Deadly Night (19 page)

“Just about,” she told him.

“I’ll wait and drop you off.”

It wasn’t necessary. But she saw the way that he was standing and knew he was taking the voodoo doll very seriously. He was taking
everything
very seriously.

So what? Wasn’t she?

She didn’t want to be afraid, and she refused to be afraid to walk down Royal Street in broad daylight.

But she was getting to know him well, and she could tell he wasn’t going to leave without her.

“Give me just a minute,” she told him. “Help yourself to coffee,” she added, as she went back into her bedroom to gather up a few things for the day.

Aidan heard Jeremy’s latest radio interview just after dropping Kendall at her store. Jeremy announced that he was delighted to say that the benefit had sold out, but that the radio station had two tickets left to give away. Aidan hoped that if the benefit at the aquarium went well and they were able to pull off the Halloween gala at the house, Jeremy could lay to rest a few of the ghosts haunting him.

Ghosts.

They just kept popping up, Aidan thought, even in his own thoughts.

He found parking near Lily Fleur’s B and B. She was smiling when she answered the door, but her smile faded as soon as she saw who was standing on her stoop.

“Good morning, Mr. Flynn.”

She didn’t step back. Obviously she didn’t want to ask him in.

“Mrs. Fleur.”

“Call me Lily.” He had a feeling she was speaking by rote; she didn’t really want him calling her Lily. She didn’t want him talking to her at all. She wanted him to go away.

“Mrs. Fleur, I know what a good person you are,” he told her. “And I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask for your help, so I can try to figure out what happened to Jenny Trent.”

“What can I do for you?”

Was it his imagination, or did she sound slightly less unhappy about his presence?

“I’d like to get a list of any other guests who were registered with you when Jenny was here,” he told her.

“Hold on.”

She didn’t close the door on him, though she still didn’t invite him in. When she came back a moment later, she had a neatly printed sheet of paper in her hand.

“This is what I have,” she told him. “Copied straight out of the book.”

“Did you know I’d come asking?”

“A police officer—a real policeman—came by and asked for the same thing.” She looked a little prim, then added, “He also said that you were a legitimate investigator. I figured if he had asked for the list, you’d be around for it soon enough, too.”

“Thanks. By the way, what was the officer’s name?”

She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, it was Hal. I’ve known him for years.”

“Hal Vincent.”

“Of course. He’s the best, you know.”

Aidan smiled. “I’m sure he is,” he told her, then thanked her again and walked away.

“You should let me give you a reading, Kendall,” Mason said.

The store was finally quiet, and they were trying to clean up.

As she set a coffee cup in the dishwasher, she wondered if she should have told him that someone had left a voodoo doll by her back door. But the store had already been filled with customers when she’d arrived, and maybe because it was Friday, they had been rushed off their feet all day, so she’d never had a chance. In fact, they’d been so deluged with business that she’d had to call Vinnie and ask him to run over to the bakery and pick up some more pastries.

Vinnie had agreed cheerfully—maybe because he owed her forty bucks. Or maybe just because he was her friend. He’d even hung around helping for the rest of the afternoon.

“You’re going to give Kendall a reading?” Vinnie asked Mason.

“You bet,” Mason said.

“No readings,” Kendall said. Was it because she didn’t believe?

Or because she did?

Vinnie picked up one of the crystal balls off the shelf and stared into it. “I’ll do the readings, thank you. I see someone tall, dark, handsome—and suspicious, even threatening. Someone who will be taking our princess to the ball. And guess what else I see? She’s accompanied by the most striking footman ever. He’s lean, he’s mean, he’s a walking sex machine. And his name is Vinnie.”

“What the hell are you going on about?” Mason asked.

Vinnie set the ball down. “The charity thing at the aquarium tomorrow night. Hey, Kendall, I found someone to sit in for me, so I can go.”

Mason quickly shot Kendall a hurt glare. “You’re going, and you asked Vinnie to go, and you didn’t even mention it to me?”

“Mason, we didn’t get a chance to say two words to each other today.”

