She hated the wave of disappointment that swamped her when she read the missive from Doctor Montrose. How many times could her heart find ways to lie to her? To hope? Zeke’s absence was all the evidence she needed. She’d been a night’s entertainment. Nothing more.

  “Everything all right, Miz Trula?”

  She cleared her swollen throat. “It’s good news. Serena is doing well. Doctor Montrose expects a full recovery.”

  Willa Rae looked at her doubtfully then settled the full tray on Trula’s lap.

  Trula picked up a spoon and stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. “Are you getting along, Willa Rae? Are you settling in all right?”

  “Yes, Miz Trula. Everyone is real kind.”

  “They weren’t at Emma’s?” Trula bit into one of Earleen’s delicious biscuits. It tasted like dust.

  “No, ma’am.” Willa Rae shook her head. “The only person who ever showed me any kindness was ole Eulie Echo an’ she wasn’t there too often, only when Miz Emma wanted her to cast a protection or a hex.”

  “She has hexes cast?” The district’s madams had sworn not to cast spells on each other. It didn’t surprise her that Emma broke her vow.

  “Don’t you worry none, Miz Trula. Eulie Echo would never cast a hex on you.”

  Trula wasn’t so sure. It seemed as if her life had gone to hell in a hand-basket lately. A hex could be the reason. “When was Eulie last there?”

  “I reckon she last came on Wednesday night. Miz Emma wanted fresh brick dust on the stoop.”

  “Oh?” Trula set her cup on the tray and wiped her lips with a linen cloth.

  “I remember because when she finished, she ate supper and we sat a spell at the kitchen table. She told me I oughta find a better job than with Miz Emma. Eulie’s real partial to my red beans ‘n rice.”

  “I’m sure they’re delicious.” Trula picked up a fork and poked at her eggs.

  “Like I said, we were sittin’ together in the kitchen when we heard it.”

  “Heard what?” Trula lifted a forkful of eggs to her mouth.

  “Serena’s screamin’.”

  “What did you do?” The eggs lost their appeal. Trula put her fork down on her plate.

  “Nothin’ at first. Eulie asked me who was carryin’ on. I knew it was Serena and I felt real bad. Serena always treated me decent.” Willa Rae rubbed at the bruise near her eye. “Half of the girls at Miz Emma’s would backhand me for breathin’ the same air as them.”

  Emma Johnson had a lot to answer for.

  Willa Rae continued talking, unaware she’d touched Trula’s heart. “Well, I know Eulie Echo is blind, but sometimes she looks at you as if she sees clean into your soul. She did it to me on Wednesday. Gave me the shivers. So I told her it was Serena and a john done paid to beat her. Eulie didn’t say a word.” Willa Rae’s eyes sought Trula’s. “She sat there listenin’ to the screams and her face got real still, as if it was carved from cypress wood or stone.”

  “And then?”

  “Then she asked me for a cup of cornmeal and left. I don’t reckon she liked the sounds of Serena getting’ beat any better than I did.”

  “Cornmeal?” Trula’s heart stuttered. The vevé in the alley had been drawn in cornmeal. Had Eulie provided it? “You’re sure about the cornmeal, Willa Rae?”

  Mystified, the girl nodded. “Yes’m.”

  She’d been as blind as Eulie. Trula lifted the tray from her lap, placing it on her night table, then threw off her covers. No more malingering. No more wallowing. No more tears. It was past time these murders stopped. Saints knew the police hadn’t accomplished much. Zeke hadn’t either. She’d find the murderer on her own. “Do you know where Eulie stays?”

  “No, ma’am.” Willa Rae’s head moved from side to side.

  “Well then, please tell Diddy to find her. I’d like to speak with her.”

  Willa Rae nodded. “You finished with that?” She ducked her chin toward the tray of uneaten food.

  “Please leave the coffee and send Ada to help me dress.”

  When the door closed on Willa Rae’s narrow back, Trula sank into a chair and called herself ten kinds of idiot. While a tiny, old, blind woman couldn’t possibly be responsible for the deaths in the district, it seemed likely Eulie knew who was.

  …

  Evil, Zeke discovered, was as sticky as sweet gum sap. It clung to his skin and hair. Its sickly odor filled his nose. It lingered in the corners of a parlor filled with potions, it permeated the air on a flowered front porch, and it slithered beneath the counters of a store on Rampart Street. Despite brushing against the stuff of nightmares, he was no closer to finding answers than on Thursday morning.

