She was finding it harder and harder to remember that the two of them were on opposite sides. That because of their fathers, they were natural-born enemies.
She found it harder and harder to forget the way he’d made her blood race when he’d kissed her last night. The way he’d made her heart pound when he’d held her in his arms.
He was right. The attraction between them couldn’t be denied, but Valerie had to try anyway. She reminded herself of what she’d overheard last night in the Kingsley mansion. If Brant was part of the threat to her, just how far would he be willing to go to protect his family, his father? As far as pushing her in front of a bus? Shooting her?
We Colters stick together. His own words rang in her ears, forcing Valerie to accept the reality of the situation. Brant Colter wasn’t to be trusted.
She hurried her steps, knowing that the sooner she found Naomi Gillum, the sooner she would have the proof she needed to free her father, and the sooner they could both get back to the semblance of a normal life.
She turned off Royale onto Dumaine and walked a few more blocks. After about twenty minutes or so, she located the address Harry Blackman had given her. Like many of the buildings in the Quarter, the shop was located on the bottom floor with an apartment above it. A balcony jutted over the street and the door was open. Valerie could hear a song, something soft and mournful, playing on the radio inside the apartment.
There was no sign for the shop, no advertisement of any kind, just the street number painted discreetly on the black door. Valerie had never been in anything remotely resembling a voodoo shop, and she experienced a faint prickling of anxiety as she twisted the doorknob and stepped inside.
The shop was so dimly lit that she thought for a moment it might be closed and the owner had neglected to lock up. But then she realized the dusky interior was intentional. Part of the ambience. Candles burned in wall sconces and in holders on the counter, and the scent of sandalwood and frangipani permeated the air.
The shelves behind the counter were lined with yet more candles, in all sizes and colors, along with an assortment of strange-looking roots and herbs bottled in colored liquid.
Another shelf contained brass incense burners, and yet another, straw dolls. Voodoo dolls, Valerie realized, and the candles and herbs were standard fare for the voodoo practitioner.
No one was about, but a beaded curtain covering a doorway that led to the back fluttered briefly, as if someone had been peering out.
Alarm snaked through Valerie. Ever since she’d arrived in New Orleans, she’d had the feeling she was being watched. She’d told herself she was being foolish. No one knew she was here except Julian. She hadn’t told another living soul, but in a voodoo shop, that knowledge was hardly comforting.
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Valerie stepped up to the counter and rang a small, brass bell. She kept her eyes on the curtain at the rear of the shop, and within moments, a hand with scarlet-painted nails and ornate silver rings parted the beads. A woman stepped through.
She looked to be about sixty, tall and very thin. Her hair was dyed coal black, as were the fine brows that arched over faded blue eyes. She was heavily made up, with dark blue eye shadow and ruby lipstick that seeped into the deep crevices surrounding her mouth. Tiny silver snakes dangled from her earlobes, and the black silk caftan she wore gave her the illusion of floating as she glided through the beads.
“How may I help you?” she inquired in a deep, raspy voice that attested to years and years of cigarette smoking.
“I’m looking for Marie LaPierre.”
“You’ve found her.” The woman smiled mysteriously as she made a sweeping gesture with both hands. “Do you wish a Tarot-card reading? A gris-gris to ward off bad luck? A love potion, perhaps?” she added with a sly grin as she took in Valerie’s slim form.
Valerie suppressed another shiver. She had to give the woman credit. Marie LaPierre knew how to put on a show. But what about Naomi Gillum? “I want to talk to you about Cletus Brown.”
An exploding bomb could not have shattered the quiet more dramatically. Fear flashed in the woman’s eyes before she quickly buried the emotion behind indifference. She picked up a crystal from the counter and began to polish the stone. “I don’t know anyone by that name. I’m afraid you have the wrong shop. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was just about to close for the evening.”
Not exactly true, Valerie thought. A sign at the counter advertised Tarot-card readings twenty-four hours a day. It was clear the woman wanted to get rid of her. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you, Miss Gillum.”
The crystal crashed to the floor. There was no masking the fear in the woman’s eyes now. “Who are you?” she whispered.
“My name is Valerie Snow. I’m a reporter with the Memphis Journal, and I’m doing a series of articles on the Kingsley kidnapping.”
Naomi Gillum seemed to age twenty years before Valerie’s eyes. The lines in her face deepened against the blanched skin, and her body slumped forward, as if the weight of the world suddenly rested on her frail shoulders. She no longer looked mysterious and intriguing. Before Valerie’s eyes, Marie LaPierre vanished, and the woman who emerged was a very old and very frightened Naomi Gillum. Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared up at Valerie.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why now?”
“You, of all people, should know why. Cletus Brown has spent the last thirty-one years of his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s time for the truth to come out.”
“Please.” The woman clutched a silver crucifix she wore around her neck. “I can’t help you. Go away and leave me alone.”
Valerie shook her head. “I can’t do that. You’re the only one who can help me. The only one who can help him. I know the truth about the night Adam Kingsley was kidnapped, Miss Gillum.”
“Don’t call me that,” she rasped. “I haven’t been Naomi Gillum in a long time.”
