Ill Will

by J. M. Redmann

  He was there so soon after I’d found Reginald Banks I didn’t consider there could be a link. Instead I assumed Prejean had sent him.

  Grant had carefully involved Brandon with Dudley, introducing him at a backyard cookout. At least in Dudley’s telling of the tale, Grant had been the leader, with Brandon willingly following along. Poor Dudley was just an addled meth addict trapped in their clutches.

  Grant had picked Brandon as the one who would be left behind, with a pile of debt and a pile of bodies that couldn’t easily be explained away as a robbery.

  But he hadn’t gotten away, and the police found everything they needed to tie him to fraud, extortion. And murder.

  Brandon Kellogg was dead.

  I told Cordelia that he had killed himself and she had nodded agreement. But I could tell she vehemently wished it hadn’t been her finger on the trigger.

  I was sitting in another dull green room, waiting for her as they did a CT scan to see if the treatment was working this time. She had given up trying to work full-time; now her life was lived in the walls of doctors’ offices, medical tests, and drugs that left her exhausted, at times too weak to make it to the bathroom to vomit. She had good days, but they couldn’t be counted on to last. The next chemo treatment left her too sick to do much. The nausea wore off only to be replaced with fatigue.

  Those five minutes had cost her a lot. She claimed not, but a haunted look had crept into her eyes as if she had seen too much and for too long how brutal the world can be—a place where the only choice is who will die. Maybe it made her want to fight less hard. Or maybe it was just fate and a disease.

  Spring, as it often does in New Orleans, had fled, turning to a searing summer.

  Maybe it was hard to want to live when the sun burned so brightly.

  The first time she went into the hospital, Torbin had come over, didn’t even say anything, just held me. Far longer than five minutes.

  Alex had come down from Baton Rouge. She and Joanne had officially broken up. Unofficially they were still enmeshed, still owned the house here together, in a limbo of which way to go. On the good days, I hoped they said they had broken up just to ease the expectations and avoid the explanations. On the bad days, it felt like everything was changing and changing more than I could bear.

  Danny and Elly insisted on being there when I couldn’t be there. Joanne came by when I wasn’t there; we passed once in the halls. Alex came by as often as her schedule allowed, at times talking her way around the visiting hours rules when she came in late.

  The medical practice had voted to keep Cordelia, but place her on leave. Brandon had been the one who voted against her; with him gone, the tie had been broken. That allowed her to retain her insurance. She had to pay for it, but at their group rate. Abrasive Ron turned out to be her champion. He told me, “I’m not a people person; I’m a lab guy and a numbers guy. But I’m a good doctor. She’s a good doctor. It could happen to any of us.”

  Now she just needed to live.

  “Michele Knight?” A nurse beckoned me.

  I followed her down a long hallway. They all seemed long; they all seemed some pale shade of blue or green as if color was too much of a taunt to the sick and dying.

  She ushered me into a doctor’s office.

  Cordelia was already there, dressing in the clothes that now hung on her. Her hair was gone, only a few stark white tufts remaining. She had taken to wearing a baseball cap backward like the teenaged boys do, but now she was bareheaded. The people in this building had seen too much to need to avert their eyes.

  Jennifer Godwin, her doctor, entered. “Good news or bad news?” she said.

  “Start with the bad,” Cordelia answered.

  “Your cancer is being stubborn. I know the side effects are hell for you. I’d like to try the bone marrow transplant and add that to R-CHOP.”

  Cordelia looked pensive. “When do you throw in the kitchen sink?” she asked sardonically. “Bone marrow and monoclonal antibodies? Jennifer, I’m tired, I don’t know if…” She trailed off as if she no longer had the energy for words.

  I took her hand, then knelt in front of her. “You have to. You just have to. Don’t leave me, don’t give up any chance.” Her eyes were still the blue they had been when I first saw her.

  A light that had been gone came back into them. Then she smiled at me, as if she suddenly wanted to be in a world where love was possible.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay, we try everything.”

