by Linda Ladd
Claire was still grilling the kid and rather expertly, too. She was a good cop, all right. She probably should’ve stayed on with official law enforcement. Again, he wondered if she’d last long without her badge.
“So you met her at a party. Whose party was it?”
“Just a party. You know, don’t ya? Those stinkin’ frat houses have ’em somewhere every weekend. I got some friends over there. They invite me. The jocks know how to party it up.”
“Yeah? And you get the invite ’cause you bring the goodies, right? Who was Andrea with?”
“Some guy and some girls, too. Don’t know ’em.”
“Describe them.”
“Well, I guess the guy was big, kinda looked like one of those football jocks, I guess. Not as big as him, though.” Carver pointed at Novak. Novak just stared back at him until Carver averted his eyes and gazed down at the floor.
“What color hair and eyes? Black guy? White guy? C’mon, kid, give us something.” Claire was frustrated as hell, all right, and getting more so. He had a feeling that had gotten her in trouble a few times.
“Okay, okay. He was white. So was the girl.”
“Did you get their names?”
“No. She called him honey pie, you know, something cheesy like that.”
“Come on, they had to have names. Think.”
“Uh. C’mon, lady, I don’ know nothin’ else. Man, you just oughta calm down and smoke some weed or somethin’. You’re way too tense and up tight, you know that?”
“Names?”
“Oh, all right, Andi called her Drew or Lou, somethin’ like that. The guy was callin’ her Hot Stuff mostly.”
Novak said, “Five-two, stringy short black hair, spaced out, junkie? Name Pru?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“What about the other girl?”
“Andrea?”
“No, you said there was more than one girl, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, so? I don’t remember what she looks like. I didn’t take no pictures of her. I was just hangin’ out, havin’ some fun, man.”
Claire said, “You take any pictures at that party?”
“Hell no, you think I’m crazy? Not the way everybody was drinkin’ and smokin’, and screwin’. Some of those girls were underage, freshmen, and stuff. You think I’m that stupid?”
Claire grimaced. “Well, yes. You are that stupid.”
Yep, Novak liked her. He said, “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Saw who?”
“Andrea Quinn.”
“’Bout a week ago, I guess. Down there on Bourbon coming out of some bar, but she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. She said for me to quit botherin’ her and leave her alone. Said I better stay away from her. She looked different, too. Scared, maybe, or somethin’, you know? And she’d got some new tattoos on her that she didn’t used to have. Friggin’ creepy kinds. You know, that circle thing with a star in it.”
“You talkin’ about a pentagram?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what you call it.”
“Where was it?”
“On her ankle. It was kinda little but it was new. I like to look at her legs so I saw it, and I woulda noticed that before, too, ’cause I don’t like that kinda devil worship thing much. Not into it like some guys I know.”
“Who’s into it?”
“I dunno. I was just bein’ general, you know, stuff like that.”
Claire frowned and glanced over at Novak. “She say why she was scared?”
“No, she didn’t say nothin’ about bein’ scared. I just thought she looked like it. She just said I had to leave her be. She said for me to stay the hell away from her from now on. That I’d be better off.”
Novak said, “What fraternity had that party?”
“I don’t remember. They all sound alike to me. A bunch of mumbo jumbo in a foreign language. I like American kinda talk.”
“Well, what’d you remember?”
“I remember that the other girl had some tattoos, too.”
“What kind?”
“You know, the same kind. With those devil symbols. You know, those same star things that they like to draw on the floor in movies before they whack sacrifices and drink their blood and stuff. All that kinda creepy shit.”
Great, thought Novak. Pentagrams meant these kids probably were dabbling in black magic and witchcraft. Maybe even in some kind of satanic cult. That didn’t bode well for the Quinn girl. That didn’t bode well for any of them. The kid named Prudence who had committed suicide right in front of them had also been talking about demons and devils, and right before she went hysterical and jumped out the window. The blood-spattered pentagram poster hanging on her wall also fit that equation. And Andrea was her roommate. Yeah, everything was pointing to some kind of a satanic connection, and that was not good, not good at all.
Claire was still staring at the kid. “Anybody you know into devil worship, kid?”
“No, like I just told ya, that kinda stuff scares me shitless, that and all that voodoo and hoodoo shit that goes on down in the bayous. I ain’t never been into that kinda stuff. That kinda stuff gets you killed. You know, human sacrifices suck.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies, Carver. So you are telling us that she’s into devil worship?”
Carver just shrugged. “I hope not. She’s too cool for that crap.”
“You mentioned a bar on Bourbon that they hang out in. Which one?”
“I think it’s called Devil Dead, you know, that one with all the devil stuff and pictures of Satan and stuff hangin’ around on the walls. I think that’s the one. I was pretty wiped that night. All the kids go there, you know, the ones who’re into Twilight and those kinds of shitty movies. Paint their lips and fingernails black, go down there and drink, and pretend it’s all real. Stupid, real stupid. Get hurt doin’ that stuff.”
“Why’d you go there, if it’s so stupid?”
“Some of those girls are cute when they dress up like that. They get drunk, you know.”
