by Alison Kent
He and Perry stood behind the counter, five feet from the corner where the frame around the stairwell’s entrance no longer held a door. The outside wall between the first floor and the landing shared the exterior’s brick.
And that was where Jack saw the light.
Not a direct source like a lamp or a flashlight or even a flickering candle flame. This was a wisp. And it floated. Floated and swirled over what he swore was a woman’s figure in a long, formfitting dress.
He stepped from behind Perry, but she grabbed his elbow and stopped him from moving closer. He frowned, but he didn’t argue. He was too busy arguing with himself.
He could not believe, did not believe, that he was seeing what he was seeing. It had to be the same trick of the light from earlier, the one that had turned the shop into Munchkin Land. He wasn’t buying that he was seeing a ghost. No flippin’ way.
“I’ve only seen her three or four times in my life,” Perry whispered. “Della’s seen her more, but then she’s lived here longer than I did. This was the apartment building where she and my father grew up long before she opened Sugar Blues.”
He filed that away, still certain this was all about boxes with false bottoms and suspended panels he couldn’t see. “She died here, you said. The singer?”
Still holding on to his arm, Perry nodded. “From a fall down the stairs. Though everything pointed to the fall being suspicious.”
“Was there an investigation?” he asked, watching the ebb and flow of the ethereal light, listening to the faint murmur of song.
“A cursory one is all I found records of.”
“You’ve researched the death?”
Again, she nodded. “You live with a ghost, you get curious.”
In the next second, the song ceased as abruptly as if someone had turned off a CD player. The stairwell went dark in a flash. It was the strangest thing Jack had seen in a while—at least the strangest he wasn’t able to explain.
Except the explanation became clear in the next moment when the sudden loud thump that followed turned out to be Della hobbling down the stairs.
Perry rushed forward. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I was. I think it was Sugar who woke me,” Della said, leaning heavily against Perry until Jack moved forward to take her weight. “Jack. You’re still here.”
“He was camping out in the kitchen in lieu of a lock on the door,” Perry said, brushing loose hair back from her aunt’s forehead.
“I’ll finish with the deadbolt tomorrow,” he said, his arm around Della’s waist. “And pick up paint once you tell me what color.”
“Oh, Jack,” Della said, her brow lined with worry. “I’m afraid I have bad news. I believe Dayton Eckhardt may be dead.”
IT WAS FOUR in the morning when Perry helped Jack get Della settled in the kitchen. She sat in one chair, propped her bandaged foot in another. Once she was situated, Jack rolled up his sleeping bag and carried it out to his SUV. Perry put on a pot of coffee.
She doubted any of them had plans to go back to sleep, then wondered if Jack had slept at all. He’d been wide awake when she’d come downstairs an hour ago, and he’d certainly shown no signs of being tired since.
She could not believe that she’d kissed him, or the way she’d tried so desperately to crawl into his clothes and down his throat. She’d met him at most eighteen hours ago, yet had gone after him like she hadn’t had a man in, well, longer than she cared to admit.
It wasn’t like Sugar Blues was a convent; she waited on plenty of male customers, flirted with more than a few. Then there were her male neighbors at Court du Chaud, with whom she teased and bantered regularly. And, of course, the male friends she’d made while living and working in the French Quarter.
But it had been many years since there’d been a man who lit the spark necessary for her to want to take things further.
Jack did. And in a very big way.
Standing in front of the steaming coffeemaker as the carafe filled, she cursed her renegade thoughts. She didn’t like having to force her mind away from kissing Jack to focus on her aunt’s needs.
Neither did she like the way Della’s revelation had put a huge scowl on Jack’s face before he packed up his gear. The truth was she didn’t like thinking about Jack at all. Except that was a big fat lie.
Pulling three mugs down from the cupboard, Perry glanced to the side and caught her aunt’s gaze. “How’s your foot?”
“It hurts, but I’ll be fine,” Della said, brushing away the concept of pain as nothing.
Perry looked up at the clock on the wall behind the table. “You’re due for another pain pill.”
“And I took it before I came downstairs.” Della repositioned the cushion beneath her heel. “What I want to know is what I interrupted by doing so?”
Perry felt her color rise. “Nothing, what do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.” Della arched a wise brow. “What’s going on with you and our new handyman?”
“He’s not new, he’s temporary, and I was trying to get him to open his mind about Sugar.”
“A worthless endeavor, of which you should be well aware,” Della said with a sigh. “Perry, sweetie, you can’t force anyone to see what they don’t want to see.”
“I know.” And she did. It was just hard to believe Jack—or anyone—couldn’t see the same things that were so clear and so real to her. She poured her aunt’s coffee. “He may not have opened his mind completely, but he knew she was there.”
“He told you that?” Della asked, taking the cup from Perry’s hand.
“No. But I could tell. She wasn’t just singing this time. We saw her.” Perry picked up her own cup at the same time Jack walked back through the door.
“I’m not surprised that you did,” Della said.
Perry’s only response was to offer coffee to Jack. He took the mug, asked, “Did what?” then blew across the surface and sipped.
