He nodded. “Tonight, that might be a good thing.”
“I guess.”
“Eat,” he suggested. “It’s good.”
“It can’t be.”
He poured more wine and she finally sampled the pizza. He was lying. It tasted like raw onions on cardboard, but she ate it anyway.
He waited a few minutes, finishing his first piece, and said casually, “I heard you went out to the old sanitarium.”
She nearly choked on the bite she was chewing. “How did you know that?” The only person she’d confided in was Zoey and she doubted her sister had picked up the phone and called the New Orleans Police.
Were the police tailing her?
If, so, why would Montoya bring it up?
“My aunt is Sister Maria,” he explained, then washed down another bite with a swallow of wine.
“Oh.” Heat climbed up the back of Abby’s neck at the thought of trespassing on the grounds of the hospital. “So she turned me in?”
Montoya grinned, his smile disarming. “Nah. If she wanted to punish you, she’d make you get down on your knees and say the rosary from now until eternity. I called and asked about the hospital, if anything was going on over there with the pending sale and demolition, and she mentioned that you’d been by.”
Just my luck, to meet up with Sister Maria, the gossiping nun.
She forced down another bite of pizza. “Did she say why I was there?”
“No. Even when I asked.”
“So now you’re asking me?”
He didn’t respond, just stared at her.
“It’s no big deal,” she said, deciding to level with him. “Under the advice of a psychiatrist I went to a few years back, I decided to go to the hospital and confront my past, you know, walk the grounds where my mother spent her last days. She committed suicide on my fifteenth birthday, her thirty-fifth, by jumping from the window of her room…the closed window.” She shivered and added, “But you already know that, don’t you? My guess is you know a lot about me, more than anyone’s willing to admit, and that makes me wonder why?” Growing angry, Abby pushed her plate away. It slid across the counter, nearly landing on the floor. She barely noticed. “So what is it? Am I a suspect? If so, in what? Luke’s murder? Asa Pomeroy’s disappearance? My mother’s suicide?” Drilling him with her gaze, she said, “Come on, Detective Montoya, what’s this really all about? And please, don’t be reticent or try to spare my feelings. Didn’t dear old Auntie Sister Maria tell you that confession’s good for the soul?”
He smothered a smile. Wasn’t intimidated in the least. Blast the man. “Maybe I just wanted to see that you were okay.”
“You expect me to believe that? After you’ve had the Our Lady of Virtues spies checking up on me?” She couldn’t keep the bite out of her words, but he wasn’t offended. If anything, he appeared amused by her outrage. God, she’d love to shake some sense into him. He was just so damned maddening!
There was a part of her that was dying to believe that he had stopped by because he cared for her, that he had felt compelled to see her again, but that was just wishful thinking by a very feminine and silly piece of her. The more real down-to-earth side of her nature knew better.
This man was a cop. Period. He didn’t trust her and she, now, didn’t trust him.
“Believe what you want,” he said, standing and wiping his hands on a paper towel he snapped from a roll on the counter.
“I will.”
He tossed the used towel into the trash. “So everything cool here?”
Boy, he wouldn’t give it up, would he?
“Except for a neurotic dog and a paranoid cat, yeah, everything’s fine.” She was tempted to tell him about the open window, and Hershey’s growl-fest, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t want to come off as some kind of scared little mouse of a woman, and besides, no one had been in the house.
She’d proved that, hadn’t she?
He looked around the kitchen as if to satisfy himself. “Well, thanks for the dinner.”
“If it could be called that.”
Again, he flashed her that infectious, disarming smile, and if she let herself, and looked beyond his black goatee, she might see a dimple or two.
“It was the best invitation and dinner I’ve had in a long, long time.” When she started to protest, he held up a hand. “Seriously.”
“You’re an easy man to please.”
“Maybe.” His dark eyes sparked and smoldered and she felt her breath catch in the back of her throat. “Come to think of it, maybe I am.”
