Sam squeezed Antoinette’s shoulder in protest.
“Yes,” Laurie answered.
“Please tell us what he says.”
“I can’t. The picture’s not moving.”
Antoinette nodded at the literal response and ignored the pain in her shoulder. “The picture is moving again. The man is talking to Laurie. You can hear what he says now. Please tell us his words.”
“Sa me fait de la pain. C’est ein affaire a pus finir.”
Antoinette blinked in surprise. The French words had been said with a remarkable accent. “Does Laurie speak French?” she asked the little girl.
“No.”
“Does Laurie understand what those words mean?”
“No.”
Antoinette turned to look at Sam. His face was contorted into a frown, but he had stopped squeezing her shoulder.
“Does the man say anything else to Laurie?” she asked, turning back to the child.
“No. He goes away. Laurie cries and then a policeman finds her.”
Antoinette focused her attention on Laurie’s face. “And now Laurie is safe.”
“Yes.”
“She is sad and still scared, but she is glad that the man carried her out of the building.”
“Yes.”
“And now the television show has ended. It has been a sad show, but like many sad shows, it has ended happily. Laurie has been saved.”
As Sam watched, Antoinette continued, beginning to bring Laurie out of the trance. She told her that, when she came out of the forest, she would no longer remember any parts of the television program except the parts she wanted to remember. She told her that, as the days went by, parts of the program would come back to her, but they would not frighten her, until one day she remembered everything. Then slowly and carefully Antoinette took Laurie back through the forest, suggesting finally that, when the little girl opened her eyes, she would feel very good and have lots of energy.
“Now you’re back. You can open your eyes.”
Laurie did as she was told, looking around as if she were in a strange place.
“How do you feel, Laurie?” Antoinette asked.
“Did you do it?”
“Sure did,” Antoinette said with a smile. “Tell me what you remember.”
“I was in a forest and then in a cottage. There was a TV set, and I watched it for a while. Then I came back here.”
“Very good.”
“That’s not hypnotized,” Laurie said with a frown. “That was just my imagination.”
“It’s all part of the same thing,” Antoinette assured her. “Do you remember what you watched on TV?”
Laurie puckered her face in a frown. “Some of it,” she said cryptically.
“Do you remember more about the fire than you did before we went into the forest?”
“I think so.” Laurie changed the subject. “I feel good.”
“I’m glad. I knew you would.”
“I cried.”
“Crying is just fine.” Antoinette took a tissue off the table beside the sofa and handed it to her.
Laurie blew her nose.
Antoinette rose. “Would you like to go into the waiting room and wait? You can feed the fish if you tell Rosy I said it was all right.”
Sam stood, too, and together they watched as the little girl, fish food in hand, scampered out of the room.
“She really is all right,” Sam said, betraying his own skepticism.
“When I was bringing her out of the trance, I made sure she’d feel good.”
Sam was silent for a moment. “I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.” Antoinette faced him.
“I shouldn’t have interfered.”
She cocked her head to examine him. “I’ll bet that was one of the most unprofessional things you’ve ever done.”
He narrowed his eyes a little, but he nodded. “I didn’t want her upset just so we could find out that the man who might or might not be the arsonist had black hair.”
“There’s never any guarantee that the information a child can give will help.”
“It helped.”
Antoinette knew Sam was referring to the French phrase that Laurie had remembered. “How helpful was what he said to her?”
“Do you speak the language?”
“Despite the grand tour, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what she said.”
“That’s because it was Cajun French,” Sam explained. “Laurie’s accent was remarkably authentic. Sa me fait de la pain means ‘I’m sorry.’ C’est ein affaire a pus finir roughly means ‘It’s a thing that has no end.’ Chances are our black-haired arsonist lives or had lived down in southern Louisiana in Cajun country. It’s not the best lead in the world, but it’s a lead. And at this point, we’ll take anything we can get.’
Chapter 4
“You’re staying late again? That’s the third time this week. One of these days you’ll try to walk out that door and your foot’ll be rooted to the floor.”
Antoinette listened patiently to the intercom as Rosy extolled the virtues of rest and relaxation. She knew Rosy was right. She had been staying late too often. But she’d found that working decreased her need for a cigarette. She’d never been the type for active hobbies. Those things she did to relax she’d inevitably done with a cigarette in her hand. Now she found it difficult to read or watch television without one.
And tonight she needed a cigarette worse than she had for days. The session with Laurie had gone well, but it had left her with pent-up energy. Her nerves seemed to be dancing a jig right under the surface of her skin. At home she was sure she would succumb to the lure of a tobacco tranquilizer. Here she could bury herself in dictation and paperwork.
Antoinette realized that the intercom was silent. “Rosy, I know you’re right, but believe me, staying is better than going home and smoking.”
“Well, at least get some dinner and then come back.”
“I’ll order a po’boy.”
Rosy’s sigh was audible through the intercom’s static. “I’ll order it for you. Shrimp or oyster?”
