by Jenna Ryan
Nolan tugged her toward the opening. “Bet you didn’t revisit that particular uncle’s place in a hurry.”
She resisted an urge to kick him. “Do you know how easy it would be for me to hate you right now?”
“That’s what all the women in my life say.” Leaning in, he closed his mouth over hers. “Until they stop saying anything at all.”
* * *
It was quarter past absurd in the morning New Orleans’s time, and Jimmy couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t slept for so many hours he’d lost count. What could he do? What should he do? How much longer would he be in a position to do anything?
Hazzard said he had a plan, a new and brilliant idea, for eliminating Kate Marshall. Wonderful. Except he’d blown up an entire apartment block on his last attempt, and God help them both, Leshad was steaming in a way that suggested heads would soon start to roll.
When his iPhone rang, Jimmy all but pounced on it. Then he saw the symbols on the screen, and his blood turned to ice water.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He breathed out a tiny portion of his fear and opened the communication.
“You’re awake.” Leshad’s voice was thick cream poured over silk. “I can’t help thinking you wouldn’t be if things were going well for us. Has Phoebe Lessard been located yet?”
The man felt dizzy, verging on ill. He gripped the edge of his desk. “Hazzard’s—working on it.”
“Oh, I know how hard Hazzard’s working, Jimmy. The thing is, it seems to me he’s spending more time on your problem than he is on the one we share.”
“Yes, he is, but we agreed…” Trailing off, he cleared his throat. “At any rate, he assures me both matters will be dealt with shortly.”
“I’m very pleased to hear that. No more big bangs?”
Sweat popped out on Jimmy’s forehead. “The bombs were a mistake. An error in judgment. I had nothing to do with them.” His hand shook as he poured himself a drink. More bourbon splashed onto his blotter than into his glass. He gave fleeting consideration to simply gulping the stuff straight from the decanter. “He’ll get it right next time. Kate Marshall and Phoebe Lessard are as good as dead. Mission accomplished.” He couldn’t believe he’d actually said that.
Leshad’s chuckle had a velvety quality that liquefied every organ in his body. More bourbon spilled. What little made it into his mouth threatened to choke him. “Do you want me to fly to San Francisco?” he managed to ask, but Leshad merely chuckled again.
“I don’t think that’s the best idea, do you? Look what happened last time you tried to play Mr. Fix-it?”
The velvety tone remained, but anyone who’d dealt with Leshad knew it disguised a persona that was ninety-nine percent nitro.
“One more chance, Jimmy.” Leshad spaced each quietly spoken word. “I’m watching. I’m counting. Ticktock, ticktock.”
CHAPTER TEN
Nolan figured there’d be an Adele song running through Kate’s head about now. The artist was her staple in the O.R. Always a melancholy tale of heartache or heartbreak. Which struck him as ironic seeing as Kate had only had two relationships. Two safe, no-longer-happening relationships.
He switched gears quickly before his mind could rev up and cause him to think too deeply about a woman he’d spent the better part of three and a half years not thinking about.
They’d been in the cave for fifteen-plus minutes, ascending for the most part. They’d ducked under low spots, waded through stagnant pools of water and in Kate’s case, hadn’t looked into the high shadows more than twice the entire time.
“M, L, K, J…”
He heard her murmuring and smiled. “Backward alphabet?”
“Games work,” she said with a shrug. “It’s my second time through in English, fourth overall.”
“Yeah? What other languages do you speak?”
“My mother’s family’s Swedish, so that, and I took Spanish from my junior year in high school through my third year of college. Oh, yuck, what did I just step in?”
“Some kind of ooze by the feel of it. Good thing you went the practical route and wore rubber boots.”
“I have my moments.” Hoisting herself onto a flat rock, she swung her legs over the top and hopped down. “This cave smells like rotting fish heads, Nolan.”
He smiled a bit. “Do you actually know what rotting fish heads smell like?”