Oh, dear God. Her pulse was thundering. Heat curled in her stomach and spread to her limbs. What was it about this man that bothered her so? One minute he was so damned infuriating she wanted to strangle him, and the next, he was getting to her, teasing and flirting, and generally digging under her skin.
Which was
not
a good thing.
He was sexy as hell in his black leather jacket, faded, butt-hugging jeans, and irreverent attitude, and she guessed he knew just how to play a woman, something that should have turned her off completely. She warned herself to tread carefully; flirting was one thing, falling for a man like Detective Montoya was another thing altogether. He was still off-limits. Way off.
“Listen,” he was saying as she walked him to the front door. God, she hoped he was unaware that she was sizing him up. “If you think of anything or see anything that you think just doesn’t fit, call me.” He slid her a glance that she could have interpreted a dozen ways. “You’ve got my number.”
Oh, I wish,
she thought. She’d love to know what made this man tick. “I told you. I don’t know anything.”
She opened the door.
Montoya hesitated a beat on the threshold.
For a full half-minute, he stared into the dark night, where the rain was beginning to lash the ground, and the wind was whipping the branches in the old oaks near the drive. “Listen,” he finally said, turning to look her full in the face. Deep grooves cut into his forehead, and beneath his goatee, the corners of his mouth pinched downward. “Be careful.”
Something inside her cracked.
She had trouble finding her voice. “I…I will.”
“No, I mean it.” He was deadly serious. One hand lightly touched her forearm, one rested over the deadbolt on the slim edge of the door. “Something’s going on here. I don’t know what, but I don’t like it. Get that security system up and running. ASAP.”
“You’re starting to scare me.”
“Good. That’s the point.” His expression didn’t change. His dark gaze was intense, downright smoldering.
The back of her throat tightened. “Okay.”
He slid a glance past her, to the interior and the table in the entry hall. “And the hammer’s not such a bad idea. I’m not crazy about civilians with guns and guard dogs, but protect yourself.” He frowned. “You might want a bigger one.”
“Gun or dog?”
“Hammer.”
“Like a sledge?”
“Yeah.” He nodded and dropped his hand. “A sledge would work just fine.” But he didn’t smile as he hunched his shoulders against the rain. She watched him hurry down the steps of the porch, along the brick path to the driveway and into his black Mustang. Once inside, he engaged the engine, maneuvered a quick U-turn, and drove down the lane, his taillights fading in the rain.
“Did you hear that, Hershey? The hammer thing? As if. And he doesn’t think much of your skills as a watch dog, does he?” She slid the deadbolt into place and walked into the bedroom, trying not to be depressed that he was gone. She barely knew the man, didn’t trust him. But the house seemed suddenly empty without him.
Silly.
His warnings crept back through her mind. Maybe it was time to load the .38. She had ammo in a box in the closet.
She pulled open the drawer, intent on taking Montoya’s advice.
But the gun was missing.
She blinked hard. No way! Luke’s father’s revolver couldn’t be gone! She’d seen it only a few nights earlier, right?
So what had happened to it?
Shaken, Abby sank onto her bed, thought about dialing Montoya’s cell, and decided against it. One more time, she looked in the nightstand drawer, then rolled across the bed to the other side and the matching night table. Nervously she pulled the drawer open, silently praying she would find the .38, that she’d forgotten where she’d last seen it.
No such luck.
The gun was missing.
And the window had been open.
Someone had been inside the house.
Someone had climbed inside and stolen Luke’s precious handgun.
Her breath stopped in her lungs when she considered the possibilities.
The killer could have come inside, looking for something Luke had said was precious to him. Or some obsessed fan, who had heard Luke talk on the air about the .38, was either acting out of some fanatical obsession in righting the “wrong” she’d done his hero, or had thought the gun would get a great price on eBay, or the black market, or wherever it was that someone sold a weapon stolen from a famous person.
“Too bizarre,” she murmured and too damned scary. Before allowing serious panic to set in, she spent the next half an hour tearing the bedroom and house apart, all the while hoping beyond hope that she’d misplaced the damned gun. But in the end, she found no trace of it.
