“Kiss me like that and no one will think we are anything but lovers.”
He immediately let me go, and I felt a little wobbly on my feet for a moment. Then the knowledge of what he had just done hit me. I reached up to slap him, but he grabbed my arm and pinned it behind me, holding me close against his body.
“I knew it was there inside of you waiting to get out,” he whispered as his breath burned against the nape of my neck. “I could feel you stirring beneath my lips. Keep that passion, and we’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“You bastard!” I growled.
“No, Nicci, from now on I’m your bastard.” He released my arm and pushed me away. “Don’t ever forget it.”
I glared at him as he walked back to his side of the bed. “How could a man like David ever have been friends with the likes of you?” I lashed out, my voice filled with anger.
He stopped and the muscles in his back tensed. When he turned to face me, I could see pain in his eyes. Gone was the cold as stone countenance that had greeted me every second of every hour for the past two days. I immediately regretted my words. He was doing this for David. We both were.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I shook my head. “I guess coming home and being with my family…” I took a breath, trying to quell my frustration. “I promise I will work harder at being a convincing couple.”
Dallas ran his hand over the back of his neck and sat down on the bed. “I’m pushing you too hard. You’ve only had two days to get ready whereas I…” He sighed. “All the hours David spent telling me about you makes me feel as if I know you better than I know myself.”
I sat down on the bed across from him and smiled. In that moment, I felt a connection with him. I wanted to break through the barriers between us and get to know the Dallas David had known.
But Dallas quickly turned away from me. He rolled over on his side and pulled the covers around his body. “Go to sleep, Nicci. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
I glanced over at his back and felt the frost instantly return between us. I crawled into bed and turned out the light. For the first time in over two years, I did not wish to dream of David. I wanted my mind for once to go blank and forget about the past. For the first time since David’s death, I just wanted to disappear.
Chapter 9
The next morning Dallas was up before me, and by the time the sun had reached the windows to my room, he had already showered and dressed. I yawned lazily as I glanced up at the handsome stranger hovering over my bed.
“It’s after eight,” he said, tapping his watch. “Time to get up.”
I pulled the covers closer to me. “I’m on vacation.”
“This isn’t a vacation, Nicci.” He threw the covers off me. “Today you are going to show me the sights.”
I laughed at him. “The sights! What do you want to see first? The devastation in the Lower Ninth Ward, the obliteration in Lakeview, or the half-assed patch job on the Seventeenth Street Canal by the Corps of Idiots?”
“I want to see where David lived. Then I want to take a look at the homes of Eddie, Sammy Fallon, and Michael Fagles.”
I raised my eyebrows playfully. “Are we casing their joints?”
He lifted me out of the bed and plopped my feet down on the cold hardwood floor. “No. We are learning everything we can about our suspects. I want to see how and where they live. It will help me.”
“Help you to do what?” I asked as I walked to the bathroom.
“To push them and get them to crack.”
I stopped and watched from the bathroom door as he filled the pockets of his jeans with his wallet and some change.
“Simon called you a precision instrument. What exactly did he mean by that?”
He kept his eyes focused on the dresser before him as he spoke. “I’m extremely efficient at what I do. And I do whatever is necessary to get the job done.”
“No matter how many lives you might destroy in the process?”
He turned to me and shook his head. “Men like me don’t give a damn about anybody else. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
“And what about me?” I moved toward him, searching his eyes for some speck of emotion. “Am I as disposable as all the rest?”
He just scowled at me like a statue. Then he looked down at the expensive stainless steel watch on his wrist.
“Hurry up, I want to be on the road in thirty minutes,” he mumbled. He turned and walked out of the room, slamming the bedroom door behind him.
* * *
I took him to Lakeview where the post-World War II homes had not fared well after being inundated with black water for over a month. Everywhere the bright orange National Guard crosses were painted over windows and doors, announcing when and if any animal or human bodies had been found. Some of the houses were gutted, leaving the naked studs inside many a structure to dry out in the humid southern climate. Large mounds of furnishings, warped sheetrock, and duct-taped refrigerators littered the curbs along the streets. Most of the tall, majestic oaks that had filled this part of the city were also gone, replaced by gaping holes that scarred the earth like pockmarks on a beautiful woman’s face.
Worst of all for me, from the grass to the beautiful gardens that had graced this neighborhood, everything that had once been green and filled with life was now brown and dead. It was as if the devil himself had blown his putrid breath over this city and killed every living thing in his path. People always used the term “come hell or high water”; after Katrina I learned that first comes the high water and then comes the hell.
“Jesus!” Dallas whistled beside me as we drove down a dirt-covered street. “You see this stuff on the news, but you never realize how bad it really is.”
“But the water was only the beginning,” I said.
