Rising Moon (Nightcreature 6)

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

My laughter was slightly hysterical, which just wasn’t like me. I forced myself to stop, take a sip of coffee and several deep breaths.

Just because there’d been an altar with icons that might or might not be a voodoo spell to transform a person into a wolf—or a cat, or a pig, or a chicken—didn’t mean it had happened. I knew better.

“I have to go back to work,” Maggie said.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“These are just legends,” she continued. “There is magic in the world; I believe that, but not this kind of magic.”

I cleared my throat. “You’re right. I’m letting myself get spooked by this place.”

“New Orleans will do that. Most haunted city in America, they say.”

“Swell,” I muttered, and she grinned.

“If you have any more questions, you know where to find me.” She leaned over and wrote a www. address on one of the napkins. “Here’s the Web site where I got most of the info. You can always try there first. There’s even an e-mail address to ask questions. It’s very helpful.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” She left me alone in the courtyard.

Now what?

Someone with access to Rising Moon thought they were a lougaro, or at the least thought they could become one. People were disappearing or winding up dead after visiting the place. Were the two connected?

As Maggie said, “There are no accidents.” I didn’t think this was one either.

I should probably tell Sullivan, except what, exactly, would I tell him? He wasn’t going to believe the shapeshifter theory any more than I did.

As I exited the coffee shop, I tossed the icons into the nearest trash bin. Maybe that would help.

Though, somehow, I doubted it.

A few days later I was doing my best to catch some sleep before my shift and having very little luck. I tossed; I turned. My pillow felt all lumpy.

When I lifted it, another small bag of tangy-scented herbs rested beneath.

Who kept doing this? I didn’t care for the idea that someone had been in my room and touched my pillow. What else had they touched?

I set the thing on my nightstand, determined to ask King about it. I’d also request a change of locks on both the club and my bedroom door. Seemed like anyone could waltz in here at any time and do just about anything. Yet no one ever saw them.

And why was that?

“Ghosts,” I muttered, remembering Sullivan’s admonition that this place, and many others in town, were haunted. However, I didn’t believe in ghosts either.

Without the proverbial pea beneath the princess, I slept, waking at the first note of the piano downstairs.

All around me the blue velvet darkness swirled.

I let the smooth tones soothe me. I didn’t have to be downstairs for an hour and right now the appeal of just drifting was too strong to be denied. I hadn’t liked j azz when I’d arrived, but the more I heard, the more I learned, the more it grew on me.

I slid away on the music, floating between the two worlds, not awake, not asleep, both hyper-aware and zoned out at the same time.

Suddenly my eyes snapped open. Had that been the door closing? Someone leaving, someone coming, or nothing at all?

“John?”

No one answered. Cold sweat tickled my pores. I wished, not for the first time, that I’d brought my gun to New Orleans.

Annoyed at my fear, sick and tired of cowering, I flicked on the lamp, leaving my hand around the base, prepared to throw the thing at someone’s head if I had to.

But no one was there.

I gave a little laugh, which sounded more like a nervous cough. How did John stand the darkness? The uncertainty? The fear?

Except he never seemed uncertain or fearful. The longer I knew him, the more amazing he became.

It wasn’t until I’d taken a shower, dressed for work, then returned to the nightstand to grab the bag of herbs that I saw the white handkerchief. Since I didn’t own a white handkerchief, I was understandably distressed.

Even more so when it became apparent the material was wrapped around something. I should probably call the police, but I’d never been very good at waiting.

I tugged on the handkerchief, wincing as it pulled free. I don’t know what I expected—a severed finger, a toe, perhaps an eyeball. Too many horror movies during my teen years, no doubt.

However, what spilled out of the white cotton and thunked against the surface of the nightstand had me hyperventilating worse than any of those other horrific items would have.

Because the sterling silver bracelet was Katie’s.

She’d been wearing it the night she disappeared. I remembered because we’d fought over the thing.

The last words she’d said to me had been, “You can wear this bracelet when I’m dead.”

And being a sister, I’d said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

She’d flounced out of the house, and I hadn’t seen her or the bracelet again.

Until now.

My fingers trembled as they reached out. I was centimeters away from picking up the silver band when I saw the blood, the dirt, and snatched them away.

“Oh, God,” I whispered. Was that Katie’s blood? If so, then who had brought the bracelet here?

I wrapped my arms around myself as a chill overtook me. Who had been in my room? When? Did it matter? I had another lead in a case that had been as cold as a January morning, even with the picture of Katie on the street outside this building. I’d take whatever clues I could get and run with them.

Wrapping the bracelet in the handkerchief, I glanced around the room for someplace to hide it until I could get the thing analyzed.

Maybe here wasn’t the best idea. People seemed to come in and out at will. Instead, I sneaked into the hall, then into a spare bedroom, glancing about uneasily for another altar, thrilled when I didn’t find one. I tucked the shrouded silver beneath the mattress, then returned to my room and dialed Sullivan.

I got voice mail. Never could find a cop when you needed one.