“Yeah, afraid I do. Did you see where she went after she told you to get lost?”
“No. I took off.”
“Did she leave alone or with those kids wearing satanic symbols?”
“I don’ know, I’m tellin’ you. Hey, I don’ have to talk to you anymore. This is my house and you ain’t the cops. You need to get outta here and leave me be.”
“If you want to find that girl that you think is so cool, you will shut up and help us find her. She’s gone missing.”
The kid’s face dissolved into a very real shocked expression, but not enough to sell Novak that he didn’t know more than he was telling them.
“Gone missin’? You shittin’ me? Really, she’s missin’, for real? Nobody knows where she is? Pru don’t know where she is?”
“Pru’s dead.”
At that tidbit of information, the kid blanched to a color approximating white rice, and then just crumpled down onto the floor in a loose-limbed heap. “No, no, no, Pru’s not dead? She can’t be dead. You sure?”
Novak said, “Thought you didn’t know her, Carver? And yes, we’re sure. She jumped out of her dorm window this morning around ten o’clock.”
“But she couldn’t’ve. She’s all the way up on the top floor.”
Neither Claire nor Novak felt any need to reply to that. Not much one could say. The ramifications would come to him after he came down some. They left him sitting there on top of a pile of dirty clothes, looking sick to his stomach. He yelled after them as they stepped out onto the landing.
“You tell Andi to call me when you find her. Tell her I need to see her. It ain’t freakin’ fair that she dumped me like this. I didn’t do nothin’ to deserve that. Oh, God, Pru’s dead. No, no, this’s all a dream and it’ll all go away when I wake up.”
Novak said, “Sorry, kid, that’s just not gonna happen.”
Novak and Morgan walked back to the car in silence, each of them think
ing about what Clarence Carver had told them. They got in and Novak stared at Carver’s house a moment, then glanced over at Claire. She met his gaze steadfastly.
“I don’t like where this is going, Novak. Not one bit. Satanic stuff makes me nervous.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But we’ve got a couple of leads now. Let’s go back to campus and see if we can find anybody else in that dorm wearin’ satanic tattoos.”
“You read my mind. Something’s screwy about all this. I don’t like it. I’m just sayin’.”
“I don’t, either.”
Claire waited for a late-model silver Tundra to pass by, and then she pulled the Range Rover out onto the street. “Well, we’re gonna find her, bet on it. I just hope she hasn’t gotten herself into something that she can’t get out of.”
Novak didn’t have an answer, but he already knew this case was not going to be easy. Nothing about it was going to be easy. Claire Morgan knew that, too. He could tell by the somber, worried expression on her face.
Chapter Eight
On that first day back from Tahiti, Nicholas Black had been so overwhelmed with the work that had piled up in his two-month absence that he could barely keep his head above water. Everybody wanted a meeting with him. First at his psychiatric clinic at the Hotel Crescent and then at the hotel itself, one staff member after another, problems or impending problems, and all major enough that nothing could wait until later. So it went, all day long, and was still going on.
The worst thing he’d seen, though, by far, was a new patient with whom he’d met for the first time that day. The fifty-seven-year-old woman was suffering flashback nightmares of a horrible plane crash. Her small jet had crash-landed in the Pearl River in southern Mississippi, a catastrophic accident that she had only barely survived with extensive burns and major injuries. Everyone else on the flight, including her husband and children, had perished. The trauma was slamming her hard mentally, physically, and emotionally, and she was having a difficult time dealing with being confined to a wheelchair.
It was an awful case, bad enough that he had worked with her for most of the afternoon. That emergency had messed up his flight to Miami for yet another consultation on another difficult case. That one involved a man who was forced to watch his wife and mother-in-law raped and murdered at the hands of a pair of brutal home invaders in their supposedly safe and secure gated island community. Hell, Black was going to need therapy himself before this day was over. Fortunately, Claire was his best therapy, and he looked forward to seeing her for dinner because he was probably going to have to work some long nights over at the hotel clinic for a while.
In truth, the only bright spot in anything that had happened since they had returned home was Claire’s decision to go private. No more pursuing insane serial killers in blizzards, no more trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night, and no more injuries that he had to doctor and bandage and worry about. And most of all, no more eighteen-day comas, when he didn’t know if she would ever wake up or not. That thought alone, and the relief that it brought to him, was enough to make him feel content, because at least in his personal life, something was going right. For the first time that he could remember, he hadn’t worried about Claire all day long. Yes, he was more than relieved that a guy like Will Novak was now along for the ride.
Thank God, Will had agreed to sign up, at least until Claire got her own license. By then, she would be used to the new parameters and comfortable going it alone, if that’s what she wanted. At the moment, as he headed across the Hotel Crescent’s lush gardens toward their own walled, private courtyard, he hoped to hell that she was already home and in time for some nice, quiet down time. That’s all he wanted now, at the end of one hellish day. Just some peace and quiet, and Claire, safe and sound, and sitting beside him.
