They walked up the winding staircase. Riga pointed to a closed door at the end of the hall. “Through there.”
“Allow me,” one of the bodyguards said. He opened the door, went inside. “It's clear,” he called out.
They followed him into a modern-looking bedroom. The bed was torn apart, feathers scattered across the black satin coverlet lying rumpled on the floor. Vintage horror movie posters hung at rakish angles on the walls.
Another tug. Riga walked to one of the framed posters. Lifting it, she revealed a safe embedded in the wall.
“Can you get inside?” Donovan asked.
She'd used magic to get into safes before. Since her magic had changed, that technique had as well, involving heat and flame, and risking the safe's contents. Riga bit the inside of her cheek, uncertain.
There was something in that safe she had to have.
Desire flooded her. Unaware, she stepped closer to the safe. Why was she hesitating? There was something in there she wanted – no, needed. Her lips parted. The forces were drawing in now, the above, the below, the in-between. She didn't need to call for them. They were always there. Her pulse thumped, a rush in her ears. Yes, she would have it. She wanted it. It was hers.
A rip, a tear, and something white flew towards her, striking her chest.
Gasping, she leapt back, hand to her heart.
A fat envelope fell to the carpet.
“Did that come from the safe?” Donovan asked.
Head spinning, she knelt, pressing her fingertips to the floor for balance. She'd lost control. What if she'd gone into the safe instead? Embedded herself in the wall, like Brigitte had warned? What if she’d lost control in a different way and Donovan got hurt?
“Riga?” Donovan laid a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Yes.” Riga mentally probed the safe, the envelope. The safe no longer called to her, but the envelope, smelling of copper, made her mouth water. She reached for it, her fingertips brushing the envelope in a caress. The paper was thick, rich. A dark, red wax seal affixed it shut. Through her gloves she felt its surge of power, dark and sweet and right.
“Riga?” Donovan knelt beside her.
Coming to her senses, she jerked her hand away. She stood, cheeks warming, and stepped back. “I don't think I should open it.”
Sweeping up the envelope, Donovan rose. Before she could react, he fit his finger beneath the edge and lifted the wax seal away, intact. He unfolded the sheet of parchment paper, and scanned the paper. His jaw tightened. Returning the paper to the envelope, he jammed it into his inside pocket. He glanced at one of the bodyguards. “Call the police.”
The big man drew out a cell phone and made the call.
Riga stared at her husband, willing him to tell the bodyguards to leave, to give them privacy. “The envelope's important.”
He nodded. “Too important for us to keep. The police need to see this document.”
She walked to the window, frustrated.
A car door slammed. A blue, convertible Thunderbird, top up, pulled away from the curb. Roared down the street.
“Jenny,” Riga shouted.
They ran down the stairs. He dropped the envelope beside an overturned table, and they ran outside. She hesitated by the envelope. He must have had a reason for letting it go, but it still called to her. Wrenching herself away, she followed him outside.
Halting at the curb, Donovan peeled off his gloves, his movements jerky.
The car was gone.
“Are you sure it was hers?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “She's got too much of a head start. We'll let the police chase her.”
A black and white pulled up.
Donovan told the limited truth – they'd come to visit Riga's P.R. consultant, had found the door open, gone inside, concerned she'd been hurt in a robbery, and found no one. No, they'd touched nothing, but had found some odd occult objects. Could she be connected to the other murders?
They were allowed to go.
“Our luck seems to be turning,” Donovan said. “I was afraid your detectives from the Mean Street murders would order these cops to hold us here.”
“Let's enjoy local police inefficiency while we can. The envelope—”
“Let’s get away from here first.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I need something to eat,” Donovan said. “You?”
“I'm starving.” He was stalling, and that should have annoyed her. But anxiety chilled her. Donovan never stalled.
“Good,” he said. “I know a place.”
They drove to a barbeque joint in the French Quarter. A jukebox blared an Elvis tune. The bodyguards slipped into the red booth behind them.