  About the Author

  J.M. Redmann is the author of a mystery series featuring New Orleans private detective Michele “Micky” Knight. Her last book, Water Mark, won an Over the Rainbow award from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Roundtable of the American Library Association and a ForeWord Gold First Place mystery award and was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award. Two of her earlier books, The Intersection Of Law & Desire and Death Of A Daying Man, have won Lambda Literary Awards; all but her first book have been nominated. Law & Desire was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle and a recommended holiday book by Maureen Corrigan of NPR’s Fresh Air. Law & Desire and Lost Daughters were originally published by W.W. Norton. Redmann was a 2010 recipient of the Alice B. Readers Appreciation Award, gave the keynote address at the Golden Crown Literary Society Conference in 2009, in 2006 was inducted as a Literary Saint into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame, and in 2011 was an invited speaker to Vassar’s 150th anniversary LGBTQ conference, Smashing History. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Hebrew, and one short story even made it into Korean. Her most recent project was co-editing with Greg Herren two anthologies, Women of the Mean Streets: Lesbian Noir and Men of the Mean Streets: Gay Noir. Redmann lives in an historic neighborhood in New Orleans, at the edge of the area that flooded.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Burgundy Betrayal by Sheri Lewis Wohl. Park Ranger Kara Lynch has no idea she’s a witch until dead bodies begin to pile up in her park, forcing her to turn to beautiful and sexy shape-shifter Camille Black Wolf for help in stopping a rogue werewolf. (978-1-60282-654-0)

  LoveLife by Rachel Spangler. When Joey Lang unintentionally becomes a client of life coach Elaine Raitt, the relationship becomes complicated as they develop feelings that make them question their purpose in love and life. (978-1-60282-655-7)

  The Fling by Rebekah Weatherspoon. When the ultimate fantasy of a one-night stand with her trainer, Oksana Gorinkov, suddenly turns into more, reality show producer Annie Collins opens her life to a new type of love she’s never imagined. (978-1-60282-656-4)

  Ill Will by J.M. Redmann. New Orleans PI Micky Knight must untangle a twisted web of healthcare fraud that leads to murder—and puts those closest to her most at risk. (978-1-60282-657-1)

  Buccaneer Island by J.P. Beausejour. In the rough world of Caribbean piracy, a man is what he makes of himself—or what a stronger man makes of him. (978-1-60282-658-8)

  Twelve O’Clock Tales by Felice Picano. The fourth collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist Felice Picano. Thirteen dark tales that will thrill and disturb, discomfort and titillate, enthrall and leave you wondering. (978-1-60282-659-5)

  Words to Die By by William Holden. Sixteen answers to the question: What causes a mind to curdle? (978-1-60282-653-3)

  Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright by Justine Saracen. Love does not conquer all, but when all of Europe is on fire, it’s better than going to hell alone. (978-1-60282-652-6)

  Night Hunt by L.L. Raand. When dormant powers ignite, the wolf Were pack is thrown into violent upheaval, and Sylvan’s pregnant mate is at the center of the turmoil. A Midnight Hunters novel. (978-1-60282-647-2)

  Demons are Forever by Kim Baldwin and Xenia Alexiou. Elite Operative Landis “Chase” Coolidge enlists the help of high-class call girl Heather Snyder to track down a kidnapped colleague embroiled in a global black market organ-harvesting ring. (978-1-60282-648-9)

  Runa
way by Anne Laughlin. When Jan Roberts is hired to find a teenager who has run away to live with a group of antigovernment survivalists, she’s forced to return to the life she escaped when she was a teenager herself. (978-1-60282-649-6)

  Street Dreams by Tama Wise. Tyson Rua has more than his fair share of problems growing up in New Zealand—he’s gay, he’s falling in love, and he’s run afoul of the local hip-hop crew leader just as he’s trying to make it as a graffiti artist. (978-1-60282-650-2)

  Women of the Dark Streets: lesbian Paranormal by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman, eds. Erotic tales of the supernatural—a world of vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, and demons—by the authors of Bold Strokes Books. (978-1-60282-651-9)

  Derrick Steele: Private Dick—The Case of the Hollywood Hustlers by Zavo. Derrick Steele, a hard-drinking, lusty private detective, is being framed for the murder of a hustler in downtown Los Angeles. When his brother’s friend Daniel McAllister joins the investigation, their growing attraction might prove to be more explosive than the case. (978-1-60282-596-3)

  Nice Butt: Gay Anal Eroticism edited by Shane Allison. From toys to teasing, spanking to sporting, some of the best gay erotic scribes celebrate the hottest and most creative in new erotica. (978-1-60282-635-9)

  Murder in the Irish Channel by Greg Herren. Chanse MacLeod investigates the disappearance of a female activist fighting the Archdiocese of New Orleans and a powerful real estate syndicate. (978-1-60282-584-0)