“You can change your name, but you can’t run away from who you are.” Valerie knew only too well how the past could come back to haunt you—suddenly, without warning. “The truth always has a way of finding you. I know you were with Cletus Brown the night Adam Kingsley was kidnapped.”
“You don’t know anything,” the woman said bitterly. “You can’t know.”
Valerie felt a flash of anger at the woman’s stubbornness. “I know you were the only one who could have cleared him back then. Why didn’t you come forward?”
“For reasons you couldn’t begin to understand,” Naomi said defiantly.
“Why don’t you try me? Why don’t you tell me about that night? Why don’t you tell me why you’ve let an innocent man sit in prison all these years while the real kidnapper has gone free?”
Naomi’s knuckles whitened around the crucifix. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
She crossed the floor to the front door, no longer floating, but walking with the shuffling steps of a very tired old woman. She pulled down the blind, locked the door and motioned for Valerie to follow her through the beaded curtain.
A narrow, dimly-lit stairway led to the apartment above the shop. The door opened directly into a bedroom, and they walked through to the living area. The room was decorated with red silk piano scarves, fringed lampshades, and yet more candles. French doors opened onto the balcony, and a ceiling fan whirled lazily over head, barely stirring the warm, musty air. The radio Valerie had heard earlier still played softly, and Naomi walked over and snapped it off.
She sat down on the worn velvet sofa and lit up a cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke as she motioned to the chair across from her. As Valerie took her seat, she noticed a deck of Tarot cards lying on the coffee table between them.
Following her gaze, Naomi reached forward and picked the top card off the deck.
“Do you believe in the Tarot, Miss Snow?” She tapped ashes into a crystal ashtray. Her hands were steady now. The cigarette seemed to have calmed her nerves, and yet another pers
onality emerged, one that was a cross between the mysterious Marie LaPierre and the very frightened Naomi Gillum. This woman made Valerie extremely uncomfortable.
She moistened her lips. “Not really. I believe one makes his or her own fortune.”
One thin brow arched to a sharp peak. “But if we could know the future, wouldn’t it be easier to chart our course? Wouldn’t it be easier to know which path to follow?” Naomi turned over the card. “Le Chariot, reversed, signifies vengeance. Does this card mean anything to you?”
Valerie swallowed uneasily. “No,” she said. “And I really didn’t come here to have my fortune told. I told you what I want.”
Naomi turned over another card. La Justice. Even Valerie could interpret the meaning of that card.
This was ridiculous, she thought. It was almost as if the woman had known she was coming and had stacked the deck. But Naomi Gillum couldn’t have known about Valerie. No one did. She’d kept her trip secret from everyone but Julian.
To her relief, Naomi didn’t comment further. Neither did she turn any more cards. Instead, she sat back against the sofa and took a long drag on her cigarette as she studied Valerie carefully. But her intense scrutiny was almost as unnerving as the cards.
“How did you find out about me?” she finally asked.
Valerie took a deep breath. She’d rehearsed her story countless times in her head. “Cletus Brown’s wife kept a diary. I ran across it in my research, and your name was mentioned several times. In fact, she knew all about you and her husband. She knew you’d been with him the night of the kidnapping. Evidently, Cletus confessed to her after he was arrested. He knew that when you came forward, everything would be out in the open, and he wanted to tell his wife about his…indiscretion before she heard about it from someone else. Only, you never did come forward. You disappeared a few days after he was arrested. No one knew what happened to you.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“After I found Grace Brown’s diary, I hired a private investigator to track you down.”
“As easy as that,” Naomi murmured, studying the glowing tip of her cigarette.
“No one else has contacted you in all these years?” Valerie asked skeptically. “I’m not the first reporter to write about this story.”
Naomi shrugged her frail shoulders. “No one else knew of my connection to Cletus Brown. As long as I remained silent, no one was interested in me.”
Valerie leaned forward. “Why did you remain silent?”
“Why did Cletus Brown’s wife remain silent?” Naomi challenged. “If she knew about me, why did she never come forward? Why did she not talk to the police?”
“Because she was convinced the local authorities framed her husband, and that her life and her daughter’s life would be in danger if she came forward. In her diary, she said she’d received threatening phone calls. She was terrified for her child’s safety, and for her husband’s. As long as he was in prison, he was safe. But if she talked, if she tried to get him released, he would be killed.”
Valerie found that her own hands were shaking now as everything came rushing back to her. The phone calls that had left her mother terrified. Fleeing town in the middle of the night. The years and years of waiting for their past to catch up with them.
She drew another long breath, trying to clear her thoughts. “That was how the police were able to buy Cletus’s silence, too. He was told that if he talked, his wife and child would be killed. Besides, who would have believed him anyway? He was a convicted child-killer who would say anything to save his own skin.”
“And he’s been in prison all these years,” Naomi said quietly.
“For a crime he didn’t commit.” Valerie’s voice lowered urgently. “Tell me about that night. Tell me what happened. Please. I have to know.”