“You certainly said more than two words to me. You said, ‘Mason, clear that table. Mason, they need coffee. Mason, take that reading and I’ll handle the register.’ You said, ‘Mason, quick, brew another pot of pecan-cinnamon coffee.’ You said—”

“All right, all right,” Kendall said, laughing. “I get your drift. And don’t look at me like a puppy I threw out in the rain. You’re invited, too.”

“I am?” he said, brightening immediately. “Cool. But it’s a benefit. I think I’d feel…smarmy if I didn’t pay. Wait, I get it. The Flynn brothers get freebies. They’re smarmy, then.”

“No, they bought the first twenty tickets or something like that,” Kendall corrected him.

Mason looked at Vinnie. “She likes him, you know.”

“Yeah. Go figure.”

“You did call him tall, dark and handsome,” Mason reminded Vinnie. “Though he was kind of a jerk to you.”

“He was suspicious of me,” Vinnie said. “But he isn’t anymore. I don’t think he is, anyway. Is he, Kendall?”

“I don’t know. I think, when you’re straight with him, he’s straight with you.”

“You
do
like him,” Mason teased.

Kendall refused to take the bait. “And you’d better like him, too, since it’s thanks to him you’re both going.

“So should we meet at your place Saturday after work and all go together?” Vinnie asked.

She hesitated, not about to tell them that she was spending the night—maybe more than one night?—at the Flynn plantation. Not that it mattered, since she had to come in to open in the morning, then go home to change for the party. “Sure, we’ll meet at my place. It starts at eight, and I’m sure Aidan will want to be there when it starts.”

Kendall was just about to lock the door when Ady came in with Rebecca. Neither had an appointment for a reading, and Kendall thought at first that they had just stopped by to say hi, but then Rebecca said to Kendall, “Mama wanted a minute with you. Not a full reading or anything, just a minute alone.”

Ady was looking at Kendall so anxiously that she agreed, leading the old woman back to her private reading room. Her tarot cards sat on the table, but she avoided looking at them.

“Miss Ady, you don’t want a reading,” she said, after the old woman was seated and she had taken her own chair on the opposite side of the table. “You just had one a few days ago.”

Ady pursed her lips. “I had a dream,” she said.

Kendall smiled. “We all have dreams. I just had a terrible nightmare myself. But that’s all they are, just dreams, Miss Ady. Sometimes they have something to do with things that happened during the day, sometimes with things we’re afraid of. Are you worried about what Dr. Ling told you?”

Ady waved a hand in the air. “I’m not worried about me at all, Kendall Montgomery. You’ve taken care of me, and I’m right grateful. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Me?” Kendall said, surprised.

Ady leaned forward, her old face set with determination.

“Do you know why Amelia didn’t leave that plantation to you?”

Kendall lifted her hands. “Because I couldn’t afford to fix it up and keep it, for one. Plus I’m not a Flynn.”

Ady sat back, shaking her head. “That ain’t the reason, child. That ain’t the reason at all. Amelia believed you could do anything.”

“Miss Ady, tell me, please. What’s wrong? I don’t want you to be worried about me.”

“I saw Amelia last night in my dream,” Ady said.

“You were probably thinking about her.”

“She wasn’t in my mind one bit, I tell you. She came into my dream because she knew if she talked to me while I was awake, I’d just think I was turning into a crazy old woman.”

“Tell me about the dream,” Kendall said.

Ady leaned forward again, and her voice was agitated when she spoke. “She said that plantation’s evil. Said it wasn’t always, even though there were always ghosts. They were the ghosts of good people. But something had changed a while back, she said, and it only started making sense to her toward the end, when she was getting close to going over to the other side herself. She said it was like some kind of evil from the past was coming back. Said she heard crying, like somebody was scared of the way the place was changing, going bad. And she doesn’t want that evil touching you, Kendall. That’s why she came to me. She’s afraid, and she wants me to warn you that something evil is out there, and that you have to be careful, because it’s coming for you.”

F
or a second Kendall just sat there, staring and feeling a chill creep up her neck. Then she took a deep breath and forced the feeling away as she realized what was going on here. Miss Ady was so sweet. Kendall had worried about her, so now Ady’s subconscious had found a way to return the favor.

Kendall nodded gravely to her.

“Thank you for coming to tell me that, MissAdy,” she said.