  If he ever got the stench of Bony LeMoyne’s shop scrubbed off his skin, he had to see Trula. The need to take her in his arms worried at him as if he was an addict and she was his drug. He’d fought his need. He’d lost. He had to see her.

  Tap, tap.

  Zeke opened his hotel room door.

  “Message for you, sir.”

  He took the note and handed the boy a quarter. For one blissful second, Zeke hoped it might be from her. He snorted. Trula Boudreaux wasn’t the sort of woman who sent notes to men. Men sent notes to her. He hadn’t sent one. The right words went missing whenever he picked up a pen. He read Peake’s request for a progress report then tore the paper in half. Peake could wait. Zeke couldn’t.

  His steps rang against the banquette, each one bringing him closer to her. It was all Zeke could do not to run. He settled for bounding up her front stoop in a single leap.

  Hattie opened the door. If he’d been an ordinary customer, her scowl might have sent him scurrying to a different house.

  “May I come in?”

  “You ain’t welcome.” Incredibly, she eased the door closed. His foot stopped its progress.

  She snorted, looked him up and down, and stepped aside. “It’s your neck.”

  He stepped into the foyer and scanned the crowded parlors for Trula. Hattie’s hand closed around his wrist. “As long as you’re here, I’ve got a thing or two to say to you.” She pulled him past both parlors and the dining room, down a dimly lit hallway, and into the kitchen.

  The girl from Emma’s stood at a counter arranging desserts on a tray. Another woman swathed in an enormous white apron stirred a pan. The smells of fresh seafood, baked sugar, cayenne pepper, and berry cobbler clouded the air. Hattie ignored the women and the smells and led him out a side door and into an enclosed courtyard where lemon trees grew in enormous Chinese pots and wicker furniture formed a sitting area beneath a trellis of yellow trumpet vines.

  “What are you doin’ here?” she asked.

  “I came to see Trula.” He didn’t owe Hattie any explanations. He took a step toward the front hall door.

  Sparks fired in the depths of her narrowed eyes. “I don’t know what happened out by the lake and I reckon I don’t wanna know. Whatever did happen, it meant sumpin’ more than rollin’ in the sheets to Miz Trula.”

  He swallowed his annoyance. Hattie meant well. She was looking out for Trula. Under different circumstances he’d applaud her effort, but not when she cast him in the role of villain. “Isn’t this between Trula and me?”

  “You’re tellin’ me it’s none of my business?” She
took a step toward him with one of her fingers pointed. “Miz Trula is my business.” Hattie’s finger wagged in his face, practically brushing against his nose. “I told you not to play fast and loose with her heart. You leave her alone, she has no use for a do-wrong man.”

  Something had grown between them in the hours they spent in Granny’s cabin. Something that haunted him. He’d hoped the feeling would dissipate like mist in the morning sunshine. But it hadn’t. “I need to talk to her.”

  “You need! What about what she needs? She doesn’t need you hurtin’ her any worse.”

  “How have I hurt her?” His stomach plunged. He’d made love to her then disappeared, pretending she wouldn’t care. He’d lied to himself because the truth was so daunting. He needed her. And rather than face that need, he’d ignored it and her until he couldn’t stand it.

  “Miz Trula ain’t paid a man no never mind before you.” Hattie’s finger poked him in the chest. “You spend near every night for weeks in the parlor makin’ moon eyes at her. You come calling at odd hours. You chase her so openly that every girl in this house is talkin’ about it. Then you spend one night with her and disappear. You think the girls aren’t talkin’ about how you played Miz Trula for a fool? You think she ain’t thinkin’ the same thing?” She poked again. Harder. “Tell me what woman ain’t gonna be hurt.”

  “I didn’t realize.” He hadn’t. Hadn’t given a thought to how their night together might affect the way her girls viewed her.

  “That’s because you’re selfish. You get on outta here.” She left off drilling through his chest with her finger and pointed toward the kitchen, presumably to the door to the alley.

  “Thank you, Hattie. I can fight my own battles.” Trula’s voice was as cool and impersonal as the night.

  Zeke took an involuntary step toward her but she stepped back so that her face and form disappeared in shadow. Her retreat stung.

  Hattie cast one last disgusted look his way and disappeared into the kitchen where, no doubt, she listened by the door.

  “What do you want?”

  “To see you.”

  “Why?” She moved back into the dim light. Sadness wet the curve of her cheek. Her tears cut through him. “I was right about you all along. I was the toy you couldn’t have.”