“Coffee,” Mason said, handing her a cup.
Tea might be their specialty, but she carried flavored coffees, as well, and Mason had brewed a pot just the way she needed it: strong.
She sipped it as she watched him unwrap a lifelike skeleton wearing a pirate hat and carrying a realistic, albeit plastic, sword. “By the door,” she told him.
“Absolutely,” he agreed.
She finished her coffee and, with the renewed energy it brought, her desire to go through the boxes of decorations awoke. She sat on the floor and dove in, and between them they soon had the place looking ready for Halloween, boxing a few of the more ordinary items that had been on the shelves to make room for the holiday pieces.
In an hour, Vinnie made an appearance. He had a grin on his face as he looked at Kendall, as if he had arranged for her to win the lottery.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Well, you took me by surprise, all right,” she told him.
“Kendall, you were fabulous. Everyone was clamoring to hear you up there again.”
“Vinnie, I could kill you. We wrote that a decade ago, at least. And don’t you think you might have asked me if I wanted to join you?”
“If I’d asked, you’d have said no. You’ve got to start working with the band. And what about that dream you had in college of founding a community theater?” he demanded.
“I opened a shop, and I love my shop,” she said.
“So keep the shop. It’s a good backup plan. Come on, you have to start working with me again. You used to have dreams, remember?”
“And now I have bills. Vinnie, help Mason get that pumpkin hung up, huh?”
“You look beat,” Mason commented, when Vinnie went over to help him.
Vinnie flushed. Kendall found herself studying her friend. He was still as slim now as he’d been in college, but the darkness of his hair and eyes gave him a compelling appeal; he would fit right into any vampire movie. He did look tired, though.
But he smiled. “I had a hot date.”
“Oh?” Mason asked.
Vinnie grinned again. “A cute little coed out of Boston. Hot, hot, hot.”
“You seeing her again?” Mason asked.
Vinnie laughed. “No, she’s heading home today. But I didn’t mind being her New Orleans adventure. I mean she could—”
“Vinnie, we do not want details,” Kendall protested.
“I do,” Mason said.
Kendall groaned.
“Maybe you need the details,” Mason teased her. “I’m worried you’ve forgotten how it’s done.”
Before Vinnie could answer, the little bell above the door jingled and Jeremy Flynn entered. “Hey,” Kendall said, surprised to see him. She hadn’t thought of him as a tea drinker.
“Place looks great,” he said. “All ready for Halloween.”
“We’re getting there,” she told him.
“You want to play with us again tonight?” Vinnie asked him.
“Probably not tonight,” Jeremy said. “I’ve got some work to take care of.”
“Are you interested in a tarot reading?” Mason asked.
“Not today,” Jeremy said. “I just came by to tell Kendall that Aidan is going to pick her up at her apartment tonight at seven-thirty.”
Kendall felt her face redden deeply. Both Vinnie and Mason stared at her.
“Oh,” Mason said.
“Oh, indeed,” Vinnie echoed.
“Thanks, Jeremy,” she said. She was tempted to ask him to tell his brother that she couldn’t go. After all, she had agreed merely to get him to go away. “He wants to talk about the house,” she said, looking at Mason and Vinnie, then realized she had snapped out the words.
The bell rang again, and a pair of pretty young women entered. One was wearing a Saints T-shirt; the other was in a halter top. “Oh, my God, this is the neatest place!” exclaimed the girl in the halter top.
“Thanks, may I help you?” Kendall asked, glad of the interruption.
The two girls started to giggle. “Sorry,” said the shorter girl, “we’re just a little nervous. We came for readings. Is it possible?”
Kendall didn’t know why she hesitated before answering. Yes, she did. Jeremy Flynn was there. She was afraid he would tell his brother and Aidan Flynn would think she was even more of a nutcase.
“Absolutely.” Mason stepped forward and said, “Vinnie, you gonna hang around a bit?”
“Sure,” Vinnie said, “I can watch the place. Hey, Jeremy, you want some coffee? I see it’s already made.”
“I’d love some,” Jeremy said.
“Perfect,” Mason said, then turned to the girls. “Kendall and I will be glad to read for you.”
Before Kendall had a chance to object, he had everything arranged.
Kendall told herself to calm down. So what if Jeremy Flynn went back and told Aidan what she’d been doing? This was her business. It was how she lived. She entered the little room where she did her readings, introduced herself and discovered that the girl she was reading for was named Ann, asked her if she was enjoying New Orleans, then handed her the tarot deck, instructing her to cut it.
Kendall turned over the first card. Death, personified by a skeleton, appeared, and suddenly the room seemed to fill with fog.
And the skeleton on the card seemed to come to life.
8
A dog barked from somewhere as Aidan pulled up at the suburban home of Betty Trent. The houses weren’t large or expensive, but the lawns were manicured and the fences were painted. It seemed like a place where people didn’t have much but worked hard with what they did have.
As he exited the car, he saw a gate to a backyard, where a woman of about thirty-five was hanging laundry. Near her, a child of four or five was playing on a tricycle.
He didn’t want to startle the woman, so he called out as he approached, asking if she was Betty Trent. She frowned as she looked up, then studied him with curiosity. She looked wary but not frightened.
