What She Doesn't Know

by Tina Wainscott

  “Oh yeah, I saw the medallions. And the shoes. She obviously thought a lot of her mementos.”

  “That was the most important event in her life. When you’re king or queen of Rex, you’re the royalty of Carnival itself. She talked about it ‘til the day she died. My father, he was nouveau riche, which didn’t count among the old-line krewes. He hated that he couldn’t join Rex or Comus, even married to a former queen. He was gauche enough to ask to join Rex. They’ll blackball you for that alone. And they, along with my mother’s family, did. They didn’t want anything to do with their embarrassing relatives.

  “So Dad formed his own krewe—the Krewe of Xanadu. He could decide who could play and who couldn’t.” He glanced over at her. “Is it starting to sound a little like kindergarten yet?”

  “Obviously Brian was into the whole thing,” she said. “Tammy made it seem like it was some tragedy that he couldn’t be king.”

  He shook his head. “Armageddon.”

  “And they were mad at you,” she said, trying to steer it back to him.

  “It wasn’t the worst thing I’d done.” He pulled up to Brian’s house.

  She inhaled softly. “And what was that?”

  “Why are we talking about me again? I thought you were here to help Brian.”

  “What did you do that was worse?” After all, stabbing a man, even accidentally, wasn’t on the list of kindergarten assaults. “Tell me.”

  “I was born.” He got out of the car and walked to the house, leaving her to ponder that.

  The house was quiet when she walked in a few minutes later. There was no sign of him. She felt like apologizing, but how would she word it? Sorry for making you bare some part of your soul?

  He’d opened his family home to her, even picked her up at the airport, and she’d poked at old wounds. For all his bluster, though, he was a man who needed some understanding. She wished she could give it to him, but his walls were too high. She found herself absently rubbing her nose. As if she, of all people, should even be thinking about it.

  She walked up to her room and called Joyce. Still no hotel room to be found. She looked at the battery symbol on the phone. The last bar was fading. Outside her room, she heard Christopher’s voice coming from the room down the hall from hers. He was discussing bandwidth with someone.

  She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over at what must be Brian’s bedroom doors. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she checked it out. Maybe she’d find some clue, something concrete to convince Christopher his brother was in danger.

  The room was long, with French doors leading out to the same balcony outside her room. When she flipped on the light, she was surprised to find it a mess. Sheets and blankets were piled on the bed. Books and papers cluttered the desk, spilling onto the black carpet. Black carpet? Between the carpet, dim lighting, and curtains over the French doors, the room reminded her of a lounge.

  She shook her head as she inched farther in. The walls were salmon-colored with dark yellow trim. The border around the ceiling looked hand-painted, a cityscape perhaps. Dragons and other mysterious creatures peered from paperbacks crammed on the bookshelf. She fingered the boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia, remembering the tales from childhood. She vaguely recalled Thomas More’s Utopia from her college reading days. She straightened the books and put order to the chaos of paper.

  On the wall hung a sword, gleaming in the dull light, with an intricate gold hilt. Surrounding that in box frames were several knives that looked straight out of Star Trek, most made by Gil Hibben. The one that wasn’t a Hibben was just as strange, a primitive, wavy-bladed knife labeled West African Exorcism dagger. She spotted the Silent Shadow in a place of honor, at the top of the arrangement. The knife had two rings for fingers and what looked like a rope pattern on the handle. A brass plaque proclaimed its name and maker. Strange that a knife had brought them together and then brought her here.

  He had his own shrine to Mardi Gras, including pictures from a masquerade ball—Brian LaPorte, King of Xanadu, a section from the society page read beneath a photo. King of Xanadu…

  She’d seen the swordfight. Maybe there were other scenes that would help. Maybe she could see the final scene better. She sat on the edge of the bed and called up the slideshow again. The sword, the blood, the funeral. She braced herself for the final scene, the sense of overwhelming fear. This time she heard something else, a sound, a word. She held onto it. Sira. It swamped her with the force of a flash fire. Who or what was Sira?