“Saw Sugar,” Perry replied, watching his expression as she brought her own mug to her mouth.
He didn’t respond except to move to the table and pull out a chair opposite Della’s. Once he sat, he still didn’t say a word about having seen Sugar’s ghost.
In fact, he seemed to dismiss both the subject and the incident without another thought, turning to Della to ask, “What makes you think Eckhardt is dead?”
Della cradled her mug and frowned as she stared down. “The intensity of the visions. Perry can tell you that when they’re at their worst, I can be out of commission for hours.”
When Jack looked over, Perry nodded, causing him to narrow his mouth and prompt Della further. “So what’s different now?”
“I hate to say it, but it’s been the case that the less painful the visions, the larger the threat or the more—” she fluttered one hand, then used it to push strands of hair from her face “—the more violent the outcome.”
Jack brought his mug to his mouth, held it there but didn’t drink. “I’d think the opposite would be true.”
“That would seem to be the way of things if this gift had any basis in logic. But it’s nothing I can control or anticipate.”
“The sign on the front of the shop. You do readings, right?”
“Yes, but that’s a more focused application of my gift. What comes to me in visions is nothing over which I have any discipline.”
“Does the name Dawn Taylor mean anything to you?” he asked, with a quick change of subject.
She frowned as she thought, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Should it?”
“She’s the reporter who wrote the story connecting you to Eckhardt,” Perry said, joining them at the table. “Jack plans to ask her a few questions today.”
“I wish I could give you something concrete to work with, Jack. Or that I had better news,” Della said, wincing as she shifted her foot.
But Jack was intent on his coffee and seemed a thousand miles away. “Perry said I could use the bathroom d
own here to clean up.”
“Oh, of course,” Della said, returning her cup to the table. “Please, make yourself at home. Especially after all the help you’ve been.”
Jack snorted. “I haven’t been that much. The door still needs to be painted and the deadbolt installed.”
“Which will take too much time out of your day when you have an investigation to conduct. You do that, go about your business. I’ll call my regular repair service.”
“No,” he argued. “I’ll pick up the paint while I’m out and finish with the door this afternoon.”
Perry silently wondered about his insistence. If he was that interested in seeing to the repairs, or if there was something else he wanted from Della. If there was more to his visit than he’d yet to reveal…unless he was actually considering their kiss in his decision to hang around.
She couldn’t gauge anything by his expression, but kept her gaze on his face when she said, “I offered him the bed in the utility room.”
“Where are you staying while you’re in town, Jack?”
“Nowhere yet. I just got here this morning. Uh, yesterday morning.”
“Well, the utility room’s not much, but you’re welcome to it. If Perry wasn’t using her old bedroom upstairs, I’d offer you that.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find a place—”
“You could stay at mine,” Perry put in before thinking about what she was saying. Having Jack out of temptation’s reach felt so much safer than having him here.
“That would be the perfect solution. You could keep an eye on Perry’s place while she keeps an eye on me.” Fighting a sly smile, Della reached over, patted then squeezed his forearm.
But before either Perry or Jack could reply, the sly smile disappeared. Della’s hand began to shake. And the look that came over her face couldn’t be described as anything but abject horror.
“Oh, Jack. I’m sorry. So very sorry. No man should ever suffer so.”
JACK’S VISIT WITH Dawn Taylor had been a bust. The woman had fit him in between two phone calls while standing behind her journalistic integrity and insistence on protecting her sources.
He’d left after fifteen minutes of working for nothing, figuring he’d do better online starting with the Times-Picayune archives. All he needed was a Wi-Fi connection for his laptop. Then again, he could deal with dial-up if that was all he’d have at Perry’s.
Parking his SUV in the space behind her townhouse, he tried not to think about what Della Brazille had seen in her kitchen when squeezing his arm. Or what she thought she’d seen, because he had a hard time believing she’d seen anything at all. Especially not the truth.
He didn’t talk to anyone about his tour of duty. About being recruited into special ops and assigned to a detachment based on psyche tests and stamina and weapons proficiency, when in reality he’d been twenty-two years old and still struggling with the rift in his family caused by his decision to join the Corps.
There was nothing about him exceptional enough to have caught anyone’s eye. He should’ve been able to serve his four years and go home, but he’d stayed for twelve. He’d seen things he didn’t want to talk about, done things he didn’t want anyone to know. Lived through things no one ever should.
Yet with no more than the touch of her hand to his arm, Della Brazille had divined everything…unless what she’d seen had been the prelude to his long military stint. The choice his father had given him that hadn’t been a choice, but an ultimatum he’d lacked the maturity to face.
His sister’s battle with Batten disease, a fatal, inherited disorder of the nervous system, had taken her and his mother to Johns Hopkins and Baltimore during his senior year. His father had kept an apartment in Austin, though he’d spent only a night or two there each week. That left Jack, at seventeen, virtually on his own.
The agreement was that he’d rejoin the family after graduation and attend college in the northeast. It didn’t matter that he’d been accepted at UT, or that he’d counted on being a longhorn since the first time he’d seen Bevo, the school’s mascot, as a kid. The family needed to be together, his father said. All of them. For his sister’s sake.
