She looked at him. “Apparently some bum—or maybe more than one—was living out in the slave quarters. There was a lot of trash there. And a bone.”
He was still staring at her, frowning. “Chicken bone? Sparerib?”
“Human,” she told him, and took a long swallow of her beer.
Aidan didn’t mind having a drink with his brothers. But, after the day they’d just had, he would have preferred a few quiet beers in the hotel bar. However, both his brothers were intent on catching every group that played, not just in the French Quarter but in the whole parish. They had chosen this place tonight because they had not only met the band, they’d jammed with them.
He sat back in his chair, appreciating the quality of the music. He wasn’t sure he could say the same for the band’s appearance, though. They weren’t exactly Goth, but they were all wearing long black cotton jackets over black jeans. He wasn’t quite sure what look they were going for. Vampire? Voodoo? They did call themselves the Stakes.
Still, the music was good.
And music and alcohol might ease some of the tension he was feeling.
Right now, most of that had to do with Dr. Jon Abel, Detective Hal Vincent and even Jonas Burningham.
He could understand their attitude up to a point, but only to a point.
Yes, New Orleans and the entire Gulf region had been devastated. Yes, hundreds of bodies that hadn’t been interred in aboveground “cities of the dead” had been washed out of their graves and their corpses and coffins washed up, along with the fresher corpses of those who’d died in the storm.
But that didn’t deny the fact that the discovery of a human bone needed to be handled with respect and a certain urgency. And it was just too bizarre to find two human thighbones in one day, even if they had been miles apart.
Aidan had expected Jon Abel to complain about being called back out. But he was a medical examiner, and he was best qualified to determine whether there was some connection between the two bones. And in fact he had immediately made the observation that the bones had come from different people—unless there had been a woman walking around at some point with two right legs. He’d been curt and clearly annoyed at being there, though.
Hal Vincent had seemed equally unhappy, pointing out that they were actually outside his jurisdiction. He was at least polite, though, agreeing that the discovery of any human remains had to be taken seriously. Even Jonas had acted as if he thought Aidan was making a mountain out of a molehill and suggested that maybe he was suffering some kind of delayed reaction to Serena’s death.
Even his brothers had been somewhat perplexed by the strength of his reaction, especially when a thorough search failed to produce any more body parts.
That fact actually disturbed Aidan more than anything else.
The others—including Jeremy and Zach—believed that the most plausible explanation was that the bone had washed up from the old family graveyard just behind the house and slightly to the east of the slave quarters.
The graveyard was an impressive place. It had a number of vaults—the largest one, where most of the Flynns had been interred, being the most impressive. Others had apparently been erected for the families of married daughters, distant relatives, servants, even friends. There were both in-and aboveground graves. And he supposed that it wasn’t actually illogical to think that the bone might have come from there, though there wasn’t any actual evidence that the river had topped its banks and washed anyone away.
What bothered him, he supposed, was everyone’s easy assumption and acceptance that the bone must be old. What the hell was the matter with them? Were they too jaded not to wonder or care if someone had met with foul play?
Or was he himself so determined to find evil intent, even where there was none, that he was creating a crime scene out of nothing? After all, the second bone, at least, had shown no trace of tissue and had been found not far from a graveyard.
“What do you think?” Zach asked, talking loudly to be heard above the music.
“What?” Aidan turned his attention back to the present moment.
“Of the band?” Zach clarified.
Aidan leaned forward. “They’re good. They’re dressed a little morbidly for my taste, but the singer’s got a great voice.”
Zach nodded, still looking intently at Aidan.
“What?”
“You okay?” Zach’s voice was concerned.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re scowling.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are,” Zach said.
“Hey,” Jeremy said, joining the conversation. “Don’t let the fact that you dealt with a pack of hyenas today stay with you. Whether that bone washed up or not, it would have taken an idiot not to look into it.”
Aidan nodded, then lowered his head, smiling. One for all and all for one. His brothers. Hell, not everyone had that. He was lucky.
“Yeah.”
Jeremy and Zach were both studying him. “I’ll get on the computer first thing in the morning,” Zach said. “Start looking into missing persons.”
Aidan shook his head in self-deprecation. “Hey, this might just be me being neurotic, you know,” he said. “And it’s not like we have a client.”
“I’ll go by the police station,” Jeremy offered. “I’ve gotten to know some of the officers through the Children’s House campaign. I can see if they’ve got anything to suggest. There are still hundreds of people listed as missing from the hurricane, but I’ll concentrate on the more recent cases.”
Aidan nodded. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “I’ll keep on pestering Jon Abel for the time being.”
“As for the house, Aidan,” Jeremy said quietly, “I know you think we’re biting off more than we can handle, but there’s something about the place…Anyway, you don’t have to deal with it if you don’t want to. Zach and I can talk to the carpenters and whoever.”
Aidan shook his head. “It’s my responsibility, too—if we decide we’re keeping it…Oh hell, one way or the other, we know we’re going to do some restoration. First things first. We need a structural engineer. I’m not taking anyone’s word for the soundness of the place, not until we’ve had a pro out,” Aidan said.