So who had taken it?
And what were they going to do with it?
T
he old man was waiting.
Which was just fine, he thought as he slid through the darkness and climbed the fence. His truck was parked behind the shed of the abandoned sawmill and he decided this was the last time he could risk parking so close to the Pomeroy estate.
Adrenalin crackled through his body and he felt more alive than he had since killing Gierman and the virgin. The threat was much stronger now that the cops knew Pomeroy was missing. The FBI would be called in and they would wire the Pomeroy mansion while waiting for a ransom demand that wouldn’t come.
A sly smile crept across his lips.
They had no idea what was happening, not yet.
But they would tomorrow…he would see to it. He already knew how to contact them, and through whom.
As much as he loved watching the police scratch their heads and chase their tails, they were making things more difficult for him. With all the law enforcement agencies swarming around this part of the state, he would have to be careful. Very careful. That’s why he’d snagged the gun today when Abby had been working in her studio. He’d watched her for over an hour, realized she’d probably spend most of the day in her studio, so he’d taken the chance. He’d known that soon things would become harder, especially as he intended to step things up, work more quickly. So he had risked sliding into her house and slipping the .38 from its hiding spot in her bedroom.
But he had indulged himself.
Despite the danger, he’d taken the time to lie on her bed, to drink in her scent, to imagine what it would be like to feel her body under his.
Writhing.
Sweating.
Wanting.
Faith’s daughter.
His blood ran hot remembering what her bed had smelled like. In his mind’s eye he’d seen her wild curls spread on the pillow, her lips parted and trembling, her body jerking upward as he’d thrust into her. Hard. Fast. Leaving her breathless until the perfect moment when he’d take her life…
Oh, how he would have loved to have surprised her today. He trembled with anticipation and his hands were slick on the steering wheel.
Be patient.
Her time is soon.
Now he opened the gate and eased his truck through then secured the chain again. The rain, which had been pouring most of the day, had lessened a bit, and he drank in deep lungfuls of the wet, night air. Stealthily, he drove onto the highway, eventually hitting the lights. With the police ever vigilant, it was time to act.
For nearly twenty-four hours, he’d let the old man think about his life. Long enough.
Now, it was time to end it.
“Damn it!” Gina Jefferson threw her pencil across the tiny room. It hit the wall, scratching the plaster beneath her award for being the 2002 African-American Business Woman of the Year granted her by the city of New Orleans. The pencil slid down the wall, landing behind the file cabinet. “Great, Gina. Smooth move,” she muttered under her breath, angry at herself for letting her temper get the better of her. It was late, after nine, and she was the last employee still on the premises at Crescent City Center. She’d been here twelve hours, worked her tail off, and was as frustrated as she’d been in her fifty-five years. Feeling foolish, and glad no one else was in the room, she walked across the worn carpeting, tried to retrieve the pencil but couldn’t. The file cabinet was a behemoth and stuffed full of client files, clients who would soon have to find a new facility for their mental health needs.
Unless she could pull a cash cow out of her hat.
She’d already knocked on most of the doors of the donors she could count on, over and over again. She needed a new list of wealthy philanthropists, if there was one. Using a coat hanger, she fished out the pencil, now covered with a long, sticky cobweb. Wiping it off with a tissue, she stuffed it into the cup on her desk, a gift from someone the free mental health center had helped.
“Lordy, Lordy, give me strength,” she said as she snagged her raincoat from the hall tree and slipped it on. The coat seemed tight tonight and she reminded herself that she was supposed to be on a diet, that she needed to lose at least thirty pounds, but she was too depressed to think about her ever-expanding waistline. Too depressed and too stressed. Some of her friends smoked when they were on edge, others had the good fortune not to be able to eat. She, on the other hand, found food a balm in times of anxiety, and right now she was pretty damned anxious. The center was going to close and soon if she couldn’t find a way to raise the cash necessary to keep the damned doors open.