When the time had come for him to move, Jack had balked. His group of friends in Austin—the deck—had been the only family he’d known for the twelve months prior. They’d been the family he’d counted on while his parents devoted one-hundred-and-ten percent of their time to his sister.
They had, in fact, shown him the truth of what family was all about. He’d fit in. He’d played a part. He’d eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the Schneiders, Randy’s family. He’d gone skiing over Christmas vacation with Ben and the rest of the Tannens. All of them—Jack, Ben, Randy, Quentin and Heidi—had spent spring break at South Padre Island. And they’d kept each other out of trouble and on the straight and narrow throughout their senior year.
He hadn’t been the one whose opinions were never sought, whose questions were never considered, whose needs had taken a back seat. Who’d been as invisible as Sugar Blues’ ghost. Janie had been sick for a very long time. Jack had ceased to exist in his parents’ eyes, way before the final move.
Staying in Texas wasn’t a show of rebellion. It was a show of standing on his own, of being the adult he’d been told for years he needed to be. His father had refused to allow it. He would move from Austin or there would be no money for school. Jack had been left little choice, his longhorn dream punted to the far side of a four-year enlistment.
Four years, that became eight that became twelve. Janie had died during the fifth year. She’d been only sixteen to his twenty-two. He hadn’t seen his parents since attending her funeral and standing alone at the rear of the church. Even now, thinking of her life cut so short, of her suffering…he choked, swallowed, shook off the emotion. He could never take back that he hadn’t been there for her. And sharing his regrets wouldn’t do anyone any good.
If that was what Della had seen…well, whatever it was, he hoped she’d keep her secrets to herself and not share them with Perry.
Pity was the last thing he wanted.
He hadn’t seen either woman when he’d dropped back by Sugar Blues to finish up with the door. It had taken him the better part of the afternoon to install the dead bolt and put up a coat of primer. He could’ve done more, but rain was threatening, and he was beyond beat.
Kachina Leaping Water, the Native American seer Della employed, had been the one to give him the key to Perry’s townhouse when he’d gone into the shop to find her. He hadn’t needed directions; he remembered both Court du Chaud and Café Eros. He’d just wanted to make sure the offer to bunk at her place was still good.
He could easily have found a room at one of the Quarter’s many bed-and-breakfasts. Or even at a hotel. Thing of it was, he liked the idea of sticking close to Perry. A sort of sticking that had nothing to do with what her aunt did or did not know about him or his case or his background, and had everything to do with that kiss.
He climbed down from his Yukon, grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat and headed for her door. He was curious to see if she’d decked out her home to look like Sugar Blues, with all its crystals, candles and statues of fairies that looked as if they should be baking cookies in an oven inside a tree.
The key in the lock, he pushed her door and let it swing open while he stood in the entrance taking it all in. He should’ve known. No beads or Buddha figurines for this woman.
Scarves draped over lampshades turned the walls into a rainbow. He could barely see her sofa, buried as it was beneath a mountain of pillows. And there wasn’t an inch of wall not covered with art prints and posters.
“Jack, oh,” Perry yelped from the hallway door, drawing his gaze that way. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
Obviously. She wasn’t wearing anything but a towel. He reached for the doorknob. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, wait.” She reached out, halting him with the hand not holding the towel to her chest.
“I was going to put on the kettle for tea. Let me dress. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
Nodding, he dropped his duffel bag at his feet. “Sure. I’ll wait.”
The look that came over her face, the light that sparkled in the dark centers of her eyes, her smile that spread until her cheeks plumped like red apples, all of it should have warned him away.
Instead, he headed into the kitchen, filled her teakettle from the spigot on the refrigerator door and set it on the stove while he waited.
She was back in minutes, toweling water from her hair and wearing a black T-shirt and a skirt with more colors than he could count. Not surprisingly, her feet were bare.
“Sorry about that. I came home to nap while Kachina handled the shop. But I couldn’t sleep—” she shrugged, tossed the towel to the countertop and shook out her hair “—and I thought a shower might help.”
He wasn’t certain if she meant it would help her sleep or help her stay awake. He wasn’t certain what to say because he hadn’t expected to find her here, and because she smelled so damn good. Like oils and incense. “I can leave, or just get a hotel room.”
“No. Stay here, please. I like the idea of the place not being empty.” The teakettle whistled, and she glanced over, the smile returning. “Thanks. Do you want a cup?”
“Sure,” he said, moving aside as she took over the small kitchen.
She lifted the kettle from the heat, and quickly grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and teabags from the pantry. Steam rose when she poured the water, deepening the color on her face. He leaned against the counter behind him, hooked his palms over the edge and watched her.
“How did things go with the reporter?” she asked as she emptied the kettle and returned it to the stove.
He shrugged. “Not so good.”
“You didn’t learn anything you can use?”
“The only thing I learned is that she doesn’t have time to give. Only to receive.”
“How so?”
“She’s got a great information flow going. All of it incoming. I’m lucky I got the time of day.”
