She turned. It was Rebecca. “Hey, yourself.”
“We dress up pretty good, huh?” Rebecca said.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Kendall said with pleasure.
“Honey, I’m not sure all these people would be thrilled to know that half the morgue is here,” Rebecca told her, grinning.
“Is Miss Ady here, too?” Kendall asked.
“No, this is too much bash—and too many young children running around—for my mama these days. No, I’m here as a supportive civil servant. And what are you three doing, moping around here like a trio of logs? Let’s get on that floor and dance.”
“Why, Rebecca, what an idea,” Mason said approvingly. “Think you can dance me over to that blonde?”
“I’ll do my best,” she promised.
“I guess that leaves you and me,” Vinnie said to Kendall.
“Oh, cheer up, we’re good together,” Kendall said, and laughed. “Remember Miss Louisa’s Cotillion for Young Southern Citizens?”
“I do,” he said, groaning.
They headed for the floor, and she realized she enjoyed dancing with Vinnie. Before the number ended, though, Aidan cut in.
“Having fun?” he asked her.
“Yes. Well, except for when Vinnie is whining about the band.”
Aidan laughed. “The Stakes are better.”
“It seems like a huge success.”
“It is. Jeremy is thrilled.”
“That’s who it is!” Kendall said suddenly, noticing the dark-haired man over Aidan’s shoulder and finally placing him.
“Who who is?” Aidan asked her.
“Dr. Abel. He looks terrific in a tux. I’ve only ever seen him with his hair wild, his glasses halfway down his nose and wearing a lab coat. I’ve met him a few times, but I’ve never seen him cleaned up. He’s not half so creepy like this.”
Aidan grinned. “Maybe not so creepy, but he’s still a jerk. Doesn’t matter. Thanks to Rebecca, I’ve got Jonas stepping in to tell him that the Feds are taking over. The bones are going to some experts up in the D.C. area. I’m going to pick them up on Monday and oversee the transfer myself, along with a dried blood scraping and a dress that I hope will produce some skin flakes.”
Before she could reply, Rebecca was cutting in on her. “Excuse me, there’s a fox-trot coming up, and this man looks like a fox to me.”
“Please, enjoy,” Kendall said with a laugh.
She danced with Mason. Then, to her surprise, when Mason finally got a chance to dance with his blonde, she found herself on the floor alone, facing Dr. Jon Abel, who had apparently just lost his partner, too.
“Miss Montgomery, right?” he said.
“Yes. Hello, Dr. Abel.”
He offered her a hand. “Would you like to dance?”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Nice affair, isn’t it?” he asked cheerfully. “I’m glad to see people out in force for the benefit of New Orleans.”
“How are things? Is the crime rate still high?”
“We’re not the worst in the country, but a lot of the parish is still struggling.” He smiled. “I’ll let you in on a secret.”
“Oh?”
“You came with Aidan Flynn, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know he’s frustrated that I haven’t gotten some results for him yet. And I’m sure he thinks I’ll be angry about turning the work over to the Federal lab. Here’s the secret. I’m not angry at all. I’m relieved. We’re still too busy with the present.”
She nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
She’d already noticed that he was a smooth dancer, and now she was pleased to discover that he was also a pleasant man. Rebecca had said a few times that he could be fierce, but that probably just came with the territory.
“This is a lovely party, don’t you think? I hear they’re going to announce another one tonight, something out at that place they inherited,” he said.
“Oh?”
“You don’t know?”
“I’d heard they were talking about it.”
“It should be good, casual instead of formal like tonight. Don’t tell Aidan I applaud his family’s efforts, though. It’s better if he keeps thinking I’m an old grouch.”
“My lips are sealed,” she assured him.
The music stopped, and it looked to Kendall as if there were going to be some announcements. Sure enough, the mayor got up on the stage, thanking everyone for making the city great again. Then he turned the mike over to Al Fisher, the DJ emceeing the event, who in turn gave it over to Jeremy.
Jeremy promised to keep his remarks brief, saying he didn’t want to stop the evening with a speech. He talked a little about Children’s House, then said, “I know this is short notice, folks, and it will be first come, first served, but I want to announce a benefit bash out at the Flynn plantation on the thirty-first. We’re calling it our Haunted Holiday Happening, and we’re hoping to raise a lot more money while everyone has a lot more fun.”
The DJ came back then to talk about how, where and when people could buy tickets, and while he was talking, Vinnie reappeared at Kendall’s side.
“They have to hire us this time, Kendall. You’ve got pull. Tell them they’ve got to hire the Stakes.”
“Vinnie, I can suggest it,” she said. “You know Jeremy pretty well. Why don’t you talk to him about it?”
“Yeah, but I think your boy calls the shots where that house is concerned.”
“That’s not true at all. And who knows? The radio station hired this group, maybe they’re in charge for the next party, too.”
“Just ask Aidan, would you?”
“Ask Aidan what?”
He was back at her side. She glanced up at him and felt very warm all of a sudden. The room was full of beautiful people tonight, but Aidan wore his tux exceptionally well. His hair was so dark and his eyes so deep a blue, and his broad shoulders, tapering hips and sheer height gave him a James Bond quality. And once, she realized, he really had been a G-man, even if not a British one.
