Vieux Carré Voodoo (11 page)

I didn’t have time to yell or do anything before a very
sharp knife was pressed to my throat.

Adrenaline coursed through my body.

The man who was holding the knife to my throat was wearing a
black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his forehead. I couldn’t
make out his features above his nose, which was long and crooked. His lips were
thin over yellowed teeth, and he smelled bad, of a mixture of tobacco and body
odor that made me slightly sick. “Where is the eye?” he said in thickly accented
English.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to keep my
voice calm, which wasn’t easy. My heart was pounding loud enough to be heard
blocks away.

The blade pressed harder against the base of my throat. “You
lie! Where is the eye?”

He pressed closer against me, and I scanned the street in
both directions. No one was around. No police cruiser conveniently patrolling
the lower Quarter, no group of drunken tourists staggering back to their hotel,
no gutter punks walking their dog and spare changing people.

It was then I realized he’d made a huge mistake. My right
leg was in between his, giving me a clear shot.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said again, then
raised my knee as fast and as hard as I possibly could.

He let out a strangled moan, the knife dropped away from my
throat, and he collapsed to the sidewalk.

I took off running. I ran around the corner at Royal Street
and just kept going. I didn’t slow down until I got to the corner at Dumaine,
fumbling for my keys to the gate to the stairs behind the Devil’s Weed that led
up to my parents’ house. I slammed the gate shut and took the stairs two at a
time, and paused to try to catch my breath before opening the back door.

Finally, I put my key into the lock and pushed the door
open.

“Mom? Dad?” I called as I walked through the kitchen into
the big living room.

What I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Hi, Scotty.” Colin smiled at me from the couch.

SIX OF CUPS, REVERSED

Living in the past rather than the present

For just over three years, I had imagined what this moment
would be like. I’d imagined all kinds of witty bon mots I would toss off
nonchalantly, wounding him the way he’d scarred Frank and me. I’d wondered if it
would be better to be cold and distant, and not give him the satisfaction on
knowing the damage he’d left in his wake. I’d wondered if I would get angry,
lose my cool and start yelling at him. I’d wondered if it would be better to
simply be indifferent. There was a part of me that wanted to somehow get even
with him. Those kinds of thoughts bothered me. That wasn’t the kind of person I
wanted to be, that I tried to be, that I was raised to be.

So I’d tried to cleanse my soul of negativity and
bitterness. I tried to put aside my pain, and prayed for him and his safety. I’d
wondered if he were alive, or if his line of work had finally proved fatal for
him. I’d wondered if he had really cared about us, or if we’d simply been a
convenient cover for him in New Orleans. Had he loved us or been using us? There
hadn’t been a single word from him in all that time. There were times when I’d
tried to understand him, tried to get inside his head and figure it all out.
Maybe he was afraid to get in touch, maybe he was afraid we hated him, maybe he
knew there was no way he could repair the damage he’d caused.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But in all my fantasizing about this moment, I’d never
imagined it would be like having someone reach inside my rib cage and squeeze my
heart with both hands.

I just stood there, gaping at him like a fool incapable of
speech. My mind was racing through thoughts and emotions I’d thought I’d be
finished with years earlier. My body felt numb from head to toe. My breathing
was too fast, and if I wasn’t careful I was going to hyperventilate.

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.
Focus on
getting your breathing under control,
I thought as blackness started to
crowd into the edges of my consciousness. I leaned against the door frame, and
as I took deep controlled breaths the blackness started to fade away.

My mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came
out.

The truth was I didn’t know what to say or how to react.

It was really annoying.