“Shrimp. Just tell them to bring it to my office. Dr. Hollins is going to be here seeing clients tonight, so the door’ll be unlocked.”
“I’ll order milk to go with it.”
“Milk? With a po’boy?”
“Somebody’s gotta take care of you.” The intercom clicked off.
Antoinette smiled at the small gesture of defiance. She stretched, pushing her chair away from her desk as she did. She really didn’t want to stay tonight. If there were someone at home to distract her, going home would be a pleasure. She allowed herself a moment of fantasy. What would it be like to know that when she walked through her doorway, someone other than Tootsie, her English sheepdog, would be there to greet her? What would it be like to lose herself and the tensions of the day in the arms of a lover?
She was obviously in need of a cigarette. This was the second time that day her thoughts had drifted in this direction. It had to be stress.
The intercom buzzed, and she leaned over to answer it.
“I’m going now, dahlin’. I ordered your sandwich and I told them to take it right to your office.” Rosy’s voice dripped disapproval. “They said they know which one is yours. You’re keeping them in business these days.”
Antoinette murmured her thanks and cut Rosy off before she could say another word. She reached for the top file on the pile she had made on her desk. Shutting everything else out of her mind, she began to make notes.
Half an hour later a knock sounded on her door. “Come in,” she called without looking up. “How much do I owe you?”
“It’s on me.”
She recognized the voice before she lifted her eyes. Sam was standing in the doorway, a white paper bag balanced on the palm of his hand. And there he was, she realized with sudden insight, the source of the crazy fantasy she had indulged in earlier. She was surprised she had deluded herself into believin
g that her wistful longing was due to nicotine withdrawal. Obviously that longing had been spurred by the intimacy of the hypnosis session with Laurie. And all that energy she’d been trying to suppress? It didn’t take a psychologist to understand exactly what part of her body was generating it.
“Moonlighting as a delivery boy?” she asked lightly, standing to greet him.
“Reassure me. Tell me this is for lunch tomorrow, not dinner tonight.”
“I’m a very poor liar.”
“You can’t stay beautiful on a diet of po’boys.” His eyes swept her body with the practiced thoroughness of a cop analyzing a suspect.
The words and the visual caress, as calculating as it had been, sent ripples of heat through her body. Enlightenment number two followed the sensation. It had been much too long since she’d had a man in her bed.
She strove to be casual. “I grew up in a home where seafood po’boys were considered food for the plebeian masses. I had my first one in high school—on the sly—and I haven’t stopped since.” Antoinette walked around her desk and held out her hand for the bag. “You must have paid off the delivery man. What do I owe you?”
“Dinner.” Sam held the bag just out of reach.
“I guess it’s big enough for two.”
Sam shook his head. “This goes in the refrigerator. Let me take you out.” Before she could decline, he continued. “My thank-you for your patience today.”
“Patience with Laurie? Or patience with you?”
“Both.”
“How’d you know I’d still be at the office?”
“I had a talk with your secretary right before she left.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “She coached me on the best way of getting you out of here.”
“Which was?”
“Coming over instead of discussing it on the phone. If all else failed, I was to callously withhold your po’boy until hunger lowered your resistance.”
She focused on the thought of hunger and resistance for a moment, thinking of her recent enlightenment. It was funny what meaning could be present in words with absolutely no intention on the speaker’s part. She shrugged off her thoughts with difficulty. “We need to put Rosy in one of these offices and give her a few clients to keep her happy.”
“Come with me.”
“I haven’t eaten out since I stopped smoking. I might go into a convulsion if I don’t light up after the meal.”
“The company’ll be too interesting.”
She suspected he was right, and she couldn’t find the words to disagree. “Even I get tired of sandwiches for dinner. But nowhere fancy, please. I’m not dressed for it.”
“There’s no place in this town you couldn’t go. Especially…” He reached across the space separating them and touched her hair.
“Especially what?” Antoinette asked, meeting his eyes.
“Especially if you take your hair down first.”
So it wasn’t to be a business dinner, or even just a simple thank-you. The admiration in Sam’s eyes was too frank, too completely unveiled for her to pretend that the evening wasn’t a preliminary to something. Antoinette wondered if Sam himself knew exactly where the evening was supposed to lead.
As he watched, she lifted her hands and began to slowly pull out the pins holding her hair in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her hair had been confined all day, and she always enjoyed the resulting sense of freedom when it was loose once again. But as the first strands were set free, she caught the flicker in Sam’s green-brown eyes. For a moment she pictured a nineteenth-century wife taking her hair down for her husband to admire at bedtime. A century later the act had some of the same sexual overtones. She almost stopped. Instead, she forced herself to continue, setting the record straight as her hair tumbled to her shoulders. “I need to know if you’re married.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked Joshua.”
“I hadn’t realized I needed to.”
“No, I’m not.”
She combed her fingers through her hair, and she realized her hands weren’t quite steady. “What else would Joshua have told me?”
“There’s nothing much to tell.”
“Will you tell me that ‘nothing much’ over dinner?”
