Hattie’s scowl was fearsome. “She’s never given a damn about a man before and I aim to save her some heartache. If you don’t have the good sense to see something fine right before your eyes, you don’t deserve her. Get on outta here.”
Zeke sat frozen in his chair. Hattie was right. He should leave. Now. His life allowed for dalliances, not constancy. And he liked it that way. Trula deserved more. She’d be better off without him. He’d go. All he had to do was stand and walk through that door.
Hattie leaned over him, her finger wagging like a metronome. “You hurt Miz Trula, you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
He stood abruptly. This was what came of getting too deeply involved with women. Threats and confused emotions and anger and…Trula standing in the doorway wearing a lace peignoir tied with ribbons the color of ripe peaches, her hair cascading across her shoulders like liquid gold.
“Hattie, I’ve been looking everywhere for—oooh.” She drew the last sound out when she saw him. A nearly overwhelming desire to kiss the perfect circle of her pink mouth grabbed hold of him.
“I came to apologize.” Her skin looked impossibly smooth and his fingers itched to touch it. He fisted his hands and shoved them in his pockets. “For last night.”
She stiffened, then wrapped the robe more tightly around her delectable body. While the filmy lace covered her from her toes to her neck, it also showed off every curve. The woman didn’t even need a corset. How would it feel to trace her curves with his fingers, with his tongue? His mouth went dry as old bones.
Trula lifted her chin to a familiar, aloof tilt, the one that hinted she’d like to string him up by his heels.
Hattie glared at him and muttered, “Love ain’t blind but it sure enough is stupid.” She bustled out of the room without further comment.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
He shoved a lock of hair away from his eyes. “No. Hattie told me you were sleeping.”
She stared down at her bare feet and Zeke joined her. Buffed nails peeked from beneath the hem of her peignoir. Even her toes were beautiful.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you last night. I know you didn’t mean to make that idiot man bleed all over my carpet.”
He wrenched his gaze from her feet to her face. She’d apologized. In a way. How could any woman be so stubborn? Then she smiled. It curled the corners of her pink mouth; it was incredibly provoking.
The curve of her lips made his heart beat faster. “You’re the one who broke his nose.”
“He had it coming.”
“I thought southern women were delicate flowers.”
She chuckled deep in her throat.
Zeke gulped. Who knew blood was combustible? Who knew laughter could light the flame?
“They’re not,” she said.
It required every bit of self-control he possessed not to take her in his arms.
“Southern women are tough as shoe leather and mean as a nest of angry cottonmouths. Believe me, Mr. Barnes, if I was a real southern woman, I would have broken your nose, too.”
“You act like a native.” She left rum for a voodoo queen, she flirted, she beguiled men. She beguiled him. “You drawl like one.”
Again her laugh stirred his blood. “Mr. Barnes, if you live here long enough, even you might drawl, darlin’.” She exaggerated her accent. “It’s like Spanish moss or kudzu, it takes hold, then it takes over.”
“I suppose I’d better not let it take hold.” The sound of her voice conjured more intimate scenes. Scenes that involved fewer clothes. Her skin in the morning light looked velvety smooth. Her hair shone like sunlight on water. Her body, barely covered by the lace of her peignoir, called to him. She looked like an angel. She was an angel—an irritating, pugnacious, beautiful angel. He wanted her. Desperately. And he had no intention of remaining in New Orleans. Hattie was right about him. He rubbed the tense muscles at the back of his neck.
“I wouldn’t worry too much, Mr. Barnes.” She glanced at the floor, hiding a flash of emotion. Sadness? Regret? “I imagine it would take a lifetime to affect a Yankee like you.”
She thought he worried about the South taking hold of him? She was wrong. He worried about a woman taking hold of him. He worried she already had. He exhaled slowly. “I find I’m much affected.”
“The South sings a siren’s song. When you’ve moved on” —her voice hitched— “when you’ve moved on and can’t hear it any longer, it will fade from memory.” The sun caught her in a shaft of light. Would he ever forget the sight of her near naked in the sunshine? Doubtful.
