Danse Macabre

by Kory M. Shrum

  “You and me?” Lou seemed genuinely surprised.

  Dani decided that if there was ever a time to be bold, now was it. “I know about Ryanson and Brasso. I know what they did to your father. Those are the people who deserve to be exposed. They have to be held accountable for the people they hurt. If they aren’t, the abuse will only get worse. It’ll be normalized, and we can’t let that happen.”

  Dani wished she knew what Lou was thinking. Was this plea working? That placid face threatened to undo her sanity.

  “Those are the stories I want to tell,” she said, and it was true. She wanted to hold those in power accountable for their actions. Those who exploited the weak, who took more than their share, who profited from the oppressed—they must be held accountable. “Give me those stories, and I won’t tell anyone about you. I’ll never ask what you do or how you do it.”

  “You think men like Ryanson and Brasso deserve to die for what they do?”

  “Killing them gave you justice,” Dani said. She pulled herself up, forgetting her pain for one heated moment. “But it did nothing for the others they’ve hurt. The other victims will never know what happened to them. They’ll think they got away. And I’m not talking about Ryanson and Brasso, but all these other men—they’re not yours to kill.”

  Lou started, visibly jumped as if shocked.

  This is it, Dani thought. I’ve gone too far. She’s going to dig a shallow grave and throw me in it.

  “I—I’m not criticizing your system,” she added quickly. “But the peace you got from knowing your dad was innocent—”

  “I always knew he was innocent.”

  Dani wet her lips and tried again. “—from knowing he was avenged. There are a lot of hurting people in the world who deserve that, too. They deserve the truth. And you dragging them off to god knows where before that truth is uncovered, before they can be held accountable—they’ll live the rest of their life not knowing.”

  Lou pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. Dani immediately wished she’d put them back on. The direct and unwavering glare was far worse than looking at her own impassioned face begging for her life.

  “Please,” Dani said. “Accountability is essential. It’s the only thing that changes the world. We need it, to heal and to move forward. And if you can just give me a chance to hold these people accountable, I promise I will never expose you.”

  “You promise?” Lou repeated as if charmed.

  “I swear,” Dani insisted. She gripped the cold bars on either side of her bed. “And if it doesn’t work and someone gets away with murder anyway, you can still kill them. Then we’ll go to the family and explain or something.”

  “All right,” Lou said and stepped into the shadows. Before her face was fully cloaked, she fixed those black water eyes on Dani again.

  “If you break your promise,” Lou said with a smile. “I’ll show you where I put Clyde.”

  “Deal.” Dani forced a smile, though everything inside her trembled.

  36

  Konstantine settled against the high back of his chair. The fireplace beside him roared, casting delicious warmth across his chilled legs. He hated winters. He considered the paperwork spread across his desk, wondering if he should make the treaty with the Canadian dealers. Their port was in a lovely position near New York City and Toronto. It would be a lucrative negotiation to say the least, if only he could make the numbers work.

  It had been like this since his flight arrived four days ago. The procession from New Orleans had been long and silent. He didn’t want to wait in the city, hoping she would return and deliver him home like a package. More importantly, he didn’t want her to feel like she owed him anything.

  He was perfectly capable of making his own way across the world, even if it was horribly slow.

  Once he returned, he drowned himself in work. It was easier to focus on problems with solutions than let his worry consume him. Easier than asking the same questions over and over again and receiving no response: Why hadn’t she come back to him yet? What happened with Petrov? Would she come back?

  Would she come back?

  But he wondered how effective he was truly. He reviewed this treaty for the fourth time, rereading the same paragraph again without seeing it. He would have to give this up soon and call for dinner.

  The temperature of the room shifted. A pressure suddenly formed between his ears, and with a gentle POP, disappeared. He looked up from his papers and saw her emerging from the corner of his basement study.

  The two men standing on the other side of his desk, silently awaiting his commands, followed his gaze. An audible gasp escaped Marcello, who stepped back. Instinctively, his hand went to his gun.

  Lou wasn’t remotely perturbed by this. She stood three feet from his desk, her lithe body remained mostly in shadows, and regarded him.

  His heart leapt at the sight of her. She wasn’t injured, but alive and well.

  He’d known she was alive and well. He’d caught two snapshots of her from the internet. She was spotted in a 7-11 outside Dallas, buying a new pair of mirrored sunglasses and a hotdog. Another of her in Vancouver, just a partial profile caught by a security camera behind a jewelry store. It had been enough to trigger the facial recognition software he had running on all channels at all times.

  But knowing she was alive and well and seeing her here were two different experiences.

  He could breathe again.

  “Vai,” Konstantine said, waving his men toward the door.

  Marcello had the door open and looked more than ready to flee with his life. Of course, he was not as loyal to Konstantine as Stefano. Konstantine knew this.

  Stefano stayed put, his gaze locked with Lou’s. However, he didn’t go for his gun.

