by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees
Faith looked dully up from the Pop-Tarts she’d toasted and now couldn’t eat. She hadn’t eaten very much during the past two days, knowing full well that her secrets muddled the investigators’ understanding of the twenty-four hours before Butch had died, and watching the twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight hours after his death pass with no arrests. She’d had nightmares. She’d felt downright brittle at work. Luckily, Greg, who knew she’d known and liked Butch, had done what he could to make things easier for her. “Smart? How am I smart?”
“Not letting anyone know you’re psychic. You haven’t had the police hounding you at work, asking stupid questions you can’t answer.”
No, she thought. I’ve just had Butch’s corpse laid out in the back room.
“I’m not psychic,” she said.
“Oh, give it up.” Absinthe slid the plate with the Pop-Tarts away from Faith and to her own place. “Of course you are.”
“No. I’m not. I…” Faith searched for a way to explain it—hard to do, when she still didn’t understood herself. “I can smell things—that Moonsong spent time with a smoker last night, that Evan spent time with a pot-smoker last night and that Absinthe had sex the day before yesterday with someone who wore a lot of patchouli.”
Her three roommates were staring at her now, intrigued.
Absinthe said, “Hey, I showered.”
“Yes, you did. Twice. You used my soap this morning, after your run. I can smell that, too.”
“I ran out of mine. So sue me.”
“I can hear things,” Faith continued. “Evan’s heart is beating faster than Moonsong’s or Absinthe’s—he’s taking this more seriously than you two are. His breathing is more shallow, too.”
“You never explained it this way before,” he said.
“And if I touch you, any one of you, I can feel things.”
Absinthe took a bite of the Pop-Tarts. “Like, say…a psychic?”
Fine. Faith held out her hand.
The others exchanged significant looks. They knew how she felt about touching people. But of all of them, Absinthe was least likely to shy away from a dare.
She put her bare hand with its chipped black nails into Faith’s.
Sensations poured through the connection between them—more subtle than touching a stranger would have been, easier than if Faith hadn’t been braced against the touch, but still powerful.
“You’ve got a toothache,” said Faith. “There’s a tightness in your jaw from it. You’ve been eating a lot of peppermint lately—I can taste that. You…”
She concentrated.
Absinthe pulled her hand free, cocking her head, staring a dark challenge.
“You used to be anorexic,” decided Faith more softly, interpreting what she’d sensed. “A few years back, before you learned it was healthier to tell the world to go to hell. It left scars in your heart and your kidneys, and it weakened your joints, like the way a year of drought shows up in the rings of a tree.”
“I guess I was wrong.” Evan sat back from his cereal. “You’re not psychic at all.”
“I’m not! I mean—I know I’m something, I would never claim to be normal, don’t think I’m saying that. Being psychic would be normal compared to me. But it’s more like I’m hyperaware. Moonsong could touch your forehead and tell whether you have a fever. I can touch your forehead and tell if you have a hangover. Absinthe could smell if you’ve been in an herb garden in the past hour. I can smell if you’ve been in an herb garden in the past few weeks. It’s just…it’s like the volume’s turned up. But a psychic…”
They continued to stare at her.
“Okay, here’s what I can’t do. I’m not empathic, like Moonsong. I can’t tell whether Absinthe is pissed off or relieved that I just said those things about her. Her heart sped up a little, but that was it.”
Absinthe shrugged. “Like I give a shit.”
Moonsong translated, “She doesn’t mind. Oh. Well, she minds me telling you that. Sorry, Absinthe.”
Absinthe handed Moonsong a piece of Pop-Tarts. “Shut up, Goldilocks.”
“And I can’t look at a spread of cards the way Krystal would and tell you where your worst problems are coming from, or how things will resolve themselves. Even if I can sense that someone’s lying, because of the way their body changes, it doesn’t mean I have the slightest hint about what the truth is. And I can’t even begin to see the future.”