“There are songs that can change a man forever.” Those songs were dirges. He closed his eyes on Trula’s beauty and his mind filled with images of Bess. Bess bloodied. Bess terrified. Bess clutching his hand as if he could save her. He hadn’t. He was better off alone. And nothing and no one—not even Trula Boudreaux—could change that.
Trula’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “I’ve never heard such a song. Not even a southern one.” The smile lurking at the corners of her lips had well fled and she straightened her shoulders. “Thank you for your apology, Mr. Barnes.” She donned her madam face: lovely, capable, distant. “How much longer will you be in New Orleans?”
“Until the murderer is caught.” What could he do to bring Trula back? He wanted the woman behind the mask.
“Do you have any suspects?” she asked.
“No.”
“There are six men dead.”
He didn’t need reminding.
“Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong places.”
“Do you know something?” His voice was sharper than he intended.
She glanced around the parlor, regarded the floor, then twisted the ring on her right hand. “If I knew anything that would make a difference, I’d tell you. If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do. Good day, Mr. Barnes.”
“You do know something.”
“Nothing that would help you. Some secrets aren’t mine to share.” She turned in a swirl of floating lace and disappeared through the door.
Every vertebrae in Zeke’s neck ached. He rubbed and his fingers elicited little pops of relieved tension. He ought to stay away from her. It would be better for both of them. But she knew something about the murders. What?
Chapter Eleven
If Zeke Barnes caught the murderer, he’d leave New Orleans. Forever. Life would go back to normal. Trula’s struggle with her insane desire to kiss him would end. The nightly dreams of his hands on her body would fade. Her heart, no longer in jeopardy, would harden.
The thought was enough to send her to places she ought not go.
She checked her appearance in a shop window. Her hat’s straw brim perched atop her curls at a jaunty angle. She adjusted the brim then straightened her shoulders and gingerly closed her fingers around the grimy door handle.
A tinny bell jangled. She took a last deep breath of fresh air and stepped inside. The too-warm room smelled like dust and death. No surprise, not with the snake skeletons and twisted roots that crowded the counter. Was that a cat’s skull? Trula shuddered. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
Silence answered her. The shop exuded evil, as if something dark and horrible slithered behind its cluttered counters, stalking anyone who made the mistake of darkening its door. Generally, only ghosts scared her. She might have to make an exception for Bony LeMoyne’s shop. Trula turned to the door.
“How may I help you, ma’am?” A deep voice rumbled toward her, shaking the bottles lining the shelves on its way. “You need a love potion? Maybe you want to hex a rival?” The laugh that followed the question telegraphed menace. “That’ll cost you.”
“No.” Trula’s hand still rested on the doorknob. It wasn’t too late to run. A smart woman would turn the knob, open the door, and flee. She stood firm. “I need information.”
“That’ll cost you, too. Turn around. Who am I doing business with?” The depraved laugh rolled over her again.
She released the ha
ndle and turned.
“Trula Boudreaux.” The man pronounced her name like she was a piece of candy—all sugar, no substance. He recognized her? How? She’d hoped to buy what she needed without sharing her name.
As if he read her mind, the skeletal man laughed again. “I seen your picture in the Blue Book. Now, how ‘bout you tell me what brings the most beautiful woman in all New Orleans to my shop?” The man didn’t sound like a threat; he sounded like a sweet-talker.
She tilted her head and look up into murky brown eyes surrounded by a frightening face. She’d heard stories about Bony LeMoyne—mean as a cottonmouth and twice as deadly. Smart women avoided him. Yet, here she stood in a shop filled with all the ingredients needed for the type of voodoo that earned its practitioners one way tickets to hell. She gathered her courage. “I want to know who in New Orleans can call a spirit. I’ll pay for the information.”
LeMoyne rubbed his chin. “Why is that?”
