A Dark Horse

by Cooper, Blayne

  A waiter moved from table to table as he lit small candles nestled into hurricane glasses. Natalie drew her fingertip through the condensation on her glass of lemonade, absently making designs on the glass as Detective Lejeune, her back to Natalie, chatted on the phone a few feet away.

  The sound of trickling water from the nearby fountain was soothing and Natalie tried to allow it to penetrate her frayed nerves. The day had been an unmitigated disaster when it came to finding Josh. When a tiny lead would appear, it would vanish with their very next stop. The teenager, it seemed, had simply evaporated into the evening mist of the city.

  Natalie quietly observed Adele, who was clearly unfazed by the heat and long day. Adele looked just as put together in her dove-gray linen pants and crisp white sleeveless top as she had the day before. This was the third phone call the detective had reluctantly stopped to take in the past hour. And Natalie could tell from the occasional snippets of conversation that had carried to her ears that Adele was being pulled from this case.

  This call, however, seemed a bit different. Whereas Adele appeared frustrated with the other calls, this time she was frustrated and annoyed. Her voice was a bit louder and she gestured vigorously with her hands as she spoke. When Adele finally turned her phone off with a short jab of her finger, she had to take a deep breath to compose herself before turning to face Natalie once again.

  Adele ran a hand through her hair, sending the blond locks into slight disarray before absently smoothing them down with one hand. “I’m sorry about that.”

  Natalie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This is where she tells me goodbye and I have to figure this out on my own. “Is there a problem?”

  Adele smiled softly and Natalie couldn’t help but return the gesture. “Of course not. I, well…we should talk.”

  Natalie gave a reluctant nod and sat a bit straighter in her chair. She lifted her glass to her lips but her stomach was churning so she set it back down without taking a sip.

  “And we should eat. I’m starving to death.” Adele unclipped her badge, gun and handcuffs and stuffed them into a large canvas purse she set next to the table. She placed the phone onto the tabletop, then unceremoniously plopped down into her seat and looked longingly at the outdoor bar. With a quick gesture to the bartender, he began pouring Adele a lemonade of her own.

  Natalie eyed the designer purse that now held the gun and badge. “Does this mean you’re off duty?”

  Adele gave her a knowing, sympathetic look and kicked out her feet in front of her. She crossed her legs at the ankles and sighed with relief. They’d easily walked twelve miles. “It means that I want to get comfortable. But I’m always a detective, no matter what I’m wearing, Natalie. I don’t just stop looking for your brother because it’s dinnertime or I’m on another case, or because…well, you’ve gone back home to Wisconsin.”

  The waiter delivered Adele’s drink on his way to a table of laughing tourists near the rear of the courtyard.

  “Back to Wisconsin?” Natalie’s eyes fluttered closed and her heart sank. “We can’t give up.” When she opened her eyes again, a few seconds later, Natalie had to blink at the sudden change; the courtyard was now immersed in soft gaslight.

  “I’m not. I promise.” To Natalie’s surprise, Adele looked stricken and reached out to grab her hand. She held it firmly. “But you’ve done what you can do and it’s time for you to go home.”

  A gust of wind tousled a strand of pale blond hair and Adele absently tucked it behind her ear, the light mint scent of her shampoo moving with the breeze. Candlelight shimmered in warm brown eyes that regarded her with kindness and determination. “Just because you won’t be here, doesn’t mean you’re in this alone.”

  The errant thought struck Natalie squarely in the chest with such force that for a second she actually forgot to breathe. She’s beautiful on the inside and out.

  “There you are!” a voice boomed.

  Adele quickly pulled her hand from Natalie’s as a tall man in his early forties, with short dark brown hair that bordered on black and a square jaw, purposefully strode toward their table. He was handsome in a rugged sort of way, with kind green eyes and a squirming child in his arms that looked somewhere between one and two years old. The toddler was dressed in shorts and a Saints T-shirt and adorably chubby.

  “Landry, we talked about this,” Adele hissed quietly. She stood and Natalie stood with her. “I’m not finished here.”