“Not all psychics can,” Evan reminded her. “Just clairvoyants.”
“But most have pretty good instincts. I don’t even have that.” If she had, maybe Butch would still be alive.
As if to prove several of Faith’s points, Moonsong said, “You’re really upset over Butch’s death, aren’t you?”
Faith nodded, but said nothing else. While the others finished their breakfast and headed out—Saturdays were big days for the tourist trade—she stayed home and felt…confused.
She wished she felt she could confess her involvement to her roommates, could let them know who Madame Cassandra really was. But Celeste, who’d called her that first morning after Butch’s death, had warned her to keep quiet.
“The partner of that dead detective, he came looking for Cassandra and he’s out for blood. Take my advice, girl. You do not want a piece of this.”
Poor Roy. “But he’s wasting time looking for Cassandra while the real killer’s getting free. Maybe if he just understood—”
“He won’t understand. I said out for blood, not exploring possibilities. When I told him I didn’t know anymore about you than your description—the black-haired gypsy description—the man picked up one of my statues and threw it into the wall and broke both of them—the statue and the wall. He’s got himself quite a temper, does Detective Chopin.”
Faith could imagine Roy doing just that. Considering how close he’d been to Butch, she could imagine him doing more. Celeste was right. She didn’t want a piece of it.
Which was too bad, since she already had a piece. Extra large.
“Besides,” Celeste had added. “Butch doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
Did she mean…? “Celeste, you didn’t!”
“I’m a medium, girl. That’s what I do. He thinks his friend’s gonna need you as you, and that won’t happen if he knows you’re Cassandra.”
“But—”
“Okay, here’s another reason. You said the man who killed the detective was gunning for Cassandra, right? If word gets out that you’re Cassandra, then he’ll know where to find her. Now you lay low, you keep your mouth shut and you let them catch the real killer first.”
And so far, that’s what Faith was doing.
But she felt like an unforgivable coward. And worse…
Worse, she felt guilty. It didn’t help when Celeste insisted there was no Cassandra—there was, and she was Faith. The fiction of Cassandra was, at least in part, the reason Butch was dead. The fiction of Cassandra was the reason Roy had been stalking the French Quarter like a madman with a badge, risking his job and apparently not giving a damn.
Celeste had shrugged off his outburst. “I needed to replaster anyhow.” But if Roy lost his temper around the wrong person, the NOPD could be out two good detectives instead of one. And it would, at least in part, be her fault.
Advice or no advice, Faith knew what she had to do.
She stopped by work, despite it being Saturday, and looked up Roy’s address on the database. He might be working this case all hours—against all regulations, considering that the death of a partner should bar him from the investigation—but he still was used to working nights. It was Saturday morning, now. Unless he’d gone home with someone else, he’d be there.
She caught a cab.
She had no idea how much she would tell him. But she knew she had to tell him something.
And she couldn’t make the proper judgment over the phone.
Detective Roy Chopin lived in the Irish Channel, a narrow stretch of the city between the Garden Di
strict and the river. Other than how much fun St. Patrick’s Day was supposed to be in the area pubs, the neighborhood had a lousy reputation. Faith was surprised to see more than one of the faded old houses being renovated. It looked like even the Channel was starting to benefit from the magic of urban renewal.
Roy’s home was a turn-of-the-century shotgun house, long and narrow, painted blue with grayish-white trim. When the taxi driver dropped her off, he asked if she was sure she had the right place. This block didn’t look impoverished so much as…old. Most of the homes were bumpy with window air conditioners instead of central air. Cars sat in the driveways or on curbs or under carports, since shutting anything up in an old garage in this kind of humidity was asking for trouble. A white-haired old woman sat on the porch across the street despite the increasing heat of the day, eyeing Faith’s arrival with interest. Farther down the block, an old man walked his mutt. If Faith concentrated, she could hear the sounds of children’s cartoons or a shower turning on, smell someone cooking pancakes or squeezing oranges or smoking their first cigarette of the day. This was the sort of place where people had paid off their house and then kept the house in the family which, to Faith’s way of reasoning, made it safer than some of the snazzy newer developments with garages and central air.
