plaster fell, a lump of it landing near her feet. She started to step over it. Only…
Cripes!
It wasn’t plaster. It was…
A scream tore from her throat as a decaying head rolled against her bare foot and its remaining, wiry blond hair came to rest against Jacinth’s toes.
Chapter Two
The scream stopped Nick in his tracks. No mistaking its origin. It had come from the second floor of the Villaré house.
Adrenaline shot through him, triggering his instincts for danger. The boxes he was carrying slipped from his grasp and crashed to the damp ground near his pickup truck. A pair of tennis shoes and some DVDs flew out of one.
He could see nothing but escaping rectangles of light from the windows of the Villaré house, but he grabbed the loaded Glock from under the driver’s seat before he took off, sloshing in the mud toward the scream.
He took Jacinth’s front steps two at a time, then pressed on the bell with the index finger of his left hand. His right hand held the Glock.
“Jacinth,” he called. “Are you okay?”
No answer. No more screams. Nothing from the house except dead silence. The scream echoed though his mind. Hair-raising. Bloodcurdling.
He was ready to shoot off the lock when he heard footsteps approach the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me—Nick. I heard you scream.”
She unlocked the door and opened it, standing in it rather than inviting him in. Her eyes were wide, her gorgeous face a ghostly white, and her hair was covered with dust and bits of what looked like chalk.
Nick kept his finger poised near the trigger. He stretched his neck, trying to see past her and into the house. All he saw were indistinct shadows lurking in the hallway beyond the foyer.
“Is someone here with you?”
“No. At least no one who’s currently alive.”
“Care to explain?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as if trying to gain control. “The walls in one upstairs bathroom collapsed and a woman’s head fell out of the debris and rolled across the tile.” She shuddered again.
“A human head fell out of your wall?”
“I know how bizarre this must sound, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you about living next to me.”
“Too late. I’ve already paid the deposit and the first month’s rent.”
She was trying to make light of the nightmarish situation now, but he’d heard the scream. It had vibrated with pure terror. He held the gun where she could see it.
“If there’s a problem, I can help.”
She hesitated, eyeing him warily, her gaze lingering on his pistol.
“Do you have a license to carry that thing?”
“A weapon, not a thing.” Transferring the automatic .45 to his left hand, he retrieved a business card from the back pocket of his jeans. He handed it to her.
She read it and then stared up at him from beneath incredibly dark and thick lashes. “So you’re a private detective.”
“Yep. I’m legitimate and harmless.”
“That’s what all the B-movie psychos say.” But she finally stepped aside for him to enter.
Their bare arms brushed. The feel of satiny softness so unlike his own weathered skin caught him off guard. So did the surge of arousal that followed.
He stepped away as she closed and locked the door behind them.
He followed her up a wide, winding staircase, mesmerized by the sensuous sway of her hips. He’d never expected Jacinth Villaré to be this hot.
What he had planned might turn out to be a lot like playing catch with a hand grenade.
His sinuses rebelled as she led him into a high-ceilinged, narrow bathroom at the head of the stairs. The wall behind the tub had collapsed as if it had been shaken from its supports by a devastating earthquake. Stooping, he picked up a large chunk of plaster and turned it over in his hand a couple of times.
“This is damp. You must have a leak in the wall, as well. That’s probably what caused the collapse.”
“I can live with crumbling walls.” She pointed at the floor next to a woven clothes hamper. “That has got to go.”
He stared at the rotting head. Definitely human.
“Someone must have decapitated her and buried the head inside the walls of the house,” Jacinth said, her voice steadier and her mood seemingly calmer now that he was on the scene with her.
“Looks that way,” he agreed. “I’m not sure the victim is female, though. A lot of male French Quarter inhabitants wear their hair long.”
She nodded. “At least the decay explains the smell,” Jacinth said.
“Not nearly as bad as I would have expected,” Nick said.
“But the odor was nauseating in this room when we first took possession of the house. My sister Caitlyn was convinced it was a backup in the sewerage lines. The plumber we called assured us the smell was from something that had died in the wall. We assumed he meant something like a rat or a squirrel. It never dawned on either of us that the source of the odor might be human.”
“What did you do?”
“Called an exterminator. He checked the attic, but didn’t find what was causing the stench. Thankfully, he got rid of some rodents we didn’t know we had. Then we hired a handyman to secure the structure to keep out future pests.”
“And the sickening odor?”
“The exterminator used some kind of expensive chemical to subdue it. It took three treatments.”
Nick settled on his haunches for a better look at the head. He couldn’t tell how long it had been rotting in the walls, but his educated guess was no more than eighteen months.
“How long have you lived in the house?” he asked.
“Just under a year, but our first visit was immediately after my grandmother’s will was probated. That was fourteen months ago.”
Old murder tales went with the house like crawfish and étouffée, but it rattled Nick to think this atrocity might have taken place after Jacinth and her sister had moved in.
“Where’s your sister?” he asked.
“On her honeymoon.”
He hadn’t