At the beep, I left a message. “I need something analyzed. Can you come to Rising Moon when you get a chance? I’m working tonight.”

I ran down the steps and nearly slammed into a customer when I entered the tavern. From the size of the crowd, if not the skill of the music, I deduced John was at the piano, even before I glanced over and saw that I was right.

King scowled in my direction. I was late and we were busy. The next several hours passed in a blur of drink orders, laughter, and song.

Rodolfo was in rare form, playing continuously, seemingly inexhaustible, almost rabid in his intensity. I found myself anticipating the end of my shift. Would we climb the steps to my room and be together?

Thinking of him kept my mind off Katie and her bracelet, kept me from wondering, too often, what it meant. But it didn’t keep me from watching the door, starting whenever it opened, then sighing in disappointment when Sullivan didn’t walk through.

At last, long past midnight, John rose from the piano, and despite numerous urgings to the contrary, refused to go back, disappearing instead into the office and closing the door. The crowd began to thin immediately, giving me a chance to talk to King.

“Do you know what this is?” I laid the slightly crunchy bag of who knows what on the bar.

King glanced up in the middle of pouring Wild Turkey into a shot glass, and the liquor squirted wildly across the previously pristine bar.

I snatched the tiny bag out of harm’s way. “Hey!” He glanced furtively around. “You keep that thing out of sight,” he snapped.

That wasn’t quite the reaction I’d expected, but at least he appeared to know something. I tucked it into my pocket, then waited as patiently as I could for him to complete the order.

He motioned me to the end of the bar. “Where’d you get that?”

“Under my pillow—for the second time this week.” His perpetual frown deepened. “Makes no sense.”

“I thought it was some New Orleans tradition. Like potpourri.”

He snorted. “That’s a gris-gris.”

“Voodoo?”

King nodded.

“What’s it for?”

“Could be protection, a curse, or even a love charm.”

Love charm? Hell.

I removed the bag from my pocket and held it out. “What about this one?”

He stared at the gris-gris for an instant. “I told you before, I don’t know nothin’ about voodoo.”

“Who would put this under my pillow?”

“Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that either.”

“I think we need to change the locks on this place.”

King’s eyes narrowed.

“I think you’re right.” I turned, determined to finish my shift and hunt down Sullivan, then paused at the sight of John leaning in the doorway to the office. His dark glasses shone starkly against his overly pale face.

I started toward him, planning to ask him a few questions, but he backed away, lifting a shaking hand to his head. “Don’t,” he muttered. I paused. “You have a migraine?” He nodded, winced at the motion, then took several quick steps in retreat, before shutting the door in my face. I was tempted to follow, but what could I do? From past experience with my mother, I’d learned a migraine sufferer was better left alone, in the dark. “Anne,” King called. “A little help here.” Rising Moon had started to fill up again. Some locals drifted in, started to play, and we got even busier. Mardi Gras was almost upon us.

I ended up running for another two hours and forgetting, for the most part, about magic charms and John Rodolfo. Around three a.m., Sullivan strode in. “You got my message,” I said. That stopped him. “What message?”

“If you didn’t get it, then why are you here?”

“I tried to call; no one answered.” I indicated the band, then the crowd. “I’m not surprised. What did you want?”

“Your boss has been arrested.”

“But—” I glanced toward the rear of Rising Moon. “He’s in the office. With a migraine.”

“He was found standing over a murdered woman, and he says he doesn’t remember how he got there.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why don’t we take a look?”

I shrugged and led the way. Certainly Rodolfo could have left the office and slipped out the back door.

But if he’d had a migraine, I doubted he’d gone far. Of course, he’d only said he had one. He could have been lying.

“What the hell you doin’ here?” King demanded.

“Official business,” Sullivan answered. “She says your boss is in the office; I say he’s locked up for murder.”

King moved swiftly, twisting the key on the register, then hurrying out from behind the bar, wiping his hands on a towel as he went. He paused at the microphone, yanking it rudely away from the young woman who was singing a very nice rendition of “Sentimental Journey.”

“Everybody out,” he ordered. “We closed.”

People began to complain, but King drew himself up to his full height, flexed his impressive biceps beneath the smooth cotton of his white T-shirt, and scowled. Everybody got out.

“Did you see John leave?” I asked, following King toward the back of the club.

“No.” King’s gaze turned to Sullivan. “You see Johnny yourself?”

Sullivan’s confidence wavered a bit. “No.”

“Not him then. It’s an easy thing to give another man’s name.”

The weight on my chest lightened. That was it. The man behind bars wasn’t John, but someone who’d seen him play, remembered his name, then used it at an inopportune time. Sullivan had just jumped the gun.

I opened the door to the office. “John?” I murmured. “You here?”

Silence was my only answer. I hated to turn on the harsh overhead lights, though really, what would it matter? I didn’t get a chance to decide. Sullivan flicked the switch.

I flinched in the glare, then stared at an empty room.

“So,” Sullivan said, “which one of you wants to come with me?”

***