  She searched the pictures and invitations on the wall around his desk. A conspicuous blank area caught her attention. Two pieces of tape were affixed to the paint, and she could see where something made of paper had once been attached. She searched everywhere, even the garbage can, but found nothing to match the shards of sketch paper still attached to the tape.

  Her search gained momentum. Sira was her first clue. There had to be something here to tell her what it meant. She found a pocket calendar in the top drawer and flipped through the pages, hoping for a notation of a meeting with someone named Sira. That happened on detective shows, that vital clue that led to another and then another.

  No such clue here, though. Every month he had an appointment at Hair and Now, even for the Saturday after he’d fallen. He’d made note of an upcoming auction the following week, a deceased New Orleans collector. And he’d made note of all the parades, or at least that’s what she guessed “Pegasus,” “Tucks,” “Thoth,” “Zulu” and “Rex” were.

  One thing was undeniable: this was not the appointment book of a man who planned to take his life.

  She found three science fiction magazines in the bottom drawer with a colorful illustration on the cover and short stories inside. In each one a story by Brian Caspian was flagged. She set those aside and pulled out a scrapbook, another testimony to Brian’s dedication to Mardi Gras and Xanadu. She looked for something about Sira, but found all kinds of mythical and Egyptian names instead. Was Sira a krewe? If so, it wasn’t a well-known one.

  She lowered herself to the chair as she read about the tableaux Xanadu put on. Each year it kept the theme of the parade, going all the way back to when the brothers were boys. Brian and Christopher always had the leading roles, dressing up in costumes and brandishing swords or other kinds of weapons. And each year, Christopher was the bad prince.

  What had he done to deserve that repeated role? I was born. She shivered at the memory of those words. She put the book away and continued her search but came up empty. With a sigh, she took the appointment book down the hall to the last bedroom on the right.

  The door was partially open, and she could hear Christopher’s fingers moving over the keys of his laptop computer. She meant to knock, really she did. But like that moment in the hospital where she could not make herself heed the rules of protocol, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. His room was a vivid blue, like the sky on a bright summer day. The bed…wow. Even unmade, it was spectacular. A four-poster with a spindle on top of each post, the footboards at the head and foot looking like the ornate iron gate out front. Except it wasn’t uninviting.

  His back was to her. She felt an overwhelming urge to come up behind him, put her arms around those broad shoulders and tell him she understood, that she had been the outcast child, too.

  Her goal was to show him the appointment book, make him believe that Brian had no intention of killing himself. Instead, she found herself standing right behind him, breathing in the faint scent of after-shave and grape gum, wanting to touch the place where his dark hair tapered to his neck. She forced herself to look to the computer screen where he wrote an e-mail to someone. The subject read: “I’ll Be Watching You….” Christopher’s ID was THE HIGHWAYMAN.

  He heard the breath she sucked in and turned to find her standing there with uncertainty in her eyes. She backed away, holding out the appointment book like a shield.

  “What are you doing, sneaking around?” He sent the email, disconnected, and clo
sed the laptop. “Don’t they teach you manners in Bah-ston?”

  She moved closer to the door. Maybe she didn’t understand him all that well. Maybe his role had turned him into the bad prince. “I…I wanted to show you this. It’s his date book. Proof that Brian had no intention of taking his life. Look.” She opened it to the appointments and the parade schedules. “Why would he make a hair appointment if he’d planned to kill himself? Why would he care about parade schedules? And I told you, we were talking about meeting. He was looking into the future, planning his life—not his death.”

  He didn’t look at the entries. “Maybe he didn’t plan on doing himself. Some people just up and decide, or maybe something upset him and he couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Brian was a planner. He would have planned out the details, taken care of loose ends. And men use methods that ensure their deaths, like a gun. Jumping from a roof isn’t a man’s way to commit suicide, particularly one that close to the ground. It doesn’t make sense. What if someone did push him off that deck? You’re not willing to accept that because then you’d have to re-examine your roles. You’d have to accept that maybe Brian wasn’t the good prince after all, which might mean you’re not the bad prince, either. Isn’t that right?”