“Yes. This cave. Damn, what’s that?” He saw her duck and look up sharply.
“What’s what?”
“Something with claws grabbed my hair.”
Nolan shone his beam over the rough wall. “It’s a tree root, Kate. An old shriveled one that managed to work its way through the rock and into the cave.”
“If you say so.” She glanced up again, climbed to her feet and, dusting off, kept walking.
A blast of frigid air slammed into them when they rounded the next bend. It was the third time this had happened, and whatever the phenomenon was, it appeared to be growing stronger.
Kate shoved her hands into her coat pockets, shivering. “Either there are natural fissures in the overhead rock formations, or whatever otherworldly manifestation lives in this cave wants us to turn back.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“Sometimes my grandfather’s genes get loose and go wild.” She eyed him narrowly. “You kissed me again outside. Why do you keep doing that?”
“You look pretty in your new rubber boots. Plus, I figured as long as you were wondering why I kissed you, you wouldn’t be thinking about bats hanging from the roof of the cave.”
She responded with a humorous, “Z, Y, X, W.” Pausing, she angled her beam around his arm. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t look promising.”
He supplemented her light, running his from left to right. “The roof’s caved in.” When frigid air rushed over them again, Nolan used his body to shield her. “I hear something on the other side.”
“Sounds like dripping water.” Reaching around him, Kate touched the rocks. “Is there an underground river down here?”
“Not as far as I know.”
She gave one of the higher stones an experimental tug. It didn’t budge. “You’re the expert on strategic manoeuvres. Advance or retreat?”
Nolan scanned the rubble. “Let’s dig.”
Setting their flashlights on a boulder, Kate pulled on a pair of work gloves. “Maybe we should have worn disguises and gone in the front door instead of— Jesus!”
She stumbled into him so hard they both crashed onto the rock pile. Nolan whacked his head and, Jesus, took a sharp jab to the ribs. Clamping his hands around Kate’s arms, he shoved her to her feet. “If you’re trying to impale me, Marshall, use a damn stick. Pointy rocks hurt like hell. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Scrambling to her knees, she grabbed and turned his head. “Please tell me you see her.”
He did, and he swore richly because he’d hoped he never would.
The veiled woman stood between the wall and the rubble pile, her hands folded left over right. By double flashlight beam, Nolan saw the tattooed flower Kate had mentioned. It was a rather intricately drawn blood orchid.
“This is the last time I will come to you, Kate Marshall, the only time to you, Jason Nolan.”
“How do you know our names?” Rising from his crouch, Nolan paced a wary arc in front of her. “Have we met you somewhere?”
“Not in a way you’d understand. Either of you,” she added when Kate started to speak. “There’s much you need to know, much more than I can tell you here and now. However, I had a sister named Twila. We realized we were gifted from birth. We could sense auras. You’d use the word psychic.”
Was she solid, Nolan wondered? He couldn’t tell in the poor light.
“Twila was more proficient than me at utilizing her gift. People in similar circles came to know her. Many more came to know of her. She was murdered by a man who is thankfully now dead himself. The fact that there has been a certain amount of justice
has allowed Twila’s spirit to rest. Sadly, the picture is much larger than this. Twila was murdered at the instruction of a man infinitely more dangerous than the one who suffocated her.”
“Is the name of this dangerous man Leshad?” Kate asked.
“He is called many things by many people, but I believe he enjoys the connotations of the name Leshad, so the answer to your question is yes.” Her tattooed hand rose. “Before you press further, I must tell you, I know little of Leshad, only that when he discovered Twila had a sister—me—he sent a man to San Francisco to deal with the problem.”
“But you’re here.” Kate waved a hand. “Sort of here. You’re not dead anyway.” She lowered doubtful lashes. “Are you?”
“Not yet,” the woman told her.
Nolan frowned. “I’m not going to waste time trying to figure out how you got into this cave.” He doubted he’d want to hear the answer in any case. “My question is why have you come?”