“Amelia told me to warn you.”

Dreams could seem so real. Kendall knew that all too well.

“You believe me now, Kendall, don’t you?”

“Of course I believe you,” Kendall said, and realized as she spoke the words that they were at least partly true. She
did
believe in the power of dreams to terrify.

Because what could it have been but a waking dream when she had seen the skeleton on a tarot card come to life and laugh?

She smiled gently and promised, “I’ll be very careful.” After what had happened this morning, it wasn’t a promise she would mind keeping.

Ady’s eyes remained grave, but she nodded and rose. “Well, that’s it, girl. You just mind me and Amelia, you hear?”

“Of course.”

Ady started out, and Kendall followed her. When they reached the front of the shop, she saw that Aidan had arrived, and everyone seemed to be getting along fine.

“We’re fine to go now, Rebecca,” Ady said.

Rebecca stood, and Aidan, Mason and Vinnie rose automatically.

Rebecca offered her hand to Aidan. “Mr. Flynn, it was a pleasure to meet you. Mason, Vinnie, you two behave.” She walked over and gave Kendall a quick kiss on the cheek, whispering, “Sorry. Mama just had a bee in her bonnet, and I had to bring her to see you.”

“I’m always happy to see you both,” Kendall said, squeezing Rebecca’s hand.

When she and her mother reached the door, Rebecca hesitated and looked back. “Mr. Flynn, if you repeat me on this, I’ll call you a liar, but I have a suggestion for you. Find yourself a polite way of getting those bones back. You got to understand. The people where I work, they mean well, but this city’s still got troubles, and they’re busy dealing with that. I hear you got friends in high places. Use them.”

She nodded firmly. Clearly she, too, had had her say.

Kendall cleared her throat as soon as the door shut behind the two women and looked at Aidan. “What was that all about?”

He was still staring thoughtfully after Rebecca as he answered her. “Vinnie asked me if I was getting anywhere searching for Jenny Trent. I mentioned that I thought the bones I’d left at the M.E.’s office might be connected. I guess she thought it over and decided to tell me what she thought before she left.”

“What about the voodoo dolls?” Mason asked. “Do you think they’re related to Jenny Trent? Or is someone just trying to drive you off the plantation so they can snap it up themselves?”

“Why leave a doll for Kendall, then?” Aidan asked him, watching carefully to see his response to the question. “She has nothing to do with the plantation anymore.”

“Someone left you a voodoo doll?” Mason asked, turning to Kendall. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“It just happened last night,” she said. “And in case you didn’t notice, we were busy all day, so I didn’t get a chance to tell you. Anyway, it was no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Mason repeated disbelievingly. “I can’t believe—”

“Hey, I didn’t know about it, either,” Vinnie put in. “But if Kendall says it’s no big deal, I believe her. Anyway, the way I see it, you’re looking at two different things. One, some idiot thinks it will be all spooky or something to leave voodoo dolls lying around. Two, maybe the bones Aidan found came from some old grave or maybe they’re recent, but either way, they still got him started looking for Jenny Trent, and that’s a good thing, whether it has anything to do with the plantation where he found the one bone or not.” He stood. “As for me, I’ve got to go to work.”

“Vinnie, thanks so much for helping out today,” Kendall told him.

“My pleasure. Mason, see you later?” Vinnie asked.

Mason shrugged. “I’ll check my calendar. Hmm. Nope, no pressing engagements. Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit. I’m going home for a shower first, though. I smell like a giant cinnamon scone.”

Vinnie looked at Aidan. “Hey, man, if you ever think I can help you…”

“Thanks,” Aidan told him.

Vinnie left, and Kendall turned to Mason. “You can go on home. Aidan can wait while I just give the place a once-over and lock up.”

“All right.” Mason started for the door, then turned back, “Aidan, by the way, I remembered something else kind of weird about that woman who bought the dolls.”

“What?” Aidan asked.

“Those gloves she was wearing?” He grimaced. “I think maybe they were made of latex.”

“Odd,” Aidan said. “Thanks. That info might come in handy.”

“Sure.”

When Mason was gone, Aidan surprised Kendall by walking quickly over to the counter and asking, “Do you keep your sales slips organized by the week?”

