It meant something.
But what?
Brent lay awake in the night, glad of the feel and warmth of Nikki’s body cradled against his own, relieved that she had drifted off.
He couldn’t sleep himself. His thoughts kept racing. Why the hell would the ghost of Tom Garfield keep showing up at the sites of purse snatchings?
It made no sense. None at all. Maybe the woman who had given Officer Robinson the description had merely been agreeing with what the officer had drawn, and maybe it was just coincidence that the resemblance was so great.
He adjusted his position, loath to get up and leave Nikki, aware that he was restless and afraid that he would wake her.
He needed to lie still, to rest, to find the sense of serenity he could usually summon. There was nothing he could do now. Tomorrow he could go back to the police station, find out more about the woman who had worked with Robinson on the drawing, somehow finagle a name and address from Massey so he could talk to her himself. If he spoke with her, he might find out what the connection was, or decide there wasn’t really a connection at all.
He slammed his pillow and tried to sleep.
Purple…
It was surrounding her, just as it had surrounded Andy.
No, she didn’t believe that colors could surround people. She didn’t believe in palm readings. Ouija boards.
But she believed in ghosts.
No, she merely believed in a sense of the past, of history, of lives gone by…
Nikki twisted, aware that she was half-asleep, and yet she was half-awake, as well. She knew she was in bed, that Brent was next to her. She was in her own home, a place she loved.
A place that seemed oddly invaded, even though nothing was out of place. Yet she had a sense that someone had been here tonight.
A sense.
A color.
Purple.
Brent sat up with a sudden jerk. The cemetery. He’d forgotten that he had told Huey he would be at the cemetery. He’d also forgotten all about dropping off information about McManus for the man’s descendant.
“Brent?”
He nearly jumped a mile at the sound of Nikki’s voice.
“What’s the matter?”
He hesitated. He should have said nothing, gone to sleep and headed for the cemetery the following night. Instead he looked at her in the shadows. “Are you all right here alone?”
“I’m not alone.”
“I know. But I have to go out…just for an hour or so. Will you be all right?”
“Brent, do you know what time it is?”
“I’ll be all right. Trust me. But I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
He grinned in the darkness. “You don’t need to be. And I won’t be gone long. I just made a promise, and I need to keep it.”
“A promise to who?”
“A ghost. And I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
“I’ll be all right.”
He hesitated.
“Brent, go. I’m all right. I’ll double-bolt the door. No one will be able to get in.”
“Nikki, what if…”
“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” she said.
“But—”
“I used to be afraid of ghosts,” she told him quietly. “I’m not anymore. I’ll be fine. Honestly.”
Brent rose quickly then. The sooner he went, the sooner he’d be back. “I’ll hurry,” he promised her.
“It might be nice if you explained this a bit further,” she said.
“I’ll tell you later. Promise.”
He dressed quickly and headed for the door. She was out of bed, slipping into a robe. “Right—you need to lock the door after I’ve gone.”
“Take my keys,” she said. “I’ll probably be sound asleep before you get back.”
“You need to bolt the door,” he said.
She grinned suddenly, looking sleepy, mussed, beautiful. “I don’t think a real human being has been here. I mean, I don’t think a living human being has been in here. I think it’s just been Andy, hanging out.”
“You still need to bolt the door,” he repeated firmly.
“All right,” she said. “You go ahead. But be forewarned. From now on, you’d better have explanations as to where you’re going. And be careful. Do you think you’re invincible? I don’t see you wearing a gun belt.”
“I don’t have a gun on me, that’s true.”
“Then you’re just as vulnerable as I am.”
He decided not to correct her. Nikki was certainly no coward, but he was a lot tougher than she could ever dream of being.
But she was right. He should go back to the B & B for his gun. No. No time, he decided.
“I stand chastised,” he said, and gave her the breath of a kiss on the forehead.
He waited outside until he heard the bolt slide home. As soon as he heard the click, he began to hurry.
As ever, the streets remained alive. Jazz drifting on the air. A few drunks calling out to one another, weaving down the street.
A man stepped out of a strip club and lit a cigar.
On a street corner near one of the major historic hotels, a young woman played a flute. She had a hat set out in front of her for tips. He dropped in a few dollars, even in his haste.
Reaching the cemetery, he hopped the wall.
The place seemed quiet.
Far too quiet.
Brent found a seat next to one of the larger mausoleums and waited, still and silent. In a few minutes, he began to notice the mist.
Not the kind that lay on the ground but startling pools of fog and light, flitting quickly from monument to tomb, around corners, out of sight.
He realized that the ghosts were keeping their own vigil.
The longer Brent sat, the more he began to see. The young woman who had offered to help Huey was on duty, moving like a sylph, eyes wide as she watched.
He saw an old pirate on a peg leg dissolve around a corner. Then a couple in Victorian garb.
But he didn’t hear a voice. Or see a living soul.
He leaned his head back against the wall of the tomb, closing his eyes. He needn’t have come. Huey wasn’t here, and the junkies working the cemetery weren’t coming tonight. He’d had such high hopes. Catch one person involved, and they might begin to unravel the whole mystery.