“If you’d like.” He stepped forward and brushed a strand of hair over her ear. “For the record, I did ask Joshua about you.”
“Mutual friends can really save time, can’t they?”
Sam recited the facts with just a hint of interest in his voice. “You were divorced at twenty-two, never remarried, almost but not quite had an affair with Joshua. He says you’ve been so busy learning to be the best psychologist in the city you’ve neglected your personal life.”
“Spoken like a man with a beloved wife and a beautiful daughter.” She realized she wasn’t breathing normally, and to compensate she took a deep breath when Sam removed his hand. “Ever since Joshua married Maggie and had Bridget, he’s been matchmaking.”
“If that’s what he’s doing, it’s an irony. I did everything I possibly could to keep him from falling in love with Maggie.”
“Have they forgiven you?”
“Apparently. I’m Bridget’s godfather.”
“A real honor.”
“I thought so.”
Antoinette forced herself to break eye contact. She turned and went to her desk, gathered her files to put them in a desk drawer and locked it. “I’ll be right back.” She went into the adjoining bathroom to brush her hair, emerging a minute later with her poise in place. “Okay, I’m ready. We can drop the po’boy in the refrigerator on the way out.”
Tonight Sam was not driving the four-door white sedan that was obviously an unmarked police car. He ushered her into a late-model Toyota and found a radio station playing blues before he pulled out into Carrollton traffic. “Do you have someplace special you’d like to go?”
“You can’t miss in this city.”
They settled on a quiet little restaurant in the Riverbend section of the city. It was a converted bargeboard house, a short walk from the Mississippi, and they were given one of two tables on the tiny glassed-in porch looking out over a side street of sedate boutiques and crape myrtles. They surprised each other by ordering the same redfish topped with crabmeat, and preferred the same wine.
“Who’d have believed our tastes were so similar?” Antoinette asked, holding up her glass for a toast.
“To thank-yous,” Sam said, tapping his glass against hers. “And to information that might help catch a murderer.”
“If you investigate every black-haired man in Louisiana who speaks Cajun French, it’ll take the entire New Orleans police force the rest of their lives.”
“If Laurie begins to remember the facts, do you think she’d be reliable if it came to an identification?”
Antoinette frowned, trying to imagine the little girl picking someone out of a lineup. “I couldn’t say. It was dark and smoky inside, then she fainted. When she woke up on the sidewalk, she only had a few seconds to see the man’s face. Who knows how bright the light was there? On the other hand, the man had just saved her life, and when someone’s undergone a trauma, information sometimes imprints itself so clearly on the unconscious that he or she never forgets it.”
“If she did identify the man, it wouldn’t be admissible in court. Not from a seven-year-old who’s been hypnotized to remember details. But if Laurie did point out the man in a lineup, we could dig for evidence.”
“It seems like such a long shot.”
“We’re not without suspects.”
Antoinette settled back in her chair. “You enjoy this, don’t you? It’s like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. This piece fits, then this piece. Eventually you have the whole picture.”
“I like solving crimes. I don’t like the fact that they were committed in the first place. The last thing I think when I walk into a room and see a dead body is how glad I am to have a new case to play with.”
Antoinette wasn’t hurt.
Sam’s words had been matter-of-fact, almost as if he was convincing himself. “And sometimes you feel guilty because you like what you do.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “How much fun is it analyzing everything you hear for the hidden message?”
“It has the same attraction as solving crimes, I guess. I don’t like the fact that my clients are suffering, but I do like trying to figure out what’s causing their problems. And I really like helping them resolve their difficulties if I can.”
“How many men does that ability scare off?”
“Just the ones who threaten easily.”
“Did your ex-husband threaten easily?”
Antoinette was surprised at the personal nature of the question and even more surprised that she didn’t mind answering it. “When I was married, my analytical ability was so limited as to be nonexistent.”
“You were very young.”
“I was very naive. I married a man who wanted me as part of his collection of assets.”
Sam could understand a man wanting her for any reason. She looked particularly lovely sitting across from him, the fading light of day and the solitary candle on their table illuminating the ivory-rose of her complexion and the satin blackness of her hair. He’d been battling himself since the session with Laurie that afternoon. A phone call would have sufficed as a thank-you. For that matter, the generous check from the NOPD would have sufficed. There was no reason to be here except that he hadn’t been able to convince himself to stay away.
“You were twenty-two when you figured that out?” he asked, turning his thoughts from his own puzzling action.
Antoinette gave a wry smile. “I suspected something wasn’t right from the beginning, but I ignored it. I married at twenty and went into therapy at twenty-one. At twenty-two I realized my only problem was immaturity and Ross Dunlap himself. I divorced him immediately.”
“Ross Dunlap?” Sam’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
Antoinette had known the name would be familiar to Sam. It would be familiar to anyone in Louisiana who’d ever read a newspaper. “I was Ross’s New Orleans connection to old money and social status. Quite a coup for a man on his way to the governor’s mansion.”
Men Made in America Mega-Bundle Page 196