Careful, she warned herself. She had to stop thinking of him as…so damned perfect.
“I’d like to see the doll,” Aidan said.
“Sure,” Sam said affably.
It was in an evidence bag, lying on the table. Aidan opened the bag and slid the doll onto the table without touching it, moving the pieces around with a pen so he could look at them more closely.
“Creepy, but probably nothing to worry about,” Sam said. “It’s coming around to Halloween. All of the crazies are out.”
Aidan looked across the room at Kendall. “Isn’t that gate locked at night?” he asked, indicating the courtyard with an inclination of his head.
She nodded.
“Officer Pratt is outside looking around now,” Tim assured him.
Aidan didn’t reply, just headed out the door himself.
“How well do you know that guy, Kendall?” Sam asked, sounding slightly worried.
She hadn’t even known him a week, she realized, but somehow…
“I’ve gotten to know him pretty well because of the plantation and Amelia,” she said simply. “If you’ll excuse me…?” She smiled to take any sting out of the dismissal, then hurried out to the courtyard, where Aidan was talking to Officer Pratt.
“I don’t know how the guy got in here, Kendall,” Pratt said, seeing her. “Hey, you don’t have any weirdos for neighbors, do you?”
Kendall laughed. “The Foys, on the other half of the ground floor, are raising two little kids and own a café up on Conti. Mrs. Larsen, above me, is seventy-seven. And the owners keep the fourth apartment for themselves for whenever they’re down here from New York, which they’re not at the moment.”
“Well, we’ll bring the doll in, and we’ll send a car by a few times a night for the next few days. And we’ll let you know if we find out anything about the doll.”
The officers all left a few minutes later, Tim looking back at her as if he would have liked to hang around longer and offer a heroic shoulder.
He would forget her the minute a blonde walked by, Kendall knew.
When she closed the door behind them, she was surprised by Aidan’s sudden fierce demand. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I—I didn’t know if I should bother you about something so silly.”
“Now the cops have the doll.”
“And they’ll use it to investigate.”
“Kendall, to the cops this is a prank, but…Dolls at the plantation, a doll here. It means something.”
She picked up her coffee cup, willing her hands not to tremble. On its own, the doll would have upset her, but it wouldn’t actually have scared her. But combined with the dream she’d had…
“I’m sure it does mean something,” she said. “Someone out there is upset with me because of my association with the Flynn plantation and mad that you own it, so they’re taking advantage of this being New Orleans and trying to freak us out.”
His expression was disbelieving as he stared at her, hands on his hips, his eyes like ice again.
“Aidan, please,” she said weakly. “Let’s not overreact.”
“Overreact?” He stared at her grimly. “I’ve found bones—human bones, at least one of which may belong to a young woman who came here, then disappeared. And she’s not the only one. My brother found records indicating that nine other young women have disappeared from New Orleans in similar circumstances. So forgive me if I overreact to what looks to me a hell of a lot like a subtle threat to back off—or else.”
He turned away from her, paced, paused, then took a deep breath. “Kendall, I’ve studied serial killers. At any given moment, there are hundreds at large in the United States. Some killers want their victims found, but some don’t. Think about it. How do you make sure you never get caught? Make sure the bodies you leave behind are never discovered. So those bones I found could be all that’s left to find of those missing women.”
“Aidan…” She lifted her hands in frustration. He had no proof of anything, including that something bad had happened to those women. He had to know himself that he was grasping at straws.
But was he? She had seen a skeleton on a piece of paper laugh at her.
And she had been afraid. So who was drawing unfounded conclusions now, huh?
“Want to stay out at the house with me?” he asked.
“What?”
He hesitated before repeating the question. Had he surprised himself by asking? she wondered.
“I’ve decided to stay out at the house from now on. Keep an eye out for whoever’s causing trouble. Actually, I did make an interesting discovery last night.”
“What?” she asked carefully.
“I met a man named Jimmy. A guy who’s been staying in the old slave quarters.”
“Someone’s been living on the property?” she asked.
“For six months.”
“Oh, God!” she exclaimed. She and Amelia had been in danger.
“He wouldn’t have hurt you. He’s just a down-and-out guy looking for a way to get back on his feet, so I told him he could stay. He’s got himself a job at the gas station out there, and he’s saving up for a car and a place to live.”
“And you believe that?” she asked.
“I do.”
She smiled.
“What?” he asked her.
She laughed. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t expect you to be that trusting.” She avoided adding, or generous to a stranger.
He looked back at her for a long moment, and shrugged. “Well, I did go by and check with his boss this morning. Jimmy thinks there are ghosts in the graveyard. He comes ‘home,’ closes the door and stays inside all night, hiding from them.”
“A cemetery is a good place for ghosts to be,” she said dryly.
“You haven’t answered me,” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“About coming out to the house with me. There’s no hurry or anything. I can meet you after work, bring you back here to pack some clothes.”
It was rushing things. She shouldn’t go.
She sure as hell didn’t want to stay here another night, though. Not when someone who didn’t belong there was playing around in her courtyard.
Lurking at her very door.