  Lou seemed to accept this challenge. She crossed the firelit study to Konstantine’s chair. And then, in an act that could not have surprised Konstantine more than if the Virgin herself arrived to declare Konstantine’s sainthood, Lou bent and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

  Her embrace encircled him, holding him back against the chair. Her cold cheek pressed against his warm one.

  No, she wasn’t trying to choke him unconscious. She only held him.

  Stefano’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Vai,” Konstantine said again, flicking his eyes toward the hallway.

  Stefano nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

  Lou released Konstantine immediately.

  “Brazen,” he said, turning his chair to face her.

  She settled on the edge of his desk, her boots pointing toward the fire. This side of her face was alight in dancing flame. The other, he knew, was dark.

  “He wanted to know if I was here to kill you or fuck you.”

  Konstantine swallowed against the hard knot in his throat.

  “I hope I answered the question.”

  “For me you haven’t,” he said, his voice strained.

  She gave him a wicked grin. “Neither.”

  He didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. But he liked that grin on her face. Something had changed since he’d last seen her. It was reflected in that mischievous smile, in the gentle slope of her shoulders, in the casual way she regarded the fire.

  She wasn’t afraid to relax around him.

  His gaze slid from her face down the length of her body. Yes, that was it. The tension was gone. Whatever battle had been waging inside her before was over. For now.

  “Your face was cold,” he said, replaying the press of her cheek against his. “Where did you come from?”

  “Nova Scotia,” she said.

  “Dare I ask what interests you in Nova Scotia?”

  She only smiled. That’s when he saw the smear of blood drying on her chin. The blood-creased knuckles on her hand.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Did you have a good hunt?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And it puts you in a good mood,” he said, smiling. She was infectious.
<
br />   Her eyes were liquid amber in the firelight. A wolf’s eyes.

  “You’re happy to be hunting again.”

  She looked like she might object, might reject the accusation that she had taken a break from hunting at all. But no one on this planet watched this woman’s movements more than he did. He knew. Just like he knew it wasn’t because there weren’t enough men who deserved killing in the world. It wasn’t because that ex-cop kept her busy. Lou Thorne answered only to herself—and that was what scared him. Wars that waged within were the most dangerous. Inner violence was where one could truly lose.

  “Petrov?” he asked.

  “La Loon,” she said. “I suppose whatever didn’t sink to the bottom of the lake will be eaten by the birds.”

  “There are birds in La Loon?” he asked. He didn’t like the name for her sacred dumping ground. Another world he could only imagine with morbid curiosity.

  She shrugged. “Something like birds.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “Terrifying vultures with shark mouths.”

  He shook his head to clear the image.

  “I think they stay in the forest. I’ve never seen them by the water, but you never know.”

  Then his stomach dropped. “I owe you an apology.”

  “For?” she asked, without looking away from the fire.

  “I believe the journalist learned your name because I was lazy.”

  Her eyebrows arched higher.

  He licked his lips and continued. “There is a small window in my early hours when I do not pull your data from the internet. I suspect Petrov figured out that this window was his chance to track your movements. But I’ve corrected it. I’ve been able to set some autoresponders in place to pull, flag, or block any items that could pertain to you regardless of the hour. And I’m trying to figure out if I can reverse-engineer a virus, that should someone search for you or your information, their technology will be infected and any data they might have stored will be corrupted beyond repair. ”

  “It was only a blowjob, Konstantine,” she said.

  He burst out laughing.

  She regarded the fire again. “I want to thank you for what you’ve done. Not just for me, but for my…friends.”

  His heart kicked up a notch.

  “I understand you do all of this for your own reasons.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “And you won’t stop if I tell you because you think it’s important.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, that gaze lost in the cracking fire.

  “Thank you.” She favored him with a smile. Not mischievous. Not a challenge.

  It warmed him far better than the magnificent fire burning in the hearth. “Anytime.”

  37

  Lou stood in her apartment, her bare feet cold against the wood floor. She drank from a Styrofoam cup of coffee, courtesy of the café Le Bobillot. The sun rose over the horizon. The water began violet-red, growing to a burning orange reflected on the shimmering Mississippi River, before softening to a clear yellow light.

  For the first time since her aunt died, she felt…calm. At peace.

  I can’t make any promises, she thought, seeing her aunt’s gentle, unassuming face in her mind. But it’s beginning to take shape now.

  The Buddhist nun had said it will come to you.

  And it had in the hospital room. The words had come from Dani’s mouth, and they’d been what she’d needed to hear.

  The picture that eluded her since the night her father died began reforming at its edges. For the first time in her adult life, Lou saw a path through the snow-covered trees. It was no longer about feeding the starvation in her bones. It was about enjoying the night.

  A tug resonated through Lou’s abdomen. She waited for the tug to strengthen as it whirled inside her. Then it snapped into place. The line vibrated with connection. She knew the destination at once. King. Perhaps the old man was up early, mulling over paperwork.

  Perhaps he was tired of waiting to hear from her. She had set precedent, sure, by disappearing for months at a time. Maybe he was afraid she intended to stay away now.

