“Never!” she whispered. “I’ll be long gone before morning, dear cousin.”
Camille stared at Morris Pinard’s broad backside as he mounted the stairs. A collection of colorful oaths came to mind. Finally, one small “Damn!” escaped her lips. She had been plotting her escape all evening, but not until this very instant did she realize where she meant to go.
Cami hurried upstairs, turning in at the bedroom she shared with fifteen-year-old Lorenna. The girl was in bed, but not yet asleep.
“Cami, wasn’t it a wonderful evening?” Lorenna asked in a sleepy but excited voice.
“Not particularly,” the older girl snapped. Then she softened. “I’m sorry, ’Renna. I don’t mean to sound peevish. I’m just tired.”
“I’d be exhausted, too, if I’d danced as many times as you. You’re so lucky, Cami,” Lorenna added wistfully.
Camille allowed herself a short laugh. “Lucky?”
“Well, yes. You know what I mean. Your looks, your personality. Why, all the boys just about go crazy for you.”
Not the least trace of envy colored her young cousin’s words. For that, at least, Cami was grateful. She sat down on Lorenna’s bed and took her hand. “You know, dear girl, you’re not so bad yourself.”
Now it was Lorenna’s turn to laugh. “Me? I’ve heard what Mama says about me—‘skinny, witchy-red hair, eyes like a beagle hound.’ And I hate having to plaster my face with cucumbers and clabber every night. The freckles won’t come off, Cami. They just won’t!”
Camille was impatient to get on with her plans, but she couldn’t let her little cousin suffer this way. Lorenna was too good and sweet and childlike to be ignored.
“Listen, ’Renna, don’t ever let the things Cousin Beatrice says upset you. Mothers are like that. When their daughters are fifteen they think they’ll never be beauties. But give it time. Another year or so and you’ll fill out nicely. As for your hair, the boys will notice you especially because you’ll stand out from all the others. You don’t want to look exactly like everyone else, do you?” She laughed and squeezed Lorenna’s hand. “And, if you ask me, I think beagles have beautiful eyes.”
Lorenna giggled delightedly. She sat up and threw her arms around Cami’s neck. “I’m so glad you’re here. I wish you were my really, truly sister.” The younger girl leaned back then and looked Camille straight in the eye. “Tell me, now. Please! I’m dying to know.”
Cami frowned. “Know what?”
“Who you’re going to marry, of course. I heard Father tell Mama that you had to make your choice this very night. I want to be the first to know.” A new degree of excitement crept into Lorenna’s voice. “If I were you, I’d marry…”
“No! Don’t tell me,” Camille interrupted, holding her hands up in front of her to stop her cousin’s words. “Whoever it is, you go after him. I have other plans.”
Camille got up and started undressing, stripping off ivory lace and satin, pearls and silks, which she carelessly tossed about the room in her haste.
“What are you talking about?” Lorenna asked, distressed. “What kind of other plans? Oh, Cami, Mama hasn’t talked you into entering the convent?”
“Heavens, no! Me? A nun? Can you imagine such a thing?”
Cami flipped her fan open and gave Lorenna a flirtatious, lash-fluttering glance over its lacy edge. Then she hiked up her petticoat to display a stunning length of bare, shapely thigh.
Lorenna giggled wildly and covered her eyes. “You’re terrible, Cami! No convent, you’re right. So what about a husband?”
Camille let her fan and petticoat drop. She shook her head. “It’s simply that I can’t marry any of those boys your father has been trying to force upon me. Honestly, I feel like a slave wench on the auction block. I want a husband, yes, but I have to find my own. And when I do, he’ll be a man, not some simpering, terrified boy.”
As she said those words, a picture of the tall, dashing stranger, Victoine Navar, flashed through Camille’s mind.
“Oh, Cami, I’d be so afraid of a man!” Lorenna wailed. “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
“I haven’t the slightest notion, actually,” Cami answered in all honesty. “But I know what I’m not getting into.”
“What’s that?”
“Bed with just any boy!”
