Chapter Twenty-five

I made a move to get up.

“Don’t go,” John murmured. “Please?”

The “please” got me, even though I didn’t feel I should stay. How many ways did he have to tell me there could never be more than sex between us?

Where once the idea of being wanted for my body had been a novelty, it had fast worn thin. I wanted to be wanted for myself. Who didn’t?

As he’d said—what we want most is what we can never have. Ain’t that always the way?

The room was dark and cool. I fell asleep, awaking an indeterminate amount of time later with a start to an empty bed. My ears strained to catch the slightest sound.

Was John still in the apartment? Had the rush of the shower, the click of the door, the tread of a footstep drawn me from sleep?

I wrapped the sheet around me and walked through the house. He wasn’t there.

Neither was very much else. I’d noticed the minimalist decorating in the living room, the monkish state of the bedroom, but there was nothing personal beyond clothes and toiletries here at all. Not a picture, not a book, not a letter. No driver’s license, birth certificate, passport, not a single slip of paraphernalia for tax purposes.

It was as if John Rodolfo had popped up in New Orleans out of thin air.

Maybe he had another house in a different city or state. Maybe he kept everything important there. But why? What did he have to hide?

The lack of personality, the lack of a past revealed in his living quarters only brought home to me once more that I didn’t know enough about the man to trust him with my cat—if I’d had a cat. Why in hell was I trusting him with my body, my heart, and perhaps my life?

I had no idea; but I should stop.

I returned to the bedroom, flipped on the overhead light and got dressed, becoming severely annoyed when I realized I was surreptitiously checking the floor, the pillow, the bathroom mirror for some kind of note.

“Pathetic,” I muttered, then cursed when I tried to button a blouse that no longer had buttons.

What had been erotic earlier just pissed me off now. I stole what appeared to be a brand-new light blue T-shirt from Rodolfo’s clothes pile, then let myself out of the house.

Night had fallen; the crescent moon hovered. The area around Rodolfo’s apartment was not well lit or well populated at this time of the evening. I would have liked to take a cab back to Rising Moon, but there wasn’t one to be had.

I hurried along, headed for the bright lights of Bourbon. I was probably paranoid, but I could have sworn someone followed me.

Whenever I moved, they moved with me. I only caught the pitter-patter of other feet interspersed with the thud of my own. If I stopped, so did the footsteps. If I turned, no one was there.

“Sullivan?” I murmured, then bit my lip. Did I really want to meet him again, out here alone in the dark?

Stupid question.

The creepy-crawly sensation of being followed continued and by the time I neared Bourbon I was running. I flew around the corner and nearly smacked into a wall of teeming humanity. The place was packed—curb to curb—with revelers.

I let out a sigh of relief and plunged into the mass of bodies. If someone, or something, was following, good luck catching me now.

The mounted police milling down the side streets, as well as making their way through the crowd, reassured me. From their exalted perch, they’d catch sight of a wolf long before I did, and they’d notice a crazy-eyed, rabid stranger even quicker.

I shook my head, laughing at myself. If this kept up, I ’d be the crazy person.

Then the mass of humanity parted for just an instant, and I saw …

Katie.

Suddenly I was pushing people, shoving them aside, shouting her name, getting drinks spilled on me, some thrown at me. The crowd converged, blocking her out, and when it separated again, she was gone.

I stopped moving, staring at the place she’d been. I closed my eyes, tried to remember her face, then the face I’d seen. They’d been different somehow, though I couldn’t put a finger on exactly how.

Had that been Katie? I wasn’t so sure.

After she’d disappeared, there’d been a hundred times I thought I’d seen her—in places she couldn’t possibly be. I’d heard that was common when you lost someone. The mind plays tricks; the heart tries to find a way to cope.

“Miss?”

I opened my eyes. A horse stared me in the face.

I took several steps back, caught my heel on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell. I was caught and tossed in the other direction with a good-natured shove.

The horse blew his opinion of my clumsiness from loose lips, spraying me with equine spittle. It went very well with the alcohol, orange juice, and soda spotting Rodolfo’s blue T-shirt.

“You okay?”

The mounted police officer peered at me. I guess I did look a little foolish, standing on Bourbon Street with my eyes closed.

“Yes, thanks. Do you see a blond woman”—I pointed—”that way?”

He rolled his eyes. “I see a million of ‘em. Wanna be more specific?”

“Blue eyes. Small, but curvy. She was wearing… red. Her hair is longer. I mean long. Midway down her back.”

The officer was already shaking his head. “About a thousand of those. You should scope out a meeting place ahead of time for when you lose your friends.”

“Thanks,” I repeated, but he was already making his way through the crowd in another direction.

And I was late for work.

Sure, I would have liked to search the bars, the restaurants, the hotels, interview each and every person on this street, but even if that were possible, I wouldn’t have. If the face in the crowd had been Katie’s, she would have run to me as I’d run to her. Instead she’d disappeared—just as she had three years ago.

I’d seen a dream, a wish, perhaps a ghost. I didn’t want to believe the latter; nevertheless, I was beginning to wonder. If Katie were alive, why hadn’t she contacted me?

Though I’d told myself I wouldn’t worry about the bloody, dirty bracelet until we had solid evidence, in the back of my mind, I was more than worried. I was devastated.