He was still one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen.
He had an extraordinary masculine beauty that was mesmerizing, almost impossible
to look away from. His thick curly blue-black hair was longer than I remembered,
and his olive skin contrasted nicely with his almond-shaped bright green eyes
that always looked dewy beneath his long black lashes. There was a bluish shadow
on his cheeks and chin that usually showed up within hours of him shaving. He
had dimples, even white teeth, and thick sensual lips. When he smiled, his
entire face lit up, and he was smiling at me now. He was a little shorter than
me, maybe about five-seven, and his body was thickly muscled from years of
working with weights and strenuous exercise. His shoulders were broad, his waist
narrow, and his stomach completely flat. He had gotten bigger since I’d last
seen him, and he looked as powerful as a tank. He was wearing a pair of baggy
black jeans and a black T-shirt stretched tightly across his hard chest.

I closed my eyes and remembered the first time I’d ever seen
him—wearing a yellow thong in the manager’s office at the Pub before we went out
to dance on the bar. And like then, I just stared at him without speaking.

I opened my eyes and noticed he had gauze wound around his
upper right arm—and there was a slowly expanding dark red dot in the center of
it.
He’s injured,
I thought, sympathy welling up inside me. I resisted
the urge to go to him, put my arms around him, and kiss him.

I gritted my teeth.
Oh, but hell no,
I thought,
pushing all the sympathy I was feeling behind a door in my mind and slamming it
shut.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the police
right now,” I said. My teeth still clenched together. I realized my hands were
trembling, so I shoved them into the pockets of my jeans.

His smile never faltered. “Go ahead and call them,” he said
in an even voice and shrugged. “If that’s what you want. We can finally get
everything cleared up.”

I wasn’t expecting that. There was an outstanding warrant
for his arrest, for committing two murders over that crazy Mardi Gras weekend so
long ago. Maybe he was just calling my bluff. I stepped out of the dark kitchen
and into the living room, pulling my phone out. “Yeah, maybe it would be best if
I just went ahead and called them.”

His smile faded, and his eyes widened. “My God, Scotty, your
neck is bleeding! What happened to you? Are you okay?” He started to get up out
of the chair.

“Stay where you are!” I commanded in a shaky voice as my
hand flew up to my neck and felt wet stickiness. When I pulled it away, it was
covered in blood. “I—
oh
.”

The adrenaline high I’d been riding chose that moment to
crash, and my legs got wobbly in the knees. I felt myself starting to get dizzy,
and I managed to stagger over to a wingback chair before collapsing completely.
That bastard
cut
me, I thought, staring at the blood on my hand. My heart was pounding in my
ears, and I was vaguely aware Colin was calling for my mother. She came into the
room, but I couldn’t really hear what was being said. I saw my mother kneel down
in front of me and her face go pale. I blinked and she was gone, and Colin was
there, with a paper towel, daubing at my neck. I tried to push his hands away
but my arms had no strength in them. The numbness was spreading through my body.
Breathe, Scotty, focus on your breathing, you’re going into shock.
Colin
covered my legs with a blanket. I was shaking, the adrenaline rush long gone,
and I ached with exhaustion. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again my
mother was kneeling in front of me, gently patting my neck with a warm, wet
cloth. “Honey, what happened to you?” she asked, placing a piece of gauze at the
base of my throat before anchoring it in place with a bandage. “It’s a small
cut, but you’re bleeding like a stuck pig. What on earth happened?”

Has the entire world gone crazy?
I wondered as I
watched her get up. Colin had sat back down on the couch, and she sat down next
to him, patting him on the leg. She smiled at him, like having a murderer
sitting on her couch was not a big deal, just the most normal thing in the
world.

“What is he doing here?” I blurted the words out at last.
I’d stopped shaking, but was still exhausted. “Mom, why haven’t you called the
cops?”

Mom looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “The cops?” Her
voice was puzzled, and then her expression broadened into a smile. “Oh, of
course, you mean because he’s been
shot.
No, we agreed there’s no need for us to call the cops.” She patted Colin’s
shoulder gently, and he smiled up at her. “He doesn’t want us to, and since it’s
just a small flesh wound I could fix up—”

I said, very carefully enunciating each word, “No, Mom, I
thought maybe you might have called the police because he’s wanted. You know,
like his picture is on a poster in the post office?”