“Yes. I do my banking Mondays. Usually. Right now I’ve got two weeks’ worth of sales slips. I didn’t make it in on Monday. Why?”

“I want to find the receipt for those voodoo dolls.”

“Why? If the woman was wearing gloves, you won’t get any fingerprints, and she paid cash, so there won’t be anything to identify her. Or him.”

“I just want to make sure there
is
a sales slip,” he said.

She stared at him blankly for a minute, then realized that now he was suspecting
Mason
of being in on something.

“Come on, Aidan,” she groaned. “There are tons of people in this city, and dozens of them are probably guilty of something. Why are you picking on my friends?”

He looked up at her. “Because Jenny Trent’s trail put her here and then at the Hideaway. Two people—besides you, I might add—are generally both here and at the bar. Vinnie and Mason. Simple enough? Now, are you going to get me those sales records?”

“Yes,” she snapped.
Jerk!
She’d been glad to see him—anxious to see him, even—and now he was turning into the high inquisitor again. “But you know, maybe you should be listening to what Vinnie said. Maybe those voodoo dolls don’t have anything to do with Jenny Trent being missing. And while you’re at it, maybe you should be listening to Rebecca, too. If you’re so interested in finding out about those bones, you should just get them back and send them somewhere else.”

He ignored everything she’d said and asked again, “Can I see those sales slips?”

She let out a snort of aggravation and went back to her reading room, which doubled as her office, annoyed to find herself trying to avoid looking at her tarot deck while she unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk to pull out the daily receipts.

She turned to bring them back out front, then saw that Aidan had followed her. He took the stack of receipts from her hands and sat down at her reading table. She stood in front of him, and her eyes fell on the deck of cards. They did nothing.

What the hell had she been expecting?

“Have you seen the sales slip?” he asked her, going through the receipts.

“No,” she admitted. “I trust Mason.”

He paused suddenly.

“That’s it, right?” she demanded.

He placed the receipt in front of her. The computer had written, “Collectible voodoo doll, quantity, three.” The price and the amount, a cash sale, were filled in after.

“See?” she asked quietly.

“Of course, Mason isn’t stupid,” he mused.

“Oh, will you stop!”

He looked up at her. She didn’t know what he was thinking, because that crystal curtain had come down over his eyes.

“Yes, of course. Sorry.”

He wasn’t sorry at all. He simply knew nothing he could say to her would change her mind.

He rose. “Thanks. Anything I can do to help lock up?”

“No,” she said stiffly. “Thank you.” She locked the receipts back in her desk, then went to make sure the rear door was locked.

The thing to do, the
right
thing to do, was tell him that she had changed her mind about going to the plantation, that she was just going to go home and stay there for the night. She owed her friends a certain loyalty, after all.

But she didn’t want to go home. And didn’t she owe something to herself, as well? Admittedly, she didn’t know Aidan Flynn well, but she wanted to know him better. Even if they constantly clashed.

They weren’t in a relationship, of course. But they could be. And wasn’t that part of a relationship? Making things work even when you disagreed or got angry?

Hold on, you are nowhere near to that point, she warned herself.

But no warning was going to help her now. Not even Miss Ady’s insistence that there was evil at the plantation. Evil that was after her.

Now that voodoo doll…It had been left at her home. While she was sleeping. That was far creepier, when you thought about it. Of course, voodoo dolls had been left at the plantation, as well. But not when any of the brothers were staying there, which told her that whoever had done it was a coward, only willing to go after women and empty houses.

Aidan was waiting for her in the front of the shop, staring thoughtfully at a life-size skeleton dressed in a tux and hanging near the door.

He turned to her. “Ready?”

“Yes, thanks. I need to run by my place,” she reminded him. “I have to grab some clothes and feed Jezebel.”

“Of course.”

He went in with her, and while she gathered a few things from her room, he offered to feed the cat. Jezebel, the little hussy, had liked him from the beginning. Kendall could hear the Persian purring from the bedroom.

When she came out to the kitchen, she saw that he had unlocked the rear door and stepped out back.

