safe house—it won’t be all white picket fences and magnolias in a garden.”
She let that soak in, her mind reeling with images of dark, smoke-filled alleyways and double-locked doors. “Keep talking.”
“It’s called Kissie’s Korner. It’s in the Quarter.”
“My mama—”
“Would want you safe,” he finished before she could voice her mother’s disapproval.
“Not in a place like that. It sounds so—”
“Decadent?” he asked with that tight little smile.
She didn’t dare look at him. “Yes.”
“It’s a blues club. Some of the best blues and jazz musicians in the world have passed through Kissie’s place. But that’s just a cover.”
“Uh-huh. So you’re telling me that even though this place sounds like the devil’s playground, it’s really as squeaky clean as a church pew?”
He actually chuckled. “Ah, Lydia, I’m almost glad you’re with me on this.”
That caused her heart to glow just like the dawn all around them, bright and full of hope. “Thanks, I think,” she said to hide that glow. She had to keep reminding herself she did not want to be here. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Kissie’s Korner is a very clean place, faithwise. Kissie takes in troubled teens, turns them toward the Lord and sets them on their way. She’s probably saved more teens in her thirty-five years of being an operative than anyone else on the planet.”
“That is mighty respectable.”
“Kissie is a good-hearted woman. She loves the Lord and serves only Him. She doesn’t put up with any bunk, I can tell you.”
“Drunken, rowdy blues players constitute bunk in my book.”
“Kissie doesn’t allow for any of that kind of stuff. Her place is a coffee bar.”
Lydia’s mouth fell open. “Nothing stronger than caffeine? I don’t get it.”
“Neither do the ones who try to pull anything. She boots them out, but they usually come back, begging for redemption. Kissie is that good.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right,” he said as he steered the truck down a narrow street just on the fringes of the French Quarter near Louis Armstrong Park. Then he parked and glanced around, his eyes doing a recon roll. “We’re here.”
Lydia looked up at the massive house in front of them, a soft gasp of shock shuddering through her body. It looked so old and dilapidated she had to wonder if it had been here since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of New Orleans. Two-storied and painted a sweet baby-blue, the house leaned so far to the left, a lush hot-pink bougainvillea vine actually floated out and away from it. The house reminded Lydia of an old woman holding a lacy handkerchief. The tall, narrow windows were surrounded with ancient gray-painted hurricane shutters. Antique wrought-iron tables and chairs filled the lacy balconies and porches. Petunias in various clay pots bloomed with wild abandonment all around the tottering, listing porch, while a magenta-colored hibiscus flared out like a belle’s skirt right by the steps. And a white-lettered sign over the front porch stated Kissie’s in curled, spiraling letters that matched the curling, spiraling mood of the house.
“This is a safe house?”
“Completely safe.” Pastor Dev came around the truck to help Lydia out. “Trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“You will, won’t you, Lydia?”
The way he looked at her, the way he asked that one simple question, made Lydia feel as sideways and unstable as this old house, while the look in his eyes made her want to stand tall and believe in him with all her heart.
“I guess I have to, now, don’t I?”
His smile was as brittle as the peeling paint on the house. “Yes, I’m afraid you do. Because, I have to warn you, this is only the beginning.”
“Oh, great,” Lydia said, using humor to hide her apprehension. “You mean, there’s more ahead?”
“Lots more before it’s over,” he said. “They won’t stop until they find us.”
And this time, he wasn’t smiling.
FIVE
“Get yourself on in here, man, and give Kissie a good and proper hug.”
The tall, big-boned woman stood at the door of the leaning house, the colorful beads on her long dreadlocks bouncing against her ample arms and shoulders. She wore a brightly patterned silk caftan that swished each time she chuckled and smiled. And she smelled like vanilla and spice.
That was Lydia’s first impression of Kissie Pierre, code name, Woman at the Well. Lydia watched as the voluptuous Kissie grabbed Pastor Dev and hugged him so tightly, he nearly lost his breath. But he didn’t seem to mind. He returned Kissie’s exuberant hug with one of his own, a gentle smile on his face as he winked at Lydia over Kissie’s cocoa-colored shoulder.
“It’s good to see you,” Pastor Dev said as he came up for air. Then he turned to Lydia. “Lydia Cantrell, meet Kissie Pierre.”
“Mercy me,” Kissie said, grabbing Lydia by her arm, her big dark eyes widening with glee, her gold bangles slipping down her arm. “You sure are a pretty little thing.”
“Thank you,” Lydia said, the heat of that praise causing her to blush. “And thank you for…helping us.”
Kissie cluck-clucked that notion away. “Part of my job, honey-pie. That’s why I’m here. Now y’all come on back to the kitchen and let me get some decent food and strong coffee in you.”
Pastor Dev guided Lydia through the long, cluttered “club” part of the establishment. Lydia cast her gaze about, feeling as if she were in a forbidden zone. She saw reds and burgundies on the walls and in the furniture, plush Victorian sofas and dramatic Tiffany-style lamps, tassels and fringe in gold and bronze, and a huge white grand piano that sat in a prominent place by the floor-to-ceiling window in the front parlor. Across the squeaking, creaking worn wooden floor of the wide hallway, another room was filled with bistro tables and chairs and a gleaming mahogany bar along one wall. A huge sign running the length of the bar stated “Commit your work to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.”—Proverbs 16:3.
“I just don’t get it,” Lydia whispered, the paradox of this seemingly decadent place running amok in her pristine mind. “I don’t see any alcohol behind that bar.”
“That’s the point,” Pastor Dev said into her ear. “It’s a cover, remember. The coffee bar works just fine. But Kissie makes it pretty clear that if you enter this establishment, it won’t be to drink liquor and carry on. She offers tea, lemonade and a full range of coffees, as well as all kinds of sweet treats. It’s more of a coffeehouse than a real bar, and her patrons know that.”