  The man glanced at Natalie, their eyes holding steady for a heartbeat before his shifted to Adele. “I heard you the first time on the phone, darlin’.” He grinned unrepentantly. “But we were already so close, I thought I’d bring Logan by to say hi to his mama.” He took his son’s hand in his and waved it at Adele.

  Natalie’s eyes widened. Detective Lejeune hadn’t mentioned a family and Natalie was sure she hadn’t seen a wedding ring. But a single look at this gorgeous baby left no doubt as to his parentage. And the man’s adoring gaze meant that he and the detective were together. With a twinge of what she knew was unflattering envy, Natalie acknowledged that they were a picturesque-looking family, like the mock photos that came preinserted in picture frames or one of those outdated Stepford-family magazines at the gynecologist’s office.

  At the word “mama,” Logan practically launched himself toward his mother, leaning dangerously far forward away from his father’s chest, arms outstretched.

  “Hello, little man,” Adele cooed as she took the toddler and settled him easily against her. With sticky fingers, he determinedly started reaching for anything he could grab, but her hair was shorn too short for him to do much damage. “Ms. Abbott, let me introduce you to my husband, Detective Landry Odette.”

  “NOPD homicide department,” he added.

  “Call me Nat—Wait.” Adrenaline surged through the professor and she gripped the side of the table to keep from crumpling to the ground. “Homicide?” This is why she was unhappy on the phone? “Oh, my God, Josh—”

  “Whoa. Whoa!” Landry’s eyes went round. “This is a purely personal visit. Nobody is dead.” A pause. “At least that we know about.”

  “Jesus Christ, Landry,” Adele groaned. She could only shake her head.

  Landry extended his hand politely to Natalie and let his words sink in for a moment before adding, “Nice to meet you, Natalie. Ella mentioned your case last night. You’re the professor from Wisconsin with the stepbrother.”

  Adele seemed embarrassed as Natalie gave her a curious look and nodded dully.

  Landry squeezed Natalie’s hand gently as they shook, his eyes kind and inquisitive as they met hers again. “I hope you’ve had better luck today?”

  Natalie looked better, but still had a slightly green tinge to her pallor. “I—not really.”

  “Don’t pass out on us, okay?” Landry said worriedly, shooting an apologetic look to his wife.

  “Natalie.” Adele took a step closer to the other woman, obviously ready to catch her should her legs give way.

  “I’m fine,” Natalie murmured, only barely suppressing the urge to swat away Adele’s concerned hands, irritated and embarrassed by her visceral reaction. “I’m fine.”

  Adele frowned and raised an angry eyebrow at her husband.

  The color fully back in her cheeks and composure firmly in place, Natalie looked to Adele in question. “Who’s Ella?”

  Adele made a face. “I never cared for ‘Adele’ but I use it at work, I guess because I’m too lazy to correct folks.” Then she focused on her son. “Ella’s what anyone who really knows me and what my friends and family call me.” She nuzzled the boy’s cheek and he erupted in a fit of giggles that left both Natalie and Landry standing with grins on their faces, utterly charmed. “Isn’t that right, sugar?” she said to the toddler as she noisily kissed his rosy cheeks. “And this is our son, Logan.”

  Natalie reached out to touch Logan but pulled up short. She was never very good with babies, and he seemed so happy at the moment that the la
st thing Natalie wanted to do was make him cry. She settled on saying, “Hi, Logan.”

  Logan looked at her with his mother’s intelligent, caramel-colored eyes. “Bye-bye,” he said enthusiastically, waving one fist. “Bye!”

  Landry laughed. “So close.”

  “No,” Adele corrected gently, adding a kiss to Logan’s forehead for good measure. She adjusted him a little higher so she could look him in the eye. “Hi. Not bye-bye.”

  His new position, on his mother’s hip, put his gaze directly in line with the gas lamp near their table. Utterly distracted, Logan flopped his head down on his mother’s shoulder and began to chew on his fist, his drool promptly pooling against the bright white cotton of Adele’s shirt.

  Adele pinned Landry with a serious look, absently running her fingers through her son’s dark hair. “Has he eaten yet?”

