Chapter Twenty-two

The chaos increased when the police showed up. They were as unamused as I to discover their detective had disappeared. They concurred with Dr. Haverough’s assessment.

No blood trail.

I left them to their search and rescue. I wouldn’t be of much help. I didn’t know the city. But I made Mueller promise to call me the instant they found Sullivan—dead or alive.

Nevertheless, I wandered up and down the streets of the French Quarter, hoping I’d find him, but I didn’t. By the time I returned to Rising Moon, dawn wasn’t too far away. The club was still lit from within, though no music spilled out. Inside several stragglers remained.

King glanced up. One look at my face and he ordered, “Everyone out.”

The customers tossed money next to their half-empty glasses and left. I wondered if anyone ever argued, and if they did, what King would do.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Detective Sullivan was injured.”

I didn’t plan on sharing the whole wolf, rabies, throat-torn, blood-everywhere deal. I wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to.

King frowned. “Is he okay?”

“He left the hospital before he was treated, and now they’re combing the city for him. They don’t think he’ll survive the night without help.”

“I didn’t like him,” King said, “but I don’t wish him ill either.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I kept my opinion to myself.

“I’ll just clean up and go,” he said.

“You want help?”

“Always.” He winked. “But you head up to bed. You look wrung out.”

I was.

I didn’t even think to ask if John had come back, left again, called, or anything in between, but as I passed the office on my way upstairs, the door opened. The man had ears like a—

I wasn’t sure. Something with really good ears.

“Anne.”

He leaned in the doorway, his shirt buttoned crookedly, the tail untucked, his short hair as mussed as hair that short could get. His slacks were zipped but wrinkled, and his feet were bare—pale and long, as elegant as his hands. The only thing neat about him was his well-trimmed goatee.

How did he keep that so nice anyway? I doubted King took care of it for him, but maybe I was wrong.

“Were you asleep?” I asked.

“No.” He reached for me, and I went into his arms. I really needed a hug. He nuzzled my cheek, his mouth trailing softly to mine. He tasted dark, red, rich.

I pulled away. “Have you been drinking?”

He smiled, the expression both sweet and sexy.

” Un p oco.” His hand fumbled for mine, then found it. “Have a drink with me, chica.”

I wanted to say no, but in the next instant he seemed so sad, as if he’d lost his best friend—did he even have one?—and I couldn’t deny him a moment’s companionship. Especially since, right now, I didn’t want to be alone either.

A bottle sat on the desk. Cabernet. A very expensive one too. I couldn’t imagine Rodolfo drinking anything else.

John pulled a coffee cup out of a drawer and curled his long fingers around the rim before tipping the bottle to pour.

Glug. Glug. Glug.

“That’s good,” I said.

I certainly didn’t need an entire coffee cup full of cabernet. I’d be on my ass before half of it was gone.

Although, considering what I’d seen tonight, maybe getting sloshed wasn’t a bad idea.

John handed me the cup, and I glanced into the depths. The swirling red liquid appeared far too much like blood. I swallowed thickly and set it aside.

“You don’t like it?” he asked.

“I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Me either,” he said, then took a healthy swig.

I tilted my head. “Isn’t red wine at the top of the ‘to be avoided like the plague’ list for migraine sufferers?”

“There’s a list?”

“Of course. Didn’t your doctor—” I recalled his reaction after he’d been mugged to the idea of calling a doctor. “Did you even see a doctor?”

“Yes.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Who?”

He took another large sip of wine. “You wouldn’t know her.”

A drop trembled on his bottom lip. His tongue swept out and captured it before it fell. I forgot what we’d been talking about.

My throat was suddenly dry, and I took a sip myself. When I swallowed, my stomach flared with heat.

“You had a difficult night,” he said softly.

“Yeah.”

I was upset and confused. Sullivan was out there, hurt, perhaps dead or dying, and I couldn’t help. I didn’t know who, or what, had hurt him.

He was my friend, perhaps more. I was as confused about what I felt for Sullivan as I was over what I felt for Rodolfo. How had things gotten so screwed up?

“This place—” I began. “It’s—”

I couldn’t articulate my thoughts. New Orleans was both mesmerizing and murderous, ancient yet modern, sometimes slow-moving and in the next instant frenzied. There was something about it that was reflected in both of these men.

“When I was a child in New Orleans”—John took a deep breath, let it out again on a sigh—”she was so beautiful. This place was like no other.”

“It still is.” Of that much I was certain.

“The city is old. Older, I think than almost any. Some would say this makes her passe, but I think it makes her special. She has stood the test of time. She has weathered the plagues, the wars, the hurricanes, oui?”

I nodded, captivated by his voice. He didn’t sound drunk any longer.

“Such ugliness has come and gone and come again. I love this place,” he whispered. “She is a part of me, and I don’t ever want to leave her again.”

I found myself crossing the floor, taking his cup and setting it aside. “You don’t have to.”

His smile was sad with the melancholy that often follows the happiness brought on by too much drink.

“We never know where fate may lead.”

He had a point. I’d come to New Orleans looking for Katie, and I’d found him. What was supposed to have been a one-night stand, then a brief fling, had turned into something more. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to leave either when the time came.

I took his hand and turned it palm upward, tracing my thumb across the thin, white line. I never had asked him about it again.

“John,” I began, and he pulled away.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Home. My apartment.”

“You can stay with me.”

“I promised my landlord I’d give him the rent this morning, and—” He brushed a hand over my hair. “I think you need some rest.”

I did. And while I wouldn’t mind forgetting about last night in this man’s arms, I also wouldn’t mind just forgetting everything in some deep, undisturbed, solitary sleep. Besides, it seemed a little—rude?

Insensitive? Disgusting?—to sleep with one man while mourning another.

I accompanied John to the door. All of the lights were off in the club. The place seemed deserted.

“Maybe I should take you home.”

“I’ll do it.” King loomed out of the shadows. I started. John did not. I suspect he’d known the bartender was there all along.

King stared at John for several seconds. Something passed between them, even though John could not know that King was staring. Nevertheless, he gave a nod, and the two of them left.

I stepped outside as they walked away. A strange haze swirled in from the river, thick enough, really, to be called fog. The two men went into it and were swallowed up almost immediately.

I stood for several minutes, letting the warm mist sift over my face. In the distance a horn sounded, one of the boats on the Mississippi calling out a warning.

I turned to go inside, and a voice drifted to me on the breeze. “Anne.”

I hesitated. “John?”

“Don’t go.”

I was certain I knew the voice. But the night, my exhaustion, the weird, swirling grayness, distorted it just enough so I wasn’t sure.

Then I heard the growl, low, vicious, close. The hair on the back of my neck tingled. The hot, moist evening turned cold.

I should have run into Rising Moon and slammed the door. Instead, I remained on the back stoop, transfixed by the shadows flitting through the fog. Then one of them took shape, approaching from a different direction than the one in which John and King had disappeared.

A man, not a beast. One man, not two.

Someone I recognized, even before he stepped out of the mist.