And leaving a sliced-to-pieces voodoo doll that resembled her.
The cops would be watching the house. But how well?
None of that mattered. She shouldn’t go with him because she was afraid. She should go with him because she wanted to, because she wanted to be with him. Because she cared about him.
And she did.
“Yes, I’d like to go stay at the house with you,” she told him.
He nodded. “Thanks,” he said huskily. “I’m glad.”
“We close up between five and six.”
“Okay. Don’t leave. I’ll come meet you there.”
“All right.”
He was still standing there, staring at her.
“You ready to go to work?” he asked her.
She frowned and glanced at her watch. Amazingly, it was just after ten.
“Just about,” she told him.
“I’ll wait and drop you off.”
It wasn’t necessary. But she saw the way that he was standing and knew he was taking the voodoo doll very seriously. He was taking everything very seriously.
So what? Wasn’t she?
She didn’t want to be afraid, and she refused to be afraid to walk down Royal Street in broad daylight.
But she was getting to know him well, and she could tell he wasn’t going to leave without her.
“Give me just a minute,” she told him. “Help yourself to coffee,” she added, as she went back into her bedroom to gather up a few things for the day.
Aidan heard Jeremy’s latest radio interview just after dropping Kendall at her store. Jeremy announced that he was delighted to say that the benefit had sold out, but that the radio station had two tickets left to give away. Aidan hoped that if the b
enefit at the aquarium went well and they were able to pull off the Halloween gala at the house, Jeremy could lay to rest a few of the ghosts haunting him.
Ghosts.
They just kept popping up, Aidan thought, even in his own thoughts.
He found parking near Lily Fleur’s B and B. She was smiling when she answered the door, but her smile faded as soon as she saw who was standing on her stoop.
“Good morning, Mr. Flynn.”
She didn’t step back. Obviously she didn’t want to ask him in.
“Mrs. Fleur.”
“Call me Lily.” He had a feeling she was speaking by rote; she didn’t really want him calling her Lily. She didn’t want him talking to her at all. She wanted him to go away.
“Mrs. Fleur, I know what a good person you are,” he told her. “And I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask for your help, so I can try to figure out what happened to Jenny Trent.”
“What can I do for you?”
Was it his imagination, or did she sound slightly less unhappy about his presence?
“I’d like to get a list of any other guests who were registered with you when Jenny was here,” he told her.
“Hold on.”
She didn’t close the door on him, though she still didn’t invite him in. When she came back a moment later, she had a neatly printed sheet of paper in her hand.
“This is what I have,” she told him. “Copied straight out of the book.”
“Did you know I’d come asking?”
“A police officer—a real policeman—came by and asked for the same thing.” She looked a little prim, then added, “He also said that you were a legitimate investigator. I figured if he had asked for the list, you’d be around for it soon enough, too.”
“Thanks. By the way, what was the officer’s name?”
She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, it was Hal. I’ve known him for years.”
“Hal Vincent.”
“Of course. He’s the best, you know.”
Aidan smiled. “I’m sure he is,” he told her, then thanked her again and walked away.
“You should let me give you a reading, Kendall,” Mason said.
The store was finally quiet, and they were trying to clean up.
As she set a coffee cup in the dishwasher, she wondered if she should have told him that someone had left a voodoo doll by her back door. But the store had already been filled with customers when she’d arrived, and maybe because it was Friday, they had been rushed off their feet all day, so she’d never had a chance. In fact, they’d been so deluged with business that she’d had to call Vinnie and ask him to run over to the bakery and pick up some more pastries.
Vinnie had agreed cheerfully—maybe because he owed her forty bucks. Or maybe just because he was her friend. He’d even hung around helping for the rest of the afternoon.
“You’re going to give Kendall a reading?” Vinnie asked Mason.
“You bet,” Mason said.
“No readings,” Kendall said. Was it because she didn’t believe?
Or because she did?
Vinnie picked up one of the crystal balls off the shelf and stared into it. “I’ll do the readings, thank you. I see someone tall, dark, handsome—and suspicious, even threatening. Someone who will be taking our princess to the ball. And guess what else I see? She’s accompanied by the most striking footman ever. He’s lean, he’s mean, he’s a walking sex machine. And his name is Vinnie.”
“What the hell are you going on about?” Mason asked.
Vinnie set the ball down. “The charity thing at the aquarium tomorrow night. Hey, Kendall, I found someone to sit in for me, so I can go.”
Mason quickly shot Kendall a hurt glare. “You’re going, and you asked Vinnie to go, and you didn’t even mention it to me?”
“Mason, we didn’t get a chance to say two words to each other today.”
“You certainly said more than two words to me. You said, ‘Mason, clear that table. Mason, they need coffee. Mason, take that reading and I’ll handle the register.’ You said, ‘Mason, quick, brew another pot of pecan-cinnamon coffee.’ You said—”
“All right, all right,” Kendall said, laughing. “I get your drift. And don’t look at me like a puppy I threw out in the rain. You’re invited, too.”