  Natalie stood by, feeling awkward in the midst of the familial exchange.

  A guilty look flittered across Detective Odette’s face. “We had a late lunch.”

  “Landry!” Adele’s exasperation was clear enough that even Natalie winced at the man’s impending demise.

  Landry held up both hands in good-natured surrender. “We’re on our way now. We just wanted to say hi. You eat too and we’ll see you tonight.” He lowered his voice and nudged Adele with his hip. “I’d like to spend at least a little of our day off together.”

  Natalie shifted uncomfortably, guilt assailing her. Detective Lejeune had spent her entire day off with her. When she caught up with Joshua, she was going to hug him for a week, then kill him. Slowly.

  Adele passed her son back to Landry then rose to her tiptoes to brush her lips against Landry’s cheek, scrunching her nose up as she placed a second kiss against the heavy five o’clock shadow on his chin. “I still need to go to the Dixie Brewery.”

  His expression darkened. “Ella—”

  “I’ll be fine.” Adele’s tone left no room for argument, but she squeezed his forearm in a gentle show of affection. “Now feed him and yourself, and I’ll see you later.”

  Landry looked like he wanted to argue, but then thought better of it. “It was nice meeting you, Natalie.” Landry settled his son against his broad chest. “If anyone can find your brother, it will be Ella, here. She’s one of the NOPD’s brightest stars.”

  Adele rolled her honey-brown eyes, but looked pleased at her husband’s obvious pride.

  “You too, Detective Odette.” Natalie glanced at the baby who was babbling happily to himself. “Bye-bye, Logan.”

  Hearing his name, he sat up, suddenly alert, and waved one hand wildly. “Hi!”

  Adele rolled her eyes again and puffed out a loud sigh, but both Landry and Natalie couldn’t help but chortle.

  Alone once again, the women sat back down and a waiter discreetly placed two menus before them. The sun had completely disappeared, providing a blessed respite from the heat, and the courtyard was bathed in the golden glow of flickering flames.

  Cringing, Adele situated her purse at her feet. “I’m sorry for that. I told him I was working, but he was only a half a block away at his mother’s souvenir shop when he called. I don’t think he could help himself.”

  Natalie waved away Adele’s concerns. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t blame him for wanting to see you. He’s adorable, by the way.”

  Adele’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “Landry?”

  Natalie’s lips curled. “I was thinking Logan. Landry isn’t my type, but…” she tilted her head to the side, her hair shifting over her shoulder, “at least he wasn’t drooling.”

  A burst of laughter had Adele nearly choking on her lemonade. She lifted her napkin and dunked it into her water glass and made a face as she blotted the damp spot on her blouse. “Don’t let Landry hear you say that. He thinks he’s everyone’s type.”

  Not everyone’s. Natalie held in a sigh. For a few minutes, neither woman spoke. The courtyard was starting to fill with couples and small groups for dinner, their conversations animated and lively. It was a comfortable silence during which Natalie listened to the wind as it gently rustled the bushes near their table, bringing with it the faraway scent of rain and a feeling that this fruitless day was finally coming to a close. Almost. “You mentioned someplace called the Dixie Brewery…”

  Any lingering mirth remaining in Adele’s expression instantly dried up. “It’s my stop right after dinner.”

  “But—”

  “My stop. As in police only.” Detective Lejeune paused as though waiting for another objection, not bothering to hide her surprise when Natalie conceded with the tilt of her head. “It’s an old, abandoned beer brewery in Mid-City where the down-and-out, mostly addicts and nonfunctioning alcoholics, go for a place out of the rain or where they can sleep.”

  Natalie’s jaw sagged.

  “I know a lot of the regulars and they know me. The uniforms clean it out fairly regularly, but the regulars just keep cutting through the fences and coming back. It’s not a nice place, but it’s where I sometimes find runaways or older teens who are too spaced-out on drugs to do much more than lay around.” Adele set aside her menu with a deep frown. Apparently, they’d both lost their appetites.

  Natalie swallowed thickly. “Addicts? Nonfunctioning alcoholics? But-but that’s not Josh.”

