Submission Page 8

  I stared at John Roche, a junior detective who had turned from everybody’s buddy to my own personal tormentor as of late.

  “I mean, you look even worse today than you usually do. Which is saying a lot. What, did you sleep in a garbage can last night?”

  “Bite me, Roche.”

  The other man chuckled. “You’ve got a visitor waiting downstairs.”

  Shit. It looked like I was never going to get a chance to tackle the mess on my desk. A mess I was beginning to think might hold the answers if only because time and circumstances weren’t allowing me to go through it.

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, but two of the desk sergeants have already tried to pick her up, so I’d get down there before someone else makes off with her.”

  Molly. It had to be. She was the only one I could think of who might stop by the precinct to see me. Maybe she had come up with something.

  Then again, the way my luck was running lately, I’d go down there to find Astrid waiting for me.

  No. Even John would know who she was. And Astrid wouldn’t dare be so blatant.

  Would she?

  “Oh, and Alan?” John said. “The captain wants to see you.”

  I stood staring at him. “Why didn’t you say that first?”

  “Because it was more fun telling you this way.”

  I grabbed my hat from the rack where I’d hung it and made my way to Captain Seymour Hodge’s office. While we might work in the same office, thankfully I didn’t cross paths with him often. Mostly by design. I knew the times he was in and went out of my way not to be there when he was.

  Call me stupid, but I didn’t much like being around a guy who had my balls in a vise.

  His secretary motioned at me to go in, and I knocked briefly on the door before stepping inside Hodge’s office.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  He was standing at the window, looking out at the street beyond. He turned to stare at me. “You look like hell, Detective.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Did you call me in here to discuss my personal hygiene? Because if you did, I’ll promise to shave tomorrow and make a run to the cleaners and we can be done with this meeting.”

  The bad blood between Hodge and me went way back to when he was a senior homicide detective and I was new to the job. We’d rubbed each other the wrong way from the word go. He was always the well-dressed dandy, while I was always Johnny-on-the-spot, ferreting out clues while Hodge played politics with the higher-ups. I hadn’t known at the time it was because he’d had his eye on the captain’s office.

  So basically the animosity between us went well beyond the fact that I’d slept with Hodge’s wife. Sure, they’d been estranged at the time, but that didn’t matter now that they’d reconciled.

  Or was that it? Did Hodge know his wife was calling me on the sly? That I’d stopped by to see her, no matter how brief or innocent the visit?

  Damn.

  Hodge stood to his full height, hands behind his back. “Two dead bodies, no suspects. Where do we stand in the Quarter Killer case, Chevalier?”

  We. Now there was a word for you. We didn’t stand anywhere when it came to the case. Rather I was standing at the edge of a very tall cliff and knew Hodge was waiting for an excuse to shove me right off it.

  “I have no new information to offer,” I said, participating in the stare-off he apparently wanted when I knew I should probably look away.

  “Find it. Now.”

  I felt my back teeth grinding together, increasing the intensity of my headache. “Is there anything else…sir?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I have to remind you of all that is on the line here, Detective.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Very well, then. That’s it.”

  I turned and walked from the room. I didn’t much like the little reminder that I was being watched.

  At any rate, I had a woman waiting in the lobby for me. And if I was going to go down, it might as well be because of a woman.

  Interestingly it was neither Molly nor Astrid chatting with probably the only sergeant who hadn’t tried to pick her up, only because Pierre was gay.

  “Valerie,” I said, greeting my ex-wife.

  She kissed both my cheeks, then stood back to take me in. “Jesus, Al, you look like you woke up on the wrong side of a vodka bottle.”

  “Bourbon,” I said, ignoring that it was the third time in so many minutes somebody had commented on my appearance. Maybe I should start taking a look in the bathroom mirror with the light on.

  “Oh. And you don’t smell all that hot, either.”

  “What do you want, Val?”

  “I came by to take you to lunch.”

  I looked down at my watch, convinced it couldn’t already be noon. But there it was. A quarter after.

  I dry-washed my face.

  “I’m half tempted to make you go home to shower first, though.”

  “Hey, Chevalier, why don’t you introduce us to the lady?” a sergeant across the room called out.

  While it seemed like only a month had passed since Valerie had finally dumped me, five years had gone by. Years that had been kind to her. If it was possible, she looked even better now than she had then. Her shiny dark hair was cut to a flattering shoulder length that accentuated its silky texture. Her tan slacks and black clingy top revealed a body in better shape than it had ever been.

  As I had countless times, I asked myself why it was I couldn’t have fallen in love with the woman that was everything any man could want.

  Still, things weren’t all bad. I’d exchanged a wife for a best friend. A guy could do worse.

  “Come on,” she said, linking her arm in mine. “I only have an hour. And the boss is being a bitch this morning.”

  “I thought your boss was a guy.”

  “Your point being?” She smiled wide.

  “You can’t call a man a bitch.”

  “Sure I can. Just like I can call a woman a wuss. What, are you going to arrest me for abuse of a gender-specific noun?”