  Slipping on her boots and grabbing her leather jacket off the arm of the sofa, Lou stepped into the cedar-scented closet and into King’s dark bedroom.

  “Surprise!”

  She pulled her gun and pointed it at the three smiling faces.

  “Whoa,” Piper said, setting down the cake she was holding down on the coffee table. “It’s not that kind of party.”

  Lou regarded the balloons. The sign above the red sofa. Colorful letters spelling out Happy Birthday, Louie! on white craft paper, taped at the edges to the brick wall behind it.

  Melandra crossed her arms over a soft blue sweater. Her bangles clinked against one another. King stood adjacent, ready to pull a party popper and unleash confetti on the room. He was wise to stop lest the POP be mistaken for gunfire and provoke her shot.

  Lou lowered her gun. “Sorry.”

  King pulled the popper, and both Mel and Piper jumped. Thin strips of paper rained anticlimactically to the floor.

  “Christ.” Piper placed a hand over her chest. “Bad timing, man.”

  Lou took in the banner, the balloons, and the confetti on the floor. “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s your birthday!” Piper said again, throwing in exuberant jazz hands now that the cake was safe on the coffee table. “Happy birthday!”

  “It’s not my birthday.”

  “Right. Technically your birthday was last week, but we were all busy not dying, so we’re having the party now.”

  “How did you know it was my birthday?”

  Piper pointed at King. “And Petrov said something, didn’t he?”

  “You’re throwing me a party. At six in the morning?”

  Piper frowned. “We know you like to go out all night, so this is like dinner time for you, right?”

  “No,” Lou said. “This is not dinner time.”

  She looked from face to face. King still nursing his coffee, the hair standing up on one side of his head, and tried to understand what she was seeing. “You didn’t have to get up early for me.”

  “I was up anyway.” Mel said, tugging at the gold bangles on her wrist, and in truth, she did look like the most lively of the three. “I wake at five every morning.”

  She was likely the only one. Piper had pitiful purple bags under her eyes, and her ponytail was crooked. King crossed to the kitchen counter to refill his coffee mug.

  “Would you like coffee?” he asked her.

  “Oh, and there’s Cherry Coke! You know, that’s what you ordered from the bar!” Piper sprinted out of the apartment, leaving the door open behind her.

  Mel jingled her keys. “My apartment is locked, which she will realize in thirty seconds.”

  That left King and Lou.

  “How are you?” King asked, returning to the sofa with his coffee.

  She shrugged. “Do you agree to many sunrise birthday parties?”

  King flashed a lopsided grin. “No. But Piper’s reasoning made a lot of sense at the time. Now, not so much.”

  Lou swatted away a balloon and crossed to the sofa. She took a seat beside him.

  “I wanted to talk to you anyway,” he said. He leaned forward and took a knife to the cake. He paused before cutting the first slice. “Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know you went after Sikes,” he said. His voice was calm and near emotionless. But that’s what gave it away. “You did that before I was sure he was guilty.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said, watching him dump a slice of cake onto a paper plate. He offered it to Lou with a fork. She accepted it. “I spoke to Dani.”

  King froze in the middle of cutting a second slice. “She all right?”

  “She’ll live.”

  King arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “We talked abo
ut accountability.”

  His eyebrows arched higher. “For who?”

  “For people like the Martinellis. Ryanson. Brasso.”

  “I’m fairly certain they’ve been held accountable.”

  “Dani…” Lou searched for the words. “She made me realize that it isn’t about me. I wanted to kill the Martinellis because it gave me closure.”

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, wondering if he was following her.

  “I’m still with you,” he said, sliding his fork through the cake.

  “When I take these men, kill them, dump them in La Loon, I steal that closure from others.”

  King looked at her as if he’d never seen her before.

  “I could go to the victims, and tell them what happened, and I suppose I will still have to do that from time to time when this doesn’t work—”

  “—when what doesn’t work?”

  “Your way. Dani’s way,” she said, poking the cake with the fork. “First we will find evidence and try to prosecute. Dani is willing to add pressure with high-profile stories, helping to uncover the truth. You’ll help with the evidence, and the interviewing.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “And I’ll focus on what I do best. I’ll hunt.”

  “But you said—”

  She didn’t let him get far. “Do you know how many cold cases there are? People who were tried but escaped justice? Plus there are serial killers, and those who were too rich to worry about the law. The system isn’t perfect.”

  King smiled. “You have a plan.”

  “I want you to start me with a stack of cold cases.” Then she saw his face. “What?”

  “I’m surprised you arrived here on your own.”

  Not on my own, she thought.

  “I’ll see what I can find and get back to you,” he said. “Shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

  Lou stabbed her cake with her fork. It was too early for something so sweet, but she wasn’t about to say so.

  The apartment door burst open, and Piper appeared with a twelve-pack of Cherry Coke under her arm. “Coke is here.”

  Piper handed Lou a soda.

  “Thanks,” Lou said.