Trula raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you care what you sell is used for?”
His gaze met hers. Trula suppressed a shiver and raised her chin. The man in front of her was a predator. If he sensed any fear, he’d view her as prey.
A slow grin slinked across his face. “It’ll cost you two hundred dollars.”
“One.”
“For one, I might forget to put everyone on the list.”
“One-fifty.”
He considered her offer behind hooded eyes.
Trula watched him the same way she’d watch a snake or an angry alligator.
“You got a pencil?” he asked.
Trula reached into her bag and withdrew a tiny leather bound book and a pencil.
“Eulie Echo, Mama DeDe, Doctor John, Big Daddy Boog, Desdemona, Granny Amzie, and me.”
She wrote the names. “That’s it? In all of New Orleans only seven people can call a spirit?”
The dark laugh slithered around her again. “You ain’t lookin’ for a little spirit, Trula Boudreaux. I reckon it ain’t no small loa puttin’ wrinkles on your pretty face. Gotta be big enough to murder a handful of white men. Gotta be smart enough to elude the police and that Yankee.”
“Which spirit?”
“I’m bettin’ Kalfu or Baron Samedi or Marinette walk the streets.”
Kalfu was the devil himself. Baron Samedi was death. “Who’s Marinette?”
Bony LeMoyne’s laugh swirled around the cluttered counters and settled onto the grimy floorboards. It was too easy to imagine it coiling around her ankles.
“You know about what happened in Haiti? The revolt? It’s going on a hundred years ago.”
She swallowed. “No.”
“It was a bloody war.” He ran his tongue over gleaming teeth. “The slaves rose up and massacred the French. They did it with Marinette’s help. Two things you oughta know about Marinette. She has a thirst for blood and she sets those who follow her free.”
“Free?”
“Free from the bonds of suffering.”
Cold pricked her skin.
Bony LeMoyne missed nothing. He saw her fear and his eyes lit like candles.
Trula squared her shoulders and held up her little book. “You’re sure about these names?”
“I’m sure.”
Struggling to keep her fingers steady, Trula withdrew three fifty dollar bills from her bag. She pushed aside a mangy stuffed cat and laid them on the filthy counter. With a swish of her skirts, she turned to leave.
His voice stopped her. “Whoever is calling the loa ain’t gonna take kindly to you interfering. Some of the people on that list is more dangerous than the spirits they call.”
“Is that a threat?” Did he hear the tremor in her voice? Did he hear her fear? She inched toward the door.
“Consider it a friendly warning.” No one had ever sounded less friendly.
“I’ll do that.” Trula opened the door and stepped into the afternoon sunshine, blinking rapidly until her eyes adjusted to the light. After the dimness of Bony LeMoyne’s shop, the world looked bright. And after the smell of decay that filled her lungs in Bony’s store, the heavy, humid air smelled sweet as springtime. She breathed deeply and waited for strength to return to her knees.
The temptation to pull the red leather book out of her bag and review the names was enormous.
If she did, she might as well take an advertisement in the Times-Picayune announcing her purchase. Inside the shops lining the street, and in the rooms above them, too, curious eyes peered around curtains or from behind shutters and speculated what business a white madam might have with a voodoo doctor. The ghosts watched her as well. Their white eyes might look disinterested, but Trula knew better.
She strolled the banquette as if there were nothing more pressing in her life than looking through a window at a display of brightly colored shawls. An embroidered tablecloth caught her eye and she slipped inside the shop to buy it. The shop owner named a ridiculous price and Trula haggled for a piece of linen she didn’t particularly want or need. Deflecting at least part of the gossip cost her twenty dollars. Money well spent if Hattie never learned of her visit to Bony LeMoyne. She shuddered, anticipating the scolding she’d receive.