As Dallas took in the destruction around us, I wondered how to explain what the city had been through to an outsider. New Orleans had been decimated with “the new normal” taking over what FEMA had left behind. Beneath the streets, water mains continually broke, making bathing an infrequent occurrence. Electricity came and went, leaving many to rely on their generators. Cell phones stopped working and landlines were the last vestiges of communication linking us to the outside world. Crime took over, making looting, shooting, and anarchy a familiar pastime for the citizens of our city. And circling above us like a pack of scavenging buzzards, the world media documented each and every labored breath of our recovery. New Orleans was hurt, bleeding, in pain, and lost. Where in the hell was Superman when you needed him?
I pulled my Nissan Pathfinder up in front of the little blue shotgun double I had frequented so long ago when David had lived there. Like many others in the area, the home had not yet been gutted and looked as battered and muddy as the day the water went down. The house had also shifted a few inches off its raised foundation, leaving the structure tilted and dangerously unstable.
Gone were the two towering oaks that had once graced the front garden. The inviting porch I remembered with its comforting shade and array of potted plants was now covered in mud, dead leaves, and an assortment of trash. The front doors to each of the residences had been ripped off their hinges and an orange cross lay spray-painted between them.
“David lived on the left side of the cottage,” I said as my nostrils immediately filled with the lingering stench of rotting vegetation in the air. “Cora was his landlady. She lived on the right.”
Dallas inspected the property. “I remember David mentioning her. He seemed to care for her a great deal.” He turned back to me. “What happened to her?”
I strained to contain the thunder of pain inside of me. I looked away and focused on the orange cross spray painted between the two front doors.
“Nicci, are you all right?” Dallas asked as his hand rested upon my right shoulder.
“Cora died here.” My bottom lip began to quiver. “The obituary in the newspaper said her body was found in the attic.” I paused and tried to
sigh, but the breath caught in my throat. I remembered Cora’s vibrant Cajun accent, the bright ribbons she wore in her hair, and the way her living room had been filled with dozens of dolls. “She loved this place and probably stayed to protect it, like a lot of others did. They thought they could ride out Katrina because they were veterans of other storms. But no one ever believed the levees would fail.”
His hand gently squeezed my shoulder. I turned to Dallas as the tears filled my eyes.
He wrapped his arms about me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “I should have known this would be hard for you.”
I let my body retreat into his. His arms warmed the chill that had settled over me, and soon I felt my sorrow subside. I took a breath and smelled his spicy cologne. His hand gently stroked up and down my back in a soothing rhythm that helped calm me. I nestled my head into the recesses of his neck and sighed with relief to have found a few moments of peace in a world up-ended.
Then as the torrent of my emotions subsided, I suddenly realized what I was doing and quickly pulled away.
“I gave her one of David’s paintings after he died,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “That was the last time I ever saw her.” I reached up and angrily rubbed the tears from my eyes. “I’m sorry I got so upset.” I looked away to the cottage, not wanting Dallas to see my embarrassment.
He placed his hand on my chin and slowly turned my face to his.
When his dark blue eyes met mine, my heart rose into my throat and my mouth went dry.
He took his hand from my chin and caressed my cheek. “Don’t ever apologize for being yourself.” He reached over and brushed aside a lock of auburn hair that had settled over my face.
“I thought you would be angry because I’m not hiding my emotions like I should.”
“What makes you think I want you to hide your emotions?” Dallas asked, his voice soothing.
“That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
He quickly redirected his attention to the devastation outside. “It must have been wonderful here before the storm. I can see why David loved this area.”
My heart sank as I contemplated the man’s profile. All the tenderness I had felt between us only moments before had suddenly dissipated. I turned to the cottage, longing to reach back to the past and rekindle the feelings of warmth and completeness I had known in David’s little studio.
But once my eyes settled over the remains of the little blue double, all my comforting sentiments left me. So much gone. So many happy memories reduced to a pile of unsalvageable trash. God was so merciless in that way. He gave you memory to be haunted by, but took away all the physical landmarks associated with that memory. Places, people, and even your own physical appearance changes, making you doubt if any of those joyful recollections ever really took place at all.
I put the car into gear, fighting the shadow of regret that had settled over me.
“I’ll take you to Sammy’s place,” I said as we started down the dirt-covered street. “She and Michael live uptown. The devastation was not half as bad there.”
“That’s good. I can’t imagine what it was like to live through Katrina. Must have been so hard to pick up the pieces and start over.”
“It was hard in the beginning. First you cry and then…”
“Then what?” he inquired as husky his voice filled the car.
“Then you just go numb.”
* * *
Sammy’s lavish light pink antebellum mansion, set in one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods, still looked the same. The oversized gothic pink fountain was still bubbling away on the front lawn and the same two stone lions were still on duty guarding the walkway to her pink and ivory stained glass front door. I parked my Nissan Pathfinder at a discreet distance from the house, just as Dallas had instructed me.
“She won’t recognize the car,” I told him as we inspected the house. “It’s new.”
“One of the perks of being a successful writer?”
“No, a practical alternative. A tree landed on my Honda Civic during the storm. I got an SUV because it can drive through deep water and haul large amounts of supplies.”