“Vinnie wants me to ask you if the Stakes can play at the Halloween benefit,” she said. “He thinks they should.”
“So do I,” Aidan said.
Vinnie stared at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll ask Jeremy what he has in mind. It’s his decision. Kendall, care to dance?”
“You’ve made his day,” she said as she swept out on the floor with Aidan.
She wanted to ask if he’d totally cleared Vinnie of suspicion, but she decided not to. They seemed to be getting along, and she wanted to keep it that way. After all, maybe he just wanted to keep a close eye on Vinnie.
He could dance so well that at first she didn’t realize he had maneuvered them into a spot where he could watch Mason, who was dancing with the blonde again.
“Are you always like this?” she asked him.
“Like what?”
“Conducting surveillance?”
He had the grace to grimace. “Not always. I won’t be later, I promise.”
“Later?”
“Aren’t you coming back out to the plantation with me? Tomorrow is Sunday, and Mason said you decided to close tomorrow so you could both take a break after the gala. I admit, workmen will be clomping around the house, but…” His brows knit into a frown as his words trailed away. “I didn’t scare you off, did I? I mean, I suppose it’s rather bizarre when your first night in a man’s house ends with him sleepwalking.”
“No. And yes, but we have to go to my place first. I need some things—and the poor cat. She looked at me today as if I were a traitor.”
“She can come, too.”
“Too many workmen. She’ll have to learn that cats are supposed to be independent.”
Soon after, while Aidan was talking to Jon Abel—a conversation that looked pleasant, at least from a distance—Kendall found herself standing with Hal Vincent and a few of the other police officers she’d known for
ever. Hal rolled his eyes when the upcoming event at the Flynn plantation came up. “They’re going to have to hire some outside security. That place is dark as hell, and you’re sure to have a few idiots who think it would be fun to go play in the graveyard or get lost in the woods down by the river.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. This went well, but I think they’re pushing it, having something out at that old place.”
“But the plantation is a piece of history, and it’s for a good cause,” Kendall objected.
“People are people. There are idiots in every crowd. Haven’t you ever seen any of those teen slasher movies? The kids keep going back out to the woods to fool around, even knowing there’s a killer on the loose. And when you watch those movies, you think nobody is that stupid. Sad thing is, people actually are,” Hal said. “And that place? It’s haunted,” he assured her in a dead-serious tone.
“This from a jaded homicide detective?”
“I may mess with the living, but I don’t go up against ghosts,” Hal told her. “Hey, my mama taught me there are some things best left alone, and that includes ghosts.”
“I’m sure they’ll arrange for good security.”
“They’ll be paying for it, too,” Hal said grimly.
As they were speaking, Jonas and his wife approached them.
“Miss Montgomery,” Jonas said, and introduced himself, “you may not remember me, but we’ve crossed paths a few times. I’d like you to meet my wife, Matty.”
Matty looked as if she’d probably paid for her plastic surgeon’s newest Mercedes, but her smile, as she took Kendall’s hand, was warm and genuine. “I’ve read about you,” she said.
“You’ve read about me?”
“In the ‘Neighbors’ section of the paper,” Matty explained. “After Amelia died. There was a real nice article in there about the way she’d helped you when you’d been orphaned and then opening your shop, and how you returned that favor, caring for her. It was a nice write-up. Anyway, when I read it, I felt kind of like I knew you. I lost my folks when I was young, too.”
“I’m sorry. It’s nice to meet you. And I’ll have to look up that article. I never saw it.”
“Are you really a psychic?” Matty asked.
Kendall hesitated. “I really know how to read a tarot deck,” she said.
“Great. I’ve been wanting to check out your shop. I’ll come by next week.” She smiled.
Eventually the party wound down, and Kendall left with Vinnie, Mason and the three Flynn brothers. It was late, but Café du Monde stayed open to all hours, so they headed in that direction for coffee and beignets. When Kendall and Aidan got up to leave, she asked Mason about his blonde. “Did you get her name and number?”
He grinned. “You bet. I’ll be seeing her again.”
It had been a long day. Kendall was still keyed up when they finally returned to the plantation after a stop at her place to pick up clothes and spend a few minutes with Jezebel. Once again the windows were shining from within, and she could see that a light had been rigged back by the old slave quarters, too. But it was just a house, she told herself. Just a house.
It was welcoming, beautiful. And besides, Aidan was wearing his gun. She knew because she had felt the bulge beneath his jacket.
Inside the front door, Aidan paused and kissed her. “You need anything?” he asked her.
She smiled. Just you was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say it.
“Have you got any water in the fridge?” she asked.
“Should have,” he said. They walked through the dining room to reach the kitchen, and she was surprised when Aidan slowed to look at the family portraits as they passed. He stopped by the portrait of Fiona MacFarlane Flynn.
“You know, she’s got a beautiful tomb in the graveyard, but she was buried as Fiona MacFarlane.”