“I want to do whatever is possible within the bounds of my limited abilities to prevent Leshad’s man, the same man who attempted to kill me, from killing Kate Marshall.”
“This is off-the-scale weird,” Kate said with a sigh. “My grandfather would love it.” She raised her voice. “Do you know who Leshad’s man is? Can you give us his name?”
The woman’s head shook beneath her veil. “He has a very weak aura, and unfortunately I have precious little control over my gift. I see only what comes to me. Why some things come and others remain a mystery I cannot say, but I’m certain of this much. There are lines. From the man who tried to kill me to you. From me to my sister. From her to Leshad. From Leshad to the source.”
“The source?” Nolan repeated.
“There is always a source. A reason why a certain chain of events begins. I sense a female, a woman with sight like my sister, only stronger.”
“Madeleine Lessard,” Kate said. “Crucible told us she was Leshad’s first victim, at least the first to receive a silhouette calling card.”
“The name you speak is a blur in my mind, but perhaps she is the one. I know there is voodoo involved.”
Nolan thought the tattoo on the woman’s hand was fading before his eyes. In fact, he wasn’t sure her whole hand wasn’t starting to disappear. “Madeleine came from the bayou. Like you, she had a sister who was killed.”
“Insanity has its own rules, its own peculiar logic.” The woman’s voice sounded more hollow now, almost an echo. “For Leshad, there is significance in bloodlines. Perhaps Madeleine Lessard is at the root of all that has become. I don’t have that answer for you. I only know that between us, between you and me, Kate Marshall, is a line that has nothing to do with blood. We are bound by a killer who answers to another and so on. My mind is growing hazy. I think my visit is nearly at an end.”
“Wait.” Kate took a half step toward her. “Do you have a name?”
“I’m Tallulah, and on this, the last time I come to you, I submit that more than one line can be drawn to and from the woman for whom you search. She is trapped as a fly is trapped in a spider’s web.”
“The spider being Leshad.” Nolan watched the image of the woman fluctuate from light to shadow and back, like the flicker of an old film. “Tell us one more thing, Tallulah. In your mind, does Leshad have a face, anything that would help us identify him?”
The veil shook from side to side. “A curtain of darkness surrounds him. It is impenetrable to me. I don’t believe my sister Twila had a clear vision of him either. I don’t know what Madeleine Lessard might have seen. Perhaps she passed some knowledge on to the woman you seek.”
“She might have,” Kate said. “Phoebe Lessard is Madeleine’s daughter. But you already knew that.”
“I did.” The tattooed hand rose again, palm out. “I wish both of you well. The obstruction is most safely removed from where you stand. Find me inside, Kate Marshall.”
“Inside the hospital?”
“It is imperative that you find me.” The woman drifted out of the light and into deep shadow. “Trust your instincts. They will lead you to me.”
“How will they lead me? No, don’t go. You haven’t told us…” Kate followed her into the shadow, paused and pivoted. “She’s gone. Of course, she’s gone.” She turned to look one more time. “My mind is having a really hard time taking this in, Nolan. It keeps trying to find a logical explanation for something that’s never going to make sense.”
“Oh, it makes sense.” Nolan scooped up one of the flashlights and aimed the beam into the shadow. There was nothing but dirt and rock, no sign of a veiled woman with a blood orchid on the back of her hand.
“I still think we could be dead or dying.” Kate picked up the other light. “As much as the idea freaks me out, it’s easier to accept than the alternative, which is that I’ve been seeing and talking to a ghost.”
“Right. Better we should be ghosts than see one.” Crouching, Nolan examined the right side of the cave-in. The rocks were noticeably looser there. Score one for Tallulah, whoever or whatever she might be.
Climbing onto a protrusion, Kate eased one of the high rocks free. “Okay, here’s a theory for you. Maybe I’m the one who’s dying, and you’re my final conjuring.”
“Interesting thought.” He grinned up at her. “Any chance of us having hot sex before you go?”