The name Chopin looked to have been written on the mailbox longer than she’d been alive.
As the cab pulled away, she made her way under a magnolia tree and past a yard that needed mowing to the front stoop. She rang the bell.
And waited. While she waited, she looked around her.
A maroon-colored car sat on the oyster-shell driveway—oyster shells were the Louisiana equivalent of gravel. It was a big car, kind of square with little headlights, also probably older than her. It seemed to have been kept in good shape.
She rang the bell again and heard footsteps inside the house. Roy. He seemed to be moving slowly. She could hear when he reached the door, and then he hesitated for a long moment.
When the door unlocked and swung open, she could see that she’d woken him up. His jeans were zipped but not snapped. He’d pulled on what was clearly an unwashed shirt but hadn’t bothered buttoning it. His cheeks and throat and stubborn jaw were bristly with shadow and his eyes were sunken—but, at the moment, remarkably alert.
And he was holding a gun.
As distracting as the sight of his bare chest was—dark, hairy, naked—it was the gun Faith found herself staring at. It looked just like Butch’s gun.
After a moment of staring at her, Roy looked down at the gun, too, as if surprised to find himself holding it. Then he moved it to his other hand, flicked the safety on and tucked it into his waistband, in back.
He unlatched the screen door, brows furrowing. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see how you’re—Why were you holding a gun?”
He snorted, shrugged one shoulder. “We still don’t know who killed Butch. I wasn’t taking any chances. I guess I’m just not that lucky.”
Oh, God. “You want someone to kill you?”
His smile was truly menacing. “I want someone to try. The same bastard who did Butch. I want him to give me an excuse.”
At least he hadn’t said he wanted Cassandra to give him an excuse. That was a good sign, right?
But everything else, all of this, felt like bad, bad signs. He smelled of beer—lots of beer—and exhaustion. She sensed a disconcerting energy about him, like he was vibrating, pulled so tight he might snap at any moment. Someone like him snapping would be a bad thing.
Now he held open the door. “You, uh, want to come in?”
Come into my parlor…. Faith had to concentrate to think clearly past the screaming memories of everything her mother and teachers and that one night of self-defense for women had taught her. What if she couldn’t trust him? Chances were, if she told him she was Cassandra, trust wouldn’t be high among their mutual feelings. Nobody knew she was here except the cabbie, and he’d driven away. Not only might Roy be able to take her—big as he was, armed as he was—he was a cop. If anybody could cover up a crime, it would be a homicide detective, right?
And yet…
The alternative would be not to go in. And that wasn’t really worth considering.
So Faith ducked under the arm holding the screen door open and walked past him, right through all that vibrating, angry, confused energy of his, past the smell of half-naked man and beer and sweat, and into his lair.
It was a surprisingly homey lair. The parlor had big, comfy sofas that she couldn’t imagine him buying, a large television that she could, and pictures, lots of family pictures, all over the walls. Some of them looked as if they dated from the 1800s. The clothing in different family groupings placed others in different generations. Some of them included pictures of Roy—him among a cluster of laughing teenage boys with a baseball cap and a bat. Him at what looked like a family reunion, his arms draped around two older women, a child hanging off his pocket. Him maybe ten years ago, standing straight, wearing a crisp uniform and carrying some kind of certificate.
Family. History. Home. He’d lived the kind of life she’d always dreamed of. She wondered if he’d ever guessed how lucky he was.
“I’m sorry for the mess,” he said now, extending a hand as if to pick up an empty beer can, then letting the hand drop to his side. Apparently he saw that picking up a couple of cans or magazines wouldn’t make enough of a difference.
“That’s okay.” She looked up at him, studied his deep-set eyes and his lined face and his jaw-clenching pain. Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what to say.
