branch fell with a thud. The ground shook and she nearly fell.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
More shots! People were yelling, screaming through the hail of bullets. Someone was howling miserably as if he or she, too, had been hit.
But her father lay still, his color fading to black and white.
“Dad!” she screamed again.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Kristi sat bolt upright in her chair.
Oh, God, she’d been dreaming, the nightmare vivid and terrorizing. Her heart was thundering, fear and adrenaline screaming through her blood, sweat breaking out on her skin.
She jumped, then looked at the clock and realized she was hearing the sound of firecrackers. People were ringing in the new year. Muted laughter and shrieking reached her ears. Church bells on campus peeled and over the din she heard the sound of horrible yowling, the noise she’d attributed to someone injured in the attack.
“Dear God,” she whispered, her heart still thundering.
Still a little groggy, she pushed herself up from the chair. She’d been reading about a serial killer and the imagined images still danced inside her head as she shoved her hair from her eyes and then walked to the door of her studio. Only her desk light was on, and aside from the pool of light cast from the small lamp, the room was in shadows. Peeking through the peephole in the door, she saw nothing. Just the empty stair landing where the dim bulb in the ceiling offered a hazy blue glow. Still the crying continued. Leaving the chain locked, she slid the dead bolt out of place and opened the door a crack.
Instantly a skinny black cat shot inside.
“Whoa…!” Kristi watched as the half-starved creature scurried under the daybed, the bedskirt undulating in the cat’s wake. “Oh, come on, kitty…kitty…no…” Kristi followed the scrawny animal, then got down on her knees and peered under the skirt. Two yellow eyes, round with fear, stared back at her. Somehow the damned thing had wedged itself between the top mattress and the lower trundle in a space barely wide enough for Kristi’s hand. “Come on, kitty, you really can’t be here.” She tried to reach into the tight space but the cat hissed and flattened itself deeper in the crevice, its body pressed against the wall. “I mean it, come out.” Again, she was shown a curling pink tongue and needle-sharp fangs. “Great. Okay.”
Kristi pulled on the lower bunk and the cat dropped into the space between the mattress and wall. When she pushed the trundle back, she thought the cat would squirt out one end, but apparently the little thing found a hiding spot. No amount of moving the bed could dislodge the animal and Kristi wasn’t about to drag out the bed and slide into the tight space with a terrorized feline and its sharp claws.
“Please, cat…” Kristi sighed. She didn’t need this. Not tonight. Besides, there was some damned rule in clause five hundred and seventy-six or something about not having any pets on the premises. She was certain Hiram could recite it chapter and verse. “Come on…” she said, trying to sweet-talk the frightened feline.
No such luck.
“Kitty” wasn’t budging.
“Okay…how about this?” She scrounged in her cupboard, found a can of tuna, and opened it. Glancing over her shoulder, she expected to see a little nose or curious eyes or at least a black paw peeking from beneath the daybed.
She was wrong.
She put a couple of forkfuls of tuna into a small dish and half filled another with water, then set them close enough to the bed to entice the cat, but far enough away that Kristi thought she could grab it by the back of its neck and haul it outside. But she’d have to be patient.
Not her long suit.
She set the dishes on the floor and backed up. Then waited, watching the digital clock on the microwave as the minutes dragged by as if they were hours and more revelry sounded outside: people yelling, horns honking, fireworks exploding, footsteps on the porches below. Laughter. Conversation.
Inside, the cat stayed put. Probably petrified with all the noise.
Perfect, Kristi thought, fighting a headache. She was bone tired. The minutes dragged by and she finally gave up. She couldn’t wait all night.
“Fine. Have it your way.” Already in her PJs, she closed the door, locked it, double-checked the latches on the windows, and crawled into the daybed. It creaked beneath her weight and she thought for certain she’d hear the cat slink from beneath the mattress, but not a chance. There were noises outside. Music and laughter filtering up through the floor. Mai Kwan’s group back from the Watering Hole, no doubt, but her new houseguest didn’t so much as stick his nose out from under the bed.
It appeared that the black cat she’d already decided to call Houdini had settled in for the night.
“It’s midnight. Come on, celebrate!” Olivia insisted, and offered Bentz a glass of nonalcoholic champagne. “It’s going to be a better year.”
“Doesn’t it have to be?” He pushed away from the desk in their cottage in Cambrai. Ever since the roads had been repaired from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he and Olivia, along with her scruffy dog and noisy bird, had lived out here. Kristi, too, off and on, had stayed in the spare bedroom upstairs in this cottage Olivia had inherited from her grandmother. Kristi, though, had always been restless in this little cabin on the bayou. Moreover, she’d never really felt comfortable with him and his new wife. For years it had been just the two of them, and though she gave lip service to “liking” Olivia and “loving” the idea that he wasn’t alone any longer, that he’d finally gotten over Kristi’s mother, that he was living his own life, there was a part of her that still hadn’t accepted it all. None of this had escaped his ultraperceptive wife, though Livvie held her tongue on the matter. Smart woman. And goddamned beautiful.
Since living out here they both had to commute to the city, but it was worth it, he decided, once he’d gotten used to living next door to gators and egrets and possum. The distance from the city gave both he and Olivia some peace of mind, a little time away from the chaos that had been New Orleans.
Olivia still owned her shop, the Third Eye, just off Jackson Square, where she sold trinkets, artifacts, and new age stuff to tourists. The store had been spared any serious damage, but the square itself had changed and the tourist business had been slow to return. The tarot readers and human statues, even many of the musicians, had left in the storm’s aftermath, as their homes had been destroyed and even now, things were slow.
“Don’t be such a pessimist, Bentz,” she teased, and he grudgingly took the drink and touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Happy New Year.” Her eyes, the color of aged whiskey, gleamed and wild blond curls surrounded her face. She’d aged some in the years since they’d married, but the lines near the corners of her eyes didn’t detract from her beauty; in fact, she insisted they gave her character. But there was a sadness to her, too. They’d never been able to conceive and now Bentz wasn’t really interested. Kristi was in her late twenties and starting over again seemed unnecessary, maybe even foolhardy. Jesus, he’d be in his sixties when the kid finished high school. That didn’t seem right.
Except Olivia wanted a child.
And she would make a damned fine mother.
“I’m not a pessimist,” he corrected