  Val always had a way of making me smile.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked as we walked to a nearby restaurant that lay between the precinct and her office, where she worked as a title agent. “Have you found out something about Zoe?”

  “Actually, this isn’t about your sisters. Well, not in the way you think, anyway.”

  I put my hat on and grumbled, “I hate when you talk in circles.”

  “Let me make it easy for you then. Emilie and Laure are worried about you.”

  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, causing her to stop, as well.

  She heaved a heavy sigh. “Look, Alan, I know you don’t like anyone interfering with your family. And I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a clue what goes on in your day-to-day life—hell, I didn’t even know when we were married. I do know that whatever’s going on, it’s visibly affecting you.” She plucked at the lapel of my rumpled overcoat.

  “Is this another crack about my appearance?”

  She looked at me long and hard, and I read the concern in her brown eyes. “No. It’s not.”

  The somberness of her words, combined with the lack of an attempt at a joke, told me how serious she was.

  “Alan, I remember how you were when we first met.”

  Uh-oh. It was never good when a woman brought up something from your past together. It usually meant I was about to get slapped across the face with it.

  “I know I never said anything, and you were pretty good at keeping it from the girls, drinking only after they’d gone to bed. But I remember many a night spent listening to you after you’d locked yourself in the library. The sound of bourbon being poured into a glass and of an increasingly empty bottle hitting the desk next to it.”

  I blinked at her, having forgotten about that time. Maybe it was because I’d thought it was okay. After all, that’s what I’d grown up watching my father do, whether it
was alone or with visiting friends gathered in his library to smoke cigars.

  “I was worried about you then, but I never said anything. I figured that was how you dealt with everything that had been forced onto you.” She looked down at her feet, then up at a couple pushing a baby stroller across the street. “Anyway, those nights became more and more frequent….”

  I blinked at her, unable or incapable of believing what she was saying to me.

  If there was one thing we’d always shared, it was trust. I trusted Valerie with my life. I trusted her opinion. More than that, I cared what she thought about me, damn it. Not unlike the way I felt about my sisters.

  “You need help, Alan. Professional help.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just dump it all on you like that.” She smiled. “Come on. Maybe we’ll both feel better after we’ve put a little something in our stomachs.”

  11

  MOLLY SAT IN THE GAS LANTERN on a stool at the end of the bar, wearing something much more conservative than the sexy dress she’d had on the night before. Still, a lone woman in a bar seemed to attract a lot of attention no matter what she wore. The guy who had asked her to dance last night had asked her again tonight. She’d said no. And it had taken the owner, Jack Cadieux, to fend off the guy.

  Molly looked at her watch again. He was over a half hour late. And while she had his number at the precinct, she didn’t think it a good idea to call there since their association was supposed to be on the hush-hush.

  She nudged her watch around her wrist and wet her lips with the splash of bourbon she’d ordered and was still nursing, then took out a few bills from her purse for a tip.

  “Any message?” Jack asked her as he dried a clean glass. He remembered her and knew she was waiting for Alan.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Molly walked from the bar feeling more exposed tonight than she had in the skimpy dress. Of course, last night she’d been with Alan, and he’d seemed more than capable of taking care of her with or without his badge.

  Tonight…

  She shivered as the wind pushed an empty soda can down the street and a group of people on the corner laughed, the sound carrying on the night air. Tonight she felt as though ghosts hovered everywhere. Especially that of her sister.

  Heading in the direction of her hotel, she tried to keep her steps normal and unhurried even though her heart beat thickly in her chest, urging her to pick up the pace. After all, there was a killer on the loose. Two killers, if Alan was right and the murders at the hotel weren’t connected.

  “Hey, lady, got a dollar?” a man standing alone on the corner asked.

  She shook her head and hastened her step. A taxi turned the corner in front of her, and she raised her hand to hail it, never more relieved than when it stopped.

  She started to give him the address for the hotel, then changed her mind and gave him the address to Alan’s place. If he wasn’t there, she could always continue on to the hotel. If he was…

  She shivered again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

  Throughout the day, memories of last night had intruded, making her lips tingle and her body throb. If their parting had been a ploy to cool her desire, it wasn’t working. If anything, she wanted him even more. She felt a pulse-quickening awareness that followed her everywhere she went, regardless of whether she was consciously thinking of him.

  She slid off her right loafer and rubbed the arch of her foot. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the heels she’d worn last night or the flat shoes she’d traded them for today, but her feet hurt like the devil. Which made it just as well that she’d hailed the cab. She’d done more walking in the past few days than she had in the past few years.

  “This it, lady?”

  She realized that the taxi had pulled up outside Alan’s place. She spotted his car parked on the opposite curb. “Yeah, this is it.”

  She paid the driver, then climbed out and stood in the middle of the street as he pulled away. She took out her pad and quickly found the page noting the apartment number of Alan’s place. 3B. She looked up at the dark windows, watching as a light went on, then another, and knew a moment of hesitation. What if he wasn’t alone?