Celeste—or maybe Butch—had been correct about the importance of keeping her secrets. I’m Cassandra would be the absolute worst choice.
“I was worried about you,” she said instead—which, thank heavens, was also true.
“Me?” He waved the idea away with one hand. As if on an afterthought, he took the gun out of the back of his jeans and put it on the coffee table. “Don’t be. It’s part of the job. We all know that going in.”
She could tell he was lying. She didn’t need psychic abilities to guess what the truth was.
“But Butch was special,” she said, pushing it.
He turned away with a jovial, “Who isn’t, right?”
“Yes, but Roy, Butch was special to you.”
When he glanced back his brows were together and he was glaring. He didn’t want her to push it. He wanted her to pretend with him that everything was okay. And he was so pretending. She could see the war on his face. He looked like he could cry, but he also looked like the kind of guy who would put a bullet in his head before he let himself give in to that. Nothing about Roy Chopin was delicate, not even now.
But he radiated pain, all the same, and Faith couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to reach out to him, even if it meant literally reaching. Bare-handed. Fingers spread.
His chin came up, mouth set, eyes desperate. She’d already warned him more than a week ago, hadn’t she? He knew she didn’t like to be touched. She’d worn shorts and a T-shirt. And there he stood, his shirt hanging open. No way could she hug him without skin on skin.
But she had to. It wouldn’t be that overwhelming, would it? In, out, quick hug in-between. She could handle that.
So she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him—and an explosion of unexpected, overwhelming, seismic sensation.
The sensations hit almost as hard as the power of his embrace, closing tight and hard and permanent around her.
Chapter 12
She’d braced herself against the shock of this kind of contact. She’d known he would overwhelm her.
He did.
Like a stereo snapped on at full volume, a spotlight straight in the face, a splash into icy water—no, burning water, boiling. The intensity of sensations, of images, of touch scalded her. The force of him struck too hard, too fast for Faith to do anything but cling to consciousness.
Some part of her seemed
vaguely aware that, on the outside, all Roy did was hold her. Hard. Tight. He dipped his head onto hers, his face in her hair, his breath a ragged sigh of completion, of need.
Things almost seemed still on the outside.
But oh, God, what he had inside!
His forearms wrapped behind her so that his hands touched her bare arms, each fingertip a conduit into untapped electric depths. Had she thought she couldn’t read emotion? His emotions arced through her. The tension in Roy’s taut body wasn’t just anger at his friend’s death, it was rage. The strain in his neck, the throbbing in his head, which he’d tried to deaden with beer, wasn’t mere guilt. He felt stupid for not having known where Butch was that morning. He felt incompetent. His burning stomach feared that he would fail to avenge his partner. His aching heart longed for his dead mentor’s advice. All of that burned through her so loudly that the usual disjointed details stayed peripheral. Baseball in the park. Corned beef and cabbage. Women. More than one. None of that changed anything. It was all part of him.
All of him hurt. And as if she’d touched a live wire, all of that hurt surged from him into her, so powerfully she almost cried out from his agony.
Except…
Except somehow, as he inhaled deep gulps of her, everything in him began to relax. Slowly. Incrementally. And in some weird feedback loop, she began to relax, too. His simple embrace became a blanket. A drug. Touching him…
She’d braced herself against it for good reason.
But touching him didn’t suck. Not at all.
Roy sighed, his breath hot in her hair. “You’re sweet, Corbett,” he muttered hoarsely, his body tensing in an effort to be a good guy. Decent. Stand-up. “Sweet and innocent. But—”
But she was so lost in him, she hardly heard. Having adapted to this much contact, adapted better than she’d ever hoped, she pressed her face to his bare chest and felt him, breathed him in return. Soft, curling chest hair and softer, tanned skin and a quickening of his heartbeat. Soap and beer and sweat and maleness. Something primal in her responded to that in a surprising rush. And then…