In spite of everything, he knew she was trying not to laugh. “It absolutely astonishes me that you became a doctor given your callous attitude toward death. It’s a time of great sorrow and loss, Nolan. The end of life as we know it. Maybe we move on, but what if we don’t? I mean, a person can believe they will, but we can’t be completely sure what’s going to happen until, well, until we’re gone. For all we know, I might be a day, an hour, a minute away from going.”
Hopping up next to her, Nolan cupped the back of her head. “Could be you are, Kate. Or it could be me who’s dying and conjuring. Then again…” Lowering his mouth to her ear, he whispered a cryptic, “It could be we’ve got the whole thing wrong.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He didn’t elaborate, and Kate didn’t press him for details. She knew a tease when she heard one, and she had no intention of rising to the bait.
Once the debris was cleared—thankfully not a Herculean chore—the cave opened to a tunnel and the tunnel to a passageway that led directly into the hospital cellar.
They emerged in an anteroom, groped until Kate discovered a latch and, pushing it, watched the wall bump inward six inches. Wedging it open, they squeezed through into a lower level storeroom.
Broken IV stands, malfunctioning wheelchairs, walkers and gurneys crowded the small space. Kate sidestepped what she could, moved what she couldn’t and swung around when she reached the door.
“If we find Tallulah in the morgue, I’m checking myself into the fourth-floor psych ward. And that’s a step no sane person would take. Psych has a lockdown facility and a night nurse named Nancy who was here before the building became a hospital.”
“Nancy’s old and stern, Kate. She’s not Nurse Ratched.”
“I’m not entirely convinced she’s human, but Nurse Nancy isn’t the point. My sanity’s the real question here.” A quick peek outside revealed an empty corridor and a small sign that simply read Morgue. “There’s bound to be at least one attendant in there.” Her blipping mind hopped briefly back to Duffy’s Pullman. “Maybe that’s where I saw him.”
“Saw who?” Nolan checked the overhead security monitors.
“Anna’s new playmate. I’m sure he works at the hospital. I think. It’s hard to say. I saw a news story about a wannabe senator who reminded me of a creepy med school professor I had, so I could be mixing everything and everyone up at this point.”
Nolan glanced at her. “Creepy professor. I’ve heard that same description from other med students. Are you talking about Jamie McGowan?”
“I am, and please tell me you two aren’t BFFs, because Jamie McGowan should have had his license yanked years ago.
”
“He hit on you, huh?”
“On my roommate. She traded sex for good grades.” Kate ran her fingers along the wall. “McGowan never offered me that deal.”
Nolan gave her his full attention, pulling her to a halt. “You’re not… Kate, it can’t bother you that an asshole like Jamie McGowan, who knew how to read women and would have realized right off you’d never trade sex for anything, didn’t hit on you.”
“Of course it doesn’t bother me. Not now, anyway.” She swatted the wall. “What bothers me now is that I let it bother me then. Only briefly, but still. We called him Dr. Jekyll because outside the classroom and on the surface he was all smiles and I’m-a-total-gentleman, but if you gave the guy a drink of anything mixed with alcohol, Mr. Hyde took over. My roommate went out with him once and swore never again.”
“Why did you connect McGowan with Anna’s new toy boy?”
“Not sure. Like I said, I watched two news stories, one after the other. I was tired. Faces mixed and mingled. Thoughts probably did the same. C. J. Best wants to be senator in the south. He’s—” She bit her tongue when Nolan suddenly shoved her into the morgue and extinguished the overhead lights.
“Not a sound, Kate,” he warned.
She heard the echoing clunk of an elevator, followed by the creak of a loaded gurney and told herself it meant nothing. The path lab was down here, too.
A pair of rubber-soled footsteps squeaked on the old lino floors. “Leave him here?” a young man asked.
“Might as well,” his counterpart replied. “Forensics is backed up. Something about three guys, a gun and a meth lab. Let’s grab some grub and have a smoke.” The feet squeaked off.