“Yes, I’m Betty Trent. Can I help you?”
She had probably been a beauty at a younger age, and she remained an attractive woman, but he saw her hands as she finished hanging a shirt, and they were worn. Deep creases lined her forehead.
He extended his hand. “Hi. My name is Aidan Flynn. I’m a private investigator, and I recently came across your cousin-in-law’s file.”
A look of hope appeared on her face and was quickly gone as she met his eyes. He realized that she had hoped at first that he had come with good news and knew now that he hadn’t.
“Beginnin’ of October, and the days are still mighty hot. Would you like some iced tea, Mr. Flynn?” she asked.
“That would be nice,” he said.
She called to the child, whose name was Billy, and explained that her twins were still at school, but that kindergarten ended earlier. She led him into a comfortable ranch-style home with threadbare furniture covered by handsome needlepoint throws.
They sat in the living room. “Well, at least there’s interest in the case again,” she said. She lifted her hands as if she understood an explanation that had never been given. “They’ve been busy, the police have. I know that. But it just seems to me that they investigated so far, came to a dead end…and didn’t try any detours.”
“So according to the records, Jenny’s car was found in a public lot. And she checked in for her flight on the computer before she left home, and had something to eat and drink at a place called the Hideaway. Can you add anything to that?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. I told them everything I knew, which wasn’t much. It’s as if Jenny just…vanished. She told me she was going to spend a night in New Orleans before she left, and that’s really all I know.”
Betty stood and walked across to an occasional table by the door. She picked up a picture and brought it back to Aidan. It was probably a few years old, but the woman in it had pretty brown eyes and soft brown hair, both glowing. Her smile was hopeful. Her
energy and happiness had somehow come out in the picture. Aidan felt a twist in his gut and was glad.
Glad that he was feeling pain? Yeah, it was a good thing. It was better than being numb. And the girl in the picture deserved more than just his obsessive drive; she deserved someone on the case who cared.
“That’s Jenny. My husband, Phil, didn’t have any family left to speak about, just Jenny. She was eight years younger than he was, but they were pretty close. And I have to say, I grew to love her. She was wonderful with my kids. She had no-account parents who drank themselves to death. Well, Jenny’s dad died in the oil fields, but that was because he went to work drunk. She worked so hard and came out on top of it all. She paid her own way through college, and the kids where she taught loved her. She tutored on the side, and in the summers she worked banquets for one of the local catering companies to earn the money for that trip.” She paused, looked at him suddenly, and frowned again. “Did someone hire you, Mr. Flynn? You did say you’re a private investigator, right?”
Even if he’d had some kind of smoke-and-mirrors explanation planned to account for his interest, he wouldn’t have used any subterfuge. This woman deserved better.
“No. As it happens, I have just come into some property in the area, and I heard about Jenny in the course of something I was looking into and thought maybe I could do something.”
He was startled when a tear suddenly slid down Betty’s cheek.
“I don’t have any money,” she told him.
She looked as if she were going to collapse. Billy had been playing with a Lego set, but now he looked up, distressed.
“Mama?”
“Mama’s fine, Billy,” Betty said quickly, wiping her face.
“I don’t want any money, Mrs. Trent,” Aidan assured her firmly. “But if you don’t mind, I am going to say that you’re my client.”
She looked at him, shaking her head. “I…don’t mean to be looking for charity. Phil died so sudden, of a heart attack…and he was young, and we didn’t have life insurance. I don’t mean to be complaining—there were so many who lost everything, and I have my boys. But I haven’t ever taken any kind of charity, and—”
“Mrs. Trent,” he interrupted, “you’d be doing me the favor.” He set the picture aside and took her hands. “Frankly,” he said solemnly, “right now the police just think that I’m being a pain in the a—” He remembered Billy and amended what he’d been about to say. “In the butt. With a contract, I’ll have a legitimate reason to be a huge pain in the behind and follow any lead I want to. We can draw up a contract in which you pay me a dollar. How’s that?”
“But…why? Why would you do this for me? For Jenny?” she asked.
Why?
“I need to know,” he told her honestly. “I’m…” He hesitated, but he couldn’t think of a better word. “I’m haunted by all this. Now, please, sit down and tell me about Jenny. What she liked, what she didn’t like. Did she have a boyfriend? Was she friendly, trusting…?” He hesitated for a moment. “Betty, did you ever get any of her things? They said her car was found, but what about her luggage?”
Betty shook her head slowly. “No. And to be honest, I never thought about it. I hadn’t expected her to contact me. I prayed for a long time that maybe she had just decided for some reason to go off with someone, go somewhere else. But I knew it wasn’t true.”
“How?”
“Because I knew Jenny. Oh, the FBI got in on it and everything, thinking maybe she’d crossed state lines or something. But I know it’s not true, because if she could have, Jenny would have called me. She loved me. And she loved the boys.” She took a deep breath. “I know that Jenny is dead. I know it. But I still sure would love to know the truth. Have an ending to it, and see whoever killed her locked up or executed. You didn’t know her. They say good Christians shouldn’t support the death penalty. But I knew Jenny. I’d happily pull that lever myself if I knew who had hurt her. She deserved to live. Don’t you see? She was everything good about the world. I’ll do anything I can to help you find the truth.”