“Oh, Cami, stop it!” Lorenna gasped, hiding her head under a pillow. “I can’t stand it… I can’t stand it! I don’t even want to think about thatl”
“Nor do I, sweet cousin. At least not until I fall in love.”
Rummaging through the armoire, Cami found her favorite riding costume—the one she usually donned when she sneaked off to the swamp alone to go fishing. It was the same outfit she used to wear when she went with her father to search for Lafitte’s hidden gold. She pulled on britches, an old linen shirt, and, in her haste, heavy gloves right over the soiled white kid pair she was still wearing. Boots, a slouch hat, and a woolen cape completed her ensemble—a far cry from the pristine laces and satins of moments before. Finally, she stuffed a few clothes and personal items into a carpetbag.
“Ready!” she announced.
“Cami, what in the world are you doing?” Lorenna demanded. “You can’t mean to go out riding at this time of night. It’s too dangerous. Besides, it’s storming.”
Camille leaned down and kissed her cousin’s cheek. “I can’t tell you what I’m doing, ’Renna, or where I’m going. I don’t want to get you into trouble. My advice would be for you to tell your parents that you were fast asleep long before I came to the room tonight.” She ruffled the younger girl’s bright hair and smiled. “Smart as you are, play dumb for once in your life, won’t you? It will save us both a lot of trouble.”
“But, Cami…”
“No buts, my darling ’Renna! Cousin Morris says I must choose a husband. Well, that’s exactly what I mean to do. But he won’t be one of those goggled-eyed, panting plantation boys. When I find the right man, I’ll marry him, quick as you please. But I’ll marry for love, nothing less.”
“Oh, Camille,” Lorenna moaned, “you sound just like a character out of one of Mama’s romantic novels. Let me go with you. Please?”
“Not this time, ’Renna.” Cami pinned up her long, jet hair and plopped one of her father’s old felt hats on her head. “Too dangerous, as you said. But once I find what I’m seeking, I’ll send word.” She bestowed a reassuring smile on her cousin. “And when your time comes, we’ll find just the right man for you, too. Don’t let them marry you off in the meantime.”
The girls embraced, then Cami opened the window and climbed down the sturdy wisteria vine that grew up the side of the house. Actually, she mused, she would have been perfectly safe leaving by the front door since everyone else was sleeping by now. But somehow the start of a grand adventure seemed to require this dramatic touch.
Moments later, Camille was at the stable, saddling Voodoo, the wild stallion her father had saved from destruction, then taught his daughter to ride. Now that Edouard Mazaret was gone, no one but Camille dared try to mount the horse. The high-strung animal danced with energy, sensing excitement in Cami’s every move.
“Quiet, big fellow,” she soothed. “We’re going for a little ride, that’s all.”
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled through the night. But Cami felt fearless as she mounted, then urged Voodoo out of the stable. The storm only added to her sense of adventure.
“Free!” she cried as she whipped the bat-black horse into the night. “Free to live… to love!”
The cold rain on Cami’s face and the excitement of the moment should have kept her wide awake. But even as she drove Voodoo to top speed, she felt drowsiness setting in.
As Cami dozed off, Carol awoke.
A sharp jolt—the pirogue bumping the dock—made Carol sit up straighter.
“You back now, mam’zelle.”
The tall ferryman, Choctaw, leaned over her. He took her hand in his leathery palm to
help her mount the ladder from the boat to the dock. As he did so, he pressed the gold coin back into her hand.
“You come again,” he invited. “Anytime.”
“Choctaw, how could this happen?” Carol asked, frantic. “What about Cami? I left her out in a storm all alone.”
“She be waiting, that one, when next you return.”
Dawn was just breaking over New Orleans. Was this the same day or some time in the future? Carol wondered.
As she hurried back to the hotel, she picked up a morning edition of the paper. A Friday paper—February 28, 1992. Waves of relief washed over her.
Not until she was safely back in bed at the Hotel Dalpeche did Carol realize that she remembered in sharp detail every moment of her time as Camille Mazaret. With that realization came another—that she fully intended to take Choctaw up on his offer. She vowed to return to Cami’s time, to help Cami find her true love.