“I am?” he said, brightening immediately. “Cool. But it’s a benefit. I think I’d feel…smarmy if I didn’t pay. Wait, I get it. The Flynn brothers get freebies. They’re smarmy, then.”
“No, they bought the first twenty tickets or something like that,” Kendall corrected him.
Mason looked at Vinnie. “She likes him, you know.”
“Yeah. Go figure.”
“You did call him tall, dark and handsome,” Mason reminded Vinnie. “Though he was kind of a jerk to you.”
“He was suspicious of me,” Vinnie said. “But he isn’t anymore. I don’t think he is, anyway. Is he, Kendall?”
“I don’t know. I think, when you’re straight with him, he’s straight with you.”
“You do like him,” Mason teased.
Kendall refused to take the bait. “And you’d better like him, too, since it’s thanks to him you’re both going.
“So should we meet at your place Saturday after work and all go together?” Vinnie asked.
She hesitated, not about to tell them that she was spending the night—maybe more than one night?—at the Flynn plantation. Not that it mattered, since she had to come in to open in the morning, then go home to change for the party. “Sure, we’ll meet at my place. It starts at eight, and I’m sure Aidan will want to be there when it starts.”
Kendall was just about to lock the door when Ady came in with Rebecca. Neither had an appointment for a reading, and Kendall thought at first that they had just stopped by to say hi, but then Rebecca said to Kendall, “Mama wanted a minute with you. Not a full reading or anything, just a minute alone.”
Ady was looking at Kendall so anxiously that she agreed, leading the old woman back to her private reading room. Her tarot cards sat on the table, but she avoided looking at them.
“Miss Ady, you don’t want a reading,” she said, after the old woman was seated and she had taken her own chair on the opposite side of the table. “You just had one a few days ago.”
Ady pursed her lips. “I had a dream,” she said.
Kendall smiled. “We all have dreams. I just had a terrible nightmare myself. But that’s all they are, just dreams, Miss Ady. Sometimes they have something to do with things that happened during the day, sometimes with things we’re afraid of. Are you worried about what Dr. Ling told you?”
Ady waved a hand in the air. “I’m not worried about me at all, Kendall Montgomery. You’ve taken care of me, and I’m right grateful. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?” Kendall said, surprised.
Ady leaned forward, her old face set with determination.
“Do you know why Amelia didn’t leave that plantation to you?”
Kendall lifted her hands. “Because I couldn’t afford to fix it up and keep it, for one. Plus I’m not a Flynn.”
Ady sat back, shaking her head. “That ain’t the reason, child. That ain’t the reason at all. Amelia believed you could do anything.”
“Miss Ady, tell me, please. What’s wrong? I don’t want you to be worried about me.”
“I saw Amelia last night in my dream,” Ady said.
“You were probably thinking about her.”
“She wasn’t in my mind one bit, I tell you. She came into my dream because she knew if she talked to me while I was awake, I’d just think I was turning into a crazy old woman.”
“Tell me about the dream,” Kendall said.
Ady leaned forward again, and her voice was agitated when she spoke. “She said that plantation’s evil. Said it wasn’t always, even though there were always ghosts. They were the ghosts of good people. But something had changed a while back, she said, and it only started making sense to her
toward the end, when she was getting close to going over to the other side herself. She said it was like some kind of evil from the past was coming back. Said she heard crying, like somebody was scared of the way the place was changing, going bad. And she doesn’t want that evil touching you, Kendall. That’s why she came to me. She’s afraid, and she wants me to warn you that something evil is out there, and that you have to be careful, because it’s coming for you.”
15
For a second Kendall just sat there, staring and feeling a chill creep up her neck. Then she took a deep breath and forced the feeling away as she realized what was going on here. Miss Ady was so sweet. Kendall had worried about her, so now Ady’s subconscious had found a way to return the favor.
Kendall nodded gravely to her.
“Thank you for coming to tell me that, MissAdy,” she said.
“Amelia told me to warn you.”
Dreams could seem so real. Kendall knew that all too well.
“You believe me now, Kendall, don’t you?”
“Of course I believe you,” Kendall said, and realized as she spoke the words that they were at least partly true. She did believe in the power of dreams to terrify.
Because what could it have been but a waking dream when she had seen the skeleton on a tarot card come to life and laugh?
She smiled gently and promised, “I’ll be very careful.” After what had happened this morning, it wasn’t a promise she would mind keeping.
Ady’s eyes remained grave, but she nodded and rose. “Well, that’s it, girl. You just mind me and Amelia, you hear?”
“Of course.”
Ady started out, and Kendall followed her. When they reached the front of the shop, she saw that Aidan had arrived, and everyone seemed to be getting along fine.
“We’re fine to go now, Rebecca,” Ady said.
Rebecca stood, and Aidan, Mason and Vinnie rose automatically.
Rebecca offered her hand to Aidan. “Mr. Flynn, it was a pleasure to meet you. Mason, Vinnie, you two behave.” She walked over and gave Kendall a quick kiss on the cheek, whispering, “Sorry. Mama just had a bee in her bonnet, and I had to bring her to see you.”