“First things first,” Zach agreed.
Aidan leaned back, watching the band again. After a few minutes, he found himself studying an old man who was watching the musicians—and the room—instead. He had a complexion that was more golden than black or brown, and features that indicated a heritage made up of some combination of white, black and Cherokee. There was strength in that face. And sorrow. He was leaning against a pillar to the right of the stage, and something about his relaxed pose suggested that he came here often.
“Know how you can tell these guys are better than most of the bands in town? Because the locals come out to see them,” Jeremy commented, drawing Aidan’s attention away from the stranger. Then he frowned and tensed suddenly.
“What?” Aidan demanded.
“Your medical examiner’s over there, sitting with a bunch cops, including that Hal Vincent guy. He cleans up well. He’s looking a little less like some mad scientist.”
“Jon Abel? Here?” Aidan asked, definitely surprised. He’d figured the guy for a loner, the kind who went home at the end of the day and played in his basement lab.
But Abel was indeed sitting at a table with a group of cops. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, and looked younger than he had earlier in the day. He was wearing contact lenses, apparently, and had actually drawn a comb through his hair. He seemed to be enjoying his time off. No wonder he didn’t want more work than was already pouring in from a city that was still in the process of making a precarious comeback.
“Don’t look now,” Jeremy said, nodding to indicate the side door, “but here comes another one of your pals.”
“My pals?” Aidan asked, confused, then turned to look, despite his brother’s warning.
Jonas was walking in with Matt
y, his wife of many years.
Sure, the band was good and the locals hung out here. But it was also downright strange, Aidan thought, that they had all ended up in the same place on the same night.
And he began to wonder what the hell was really going on.
4
Jonas was in jeans, too, but they fit as if custom-made and probably bore a designer label. His polo shirt appeared to have been ironed, and his hair was still perfect. Matty was a beauty in matching designer jeans topped by a silk blouse that hugged a body that had probably been good to begin with and then had been nipped and tucked into perfection. Not a platinum-blond hair on her head was out of order.
“Yeah, it’s Jonas, and that’s Matty, his wife,” Aidan said. As he spoke, they saw him. Jonas lifted a hand in greeting and then looked away, obviously tired of his company for the day, and headed over to join the cops. Matty, however, walked over to them. “Hey, if it’s not Aidan Flynn, and these must be your brothers. Jonas told me you guys inherited a house down here. How are you?”
Her body might be largely composed of silicone held together by stitches, but her greeting was sweet and sincere. Aidan rose to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek; his brothers rose, as well, and he made the introductions.
“So, Jonas says you’re going to keep the place!” she said, as Jeremy drew up a chair for her.
“We’re hoping to,” Jeremy said.
“I’m so glad you’re going to live here,” Matty said. “This area needs people who want to be here, who want to work, to make it a community again. And there’s plenty of private security work and stuff here,” she added, her eyes a little troubled as she looked at Aidan. He realized that she felt awkward about Serena. They’d been a foursome often enough during his FBI days, and she knew it was Serena’s death that had been behind his decision to leave the Bureau.
Live here?
He hadn’t actually thought of living here. But then, he hadn’t hung around any one place for long, not even the place he called home, in years. He’d kept moving. Grabbing all the cases that gave him the opportunity to be in a different city.
Running.
Well, he was free and over twenty-one. Running was fine, if that was what he chose to do.
Strange. Despite all that was enhanced about her physical appearance, inside, where it counted, Matty was the real deal. She cared.
He smiled. “Hey, who knows? We’ll see.”
“Look. Isn’t that the girl from the house?” Zach asked suddenly, and indicated the bandstand with his beer bottle.
Aidan glanced toward the stage. The bass player was announcing an original number; the guitarist—dressed in boots and a sweeping black cape à la every hot movie vampire—was leaning down, accepting a drink from Kendall Montgomery.
Aidan had just begun to settle down, maybe due to Matty’s warm welcome. Now every muscle in his body clenched all over again. With all the bars and the music available along the length of Bourbon Street, why had Kendall Montgomery ended up here tonight, too?
The guitarist grinned, accepting the plastic cup of whatever, then took a long swig and handed it back. Before he got ready to play again, he nudged the drummer, who looked at Kendall, and offered her a grin and a salute.
After that, she returned to the table where she’d apparently been sitting. She was with a tall, well-built bald man with thick black brows, who lifted his own beer bottle toward the stage, as if toasting to their success.
“What a pretty woman,” Matty announced, making Aidan like her all the more. She wasn’t the type who was always putting other women down.
“She’s got beautiful hair,” Zachary noted.
“Are you sure you’re only looking at her hair?” Jeremy asked lightly.
“I might be looking at the whole package,” Zachary replied, grinning at Matty. “She really is stunning—right? One beauty assessing another, of course.”
Matty laughed. “The compliment is both charming and appreciated. And, yes, that young woman is absolutely stunning. You know her?”
“We met her today. At the house,” Jeremy explained.