“Pay me a dollar, Mrs. Trent. That will do it.”
He looked at the picture of the lovely young woman with all the promise in her eyes.
And for some reason, just like Betty Trent, he knew that she was dead.
And he was almost certain he had touched a part of her earthly remains.
It was as if the card were staring up at Kendall. As if it were mocking her. She could have sworn she heard diabolical laughter, as if Death were being given a gift and she was privy to the knowledge of it, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was cold, icy cold, as if the skeleton’s fingers were clutching her very bones.
“What? Oh my God, what is it?” Ann cried, alarmed.
Kendall blinked hard and fought the vision. She tore her eyes from the card and focused on the young woman in front of her. “Nothing.” Her voice had a tremor. She forced herself to stare at the girl and not down at the card. “It’s nothing. I’m so sorry if I frightened you.”
“But that’s…Death.”
“No.”
“Yes, look at it!” the girl said.
“No, no, honestly,” Kendall insisted. “People see this card and they automatically think the worst, but I swear, that’s not the case at all. What this signifies is change, the end of something and the beginning of something else,” she went on, forcing her tone to be smooth, even and relaxed.
Even though inside she felt as if she were going crazy.
“An end and a beginning?” the girl asked blankly.
“Have you broken off a relationship lately?” Kendall asked Ann.
Ann’s jaw fell. “Oh my God! How did you know?”
Relief swept through Kendall. She was going to be all right. Ann was going to be all right. The whole ridiculous thing was going to return to normal.
She started turning over the other cards. “Here, see. Are you planning a trip, maybe?”
“Yes,” Ann said in amazement. “I’m heading out on a cruise ship from here.”
“That’s wonderful,” Kendall said, adding silently, You need to get out of here.
Oh, God, what had made me think that?
Ann frowned then, totally unaware of Kendall’s thoughts. “I’m not going to fall for the same lines and go back with Rodney, am I?”
“Not if you’re strong,” Kendall answered. That was an easy one.
“Rodney and I…he was a jerk. Such a jerk. He cheated on me, and I knew it. He even hit me once, and then he apologized all over the place, so I took him back, like an idiot. I am not going to do it again.”
“What the cards really do is tell us what we need to look for in ourselves,” Kendall said. “And the important thing—always—is to know that what happens in our lives depends on us.”
“Right.”
Kendall tried to move on to the other cards without looking at the skeleton again.
But it was still there, mocking her, grinning.
She tried to tell herself that she just needed more sleep. That Ann was not going to die, that she was going on a nice safe cruise. But her thoughts wouldn’t stop racing.
What about yesterday, and Miss Ady and the cancer?
Things like this didn’t happen to her, she told herself firmly.
But the evidence said they did.
Her hand suddenly jerked across the table.
Ann started again, and Kendall forced herself to laugh. “I’m sorry. Late night last night, I’m afraid.”
“Wait, I recognize you,” Ann said.
“You do?”
“I saw you sing last night—you and that guy out there, Vinnie. Hey, you two were great.”
“Thanks.”
Ann kept talking. Vinnie was really wonderful. Vinnie was so cute.
Kendall just nodded absently. Vinnie did have that effect on women. Meanwhile, she couldn’t seem to concentrate. All she could think about was the strange things that seemed to be happening
.
Weird sensations. Cards…coming to life. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, although once or twice she had felt unnerved, uneasy, and the cards had looked…off.
As if she needed an eye doctor.
More sleep. That was what she needed.
She heard her own voice. Somehow, despite the absurd panic that kept seizing her, she was speaking, even making sense. She was rising and wishing Ann a great trip and a good life, reminding her that her fate was in her own hands.
Ann left, and Kendall could hear her talking excitedly to her friend and the two men up front in the shop.
“What’s with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mason asked from the doorway of the room where he’d been doing his reading.
“I’m tired. I told you that,” Kendall said.
Mason looked past her into her room. “Hey, your cards are all over the floor,” he told her, and swept in to pick them up. “Grab that one right under your feet.”
She looked down. The skeleton was looking up at her. Doing nothing, nothing at all.
It was just a tarot card.
And yet, as she reached for it, she felt again as if ice-cold fingers of bone were somehow closing around her heart.
Somehow Aidan managed to get back to the city by six.
He’d made a couple of calls from the road, so after he returned his car to the hotel valet, he walked down the street to meet Jeremy at a quiet place near the old convent school. He filled his brother in on the information he had learned about Jenny Trent, and Jeremy showed him what he’d gotten on her credit card files.
All her charges in the city were from a single day. She had gotten gas at a station just off I-10; she had charged a café au lait and a beignet that morning at Café du Monde. She had purchased a T-shirt on Decatur Street, lunched at Bambu in Harrah’s.
He knew already that she’d been to the Hideaway on Bourbon Street that night, and a charge to a business listed as Dreams, LLD, was the only other item.
Aidan looked up at Jeremy. “That address…”
“Yeah, it’s Kendall’s shop.”
“Did you ask her about Jenny, by any chance?”