Katie’s blood type and graveyard dirt. I’d never been any good at math, but even I could add that much and come up with dead.

Leaving Bourbon Street behind, I went to work.

King was having a hard time meeting the demands of the sizable crowd, but one glance at my soaked T-shirt, and he j erked his head toward the stairs.

“Change,” he ordered. “Then get your ass down here.”

I did, but by then the police had shown up. Mueller again. I wasn’t surprised.

“Did you find him?” I asked.

“Who?” Then understanding dawned. “Oh! Detective Sullivan. No. Nothing.”

“How can there be nothing?”

“The city’s pretty big, and he knew it as well as any of us.”

“You think he’s hiding?”

Mueller took a deep breath and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You think he’s dead.”

“No one can live very long with a throat wound like that.”

I bit my tongue to keep from mentioning that I’d seen Sullivan sans throat wound. I’d also seen him sans humanity, another tidbit I’d just keep to myself. I was going to have to look for him; and I was going to have to do it with something sharp and silver in hand.

“I’m here about Maggie Schwartz,” Mueller said.

“Did you find her?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

His lips twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. “What do you know about Maggie?”

“I met her at the cafe where she worked. We struck up a few conversations.”

No way was I telling him what they were about. Luckily he didn’t ask, which made me think he was new in the questioning biz. I certainly would have.

“How is it, then,” he continued, “that you discovered she was missing?”

“I was the only one who cared enough to check. Her employer just assumed she was AWOL, even though she wasn’t the type to miss work. I’m a PI, Mueller, I’ve done this before.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, but then his gaze sharpened on something behind me. “Why is it that people around you have started to disappear, when before it was people around him?”

I turned to find Rodolfo only inches away. From the tightness of his lips, he didn’t appear to care for Mueller any more than he’d cared for Sullivan.

“Why is it that New Orleans’ finest can’t find any of the missing,” John countered, “or turn up the slightest clue to a single murder?”

“We will,” Mueller snapped.

The detective left after admonishing me to, “Stay available for questioning.” I couldn’t blame him for being angry and frustrated. Lord knows I was.

“I had an appointment,” John blurted. “And you were sleeping so soundly I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You didn’t.”

I wasn’t certain if his words were a compliment or an insult. I wasn’t certain of much where John Rodolfo was concerned.

He turned abruptly and headed toward the performance corner, where he picked up the saxophone and began to play. The song was achingly slow, bruisingly sweet. Without a word, with only music, he made me want and need and love.

I’d probably never get over him.

The rest of the night passed in a haze. With Mardi Gras so close, we were incredibly busy. John played almost frantically, as if he didn’t want to stop, to think, to exist anywhere else but in the music.

Later he passed me on his way to the office. His hair was damp with sweat, his face paler than I cared for.

“Are you all right?” I took his hand; he was shaking.

“I need a cigarette,” he said, in a voice gone hoarse with exhaustion.

“You need to go to bed.”

His lips twisted. “Been there, done dat.”

I frowned as he slurred the last word. “Do you have a headache?”

“No, chica.” He pronounced the words very clearly; he was trying too hard.

“Did you eat?”

“No.” He laughed, and the sound was high-pitched, completely unlike the deep, sexy rumble I heard so infrequently. “But I’m sure I will.”

He twisted out of my grip and disappeared into the office. I couldn’t help but follow, and as I neared the door, I caught the familiar sound of him talking to himself.

Though he’d seemed better lately, with me, I wasn’t a doctor or a psychiatrist. I had to realize that John might never be better, might never be normal—whatever that was.

“A little help here!” King shouted, and though I wanted nothing more than to go into that office and demand to know what had happened to make John the way he was, I also knew he wouldn’t tell me.

I returned to work. Later, when things had at last died down so that I could breathe, I went back. By then he was gone.

Morning came and with it a new determination. I needed protection that worked on both man and beast.

I found it at the same antique shop where I’d purchased the iron horseshoe.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s real silver.” The young woman manning the store today opened the glass case and removed the eighteenth-century letter opener. “They don’t make them like this anymore.”

I took the weapon—uh, opener—from her outstretched hand. The thing was needle sharp. I glanced at the price on the handle. And freaking expensive.

I pulled out my MasterCard. “I’ll take it.”

On the way back to Rising Moon, I stopped at the cafe to see if Maggie had miraculously reappeared.

She hadn’t.

I ordered coffee and a whole-wheat bagel, then sat outside for a few minutes. Someone had left a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. I idly glanced at the front page, then grabbed the thing and stared at the picture of the man who’d run out of Rising Moon with a knife stuck in his chest.

Jorge Vanez was found in the Honey Island Swamp. Authorities had been looking for Vanez in connection with an attack in an establishment on Frenchmen Street where Vanez had sustained a knife wound. However, his body was so badly burned it might be impossible to determine the exact cause of death.

My hands clenched on the newspaper, creating a loud crackle that caused the businessman at the next table to toss a frown in my direction.

There appeared to be a lot of charred bodies turning up in remote places.

Coincidence? Hell, no.

Sullivan had told me about a missing corpse turning up barbecued in St. Louis No. 1. He’d thought voodoo was involved.

Damn, I missed Maggie.

No longer in the mood for a long, leisurely sipping of the coffee, I began to walk. When I reached Royal Street I turned down a path at the sign that read CASSANDRA’S.

This time the priestess was in.