Through the window the night seemed darker than usual, but maybe that was just because she was so depressed. After months of fund-raising, hours on the phone, working round the clock, all her efforts seemed to have been for naught. The free mental health center would inevitably close its doors. Unless the coffers of some kabillionaire or the ka-billionaire’s charitable foundation miraculously donated thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep it open. Even then they would need more money, federal grants, and additional funds from the state or parish or city, all of which were tapped out.
Rotating the kinks from her neck, she snapped off most of the lights, then glanced through the glass doors to a spot across the street where twice this evening she’d noticed a man standing alone.
She was used to dealing with oddballs. After all, the center catered to those poor individuals who needed psychological and emotional help. The more serious cases were referred to the hospital, but most of the people they saw were troubled souls who needed some medication, or direction, or just to talk. One medical doctor and two nurses volunteered their time; the rest of the staff was made up of clinical psychologists or social workers.
In her fifteen years here, Gina had seen more than her share of strange people. So why tonight, she wondered, did she sense that there was something different about the individual she’d caught lingering on the other side of the street, just out of the circle of the lamp post’s illumination?
A sixth sense?
Or just the fact that she was bone-tired?
There were lots of homeless people and drifters in this part of New Orleans. And the town had more than its share of oddballs and neurotics and druggies. As much as she loved New Orleans, she knew the dangers of the city streets. She’d been born and raised here, the oldest of seven children. Her father, Franklin, had been a boxer in his youth, a bus driver later in life. Her mother had raised the children and cooked not only for the family, but for people in the neighborhood. Then, with a small inheritance and encouragement from everyone she knew, Ezzie Brown had opened her own restaurant on the fringe of the French Quarter. All of Ezzie and Franklin’s children, whether of legal age or not, had worked in the restaurant, busing tables, waiting, cooking, mopping the floors, and cleaning the grill, all the while learning the value of a dollar, and an appreciation for good jazz. A table made out of two doors stretched across the back room behind the kitchen and was set up as a long desk where, under the hum and bright illumination of fluorescent lights, every one of Ezzie’s kids was supposed to do his or her homework. They were surrounded by shelves packed with jars of pickles, cans of tomato paste, sacks of onions, garlic, and hot peppers, all vying for space with the boxes of cornmeal and flour.
Now, Gina engaged the alarm system, tucked her umbrella under her arm, pulled her keys from her purse, and rezipped it, then, juggling her briefcase and everything else, she shouldered open the door. Outside it was a nasty night, wet and wild, water running through the dark streets, an occasional car flying past, splashing water, thrumming with music.
The scents of the city filled her nostrils, the smell of the Mississippi ever present. Lordy, Gina loved it here.
No stranger loitered in the shadows near the streetlamp.
She checked.
Breathing easier, she locked the door behind her, thinking of the restaurant where her mother, pushing eighty, still served the best creole shrimp in all of Louisiana. Her parents had taught each of their children to be strong and smart, work hard, and love the Lord. No matter how tight money had been while Gina had been growing up, Franklin and Esmeralda Brown tithed faithfully to their church, sang in the choir, donated to the missions, and made their children do so as well. Never had a neighbor come by who had not been fed. If Christmas was lean, so be it; if the bus company laid Franklin off, then he’d work odd jobs until he was hired somewhere else. Throughout it all, the good times and the bad, her parents’ rock-solid faith had never faltered.
Not even when their youngest boy, Martin, had been born. There had been problems with his birth from the get-go. Esmeralda, who had delivered six chubby healthy babies into the world, had nearly died in childbirth with the seventh. An emergency C-section and subsequent transfusion had saved her life, but the scrawny baby had been in distress in vitro and had been fussy and colicky for the first year of his life. Who knew if that harsh entrance into the world had been a part of the violence and temper that followed? Whatever the reason, Martin had always been different.
Always.