“Don’t be silly.” She dismissed that with a wave of her
hand. “It most certainly is not. I was just there yesterday, and I can assure
you—”

“Mom, he killed two people?”
And who knows how many
others?
“They were your brothers? Hello? How could you forget that?” Okay,
granted, they’d had connections to the Russian mob and terrorists, and she’d
never met them, but
still.
And I remembered we’d never told her he’d been trained by the Mossad, and worked
as a paid assassin. Frank thought we should tell everyone the truth—but what
Colin had done was bad enough, I’d thought. Frank finally came around to my way
of thinking.

At least Frank wasn’t here to say
I told you so.

“Hey, I’m sitting right here,” Colin said, looking from Mom
to me and back again.

Mom ignored him, a stern look on her face. “Colin did
not
kill them.” Her eyes narrowed as she continued speaking. “He said he didn’t do
it, and that’s good enough for me.” She gave him a huge smile. “He’s not a
killer. I would know if he was.” She folded her arms in front of her. Her tone
clearly implied
and that’s the end of that unpleasant subject.

“Maybe we should leave that to a jury?” I wanted to shake
her. “And there’s a little thing called aiding a fugitive from justice?
Accessory after the fact? You could go to jail!”

“Hello? I’m right here,” Colin said, his eyebrows coming
together over his nose.

“You’re starting to sound like your brother.” Mom frowned.
“And I don’t mean that in a good way, Scotty.”

“Well, he’s not always wrong, Mom,” I said, thinking
I
cannot believe I just said that.
“Storm would go through the roof if he
knew…” I let my voice trail off and buried my face in my hands. There was no
point in arguing with my mother. She was probably the most loyal person I knew.
I usually thought that was one of her better qualities, but it apparently also
came with a severe downside. I knew my mother. If the police showed up to arrest
Colin, she would fight them with everything she had. She would hide him, she
would help him escape, she would give him money and—my head was starting to
seriously hurt. Yes, she would most certainly risk jail to protect him.

Okay, yelling would only make her more obstinate, so I
decided to try another tack. I knew it was a hopeless fight, but I had to try at
least one more time so that when Storm eventually met us at the police station,
I could say I tried everything. I took a deep breath and said in my most even,
reasonable tone, “Mom, please. I just don’t want you—or me—to be in trouble with
the law, Mom. We could be arrested. We could go to jail.”

“I wish you would stop talking about me like I’m not even
here,” Colin said.

She didn’t even look at him. She waved her hand
dismissively. “Please. We wouldn’t go to jail. If it came to that—and I’m not
saying it will, mind you—you know we can afford the best lawyers in the country.
And you know as well as I do how heavily weighted our justice system is in favor
of people with money.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “And the reason I know that is
because you’ve spent your entire life protesting against it and fighting to
correct it—and now you’re saying you’re willing to compromise your principles
and beliefs to take advantage of that inequity? Isn’t that kind of hypocritical,
Mom?”

“What, you think I should stand on principle?” She rolled
her eyes and shook her head. “No, Scotty, I don’t think our system is fair. I
don’t think the poor—or even the middle class—can afford the same justice the
privileged can. But if it were my child—or someone I love—you bet your ass I’m
getting them the best lawyer—or lawyers—money can buy. Does it make me a
hypocrite? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. That’s not for us to decide. But I
would rather be a bad person than a bad mother.” And with that, she folded her
arms. The subject was officially closed. We would not be turning Colin over to
the police. Not now, not in the future, and probably not ever. For better or
worse, we were now accessories after the crime, harboring a fugitive from
justice, and whatever else the district attorney decided to throw at us after we
were caught.

And we would be caught.

“Now, what happened to your neck?” She had switched from her
don’t-argue-with-me tone to concerned mother.

“Why is he here?” I asked, and hated that my voice sounded
whinier than I’d intended.

“For God’s sake, I’m sitting right here!” Colin exploded.
“Quit talking about me like I’m not here!”