Aidan found himself studying Kendall more closely. She was indisputably stunning, but had her dignity and pride earlier today been for real? Or had she been a leech, using Amelia Flynn until the very end?
Truthfully, he didn’t think so. He had learned to read people fairly well over the years. He usually knew if someone was lying. There were little physical tics and twitches he’d learned to pick up on when someone was telling an outright lie or even coloring the truth. Lashes fluttered too quickly; pulses raced. People had a hard time looking you right in the eye when they were lying. Some liars were better than others, of course, and had learned to stare back—they were the seasoned liars. But even then…palms grew a little sweatier, and the veins in the throat were a giveaway. On top of that, just taking into consideration the way she dressed and the car she drove, she looked as if she were doing all right, but she wasn’t clad as if she was rolling in money. There were no diamonds dripping from her fingers, for instance. She just didn’t look as if she’d been milking Amelia to increase her own income.
She had only veered away from his direct approach once, and that had been regarding Amelia and the things she claimed went on at night. Even then, her anger with them—no, with him—over any implied insult to Amelia had been real.
She did have beautiful hair, he realized now, examining her more closely. It was long and rich and luxurious, a color like fire, even in the muted light of the bar. Her features were perfect: clear, large eyes, well-set; sculpted jawline; high cheekbones; perfectly formed, generous mouth; straight nose, not small, not large, just right for her face. She was like a poster child for symmetry. But the fact that she truly was stunning had even more to do with her demeanor than with her looks. She was tall, and she carried herself well. Elegantly. She moved gracefully, easily, her shoulders straight. She was the type of woman who could not only draw every eye in a room but keep it.
It interested him that he could make such observations so clinically—then he wondered if he was really so clinical after all. She seemed to be a large factor in his tension. Well, they could try all they wanted to be contemporary males, but nature didn’t change. The woman was perfectly built, and it was just about impossible not to look at her and think that she would be great to touch—hell, that she would be great in bed.
He turned away, annoyed at his own thoughts. It wasn’t as if he’d become a monk after Serena’s death. He had gone out with women since then. A lot of women. The game had changed since the last time he’d been dating on a regular basis. Some women were looking for a relationship, but plenty of others were only looking for a one-night stand, and those were the ones he liked. He didn’t want to see another face on the pillow next to his when he woke up in the morning. He didn’t want to be friends. He sure as hell didn’t want to fuck a friend.
The women he went out with definitely weren’t friends. They were barely acquaintances.
He turned to see that the bald man was staring at their table. Staring at him.
“Will you excuse me?” he said politely to Matty and his brothers.
“Absolutely,” Matty said with a knowing smile and a tilt of her head in Kendall’s direction.
He didn’t bother to explain that her hopes were in vain. He wasn’t sure himself why he was going over, but it certainly wasn’t because he wanted to ask Kendall out to dinner.
He headed straight for her table. “Hello,” he said, and introduced himself to the man, then offered his hand. The guy was a good-looking son of a bitch, probably her boyfriend. “Miss Montgomery, nice to see you again.”
The bald guy smiled. “So you’re Aidan Flynn. I’m Mason Adler. I work for Kendall. Nice to meet you. Join us?”
Aidan drew out a chair for himself. It was still early by Bourbon Street standards, so the bar wasn’t overly crowded and there was plenty of room.
No, it wasn’t overly crowded. It w
as just bizarrely full of people with whom he’d had contact during the day.
Kendall was staring at him with her deep green eyes. She appeared neither pleased nor displeased.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked him finally.
He hiked both brows. “Having a beer, listening to the music.”
“But…here?” He almost laughed aloud. Kendall, too, seemed suspicious. Or wary.
“Zach suggested this place, said he likes the band, especially the guitarist.”
“Vinnie is good,” she said, then asked, “How did it go with the bone?”
He shrugged and grimaced. “They think I’m an alarmist.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I found another bone earlier,” Aidan said.
She frowned at that. Mason didn’t hesitate to jump in.
“Wait, you found another bone the same day?” He glanced over at Kendall with reproach, as if she hadn’t shared everything she new. “On the property?”
Aidan shook his head. “By the river.”
“Another…human bone?” Mason asked.
Aidan nodded, leaned back and decided to explain. “I’m a private detective. I was hired to find a runaway. She and a group of kids were living in an old cottage by the river. I saw the bone when I was with the kids, so I went back with the cops and an M.E.”
“And the girl went home?” Kendall asked.
He nodded again. “It all ended well.”
“But it doesn’t always,” Kendall said. It wasn’t a question.
“So what did the M.E. say?”
“That it was an old bone. That it washed up from a grave somewhere. That there are lots of old bones popping up these days.”
“That’s sadly true, you know,” Mason said.
The guy looked like a bouncer, Aidan thought, but he seemed decent enough.
“I’m sure it is,” he agreed.
“You spend a lot of time here?” Mason asked him.
“On and off, over the years,” Aidan said.
Mason shook his head. “It’s amazing. All that time…and you never had any idea you had family here? That you were heir to a plantation?”