Back on the banquette, she made a production of opening her parasol and arranging her packages while she cast surreptitious glances around her. A little boy studied her, his face twisted in worry. It almost seemed as if his worry was for her. The window glass behind him didn’t show his reflection. Her breath hitched in her chest. He had to be a real boy. He was too solid to be anything else. Besides, ghosts didn’t worry, not about the living. They plotted and schemed and dripped poison in the ears of anyone unwise enough to listen to them. The visit to Bony had made her fanciful and paranoid. She lowered her gaze. When she raised them he was gone.
She searched the street and recognized the same graying man she had noticed outside her house on her way to Lulu’s. No, that, too, was a trick of the light. The man on the opposite side of the street was young with hair the same color as her own. He tipped his hat in her direction, turned his back, and walked away.
She shook her head, chasing away boyish ghosts and golden-haired gentlemen with vaguely familiar faces. She had better things to consider. Why had those particular men been murdered? If not for the fact they’d all visited colored or octoroon girls, she could almost believe their deaths random. Almost.
And why had there been no attempt at extortion? Whoever committed the murders must surely know the district’s madams would pay a small fortune to stop them.
The killings had to end. Thus far, the men who crowded the district each night had ignored the murders. That wouldn’t continue. A few more bodies found butchered in the gutter and the smart men, the wealthy men, those who visited her house, would find other entertainment. Anxiety squeezed her heart. She needed their custom to continue to take care of those who lived under her roof.
The inept police would never solve the crimes. Zeke was capable enough but a Yankee. He could ask questions until he turned blue, but he wouldn’t get any answers. With his clipped accent, he’d run smack into a solid wall of silence. The authorities would never solve the murders.
She could ask questions and get answers. She could investigate the people on Bony LeMoyne’s list. A chill slithered down her back as if a goose walked on her grave.
Every person on the list had powers she didn’t fully understand.
She’d investigate the victims first. She’d dismissed them, forgotten their names because they weren’t her customers. She would learn about them now. The women of the district would talk to her. After all, she was one of them. She’d discover who’d committed the murders, revel in the stunned expression on Zeke Barnes’s face when she revealed the murderer’s name, then happily send the Yankee packing.
Chapter Twelve
Hattie met Trula at the front door with her apron in a twist. Literally. “There’s a man in the parlor says he’s your father.”
Trula handed over her packa
ge and parasol. Her father waiting in her parlor was about as likely as a blizzard in New Orleans. “Don’t be silly, Hattie. It’s just a mountebank looking to con me. I’ll get rid of him.”
Hattie followed her to the closed door and her hand clasped Trula’s wrist. “He doesn’t act like a grifter.”
Trula rolled her eyes. “Whoever he is, he’s not my father.” She slid the door open, ready for a seedy carpet-bagger looking to con her out of saints knew what. Instead, an older man sat in her best chair. The cut of his faded hair and the expression on his handsome face suggested privilege. He even stood when she entered.
She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “How may I help you?” The chill in her voice was cold enough to freeze a bayou.
He stared at her. Not like most men did. His gaze didn’t linger on her breasts or the swell of her hips. Instead, he fixed his gaze on her face. “You look like your mother.” His plummy accent belonged in an English drawing room or the lecture halls at Cambridge.
Trula gave him full marks for staying in character. Even his clothes, cut from fine cloth, played into the idea he wasn’t a flim-flam man come to fleece her. They hung as if cut on Savile Row. The leather of his shoes held a high shine, and the gold of his watch chain gleamed.
She recognized him. She’d seen him on the street, lingering on the banquette in front of her house. Apparently he wasn’t a real estate investor after all.
“You know my mother?”
“Antoinette Boudreaux was the love of my life.”
Trula stared. He was just another Englishman, one aware of her parents’ sorry, scandalous story. He’d travelled to New Orleans, recognized the name Boudreaux, and decided to try his luck at conning her.
“How may I help you?” She kept her tone even as the surface of a skating pond.
“My name is Edward St. John.”
Trula’s heart stuttered. What if he was telling the truth? She shook her head in annoyance He was a con-man, pure and simple. A con-man giving a bravura performance.
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