He tried to get himself to think logically. Fact: An undercover FBI agent was dead. The cops knew he’d been onto something, but no one knew what. He’d been working the clubs. He’d met Nikki and Andy in Madame D’Orso’s, and then Andy had died.
The exact way. But Andy had once been a junkie, so her death could have been an accident, even though Nikki was certain it had been murder.
Fact: Andy was appearing to Nikki.
Fact: Tom Garfield was doing the same.
Fact: There was a purse snatcher at work in New Orleans. Tom Garfield’s ghost had been witnessed before at least two of the attackers.
So where was the key?
Back at Madame D’Orso’s? With one of the tour guides?
For that matter, where was the elusive Max Dupuis, who owned the tour company?
Tomorrow he had to talk to the other woman who had seen the dead FBI agent.
Suddenly his introspection was interrupted as something slammed against his thigh. His eyes flew open, and he looked up.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts. I’m not afraid of ghosts. I’m not afraid of ghosts,” Nikki chanted.
She had thought she was fine with the idea of seeing ghosts. That she had become accustomed to it.
That it was much better to believe in ghosts and her own ability to communicate with them than to believe she was out of her mind and involved with someone who was just as nuts.
And she was involved. Deeply. He’d barely come into her life, and suddenly…
He was her life.
Good God, it wasn’t that serious.
Yes, it was. She’d never
felt anything like being with him.
Every light in the apartment was on, so there was nothing to fear from the shadows, because there weren’t any shadows.
She had actually considered going back to bed when Brent had first left. But the mind played tricks. It teased and tormented.
So she wasn’t going back to bed. She had no intention of waking from a deep sleep to find Andy was staring at her again.
She stayed downstairs, turned on the flat-screen television in the living room, making sure she was tuned to a sitcom, and nothing about forensics, cold cases, haunted America, haunted Europe or even historical tragedy. With the television blaring, she put the water on for tea.
Brent wouldn’t be gone that long. He had said so.
The teakettle began to whistle. She forced herself to hum loudly as she made the tea.
Cup in hand, she returned to the living room.
There was an old episode of Cheers on, and she quickly found herself laughing. She just had to keep her mind off…
Don’t think. Don’t allow fear to slip in.
She was fine. She would be just fine until Brent got back.
Then…
She felt a prickling sense of unease wash over her, as if it had crept in slowly at first, taking her unaware. The teacup began to rattle in her hands. A deluge of dread began to sweep through her, and with her peripheral vision, she could see…
She turned, and her scream lodged in her throat.
“Huey,” Brent said, shaking his head. The old ghost had given him one good fright.
“Injun boy, you’re late,” Huey told him.
“I know. Sorry. It was a really busy day.”
Huey shook his head, grinning. “Don’t matter none. It wasn’t one of those nights. Told ya, I don’t rightly know when they is and when they isn’t gonna be here. But we’re watching the place, the lot of us.”
“I noticed.”
Huey grinned broadly. “You noticed nothin’. I crept up on you like as if you was one of them usual fools.” Huey’s grin deepened then faded. “Hey, Injun boy, it’s one thing if I creep up on you, but don’t you be so easy when you’re in here again late at night.”
Brent rose, dusting his hands on his pants. “I promise. You taught me a good lesson.”
“Go home, boy,” Huey said. “They ain’t coming tonight.”
“All right. But I’ll be back. And I won’t be so late,” Brent promised.
As he headed for the easiest place to jump out, he hesitated, turning back. “Hey, Huey, have you had any purse snatchers in here lately?”
“Purse snatchers?” Huey said. “Boy, them are drug runners in here now.”
“Right. But that doesn’t mean a purse snatcher couldn’t come in here, too.”
Huey shook his head. “Haven’t seen any such thing lately. Maybe out on the streets, but in here…no. There’s always suspicious folks around, some of ’em I could swear I see walking around the streets, just like you and me, and them thinking they’re all different, masquerading when they pull off their shit in the cemetery.”
“Who?” Brent demanded. “You have a description for me?”
“Some cops are good and some ain’t!”
“Massey? Joulette?”
“When I know something, I’ll be telling you.”
“Huey—”
“When I got something, I’ll tell you. Right now…just a feeling in my bones. Or…well, hell, where I used to have bones.”
“All right. Thanks, Huey.”
“You be back here, you hear?”
“You bet, Huey.”
Brent started back the way that he had come along the streets, where people still wandered, just not as thickly as they did during the day.
A saxophone played a sad lament.
A drum beat out the rhythm of a rock tune.
On the corner, the girl still played her flute, the tune plaintive and beautiful.
He started down Nikki’s street. And stopped.
He was suddenly certain that he had been followed. He turned around slowly.
There were discarded flyers for the contenders in the day’s political debate strewn on the ground. Cleanup crews hadn’t gotten around to picking them up yet. The wind picked up a piece of paper, and cast it back down again. A group of giggling young women went by, talking about the next club they were heading to.