  His expression hardened. “How did you know about that?”

  “He has a scrapbook in his office with articles about the tableaux.”

  He took a step closer. “You don’t know me. You don’t know Brian. If you want to investigate this presumed attempted murder based on something my brother told you while you were in a coma together, then go ahead. Don’t expect me to buy your story. And butt your little therapist nose out of my business.”

  He walked past her and downstairs. She couldn’t move for a moment. She glanced at the laptop, now closed. He was right. She didn’t know him. Maybe she had been fooling herself. Maybe she didn’t want to understand him, and at the moment, she definitely did not want to touch him.

  And maybe she should be a little afraid of him. Just in case.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rita sat on the bed in her room studying Brian’s appointment book and photo albums. She heard Christopher go into the bathroom they both shared and start the shower. Her gaze kept wandering to the white door that separated her from a roomful of steam and male, and “Fever” drifted through her mind.

  Dammit, why couldn’t the guy have been ugly? And short. Twig-thin, pot bellied, whatever. She rested her chin on the top edge of the photo album, closed her eyes, and lost herself in the image of the steam curling under the door and floating across the floor like long, sensuous fingers. Those fingers climbed over the edge of the bed and across the tufted bedspread. She could almost feel the weight of the steam as it formed into a sleek, muscular body poised above her, pressing her down into the soft mattress. She let herself sink deeper into the fantasy, feeling his mouth on hers, his hands on her…

  She opened her eyes and saw Christopher’s face.

  “Oh, geez!” She jerked upright and looked toward the bathroom, finding evanescent steam creeping from beneath the door. The water made a slurping sound as it drained. The light flicked off. She sat and listened to the faint noises in his room and then his footsteps in the hall. She stiffened in anticipation of his knock on her door and chided herself as his footfalls led down the stairs.

  “Get a grip,” she muttered, ignoring the rumble in her tummy. Damn. She hated being human.

  She shoved herself off the bed and walked to the dresser, tugged a brush through her hair, and stared at her reflection. She wished she were prettier. She was okay, midland on that stupid scale of one to ten. Nice skin. Thick hair. She aligned the brush next to her bottle of moisturizer and walked out.

  The parlor was dim and deserted as she came down the stairs, the dying sunlight barely penetrating the sheer curtains. The smell of shrimp and spices filled the house, just as it had the day before.

  His voice floated from the kitchen, as warm and spicy as whatever he was making. “I appreciate your checking on my place … No, I doubt anyone would think of breaking in; it looks like a renovation project. Do me a favor, though, and pick up a bag of cat food and fill the container. Make sure the water dishes on the front porch are full. Have you seen them? … Yeah?” He chuckled, and the sound tickled right to the bottom of her stomach.

  She caught herself smiling and rolled her eyes. She was once again eavesdropping on him. Instead of lingering this time, she walked into the kitchen. The room was warm, both in temperature and light. He balanced a phone between his ear and shoulder, stirring something in a Dutch oven and looking way too good in a pair of black jeans and deep red shirt.

  “All five of them still there?” Another chuckle as the person on the other end perhaps related a funny story. “That’s why I call the little stinker Megabyte. He likes to bite ankles. Sure you don’t want one, Scott?” His smile disappeared when he saw her. “All right, thanks for checking on things. I owe you, buddy. See you later.”

  The bad prince was taking care of kittens? She tried to look casual as she walked up to where he was stirring a liquid concoction, but her arms didn’t feel right no matter how she positioned them. She peered into the pot and said, “You have kittens?”

  He followed her gaze. “Kittens are too bony.”

  “Christopher! I didn’t mean kittens in whatever it is you’re making! Augh!”

  He had the tip of one hand stuffed in the front pocket as he leaned against the stove and stirred with the other.