The waitress took their order, and Riga asked, “What did it say?”
Donovan frowned, his brow wrinkling. “It's a contract, that bet Pete mentioned, I think.”
“The bet?”
He took her hand. “The signatories agree to take your life. If they fail after an attempt, the guarantor takes theirs.”
Her breath caught. “My God. I can understand one lunatic agreeing to this, but a group?”
“You did tell me once that necromancers tend to go mad.”
“But these aren’t real necromancers. They’re dilettantes.”
“Rich, arrogant, bored... It can become a sickness.”
Riga’s smile twisted. “Affluenza?”
“It's not the first time I've seen it, though a black magic murder club is a new twist.”
Riga turned the cardboard coaster in her fingers. “That explains the pattern, at least. One attempt on my life, followed by the murder of one of them.”
“Jenny wasn't killed in her home like the others.”
“Not yet. Maybe she ran because she knew what was coming.”
“Or it's not a part of the pattern,” he said.
Which meant something else was going on she didn't understand. “You said there were signatures?” At last they had evidence for the police.
He shook his head. “There was only one name on it. Yours. At the bottom were two columns of Latin sayings, written in different hands.”
Chin lowered, she slumped in her seat. “There's a tradition in magical societies of using magical names – Latin mottos – rather than given names. Dammit. We've got nothing.”
“It might be more than you think. The ink they used looked like blood.”
That was why she'd reacted to it so strongly. “And if there's blood, there's DNA. The police have got something tangible. Finally.”
The waitress arrived with their pulled pork sandwiches, and Riga found herself truly enjoying a meal for the first time in days. A cop had once told her there was no such thing as hard evidence, there was only evidence. And they had it, at last. “I'd like to pay another visit to the Old Man.”
“What will we gain from that? He'll hardly confess.”
She laughed hollowly. “You think? He's been taunting me from the beginning. Maybe he'll let something slip. Or...” She looked out the window, thoughtful. An Asian tour group meandered past, following a woman with a pink umbrella.
What if the Old Man did let something slip? Angus had access to recording equipment.
Donovan's phone buzzed, and he checked the caller. “Ash. What did you find out?” He listened, nodded. “Right. I think you can drop it. Meet us...” He gave Riga an inquiring look, and she told him the name of the Old Man's hotel. He repeated it to Ash, hung up. “Ash followed Pete to the police station. Looks like he's taking your advice.”
So at least some good might come of this mess. If he'd gone to the police station, then Pete likely was on the up and up. And if one of the skulls they'd found belonged to his father, he could get it back. “Should we pull Ash from the tail?”
Donovan nodded to the bodyguards at the table nearby. “They're competent, I'm sure. But I know Ash, and he's encountered some of our unique problems before.”
> Donovan blotted the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “That was a neat trick with the envelope. Something new?”
“Yes,” she said. “New.” She didn't know how it had happened, but sensed it was connected to her own passage through the in-between. Whatever had happened, she'd tapped into a power beyond anything she'd experienced before, and it was terrifying.
Chapter 24
Angus and Wolfe stood on the sidewalk outside the Old Man's hotel, damp circles beneath the armpits of their tees. Sweat beaded Angus's forehead, pink from the sun and the reflected light off the brick building. The dog panted by his side.
Wolfe's skin had turned swarthy, his long sideburns piratical.
“I brought it.” Angus pulled a filigreed pendant on a long chain from his pocket. He fiddled with its base and handed it to Riga. “It's ready to go.”
“Thanks.” She slipped it over her head. The necklace contained a miniature microphone. The number of people involved in this investigation made her itch with annoyance, but at times they came in handy. “What's the range?”
“As long as you're within five hundred yards,” Angus said, “I'll be able to pick up and record the sound.”
Donovan lifted it from her chest, letting it dangle over one finger. “Not bad. It looks like something you might wear. Do you think the Old Man will be able to detect it?”