Punching the security code on the gate, he was immediately gratified to see that Claire was already home and sitting outside at the dining table near the central fountain. Oh, God, was that ever a welcome sight for sore eyes. Back home by six o’clock, for a change, just like regular people who didn’t get injured or shot at every single day. Such a thing had rarely happened when she worked homicide. Eager to find out how her first day had gone, he increased his step and hoped hers had gone better than his had. He called her name when he neared the table, knowing better than to sneak up and startle her, for fear he’d end up on the ground with a Glock 19 stuck in his neck. Claire didn’t like surprises.
She turned around quickly and gave him one of her big smiles, which was always a good sign. Maybe they wouldn’t even have to discuss over dinner some horribly mutilated murder victim that she’d found. He smiled, too, happy; that is, he was happy until he saw her bloodstained white polo shirt with the sleeve ripped up to her shoulder and a bandage wrapped around her upper left arm. His pleased expression died before it had even gotten started. He stopped in his tracks, disbelieving what his eyes were seeing.
Claire said, “Don’t look like that, Black. It’s just a scratch. Come on. Sit down. Have a drink. I’m fine.”
Black could not believe it. He could not believe it. “What happened this time?”
“Sit down. Relax. Have that drink. It’s nothing, I said. Don’t worry about it. You hungry?”
Black pulled out a chair and sat down across from her, but he didn’t relax, and not worrying about it was just not going to happen. “Let me take a look at that stab wound. It is a stab wound, I take it?”
“No need. I’m good to go, I tell you. It doesn’t even hurt much anymore. The EMTs took care of it this morning.”
“My God, Claire. What is it with you? Good God Almighty, are you serious?”
Yes, he knew that sounded like he was a bit upset, but he was upset. More than upset. All his hopes that she wouldn’t get hurt anymore went sliding down the drain. On her first day off homicide. For God’s sake, what was it going to take?
Claire actually dared to laugh at his expression. “Why are you gettin’ so bent out of shape over this? It’s just a little scratch. I’ve had worse; you know that good and well.”
Black knew that good and well all right. She’d been beaten almost beyond recognition the last time she’d faced a brutal serial killer, but he’d been so hopeful this time. Hopeful that all that was over, once and for all. Done. Finished. But no, of course, it wasn’t. Because he was talking about Claire Morgan, wasn’t he? He just couldn’t win, no matter what he did or what he said. He took a deep breath, tried to settle down. She was still laughing at his concern, and that irked the hell out of him, too. But he forced down his anger and remained calm. “This is your first day as a private investigator, Claire. I had hoped you’d come home unscathed. Just once in your life, I had hoped that you might not run into trouble.” He took a deep breath. She was not taking it seriously, and he didn’t like that, either. “So, go ahead, Claire, tell me what happened.”
“Good grief, you really need to fix yourself a stiff drink or something, Black. I mean chill already. I ran into a drug-crazed college kid with a very sharp pair of scissors. She came at me so quickly and unexpectedly that I couldn’t duck out of the way in time. It was just a glancing blow, though. Pretty much just hit the fleshy part of my arm. It didn’t hit a bone or anything. Some butterfly bandages and betadine. They said I’m gonna live, if that makes you feel better.”
“That’s not funny. And I will take that drink.” He got up and walked over to the bar and pulled out a bottle of Chivas. He poured a single, and then made it a double, and then took a deep drink and said, “Okay, who was it? She’s now in jail, I take it?”
“No, she’s pretty much dead. Not long after she stabbed me, she took a nosedive out her dorm window at Wall Residence College at Tulane, and right in front of us, too.”
Black spun around, the short glass held forgotten in his hand. “My God, are you serious?”
“As a funeral.”
“Not Andrea?”
“No. Her name was Prudence Davidson. Know h
er?”
“Never heard of her. Okay, go ahead, tell me exactly how all this went down and where Novak was at the time.” He sat back down at the table, Chivas in hand, and braced himself to hear all the gory details of Claire’s new and supposedly less dangerous job. And already a death involved, damn it. So he sat there silently and listened to Claire tell him about her first day as a private eye and wished to God that it had been less eventful. She was animated in the telling, almost excited, and that bode well for the new job. And maybe this day was a fluke; awful things like teen suicides couldn’t happen every day, no way. At least, he hoped to hell not.
“Claire, how is it you can attract trouble like nobody I’ve ever seen in my life? And I’ve seen a lot. What is it? Just a gift you were born with?”
“What can I say? I’ve always dealt with bad guys. Bad guys who commit crimes and carry weapons. Not so much anymore, though. This was a sad thing. A young girl hooked on drugs who committed suicide and is now dead forever.”
Damn it, true, all true. But he didn’t want to dwell on that. She wasn’t hurt badly this time, and that was the important thing. She was shrugging it off, and he would have to do the same. “You sure you don’t need me to stitch that for you? It looks painful. It could get infected. Does it hurt?”
“The EMTs knew what they were doing. I’m good. I’m hungry. I took one of the painkillers they gave me and then some aspirin later when it started aching again.”
“What kind of painkillers?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just took them. Tylenol, I think.”
“You should ask. There are such things as drug interactions.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Black. Give it a rest, would you? You’re acting ridiculous about this.”