  “You don’t really cook cats, do you?” she asked when he didn’t clarify. “I know New Orleans is a different kind of place, and they practice voodoo, but…”

  “Don’t worry, dawlin’. Shrimp are the only creatures in my jambalaya.”

  She wrinkled her nose and recrossed her arms in front of her. “That sounds appetizing.” Ugh.

  “You can always order a pizza. But in case you’re tempted, I didn’t put a lot of hot spices in it. Try it.” He held out a wooden spoon filled with a mixture of rice, a sliver of green pepper, and a chunk of shrimp in a thick gravy; the warm tip pressed against her lips. She made the mistake of looking into his eyes. She forced her mouth open so he could slide the spoon in.

  “You can swallow now.”

  She obeyed, feeling even more awkward. What were they doing here? He’d just told her to butt out of his business and now he was spoon-feeding her. She was getting lost in the murky gumbo of him, tantalized by his spices and the way he made her hungry, fearful of what she might find in the depths of his soul. She was here for Brian, because he was the man who would open her heart. Christopher was just trouble, plain and simple.

  She smacked her lips together, evaluating the aftertaste. “Not bad. Do you cook like this at home?”

  He chuckled. “I’m a Stouffer’s gourmet, for sure. Being back here put me in the mood for New Orleans staples.”

  “You live alone?” She didn’t want to know if he lived with a woman. Really, it didn’t matter.

  “Yep. Bought a place in Virginia Highlands, an old house I’m renovating. No one else would want to live there.”

  There was her warning, if she cared to notice. She focused on something safer. “You have kittens?”

  “They’re not mine. They just showed up one day and made my front porch their home.”

  She didn’t want to imagine him sitting on an old-fashioned porch with kittens climbing all over him, but she did anyway. She didn’t want to imagine there was some soft part of him that cared about a litter of homeless kittens. “Don’t you know that if you feed strays they never leave?” she added with a grin.

  “Is that so?” He nodded to the jambalaya and then looked at her.

  “I’m not a stray, and I only plan to stay a short time. Have you named the kittens?”

  “Only to tell them apart. Megabyte, CPU, SCSI, Gigabyte and Dongle. I’m trying to find homes for them, but I hadn’t gotten around to putting an ad in the paper before I got the call from
Tammy. So, up for the challenge or is it going to be pizza?”

  She was a coward in too many areas of her life. “Feed me.”

  After dinner, Christopher walked out to the courtyard. He needed some cool, fresh air. Rita Brooks had a way about her, a way that brought out his worst and best sides.

  He hadn’t invited her to join him. That kind of pleasantry didn’t come naturally to him; he was used to being by himself. Mostly he didn’t want another repeat performance of the night before. Didn’t want to hear her say his name again, the way her accent lifted the end—Christaphah. Or notice her mouth as she did so. Didn’t want to want to kiss his brother’s girl.

  Velda’s music was nearly drowned out by the Pegasus parade. He’d forgotten the sounds of the marching bands and the crowd begging for beads.

  Rita ventured out on her own, her head tilted up as she, too, heard the noise. “The parade.” Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “It would be neat to live so near the parade route.”

  He took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, real…neat.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him, adding a dip of her chin. The gesture made his stomach quiver.

  “I would have loved to have had something like that to look forward to every year.” Her voice was wistful. As though she’d had little to look forward to. When she turned those blue eyes on him, he could see empathy. She lowered herself into the chair across from him, her hands atop one another on the table. “Tell me why you said what you said earlier. About being born.”

  “Don’t put me on your couch. I’m not going to spill my guts. I can’t complain about my childhood, not compared to what some people had. I lived in a nice house, had nice clothes, got into my fair share of trouble.” He couldn’t help but glance up at the steep pitch of roof behind him. “Does anyone have a perfect childhood?”

  “No,” she said on a long breath. “But having clothes and a roof over your head doesn’t equal a good childhood. Some of those children are poorer than the ones who live in the slums and get love.”