real. There were no flames, no stench of burning wood and fabric and smoke. There was no fire. Just a dream. Unwilling to delve into what might have triggered the old nightmare this time, Kelly closed her eyes and drew in one breath, then another. She followed the ritual she’d used since childhood to rid herself of the aftereffects of the nightmares and visions that had plagued her most of her life. Continuing to focus on her breathing, Kelly attempted to erase from her mind all traces of the dream by replacing the fire and smoke with the soothing images of blue skies, white sandy beaches and a rolling surf.
As her breathing steadied, she could almost hear the surf rushing to the shore, could smell the saltwater in the air, could feel the cool breeze on her cheek. Finally, Kelly opened her eyes. She blinked once, twice and a third time as she adjusted her eyes to the darkness of the room. Scanning her surroundings, she noted the drawn drapes, could make out the table with her camera equipment atop it, her suitcase just inside the door. A glance at the illuminated clock on the bedside table read a few minutes past ten. Morning or night? she wondered, and then she remembered.
New Orleans.
She was in New Orleans. Suddenly all the events of the past few days came rushing back. Returning from the month-long photo shoot in Europe to find a message on her answering machine from the Mother Superior, telling her that Sister Grace was dead. The message had been more than two weeks old.
Two weeks.
Sinking back against the pillows, Kelly closed her eyes again. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. They’d buried the only person in the world who had ever cared about her and she hadn’t even managed to attend the funeral. Silently she cursed herself for the hundredth time for not checking her machine for messages. It didn’t matter that the only persons who ever called her were Sister Grace on holidays and her agent who had known where she was. She still should have checked the thing. If she had…if she had, she might at least have made it back in time to see the nun one last time.
A new wave of grief washed over Kelly and she covered her face with her hands. Sobbing, she gave in to the pain and wept aloud. And as she sat in the dark hotel room and cried, she thought about the nun who had been the closest thing to a mother she’d ever known. The tiny nun in her navy-and-white habit had been the one person who had made growing up at St. Ann’s Orphanage bearable.
Memories came tumbling back. Sister Grace wiping tears from her six-year-old cheeks when a potential adoptive family had returned her to the home, claiming she was the devil’s spawn because of the visions. Sister Grace soothing her eight-year-old heart when she’d realized no one was ever going to want her to be their little girl. Sister Grace comforting her as an unhappy eleven-year-old when the other kids taunted her, whispering that she was a witch. And Sister Grace rescuing her as a lonely thirteen-year-old by giving her her very first camera. That camera had been a lifeline for her. It had opened a window to the world and eventually it had provided her with a means of escape.
And she had escaped, she’d escaped and had never once looked back. After all, with the exception of Sister Grace, New Orleans held no fond memories for her. She’d closed that door to her life more than ten years ago, allocating the unhappy memories of her early years to a sad chapter in her life. It was a chapter she’d never intended to open again. Just as she’d never intended to return to New Orleans again.
Yet she had returned. Only, she’d come back too late, Kelly thought, crying harder. Too late to thank Sister Grace for believing in her all those years, for caring about her when no one else did. Too late to tell Sister Grace how much she’d meant to her, how much she’d loved her.
Startled by the sudden squeal of a police siren, Kelly looked up. Still sniffling, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her pajamas and then climbed out of the bed. She walked over to the window, pushed aside the drapes and looked down at the street below. Traffic had come to a halt and had shifted over to the far right lane. As she watched, two police cars with flashing lights came speeding past the hotel and continued toward the Mississippi River.
Once the police units had gone, traffic started to flow again. She noted that, despite the lateness of the hour, people were out in force. Cars hurried from one red light to the next and pedestrians, mostly in pairs or groups, waited on both sides of the street for the arrows to signal it was safe for them to cross. No doubt tourists or convention-goers, she reasoned, since few residents ever paid heed to the signal lights.
A blur of movement at the far corner of the street caught Kelly’s eye. A man, sporting a black cowl with horns and waving a devil’s red-tipped pitchfork in his hand, raced up to the crosswalk. Several similarly clad people rushed up behind him. She’d almost forgotten that it was Halloween. The devil led a group of what she suspected were college kids across the busy Canal Street intersection. Evidently they were planning a big night of partying in the French Quarter. Although at twenty-eight she wasn’t a great deal older than the college crowd, the idea of partying held little appeal for her. Turning away from the window, she stared over at the rumpled bed and debated whether or not to go back to sleep.
She was still jet-lagged, since she’d barely returned to New York before she’d hopped a plane for New Orleans. And the crying hadn’t helped. Yet, recalling the reason she’d awoken in the first place—the old nightmare about being trapped in a fire—she knew going back to sleep would be an exercise in futility. Besides, she reasoned, her body was still on European time and that little catnap had taken the edge off her exhaustion. Deciding that a shower and something to eat would be a better idea, she headed for the bathroom.
When Kelly exited the bathroom a short time later, she felt marginally better. The shower had helped. She suspected the crying had, too, since she’d allowed herself little chance to grieve after learning of Sister Grace’s death. She’d simply begun making the necessary arrangements to come to New Orleans. Despite the protests of Wyatt, her agent, at her abrupt departure, she’d been right to come back. She’d needed to come back. Not for Sister Grace, but for herself because she’d needed to say goodbye. Once she had done so, perhaps she’d be able to close that last link to her past and to the girl she had once been.
Kelly’s stomach grumbled. Pressing a hand to her middle, she acknowledged a hollow ache in her belly that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with the simple fact that she was famished. When in the world had she eaten last? she wondered. And since she couldn’t remember ingesting anything besides coffee since the return flight from Paris, she decided it probably had been much too long.
After slipping into her favorite pair of DKNY black jeans, she pulled on a black-and-ivory cashmere turtleneck and the designer boots she’d picked up for a song while shooting in Italy. She ran a brush through her blond hair, scanned her appearance in the mirror and frowned at how pale she looked. Digging through the cosmetic samples one of the makeup artists had given her, she chose a soft pink blush and rubbed some on her cheeks to give her face some color. Then she swiped the rose-colored lipstick on her mouth. Satisfied with the results, she walked over to the table and picked up the hotel room key. She slipped it into her jeans pocket, grabbed her camera bag, which also functioned as her purse, and headed out the door in search of something to eat.
She found just what she wanted in one of the dozen or so hole-in-the-wall restaurants located in the French Quarter. What the place lacked in decor it more than made up for in great-tasting food—a fact that Kelly discovered after biting into the shrimp po’boy sandwich she’d ordered. In no time at all she had polished off the crisply fried shrimp served on half a loaf of French bread, topped with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and mayonnaise. She’d even washed down the monster-size sandwich with a bottle of ice-cold beer. Feeling stuffed from her meal, Kelly exited the restaurant, positive she wouldn’t be able to eat or drink a thing for at least a week.
But by the time she’d made her way down to Jackson Square and checked out the renovations under way at the historic