No one seemed to be following him.
But New Orleans was full of shadows.
He started walking again, senses heightened. Had he heard footsteps? Real footsteps, set down by the living?
Or…
He heard the sound again. The footsteps had been real. He spun around. No one there.
The girls had moved on. He was well past the flute player. A middle-aged couple, arm in arm, was coming toward him. They smiled and wished him a pleasant evening.
He wished them the same.
He had been followed. He was sure of it.
He walked back in the same direction he’d come from, cut over a block and kept walking. He listened, waited.
But no one was behind him now.
Unease filled him. He had been almost back to Nikki’s. Now she was there alone. He quickly turned and headed back toward her place.
He began to run.
When he reached the old house, he saw that all her lights were on. He quickly opened the gate and hurried to her door. Without bothering with the key, he slammed on the door, hard.
“Nikki! Nikki, it’s me. Brent. I’m back. Let me in!”
For a moment there was nothing. He felt fear cloud his heart. Then the door opened.
He let out a sigh of relief when Nikki opened the door. She was in the long flannel robe she had donned before he had left. She stared at him in silence. She was pale, and her eyes seemed far too wide.
“Nikki?” he said, worried, and he grabbed her shoulders, ready to push past her, determined to meet whatever might have threatened her from within.
She touched his face then, quickly. “I’m all right,” she told him.
“Then, what…?”
She caught his hand, clasping it warmly in her own, then taking the time to close and lock the door behind him before she started for the living room.
She wasn’t alone.
There was a beautiful young woman, or the essence of a young woman, seated on the couch.
Dark and lovely, she stared at him like a frightened doe.
Her hand flew to her throat.
She started to rise, started to fade.
“No, no, Andy, don’t go. Please don’t go,” Nikki said. “I want to introduce the two of you properly. Brent, this is Andy, Andrea Ciello. Andy, this is Brent, and there’s no reason to be afraid of him. I’ve been telling you all about him.”
Brent’s heart thundered. He stepped forward, offering his hand. He felt the touch of mist. The slightest sensation as Andy offered her hand.
She stopped fading and managed a grin for Brent.
“How do you do—wow, Nikki. He’s something,” she said.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said softly.
“Well…” Nikki said, “We could all sit down, I guess.”
“I should leave,” Andy said quickly, giving them a subtly knowing look.
“Don’t you dare leave,” Nikki said.
“Please…you have to tell us what happened,” Brent said.
Andy let out a sigh. “No, you have to tell me what happened,” she said firmly.
But she sat.
And it was evident that she intended to stay.
16
“You have to believe me,” Andy told Brent. “I was a junkie, but I’m not a junkie now. I was a junkie. Well, I’m not anything now, am I?” she murmured bitterly. “But I was clean when I was killed.”
Nikki couldn’t believe that she was sitting in her living room, in the dead of night—no pun intended, she told herself—listening to Andy’s ghost try to explain herself to Brent.
It was cold, she realized. Ice cold with Andy here. Had she noticed that before?
Walking the streets, feeling ghosts, getting a sense of the past…no, she had never realized before that it got icy cold in a room with a ghost.
She felt as if she were dreaming, playing a part in some kind of theater of the absurd.
At the same time, she was proud of herself.
Andy had appeared again.
She hadn’t had a heart attack. She hadn’t even screamed. She had talked to Andy, and convinced her to wait for Brent to return.
She had learned some things about ghosts, as well. Sometimes Andy could concentrate and be where she wanted to be.
It was easiest to be in the cemetery, and it was fairly easy to be in Nikki’s apartment, except that unexpected noises made her evaporate. She was still afraid, very afraid, and not at all sure how she could be a ghost and still be afraid.
After all, she was already dead.
“Andy, you don’t have to convince me,” Brent told her seriously. “Nikki has told me about you. I believe that you were murdered.”
“Oh, God,” Andy said with a little sob. “Murdered.”
“But you’ve known that,” Brent reminded her gently.
“Yes, I just don’t like hearing it. It makes it so…real.”
“Nikki tells me that you’re here because of the man, the bum. And he’s dead, too,” Andy said.
Brent nodded, never taking his eyes off Andy.
“I saw him, you know. I saw him wandering the streets. I tried to get here, you see. I knew Nikki believed in me. I knew she would help me.”
Pain seared into Nikki’s heart.
She hadn’t been able to help her friend at all.
“Andy,” Brent said, “we both want to help you now. And we need your help. Desperately.”
Andy’s beautiful eyes widened, appearing deeply troubled. “I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t know what happened. And there are times now…it’s like learning to walk again. Sometimes Nikki’s able to see me, hear me…and now you can see me, too. Sometimes I want to be with her, but I can’t. Sometimes I can talk. I try to lift things, move things…but I’m not real, am I? Sometimes,” she said wistfully, “I wonder just where I’m supposed to be. I need to leave, but I don’t know where I’m going, and I need to be here because…what happened to me was wrong.”