Her face screwed up, as if she didn't know what difference that made. Then she winced. "Damn, I really have been dead too long. Also been away from New Orleans too long. I kept wondering what that smell was."
"The faint traces of rotting garbage, urine and vomit, mingled with street cleaner. Eau de la French Quarter. And four things you probably don't smell in the afterlife."
"True." She took a deep breath. "As disgusting as it is, it does bring back pleasant memories. I did a lot of business here in the old days. I loved New Orleans, almost as much as I loved Savannah, Georgia."
I smiled. "I remember. As for why Roberts's wife is home . . ." I pulled a couple of business cards from Roberts's wallet. His wife's. Being a considerate husband, he must have handed them out for her. She was a baker. The work address matched their apartment.
"Damn," Mom said.
"We're going to have to lure them out. Question is, what would get both the woman and the dog--"
A whistle. Followed by a happy bark. I leaned out from our hiding place to see the woman in the photos walking from the building, the dog on its leash.
"Our timing is excellent," I said.
I'd grabbed break-in supplies from the sporting-goods store. Amazing what you can get there. Not exactly regulation cat burglar tools, but they'd do the job.
I had rods that approximated picks, but Mom's unlock spell handled that. Then, as she stood watch, I rammed a pencil into the keyhole and broke off the tip.
"Adam's trick," I said. "Makes it hard to open. It'll give us enough advance warning so we can escape."
"I have a perimeter spell for that."
"Which you can use. Never hurts to have backup."
Inside, the place reeked of dog--the smell of fur and canned food and the faint odor from a time or two when Rover must not have been let outside fast enough. Which made me think . . .
"We need to work fast," I whispered. "She might just be taking the dog for a pee break."
I took the computers. There were two--both laptops--on desk shelves. The first started up fine, no password required. It was hers. The second was protected. I didn't have time to crack it. As it was a laptop, I couldn't easily snag the hard drive. I could take the whole thing, but that would be noticed a lot faster than a missing hard drive.
So I joined Mom in her search. She'd hit pay dirt. A cell phone. Roberts didn't have one on him when I checked, and I figured he'd left it in his car. T
his was an older model that he must not have been quite ready to ditch. The SIM card had been removed, but he had plenty of contact information saved on the phone itself. Enough for us to track down whomever he'd been working with.
We took the phone and left.
We headed for a coffee shop. Easy enough to find in the French Quarter. I'd withdrawn cash near the sports store--Lucas had deemed it safe enough, as long as I promptly left the immediate area after I used the machine. I'd given some to my mother so she wouldn't be wandering around with empty pockets.
"Remember I used to do that?" she'd said. "Always made sure you had a few dollars in your pocket?"
"I thought that was for emergency phone calls."
"You'd only need a quarter for that. I just . . . I remember when I was little, I liked having some money on me. Made me feel safer."
I'd never thought of it that way. Even now, I wasn't really sure what she meant. I guess we'd had very different childhoods. I didn't know much about hers. Just that when she'd left it behind, she left behind everyone in it.
We picked a narrow shop that advertised slow-drip coffee. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded promising.
As we went in, Mom pulled out a five and said, "My treat."
"Not with that."
She looked at the menu board and stared at it a moment. Swore. Then took out a ten.
"You go sit down," she said. "I've got this."
"Okay, I'd like--"