Chapter Five
The alarm clock had just rousted Frank Longpre out of bed. He ambled across the room to open the curtains and check the weather, but a figure below drew his attention.
Standing at the window of his second-floor apartment, Frank spotted a woman hurrying across the empty courtyard. Had it not been for the upturned collar of her trench coat and her furtive glances this way and that, he probably wouldn’t have given her a second look. But she moved like a criminal-type—a drug dealer looking to make an early morning score or a cat burglar on the prowl. He frowned and rubbed a hand over the bristly blue stubble on his chin. Something about her seemed familiar, but she was too far away for him to get a good look.
As the woman drew closer, she glanced up toward his window. There was no mistaking her identity then.
“Carol Marlowe!” Frank frowned.
All sorts of lurid pictures of “women-in-trouble” flashed through his mind and they all wore Carol’s face. New Orleans was no place for a lone female to be roaming around before dawn. He picked up his wristwatch from the bedside table.
“It’s not even seven o’clock yet,” he muttered. “Where the hell’s she been?”
Frank continued to watch until she disappeared into her ground-floor door across the way. Then he shrugged and headed for the bathroom. She’d probably just been out for some early sightseeing, he figured. After all, this was her first trip to New Orleans, and she hadn’t seen much the night before. Still, she shouldn’t have gone alone.
He turned on the shower and stepped in. The jets of water pelted his hard body like a wall of hot needles. Grabbing the soap—his own giant bar, not one of the hotel’s dainty cakes—he lathered his neck and torso, working his way down. A quick glance at the erection he’d sprouted brought a grim laugh.
“Hello there! Haven’t seen you up this early in quite a while. Maybe I should have taken a cold one this morning.”
Minutes later, he stepped out of the shower stall and toweled off. Then he turned on the taps at the sink and got out his shaving paraphernalia. The tiny bathroom was steamed up. Frank had to squint at the blob of white lather in the mirror, trying not to cut himself as he made quick, even swipes with his razor. The problem was, his mind wasn’t on what he was doing.
He was very confused. The sight of Carol minutes before—her glossy-brown curls wind-tousled and her cheeks rosy with the morning chill—had stirred up a lot of feelings he’d thought he would never experience again. Since Eileen’s disappearance, he’s guarded his emotions like a pit bull standing watch over a vault door. He’d rather fight than let another woman take his wife’s place. But there was something about Carol… something that crashed through the wall of defenses he’d erected over the years.
“You’re a damn fool!” he told the half-shaved, bleary-eyed guy in the mirror. “Carol Marlowe’s a professional—not interested, out of bounds, cool as a cucumber. You just leave her be, ole boy!”
Having given himself a good talking-to, Frank analyzed the situation rationally. He and Carol had hit it off right away, enjoyed a nice, casual evening. That was all—end of story! Now, he had to go and muddy the waters with something that amounted to a schoolboy crush.a d r
“Damn mid-life crises!” he growled, trying to ignore the niggling worm of embarrassment he felt. “Longpre, you’re acting like a starry-eyed, pimply-faced teenager.”
They had to work together, he reminded himself, and he didn’t want anything interfering with the case. Work came first. Always had, always would, did now!
He belted out a laugh suddenly. It came so quickly and unexpectedly that he almost took a chunk out of his left earlobe.
“Sure, buddy, work!” he said sarcastically. “As if that’s all you’ve got on your mind.”
Well, at least he was being honest with himself. He’d hardly slept at all last night, but his restlessness had little to do with that long-dead Jane Doe lying over in the morgue. It was the flesh-and-blood female who had just drifted into his life from her lofty Mount Olympus in North Carolina that had his gut tied in knots.
Guilty! That’s how he felt, he realized suddenly, as if he were sneaking around with another woman behind Eileen’s back. He hadn’t even had to be careful all these years to keep himself from getting involved. Yet he wasn’t involved, he reminded himself silently. He sure wanted to be, though.