  She cleared her throat. Well, if he wasn’t alone, then it was just as well that she found out now. Besides, she had no claim on him. They had kissed. So what?

  In truth, she hoped that he wasn’t with someone and that he had thought about her today as much as she’d thought about him.

  At any rate, there was only one way to find out.

  THE FIRST THING I DID after letting myself into my apartment was switch on all the lights. Then I stood blinking at the place to regain my bearings.

  The past few hours since lunch with Val had been hell on earth. Forensics chief Steven Chan had verified what I suspected—namely that the two murders were very likely unconnected. Two different murder weapons had been used. And while that in and of itself wasn’t enough to build a case on, when combined with the other circumstantial evidence, it was. Which meant I had two killers running around loose now instead of one.

  Of course, while I tried to blame my distraction strictly on the investigation, my mind kept straying to the conversation I’d had with Val over gumbo.

  You’ve got to regain control over your life, Alan.

  Her words echoed through my mind as I shucked my overcoat, then everything else I had on, dropping the items in my wake as I headed for the bathroom and the shower beyond. I purposely avoided looking into the mirror if only because I was afraid of what I’d see.

  Damn, damn, damn. As I stood under the punishingly hot spray and quickly scrubbed myself down, I thought about what Val had said about the girls. My sisters. No longer girls but adults. Adults who were worried about me but incapable of approaching me themselves because…well, because I was like a parent to them, and kids didn’t broach such topics with their parents.

  I tried to focus on the case, on the evidence Steven had picked up from Frederique Arkart’s body, but all I could seem to focus on was the fact that it was late and I had yet to have a drink. My body ached with the need for it. My throat yearned for the taste of it.

  And I hated myself for both.

  I leaned my hand against the shower stall, wondering whether the hot water would last if I just stood there until the craving passed. Only the wall, the mirror and I knew that it wouldn’t pass. Val was right. Throughout my adult life I’d turned to liquor when things got tough. But this time…well, this time I’d gone too far. While my drinking hadn’t crept into my daytime hours, all signs pointed to it going that route, if not today or tomorrow, then the day after that. And when that happened…

  Truthfully this time of day was most difficult, when I returned to a place that wasn’t so much home as a location to store my bourbon and pass out on the secondhand bed that had come with the apartment.

  I ran my hand over my face, the self-loathing inside taking over.

  It’s a vicious cycle, Val had said, reaching for my hand. I’d pulled it away. You hate yourself for drinking and it’s that same hate that makes you reach for the bottle to obliterate it.

  What are you all of a sudden? I’d said, agitated. My AA sponsor?

  She’d ignored my snide remark and smiled. If that’s what it takes. Although I’m pretty sure a person has to have been where you’re at in order to understand what you’re going through.

  And, of course, Valerie had never been there. She’d always been completely in control of her life. Or thought she was. Except when it had come to her hope that our marriage would somehow work.

  I closed my eyes and turned my face into the hard spray. Was that what she was doing again? Working on a lost cause that was so far gone it was beyond hope?

  Hearing what sounded like a knock at the front door, I opened my eyes and listened. Another knock.

  Christ. That was all I needed—a visitor now.

>   But seeing as I’d switched off my cell phone a couple of hours ago and that I had yet to check the three messages I’d seen blinking on my answering machine, the visitor could be just about anybody, including someone sent over from the precinct.

  I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, hoping like hell that was who it was. Because if I found Astrid standing in the hall—or even Val—I didn’t know what I was capable of just then.

  I wrenched the door inward to find Molly instead.

  “Oh,” she said, apparently startled by the obviously irritated action.

  It was then that I realized I’d missed our meeting at the Gas Lantern.

  “Um, can I come in?”

  I stood for a long moment gripping the door with one hand, the towel around my hips with the other.

  “Why the hell not? Everyone in my life seems to be doing what they want anyway.”

  I released the door and strode back toward the bathroom, on my way snatching up the clothes I’d left littering the floor. I stepped into the bathroom, then closed the door, standing for long moments, not really sure of where I was and what I was doing.

  Oh, I knew physically where I stood. I just wasn’t sure where in the hell my head was at. By all rights, I should have told Molly now wasn’t a good time, then slammed the door in her pretty face. I didn’t want her to see me this way. Hell, I didn’t want to see me this way.

  I found I was staring at my reflection in the mirror. I blinked, taking in the dripping hair hanging over my brow, the water clinging to my torso and shoulders and the almost savage expression on my face.

  Val was right. I was losing it.

  MOLLY STOOD IN THE middle of the small, spartan apartment and wrapped her arms around herself, fighting both the desire to leave and the need to stay.

  Alan had been more than rude. He’d been…well, rude about being rude. But there had been something almost pleading in his eyes. While he’d radiated sarcasm and tension, for a moment she’d viewed in his expression an emotion she could only liken to relief and…well, hope.

  An emotion she felt whenever she was around him, even when he was brusque with her. No matter what their many differences, she felt they shared a sameness that went beyond their mutual goal to find her sister’s killer. Two injured souls reaching out for one another, consequences and conscious thought be damned.