“Fingers crossed he doesn’t.” She didn't want to discuss the Old Man's magic in front of the two young men.
“Have you heard from Pen?” Wolfe asked.
“No,” she said. “You?”
He shook his head.
There was a shout up the street.
Ash jogged toward them. He clapped the two bodyguards on the back. “Take a break.”
They nodded and strode off.
“We shouldn't stand out in the open,” Ash said.
Donovan glanced at Angus.
“Wolfe and I will wait at that café across the street,” Angus said.
Lightly, Donovan laid a hand on the small of Riga's back, and the three strolled into the cool of the hotel lobby.
The desk clerk glanced up, running a hand over his balding scalp. “May I help you?”
“We're here to see the gentleman in room 105,” Riga said.
The clerk put down his pen, his thin mouth turning down. “I'm sorry, he checked out thirty minutes ago.”
Riga stopped mid-stride. “What? How?”
“I didn't see him leave,” Ash said, his face darkening.
“He's quite ill,” Donovan said, “wheelchair bound, and his nurse was no longer with him.”
“Ah yes, what a tragedy.” The clerk shook his head. “He must have found a substitute, because they left together.”
“They?” Riga asked sharply. Her fists tightened, fingernails digging into her palms. “What did his nurse look like?”
“Like...” The man trailed off, frowned, looked down, straightened his papers. “I'm sorry, what?”
“You were telling us about the Old Man's new nurse,” Riga said.
“Ah, yes. He had a new nurse.”
“And what did that nurse look like?”
The clerk blinked, swallowed. “Looked like?”
“Was it a man or a woman?” Donovan asked.
“I don't...” Blinking rapidly, he ran his hand over his head. “Strange, I can't remember at all. I know he had assistance. Someone was with him. I suppose I was busy, must have been distracted by another guest...”
“May we see his room?” Donovan asked.
“His room? But I told you, he checked out.”
Donovan rested his hand on the desk and slid it close to the clerk's.
The clerk made a quick swiping motion, and his face smoothed. “Ah yes, his room. Many potential guests like to see vacant rooms in case they may stay here in future. I'll take you.”
“Just the key, if you don't mind,” Donovan said. “We know the way.”
The clerk passed him a key and returned his attention to the computer screen.
They passed through the lobby and into the courtyard. The air was soupy, Riga's hair coiling and damp about her neck.
“I was watching. I'd swear he hadn't left.” Ash brushed against a potted fern. “There's no way he could have gotten past me.”
“There's more to that Old Man than meets the eye,” Riga said, grim.
“But—”
“You're a bodyguard,” Donovan said, “not a private eye. Forget about it.”
The fountain splashed, and a breeze ruffled the leaves of the palm plants. A uniformed maid stopped her cart outside room 105. She slid a plastic key into the door.
“Just a moment.” Donovan hurried forward and said something to her in a low voice.
She nodded and rolled the cart away. If he had passed her money (and Riga was fairly certain he had), Riga hadn't seen the transaction.
He ushered them into the room. Blinds drawn, it was dark, stuffy. One of the double beds was rumpled.
Riga walked to the garbage bin beside the desk, turning it over. Nothing fell out. Towels lay on the bathroom floor, but the room was otherwise immaculate. Not even a bar of wet soap beside the sink. She returned to the main room.
Ash knelt, peering beneath a bed.
Donovan pulled out the drawers, closed them. “Nothing.”
“All right.” Letting her eyes drift shut, she relaxed, feeling outward with her sixth sense.
Nothing.
Returning to the bathroom, she ran her fingers along the damp sink and sniffed them. Salt water. He'd magically cleansed the room, and she'd no doubt she wouldn't find so much as a nail paring. But she went through the motions anyway, crawling on the carpet looking for traces of hair.
“I got something.” Straightening, Ash held out a colored bit of cardboard.