“Her marriage was a secret, because of the war. Her husband, who owned this place, was fighting for the South, but with the Union closing in, he probably thought she’d be in more danger here if they arrived and thought she was married to a Confederate soldier,” Kendall told him. “I guess that was the reason, anyway.”
“I think we should have her name corrected, don’t you?” Aidan asked.
Kendall was surprised. He had never seemed like the sentimental type, especially not over something that had occurred over a century and a half ago.
“That would be a nice touch,” she agreed.
They grabbed a couple of bottles of water, then moved casually and sedately enough up the stairs, but once inside the master bedroom, they were in one another’s arms in seconds. Their relationship was still so new that just touching him intimately was absolutely fascinating. Feeling his lips on her naked flesh was like lightning striking. She wondered if she would ever tire of him, and she thought it just wasn’t possible. Nor would she grow weary of the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, the ripple of his laughter. He made love aggressively at first, then with an almost awed tenderness, but every climax was equally cataclysmic.
She would never tire of lying beside him, or of the sense of being one with him. And sleep…Even sleep was better in his arms. Deep, complete.
Until the dream came.
They had been looking at Fiona’s portrait earlier. That explained the first vision that played out in her dreams. She was just there, watching, as if she were a fly on the wall, a pair of eyes in the breeze. She heard the pounding of a horse’s hooves, and then there were shouts and men in Union officers’ uniforms, while only one man—a man who looked so much like Aidan—was decked out in butternut and gray, his cavalry insignia threadbare and worn. It was his horse she had heard, as he galloped to reach the house. And there, on the upper balcony, was a beautiful woman in white. Fiona.
There was someone else, too. Someone behind Fiona.
And then she heard a whisper.
I knew I was going to die. I had to die, because I suspected what was going on. I was out in the graveyard. He had brought women there before. It was where he used and discarded them…. Can you hear me? I couldn’t stop it then, and now it’s happening again. Someone has to stop it now. Can you hear me? Oh, please, can you hear me?
She heard gunshots, exploding loudly all around her.
What happened next was like a dream within a dream.
Fiona, beautiful in white, came running across the balcony, and then…she fell, tumbling in slow motion, almost as if she were flying.
There was a silent scream.
Can you hear me?
The scene faded, changed.
And the man was there.
The man with skin the color of café au lait and the sad eyes. And he was bent down over the woman, weeping.
From the house came the sound of a baby, crying.
The scene began to shift, and she thought she was about to wake up. She willed herself to wake up, because even in her sleep, she could remember that she had the diary and knew that it was important to read it. So important.
She didn’t wake up, though. Instead, she was walking, moving furtively, keeping her flashlight aimed low. She was looking for someone. She didn’t know who, but she was excited. Excited because of the note. It had to be from a coworker. Someone who wanted her to be in on the solution of a historical mystery, someone who had slipped onto the property and had uncovered evidence from the past. She thought she knew who it was.
And he liked her. She almost giggled at the thought.
She heard a name called in the night. Kendall tried to listen harder, because she knew the name, but it wasn’t hers.
“Come on. Hurry up.”
The voice was coming from the cemetery.
Then the part of her that was still Kendall, even in the dream, knew. She knew that if she went, she would die. A thick gray mist began to swirl around her, and there were bones, bodies, faces, all beginning to emerge from the earth, warning her to stay away, and yet the woman she was in the dream didn’t seem to see them.
She urged
the woman she had become to stop, but it was no use.
She was going to die.
She couldn’t stop her body, so she had to wake up. It was the only way to live.
“Kendall!”
She heard her own name clearly, felt strong arms around her. She blinked, and then she was wide awake and held tightly in Aidan’s arms. He was staring down at her with concern and tenderness mingled in his eyes.
Nightmares.
Were they doomed to be plagued by them here?
He had shaken off the dream quickly. She still felt as if gray mist was clinging to her, as if she had to figure out the meaning, the message, of the dream. Would he still look at her with such tenderness if he knew she was on the verge of total insanity, thinking she could enter the past, enter into someone else’s body, in a dream?
“Sorry. I guess it was my turn for a nightmare,” she told him, and forced a smile. She reached up and touched his hair. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s fine. But what was it? What were you dreaming?” She didn’t have a chance to answer. He winced as they heard a truck honking as it lumbered into the yard. “Workmen,” he said.
She looked at him and smiled—more genuinely this time. “Then I suggest you take the first shower.”
“Do you remember your dream?” he asked her, clearly not entirely reassured that she was okay.
“No,” she lied.
He studied her face with concern for another moment, then kissed her and rose, heading for the bathroom. When she heard the water running, she was tempted to race in and join him. Maybe that would wash away the remnants of the dream, still clinging to her like a miasma of fear.
Her foot itched, and she reached down to scratch it. Her fingers touched something gritty, and she looked down.
Her feet were dirty, as if she had been running around barefoot on raw earth.
In a cemetery?
Without further thought, she ran in and joined Aidan in the shower. He might have been surprised, but he certainly didn’t protest. She slipped into his arms and let the water beat down on them. When he held her, she could forget the dreams in the magic of reality.
It was good just to stand in the hot shower, wet flesh sliding against wet flesh, knowing nothing but the sheer physical pleasure of making love.