  “I doubt this will pan out, but I’m going to check there to be sure. Kids somehow find their way there. It’s the last obvious place to look.”

  “He won’t be there.” Natalie scrubbed her face with her hands, her skin feeling unnaturally warm. “I don’t want him to be someplace horrid like that, but then I do, because I can take him home.”

  Adele’s eyes softened. “Natalie.”

  Natalie held up a hand. “I’m sorry. My emotions are all over the place.” She licked her lips nervously and blinked back the hot sting of tears. “We aren’t going to find him, are we?”

  “I don’t know,” Adele whispered, voice unexpectedly thick. She reached out for both of Natalie’s hands, cupping them carefully between hers, as though they were being held there for safekeeping.

  Even though Natalie had already surmised that Detective Lejeune was a tactile person by nature, often reaching out to make contact as she spoke, this gesture was somehow oddly intimate for virtual strangers, and Natalie felt a corresponding tightness in her chest at the comforting sensation.

  Adele squared her shoulders and warned off their approaching waiter with a single unwavering look. “Are—are you ready for me to tell you what I really think?”

  “Not even close.” Natalie let out an uneven breath. “But tell me anyway.”

  Adele nodded slowly, reluctantly, compassion shining in her eyes. “We’ve already checked all the usual places. I’ve put out feelers all over the city to every one of the contacts I’ve made in my five years as a detective. We’ve been to all the hospitals, and I-I checked the morgue.”

  Natalie flinched as though she’d been slapped. Thoughtfully, the detective had done that outside her presence.

  “He hasn’t pawned his horn, there is no money or employment trail, we have no reason to suspect foul play, and he hasn’t used his phone in a few weeks. He’s old enough to get around on his own, and he’s not alone. As far as we know, he is with his girlfriend. If he was just living his life normally and oblivious to the fact that his family is desperate to reach him, we probably would have already run across at least one of them by now. This means that if he’s still in the city, chances are he does not want to be found. And, I’m sorry, Natalie, if that’s the case, we probably won’t find him until he’s ready.”

  Anger and fear boiled sickly in Natalie’s stomach and she laid a flat hand against the clenching flesh. “So I just stop trying? Jesus, he’s my brother. How do I just go back home and go to work as if everything is just fine?”

  “I didn’t say that you give up on him.” Adele’s soft drawl was deeper than normal, and more fervent. “It’s not giving up to go home and live your life. Jo
sh needs to come to you now. Doing what we’ve been doing will not find him if he doesn’t want to be found.”

  Adele reached out and tenderly wiped a glistening tear that had escaped down Natalie’s cheek. “You won’t forget about Josh, and neither will I. And, Natalie—” Their eyes met and held. “I never give up. And I never stop looking. It’s who I am.” She smiled reassuringly, the gesture brimming with resolve. “It’s what I do.”

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

  Two years and one month later…

  Rain emptied from the sky in great sheets, drenching New Orleans in a gushing blanket of warm water. Thunder boomed so loudly that it drowned out the sound of the rain and shook the broken glass panes in the windows of the Dixie Brewery.

  Built in 1907, the old brick factory stood in ruins, a haunted relic of better times…of times before an apocalyptic hurricane, and looters, and promises of repair and refurbishment that never came. Old, ruined machinery, garbage, and shredded, water-damaged furniture was strewn about in chaotic piles.

  Doors, long torn from the hinges and tossed into splintered piles, provided an all-access pass to the sprawling building. Crumbling walls gave way to uneven stacks of bricks and lowly burning fire pits used by its residents. There was no need for heat in the late summer night, but the fires provided enough light to walk through the rubble and acted as gathering points for homeless companions.

  But on this night the sky lit with such frequent bursts of blinding lightning that, at times, it seemed like afternoon, and the pits sat dark and moldering, unused.

  Misty laughed hysterically as she and Joshua Phillips flopped down into a pile of dirty blankets. They missed the soft landing they’d anticipated as the cardboard boxes they were aiming for shifted out from beneath them. Her voice echoed in the cavernous room.