He saw her, waved, then walked over to the gate. It was big and heavy, and wide enough to allow a carriage to pass through. He scaled it without visible effort, putting himself on the outside, in the alley, then climbed back into the courtyard.

“Kendall,” he called.

She walked out to the back, curious.

“It wasn’t much of an effort to scale this,” he told her. “The hinges make great footholds.”

She saw exactly what he was saying. She doubted it was a feat an octogenarian could accomplish, but it wouldn’t take a gymnast, either.

“This has to be how he, or she, got in,” Aidan said.

“I imagine.” She was silent a moment. “Should I ask the police to come back? See if they can get any prints or anything?”

“The cops around here don’t get excited about bones,” he said. “I don’t think—no matter how much they like you—they’re going to pull out all the stops to find some prankster.” He looked at her and shrugged. “Besides, I doubt there’ll be any fingerprints other than mine.”

“Why not?”

“Because whoever bought those dolls was wearing gloves.”

“But my voodoo doll was a cheapie. Your voodoo dolls were the expensive ones.”

“You really think there are two people out there planting slashed-up voodoo dolls?”

“No,” she admitted, then crossed her arms over her chest, feeling a little shiver. Night was just starting to fall. Suddenly she was glad she had decided to go with him.

She didn’t want to be here alone when the darkness came.

The nighttime DJ at the radio station was a heavyset giant of a man named Al Fisher. He was a decent sort who loved music, loved people and had been the first one to contact Jeremy about doing PR. Tonight’s call-in segment was going great, Jeremy thought, as he reminded listeners that they had an hour left to call in for a chance at winning the last available tickets.

Then he got a call from some guy with a voice like a Halloween bogeyman.

“Your first event is this thing at the aquarium, right?” the caller said.

“Yes,” Jeremy said.

“They say you’re planning a second event out at that plantation you inherited,” the caller said in his raspy voice.

Jeremy hesitated. The idea of doing a gala out at the plantation hadn’t been a secret, but neither was it common knowledge. He wondered how this guy had heard about it.

“Well?” the caller said.

“The idea has come up, yes.”

“Well, get that idea right out of your head,” the caller said, his raspy whisper taking on a menacing quality. “What you’re doing is wrong. You may be a Flynn, but if you start bringing people out to that place, bad things are going to happen. Really bad things. The dead need to rest in peace. You need to get out of there or you’re going to die.”

“All right, great Halloween prank,” Al put in, hitting the cut-off switch and disconnecting the caller.

The rest of the hour passed pleasantly, but in light of the voodoo dolls that had shown up on the lawn, Jeremy couldn’t get the caller out of his mind. When they were finished, he took off the headphones and looked at Al. “You’ve got caller ID at the switchboard, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Find out who that was for me, will you?”

“Just some idiot,” Al said dismissively.

“I’d still like to know.”

“Gotcha.”

Jeremy followed Al into the hallway, then waited while Al headed out to check the switchboard log. He came back frowning.

“Sorry, Jeremy. The call was made from one of those prepaid cell phones. No way of tracing it. None at all.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy told him. Aggravated, he left the station. He thought about calling his brothers, then decided it could wait. Maybe, come Monday, Aidan could ask his FBI buddy if there was any way to trace the signal. But he doubted it. As far as he knew, not even the FBI could trace a prepaid cell phone, especially if the caller had been smart enough to buy the thing with cash.

It was dark when they left the hubbub of the city. The highway offered lights and plenty of cars, but the river road was dark.

As they drove, Kendall asked Aidan about his day, determined not to let herself be bothered by his suspicions of her friends.

“It was good. I went back to the B and B where Jenny Trent stayed and got a list of the other guests that night. Three other rooms rented, two singles and a couple. The couple was from South Dakota—the guy asked his wife for his hearing aid while we were on the phone, so I didn’t think he’d be helpful, but he was. The kid staying in the attic came back and passed out at one, didn’t hear a thing and never saw Jenny Trent. There was a teacher from Detroit in the other room who had met Jenny and wanted to be helpful, but she didn’t know anything and hadn’t heard anything. The old guy, though. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, which was off the hall, and saw Jenny. Said she was dressed up in black jeans and an inside-out T-shirt, and told him she was going out to meet some genius and get in on a great discovery.”