He nodded to Sammy’s mansion. “Charming place, if you like pink.”
“Yes, it is definitely Sammy.”
“Stands out in a crowd, does she?”
“Only from the front.” I laughed.
Dallas smiled. “Does Eddie live close by?”
I shook my head. “No, Eddie still lives with his mother. He has always lived with her. After he was married to Colleen, they both lived here.” I waved to the house. “Sammy insisted on it. She is very protective of her only child.”
Dallas grinned. “And how does Eddie feel about that?”
“The same way. He’ll beat up any man who shows the slightest interest in his mother. He even put an old boyfriend of Sammy’s in the hospital a few years back.”
“Well, we already knew he had anger issues.”
“After his Divorce from Colleen, he went to Tulane for a while to get an architectural design degree, but he was expelled for punching a professor. Sammy ended up giving him a job in her company, but Colleen told me he never shows up, and when he does, he’s usually drunk.”
“Will he be at any of these parties we’re going to attend?”
“He’ll probably be at BeBe Comeaux’s New Year’s Eve bash at the Hilton. My father told me hers is one of the few parties still on after the storm. And Val will be having a party at her new place in the French Quarter after New Year’s.”
“Can we get him invited to that one?”
I glanced over at Sammy’s pink house. “He and Sammy are part of the social set in the city.” I sighed as I thought of Eddie and his many problems. “No matter how drunk he is or how many people he beats up, he’ll be invited.”
“And what about the Fagles guy?” Dallas persisted.
“I heard his private practice took a nosedive after we broke up but it has apparently picked up again since the storm. Everyone in the city needs a psychiatrist with a ready supply of antidepressants these days.” I shook my head and turned to Dallas. “But I doubt if Michael will be invited to any of the parties. He’s not considered socially prominent enough to be put on anyone’s guest list.”
Dallas zeroed his frigid eyes on mine. “We need to make sure he’s invited. What about Val? Can she get him an invite?”
“I can call Val and find out. But she will ask a lot of questions about why I want Michael there. Especially if I am supposedly with you.”
He furrowed his brow. “Why can’t you just tell her you would like to see Fagles again?”
I frowned at him. “She won’t buy that. She knows how I feel about Michael.”
“Make her buy it, Nicci,” he said in a harsh tone. “Tell her you want to introduce Michael to me.” He chuckled sarcastically. “Val would believe that and she probably would enjoy rubbing the doctor’s nose in our relationship.”
I glared at him. “Val wouldn’t do that. Think what you like about my family, Dallas, but they are not stupid and cannot be easily manipulated. You need to come up with a better plan.”
Dallas ran his hands through his hair. “I knew I should never have allowed Simon to talk me into bringing you on board. You’re an unpredictable variable.”
“What do you mean I’m an unpredictable variable?”
“It means I can’t control you. When people know too much about an assignment, they’re a liability. That’s why I always work alone.”
“Well, excuse me for screwing up your plans,” I said, raising my voice, “but this isn’t an assignment, Dallas. It’s my life. Maybe you and Simon should have taken that into consideration before you brought me into this mess.”
“But we’re here now, Nicci, and we have to figure this out.” He rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what do you think we should do?”
If I had been a psychotherapist, I would have sworn the man just had a break
through.
“Well, I guess I could tell Val I want to see Michael because I feel guilty about how we ended and I would like to apologize.” I thought about what I had just said and then nodded. “That she probably would believe.”
“I’m glad we’ve overcome that hurdle,” Dallas grumbled. “If you come up with any brainstorms about catching our killer you just let me know.”
So much for the breakthrough, I thought to myself.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, having had about enough of his patronizing attitude.
“No. Now take me to Fagles’ place.”
I folded my arms across my chest in silent protest. “You like giving orders, don’t you?”
He kept his eyes on the street ahead of us. “I find it saves time and leaves little room for negotiation.”
“It also makes you come across as a real condescending ass.”
He turned to me and gave a fake smile. “Anything else you would like to tell me, sweet cheeks?”
I kept my expletives to myself and put my hands on the steering wheel, squeezing the soft leather with all my might. I then took a calming breath, put the car into gear, and pulled out into the street.
* * *
It took less than five minutes to arrive at the cottage owned by Michael Fagles. The outside of the place was the same as I remembered. A plain, unassuming Creole cottage painted to appear like one of the more ornate uptown homes in the city. It reminded me of Michael in a way, dull on the inside and flashy on the outside.
“The guy has strange tastes,” Dallas commented as he examined the house. “Green and purple?” He pointed to the green plaster and purple shutters decorating the exterior of the home.
“Michael is a big Mardi Gras fan,” I explained.
“Looks like he’s been doing a little work on the place.”
I scanned the front of the cottage. “Seems that way. The gardens are new, as is the walkway. Probably trying to show all his neighbors how successful he has become.”
“Why did you ever take up with this guy to begin with?” Dallas probed as he turned to me. “From the things you already told me about him, he sounds like a jerk.”
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 40