He’d been in and out of juvenile facilities, mental facilities, and later jail all of his thirty-three years. Even as he’d grown into a big, strapping man, he’d never completely emotionally matured. Twenty-two years younger than his oldest sister, Martin had given Gina her first glimpse of the struggles of those with mental problems. Though Martin tested normal, even intelligent in the standard exams, there was always something off. It didn’t help that he possessed a hair-trigger temper coupled with a need for violence. As many psychiatrists as Martin had seen, including Dr. Simon Heller at Our Lady of Virtues when the hospital had been open, he had never fit in.
People like Martin needed this center and needed it desperately! She couldn’t let herself and the community down by not fighting for it to remain open.
Still clutching her purse, briefcase, and umbrella in one hand, she managed to slide the accordion-style grate over the door and locked it as well, then tested it by rattling the bars.
Opening her umbrella, she made her nightly mad dash through a gravel-strewn alley to her car. The Buick Regal, her pride and joy, was parked where it always was in the back parking lot, a sorry piece of asphalt. The wind caught in the umbrella and rain slapped at her legs, and again, she had that weird feeling that had been with her all day. She looked over her shoulder but saw no one. The alley was deserted, the traffic on the street thin and quiet.
So why the case of the willies?
There’s no one out here, Gina,
she thought.
Get over your bad self! You’ve done this hundreds of times, every night, like clockwork. No one’s ever bothered you. You’re just upset because the center is going to close unless you find a way to keep the doors open! You, Gina. Ain’t no one else gonna step up to this plate!
Walking briskly, she wondered how she was going to get the quick influx of cash. The trouble was, there just wasn’t enough money to go around, she thought, fighting with her umbrella in the gusts of wind and rain.
But she needed one celebrity type to help out. Someone the public could relate to, someone they would trust and give generously to. She thought of Billy Ray Furlough, that nearly rabid televangelist. He managed to get people to donate weekly to his church and his catchphrase, “Lord, love ya, brother,” was heard all over the country.
She’d never appealed to Billy Ray for money; there was something too slick, too big business, about him. But she might, after tonight’s meeting, have to swallow her pride and, rather than call in, see him personally and try to fight her way through the obstacle course of receptionists, bodyguards, and yes-men to get to the preacher, the tall man who’d been labeled as possessing a “Hollywood thousand-watt smile.” That phrase alone had made her want to throw up. She figured it was some spin doctor’s idea of good press. These days, apparently, even preachers had a public image to uphold—an image that probably wouldn’t need the world to know that the good preacher himself had worked through his own “issues.”
Yes, she’d call on Billy Ray Furlough personally. And once again she’d approach Asa Pomeroy, another wealthy man in the city, one she could barely stomach. Pomeroy traded in wives for younger models on a regular basis, and he sold weapons to the highest bidder. And yet, he’d been known to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars if the cause appealed to him. And even Asa, the almighty, had a son who had battled his own share of mental challenges.
Again, she’d have to smile, ask sweetly, and bite her tongue.
You’re a hypocrite, Gina. You hate preachers who are more about glitz and television ratings than God, and you despise anyone who makes money by selling arms.
But desperate times called for desperate measures.
Boy, did she understand that old bromide. Just last week she’d phoned her friend Eleanor Cavalier, who worked at WSLJ. Gina had wanted some on-air exposure, and she’d hoped to be a guest on Samantha Leeds’s program,
Midnight Confessions.
Dr. Sam was a psychologist who worked at the Boucher Center off Toulouse Street and sometimes helped out here at Crescent City Center. The trouble was the program manager for the station had thought it would be more interesting for the audience if Gina appeared on Luke Gierman’s show as well. Gina, fearing she’d just made a deal with the devil, had reluctantly agreed.
She figured now, with Gierman’s murder, she was off the hook.
She walked through the parking lot to her car, fighting the umbrella, stepping in puddles that had collected in the potholes and feeling the water seep through her boots.
A night not fit for man nor beast,
her father used to say and she realized then why it was so dark. The only security light for the entire lot had burned out.
How odd.
She had a bad feeling, again.
The long hours were getting to her. Every little thing made her jump tonight.