So, what was he going to do about it?
In a flash, he decided. Nothing! “Not one damn thing!” he murmured flatly. “Just hang in there, do my work, and let nature take its course.”
He’d go to his meetings this morning, then pick Carol up at noon as planned. They had a lot of ground to cover, more than enough to keep his mind on the case. He figured she’d want to go to the morgue first thing.
“Real romantic, eh, buddy?” He grimaced at the mirror.
Still, as determined as he was to stick strictly to business, Frank couldn’t help casting a glance toward Carol’s closed door when he passed through the courtyard a little while later. He paused for a second, thinking he might pop in to say good morning. But she was probably sleeping. He paused a minute longer, then forced himself to move on.
Actually, Carol wasn’t sleeping and would have welcomed Frank’s company. She needed desperately to tell someone about the confusion of thoughts cluttering her brain.
Shortly after she’d returned to her room, Carol had given way to a serious attack of nerves. Until she took off her coat and gloves, she’d been fine. But when she looked at her hands and found that she was still wearing Camille Mazaret’s long, white evening gloves under her own woolly mitts, realization struck with a mighty blow. She had not imagined it all! This wasn’t one of her visions. It had really happened! And the stain on one of the gloves from Gerome Arneau’s greasy hand was proof-positive.
She sat curled up in a chair, staring at those gloves. They lay crumpled on the bed where she had tossed them after quickly stripping them from her trembling hands. They seemed almost alive to her—as alive as Camille Mazaret had been such a short time before.
What on earth was happening? What did it all mean? She’d experienced more than her share of psychic phenomena over the past few years, but this episode boggled her mind. Although Carol could recall everything about her time as that younger woman, she realized now that while she was “the entity Camille,” as mediums usually put it, Cami had absolutely no consciousness of Carol Marlowe’s existence.
“And why would she?” Carol said aloud. “I wasn’t even born back then, so how could she possibly have any inkling that I ever would be?”
Carol leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Very deliberately she went over the whole sequence of her morning in her mind—bit by bit, detail by detail. While she had been in the past, her entire identity had been submerged. This had never happened to her before. She had had visions of past occurrences many times, but always as an outside observer, never from the inside looking out. How could such a thing possibly be?
“This is weird stuff,” she told herself. “Too weird!”
Her lack
of rest and fretting over her strange pre-dawn trip finally took their toll. She drifted off to sleep—peaceful, dreamless sleep that she very much needed.
A knock at her door woke her shortly before noon.
“Carol? Are you in there?”
She started awake at the sound of Frank’s voice. A glance at the clock told her she’d been asleep for over two hours in the lumpy antique chair.
“Just a minute, Frank.”
As she passed the vanity, she ran a brush quickly through her hair and smeared on some lipstick. No need to dress, she figured, for a visit to the morgue. She shuddered, dreading the next couple of hours.
The moment she opened the door, Carol could see that something was different about Frank. He, too, was dressed casually, in jeans and a faded denim shirt. But that wasn’t it. There was something in his eyes, perhaps a question he didn’t quite know how to ask.
“I woke you?” he asked, glancing pointedly at his wristwatch.
Carol tried to laugh off his half-question, half-accusation. “I’ve been ready for hours,” she insisted, “but traveling always does me in. I must have dozed off while I was waiting for you.”
“You’re ready, then.”
Carol took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be. I have to admit, Frank, I’m not looking forward to this.”
Her confession obviously made him ill at ease. “Well, you don’t really have to see her, do you? I mean, what good will it do? It’s not likely you’d recognize her. I can tell you anything you need to know. Or you could just look at the photos we took and skip the rest.”
Carol raised her palms to stop him. “No, no! I really do need to have a look. To touch her, actually.”
Frank’s mouth formed a grim line. “Why?”
Carol shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, Frank. I guess the closest comparison would be a bloodhound getting the scent from a fugitive’s clothes. I need to touch the body to pick up her vibes, if you follow me.”
Whispers in Time Page 8