If Naomi thought Valerie’s urgency odd, she didn’t comment. She crushed out her cigarette and lit up another. “Cletus and I met in a bar that night. He was down on his luck, couldn’t find work, and he and his wife were having problems. He needed someone to talk to, and I was lonely and had a sympathetic ear. One thing led to another.” She paused. “It was just a one-night stand. It didn’t mean anything. We were supposed to go our separate ways the next morning and never see each other again.”
“Did you? See each other again, I mean.”
Naomi shook her head. “No. The funny thing is, I can barely remember what he looked like. But I’ve never had a moment’s peace since that night.”
She lifted her gaze, and Valerie thought she hadn’t seen a more haunted expression since the night she’d looked into her mother’s dying eyes.
“Were you threatened, Miss Gillum? Is that why you ran?”
“I knew if I stayed, I’d be killed.”
“By whom? Who threatened you?”
Naomi shook her head. “He was never anything more than a voice on the phone. But I believed him. I’ve never heard such evil in any man’s voice.”
Judd Colter, Valerie thought, shivering. Who else could it be? “Did you ever tell anyone about that night?”
“There was one man. He came to see me a few days after Cletus was arrested. It was before I got the first threatening phone call. He wanted me to corroborate Cletus’s story.”
“Who was he?”
“An FBI agent named Denver. James Denver. I don’t think he trusted the local police. I don’t think he believed Cletus was guilty. He said he was conducting his own investigation, but I don’t know whatever became of him, because that night, I got the first phone call, and the next day, I skipped town.”
“Did you follow the trial in the papers?”
“No. I tried to block that night from my mind.”
“But you couldn’t, could you? That night has haunted you all these years, hasn’t it?”
Naomi met her gaze. “Why are you doing this? Why are you dredging all this up now?”
“Because Cletus Brown is still in prison. Because I don’t want him to die in that place for something he didn’t do.”
Naomi’s faded eyes studied her intently. “Why do you care so much?”
“If I don’t care, who will?” Valerie spread her hands in supplication. “Will you help me, Miss Gillum? Will you come forward and make things right?”
“This is not a decision I can make lightly.” The fear Valerie had witnessed earlier settled over the woman’s worn features like a death mask. “I’ll need time to think.”
“Cletus Brown may not have much time,” Valerie pressed. “His youth has already been stolen from him. Don’t let him die in that terrible place.”
She rose to leave, but Naomi said, “Wait.” As Valerie watched, she reached forward and flipped over another card. “La Lune signifies danger,” she said, slipping back into her Marie LaPierre personality. Her voice dropped mysteriously. “Someone wishes you harm. A man.”
Valerie’s heart accelerated in spite of herself. “Who is he?”
Naomi didn’t look up at her. Her hands were busy with the cards. She flipped over another. “La Roue de Fortune. Your destiny is tied to him.”
Valerie watched, mesmerized, as Naomi revealed a new card. “La Maison de Dieu. He will deceive you.”
“Who is this man?” Valerie demanded.
Naomi turned over the last card. “Diable. The devil.”
* * *
BRANT WATCHED THE building from the shadows across the street, wondering impatiently what was going on inside. Surely Valerie hadn’t come all the way to New Orleans to get her palm read. What the hell was she doing in a voodoo shop?
A shadow moved in front of the window in the apartment upstairs. Brant couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was Valerie. For a moment, she stood silhouetted against the light, her slim, womanly form causing a tightening of awareness inside him. She lifted a hand to shove back her luminous cascade of hair, and Brant thought he’d never seen a movement so sensual. So arousing.
Why couldn’t he get her out of his hea
d? Why did he think about her night and day? What was it about her that had gotten to him in a way no woman had in years?
Maybe ever.
Maybe never would again.
He cursed softly, forcing his mind back to the business at hand. He hadn’t followed Valerie all the way to New Orleans just to lust after her. He wanted to know what she was doing here, what she was after.
And he wanted to make sure she stayed safe.
A shudder of dread swept through him as he thought about last night. Someone had been at the Kingsley mansion who hadn’t wanted to be seen. That same someone had cracked Brant over the head in the woods, then dragged him back into the garden.
And there had been mud and pine needles on shoes stuffed under his father’s bed.
There had to be a plausible explanation for that, Brant thought. Maybe his father had taken a walk in the backyard before turning in. He’d made quite a lot of progress with his physical therapy in the past several months, but none of the reports had indicated that he was well enough to be traipsing about the Kingsley gardens, or that he was strong enough or agile enough to take out a man half his age. Not to mention his own son.
His father couldn’t have been the man in the garden, Brant thought. But who had it been? What had he been up to? And why had none of the guards—all off-duty police officers—seen him?
After a moment, Valerie walked away from the window and Brant could no longer see her. He stood in the sultry darkness and wondered why she had come all the way to New Orleans to find a woman, a fortune-teller, named Marie LaPierre.
He walked across the street and tried the front door of the shop, but it was bolted. His gaze lifted to the balcony that jutted over the sidewalk where he stood. The window was open, and he could hear soft voices coming from inside the apartment, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
It would be easy enough to swing himself up to the balcony and listen at the door, but he couldn’t guarantee silence. If he were caught, Valerie would know he’d followed her here, and then he wouldn’t be able to learn a damn thing.
Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's SonThe Brother's WifeThe Long-Lost Heir Page 11