Donovan took it, his forehead wrinkling. “A matchbook? Where did you find it?”
“Someone was using it to even out the table leg.”
Riga sniffed. She didn't smell cigarette smoke and had never seen the Old Man smoking. The nurse?
Donovan handed it to her, and a faint ping rippled through her awareness, a stone dropped in a pond. Not dark magic, something else. She turned over the matchbook: Voodoo That You Do Lounge.
“It just had to be voodoo themed,” Riga muttered.
“It might not be related to the Old Man,” Donovan said. “Who knows how long that matchbook's been propping up the table?”
“There's a connection.” She listened to her intuition, and that odd ping couldn't be ignored.
“Isn't that a cliché?” Donovan asked. “The old matchbook clue?”
“Yes,” she said. “The Old Man was so careful about everything else. It's hard to believe he missed this. But we have to follow up.”
“It's a set up,” Donovan said. “I'll go.”
“Or me,” Ash said.
“Donovan, you're not leaving me behind.”
“Fine. Me and Ash.”
“Are we going to have our first fight?” Riga said. “Because this is my investigation.”
“Good luck getting rid of the children,” Ash said.
“Who?” Riga asked.
“Angus and Wolfe.”
“This is my investigation!”
Donovan chuckled. “Not anymore.”
Two young men drummed on overturned paint buckets in the late afternoon heat, their dreadlocks bouncing with exertion. Donovan tossed some bills in their tip jar and pointed. “There it is.”
A sign hung beneath an iron balcony: The Voodoo That You Do Lounge.
“Cool,” Angus said.
Riga shot him a look of irritation. Donovan had been right — the investigation was no longer her own. And she didn't like it.
They crossed the street. The bar's door stood open, and a wave of chill from its air conditioner flowed onto the sidewalk, inviting.
Riga followed Donovan inside. Blinking, she let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Murals of bayou voodoo ritual
s decorated the walls — a group of people dancing around a fire, a skeleton in a top hat and tails, a woman dancing with a snake.
The younger men peeled off from the group and sat at the bar, beneath a painting of a turbaned Marie Laveau. Leaning across the bar, Wolfe said something to the bartender, pointed to the dog. The bartender nodded, brought a bowl from behind the counter and filled it with water, gave it to Wolfe. He sat it on the floor, and Oz buried his nose in it.
A hostess in a tight, black miniskirt led Ash, Riga and Donovan to a small, round table near the empty stage. “Your waitress will be here in a moment to take your order.”
“I've been looking for a friend.” Riga dug her phone from her satchel. “He was supposed to meet us here.” She pulled up the photo she'd taken of the Old Man and showed it to the hostess.
“Sorry. Haven't seen him.”
“Are you sure?” Riga asked. “Has he been here before?”
Shaking her head, the hostess dropped drink menus adorned with voodoo dolls on the table and sashayed away.
Not bothering to open hers, Riga tapped the menu's edge on the table. This didn't feel like a setup. It just felt like a bar in the afternoon. Busy, because this was New Orleans and the drinking hour got going around three o'clock. But not packed, not mad. The real insanity would begin when the sun went down.
But magic prickled her skin. Neither light nor dark, it tickled the edges of her awareness.
“Getting anything?” Donovan asked.
She knew he was asking about the magic, but was reluctant to expound on it in front of Ash. “Just a glass of champagne, I think.”
A waitress with gold bangles lining the dark skin of her arms stopped at their table, and tapped her drinks pad. Smiling brightly, she scratched beneath her denim bandanna with the end of her pen. “Can I get y'all something?”
They ordered, and Riga went through her shtick with the Old Man's photo. The waitress shook her head. “He looks sort of familiar, but we get so many in here.”
Someone shouted from the bar, and she looked up. “I'll get your drinks.”
“I do appreciate your investigative method,” Donovan said. “It always seems to involve food and drink.”
“My motto is serve, don't suffer.”
The Hoodoo Detective Page 19
