it was not accidental. She was murdered.”
Murdered.
The officer was staring at her, troubled, frowning.
“I’m telling you, she was clean. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll raise a stink in this parish that you won’t believe. She can’t be…oh, God.”
No. This was impossible. She was still dreaming. Imagining this cop just the way she’d imagined Andy last night.
“I’m sorry, Miss DuMonde. Look, is there someone I can call? Are your folks here…a sister, brother, friend?” he asked.
She ignored him, shaking her head, anger keeping her standing. “She did not overdose. If she had drugs in her system, someone else put them there. I am going to demand an investigation. I want to see a homicide officer.”
“I handle homicide cases,” he said gently. “We have to look into any death that’s questionable in any way.”
“Oh?” She stared at him anew, heart racing.
“It wasn’t a natural death,” he said. “So they call us in.”
“What time was she killed?” Nikki managed to ask.
“What time did she die?” he countered gently.
“Please. Yes, whatever. What time—did she die?” Nikki gasped out again.
The detective looked wary, as if he wasn’t sure why that information should be so pertinent.
“The ME only had an estimate, but it would have been right around 4:00 a.m.,” he told her.
She reached out, grasping for a railing…for help…for something that wasn’t there. Too late, the detective realized what was happening.
Nikki crashed down on the porch as the world faded before her, Andy’s words suddenly echoing in her ears.
“Help me!”
“Sorry,” the taxi driver told Brent as they slowed to a near halt on entering the French Quarter.
“No problem,” Brent told him.
It was usually a slow process, maneuvering the tourist-filled streets. Delivery vans could block a narrow byway, and any little snarl could close things off, though in the tight confines of the place—with many streets blocked off for pedestrian traffic only—most people preferred to walk. Still, vehicles were sometimes necessary, and delays were just a fact of life.
Brent breathed a deep sigh as he looked around. Charming. That was definitely a word to describe the architecture, the handsome wrought-iron railings the locals called iron lace. The sound of the music, the colors, the architecture itself. Yes, the place had charm.
And once upon a time he had loved it.
But that was then, and this was now, and if he’d never come back, it would have been just fine.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked as a patrolman in the street brought the traffic to a stop.
“Debate,” the taxi driver said.
“Debate?” Brent said, and frowned.
“Politicians, and I’m not sure what they’re debating. They both claim to have the same platform. Working to keep the history and unique quality of the place while cleaning up crime. I guess the old guy is saying that he knows what he’s doing, that his record is great, and we’re already on the way, while the younger guy is claiming the old guy hasn’t done a thing, hasn’t moved fast enough…well, you know. It’s politics. Everyone swears to move the moon, and everyone out there is a liar, just the same.” He winked at Brent in the rearview mirror.
“The crime rate has come down, though, hasn’t it?”
“Crime rate goes down, crime rate goes up. Hey, no matter who wants to run what, nothing changes. Those that have want to keep what they have. Those that don’t have want to get. We have real poverty in some areas, some pretty rich folk in others. Same old, same old, the human condition. Unless you change the conditions…well, that’s what both our boys say they mean to do, so…you know how you usually vote for the guy you dislike the least? Well, both these guys are likable, so I guess we can’t lose.”
“That’s good.”
“I think so. But then, I love this place. You visit often?”
“No.”
“Where you from?”
Brent started to say, All over.
But he didn’t. He told the truth.
“Here. Right here.”
“Yeah? Well, welcome home!”
The traffic began to move again.
They passed the police station on Royal.
At last they came to the bed-and-breakfast where Brent was planning to stay, after crashing at a hotel out by the airport the night before.
He paid the driver, met the hefty man who owned the place, paid and found his room.
And crashed down on the bed. New Orleans.
Arriving here was like having his blood drained from his body. Like being on the wrong side of a bout in a boxing ring. The pain in his head crashed like hurricane waves on the shore.
Drapes were drawn, door was closed…darkness.
All he needed was a little time. And he could adjust.
He didn’t want to adjust.
But he would.
5
A year and a day.
That thought kept going through Nikki’s head as she stood in the graveyard. Andrea hadn’t hailed from New Orleans, but she didn’t have any family left anywhere else, either. She’d been orphaned, like Nikki, and had grown up in a series of foster homes.
There had been no one to call. Andrea had been out of school for two years, traveling and taking odd jobs along the way. She’d left no names to contact in any kind of an emergency. She had gone to Tulane and probably still had friends in the area, but who they were and how they could be reached, Nikki hadn’t had the faintest idea.
And because there was no place Andrea had called home and no one she had called family, Nikki had decided that she would take care of all the arrangements.
So Andy was being buried in Nikki’s family vault, since there was plenty of room and no one left to fill it. The DuMondes had lived in the area since the late 1700s. Where her very early ancestors had been buried, Nikki didn’t know. But in the 1800s they had acquired a plot in the Garden District. Someone at some time had put some money into the family mausoleum. Giant angels guarded the wrought-iron
