Shattered Dreams: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (30 page)

I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the “and” was. I just wanted it to be different. Everywhere I’d turned right I wanted to turn left. Every time I’d said yes, I wanted to say no.

And to all that I’d said no, I wanted to scream YES!

Different. That was all I could think. If I could do it all differently, take different roads, the end would be different, too. I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t know and I wouldn’t feel, and the screaming—that horrible silent screaming that reverberated through me like shards of broken glass—would stop.

I kept walking. I let the crowd absorb me, carry me. I stopped fighting and just went. Down the street, past bars and clubs and strip joints, shops that sold souvenirs and sex toys and voodoo gris-gris. Finally I stopped and turned, stared in the smudged window of a shop that promised anything my heart desired. There were dolls and feathers and potions—and oddly smooth black rocks.

It was like looking inside my mother’s chest all over again, all save for the doll part.

“You lost, little girl?”

The voice startled me. It was low and quiet, filled with warmth and intimacy and the promise of something forbidden. Yeah, all that from a voice.

I twisted toward it and saw him, all tall and olive-skinned, a black-feathered Mardi Gras mask framing crazy-dark eyes, cheekbones wide and flat—

But then someone bumped into me from behind and I staggered, twisted around as strong arms caught me.

The guy with the mask was gone.

Instead someone else held me, with blond hair not black, light eyes not dark, his mouth warm, easy. “Hey, sorry!” he said. “Didn’t mean to bump you like that.”

I spun around, searched the crowd.

“You with somebody?” the guy asked. His burnt-orange T-shirt read
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS.
He looked about twenty,
maybe
twenty-one.

“There was this guy…” I said.

“Sorry, didn’t see anybody,” he said.
“Just you.”

Something about the way he said “just you” had me pivoting back toward him. His smile was wider, all warm and carefree and so completely totally unaffected that all those hard, tight, twisted-up places inside me started to loosen.

“Buy you a drink?” he asked, and before I knew it we were inside one of the endless stream of smoky nightclubs on Bourbon Street, with a sticky floor and a live band blaring from a small stage while we stood pressed against the bar with shots of tequila in our hands.

“To chance meetings,” he said, then lifted his hand to his mouth and threw back the yellowy liquid.

Different, I reminded myself.
Different.

Then I smiled, and did the same.

TWENTY-FIVE

My eyes watered. My throat burned.

“First time?”

I nodded.

His smile warmed. “Second time’s usually better,” he said, motioning to the bartender. “I’m Cody by the way,” he said. “Grew up south of Dallas, but a lifelong Saints fan. Flew in for the game today.”

Eyes still watery, I managed a smile. “I’m Trinity.”

“You’re awesome is what you are,” he said, reaching for the shot glasses the bartender slid our way. Neither had even asked about my age.

“To good times,” Cody said this time, then all but inhaled the tequila. I had a feeling these were not his first of the night.

More than a little awed by his absolute lack of reaction, I lifted my glass—and went very still. I hung there, frozen, stunned, wanting to move but unable to, until the moment released me as quickly as it had seized me, and I spun around, toward the far end of the bar where—

Nothing. No one was there. Well, not as in
no one
because the club was packed, but no one with a feather Mardi Gras mask. No one watched. Not me, anyway.

“Hey, you okay?” Cody asked.

“Yeah, I thought…” Crazy, I told myself. Residue from the day. No one had followed me.

No one watched.

“Thought what?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Trying not to shake, I brought the little glass to my mouth and downed the tequila in one big gulp, fighting the burn with everything I had.

“There you go,” Cody said, laughing as he slid his arms around me and pulled me against his body. “Want another?”

I gazed up at him, at the shaggy blond hair falling against his face and his wholesome clean-cut looks, and made myself smile in return. “Give me a minute.”

“No prob,” he said, steering me away from the bar to the sweaty press of bodies on the crowded dance floor. His hands found my hips, and his started to sway. Against mine. Real close.

I could feel him. All of him. He was definitely well built, and he definitely lifted. His whole body was rock hard.

Yeah, his whole body.

Drawing me against him, I felt the bulge in his jeans pressed up against my abdomen, and something inside me stuttered. He kept moving, gyrating, rubbing against me as his hands slid down to cup my butt. My head swam. Everything got a little fuzzy, and then his mouth was coming toward mine, and I was tilting my head toward his—

Around us everyone pulsed and swayed, but the blur of movement caught my eyes, and I twisted again, twisted hard, spun around as I saw him vanish into the crowd.

I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop to plan or analyze—or apologize. I tore away and pushed through the throng of drunken dancers.

“Hey! Trinity!”

I kept going, didn’t look back. Faster. Kept going, worming my way through groups of people that had suddenly become some kind of distorted carnival ride, all blending and blurring together, until I couldn’t tell where anything started—and where anything ended.

At the back of the club, I stopped and reached for the wall, tried to breathe. To see.

But there was no one there.

Again, not
no one.
Just not him.

“Hey!” Cody caught up with me. He was breathing a little hard. “Are you okay? Is it the tequila? Do you want me to—”

“No!” The word ripped out of me. I twisted away from his reach and lunged for the door, started to run the second I hit the moist night air. Maybe I should have felt bad. And maybe I did in a small way. Cody hadn’t done anything wrong—and he had bought me two drinks. I’d given him green lights from the start.

But this had nothing to do with Cody.

I wove through the crowds, ignored the grumbling and catcalls as I pushed and shoved and darted in front of people. I wasn’t sure where I was going, whether I was chasing something—or being chased. And none of that mattered, either. That was detail, and details only got in the way. Something far more powerful drove me.

He’d been there. Someone had been on Bourbon Street—following me. Someone had touched me, talked to me:
You lost, little girl?

That voice. That’s what drove me. He’d been in the club. I knew he had. I hadn’t seen him, but I’d … felt him.

Now I ran. Off Bourbon Street, down one of the one-way streets that ran toward the river. Fleetingly I caught a glimpse of a sign for Royal Street—where the police station was.

And I ran even faster.

The rain had passed, but puddles lingered along the crowded sidewalks. Everyone moved slowly, ambling like they didn’t have a care in the world. Some looked at me. Most did not.

Restaurants and shops blurred, the sound of laughter and jazz and blues morphing into a warped soundtrack for the craziness swirling through me. My breath chopped in and out of me. Still I ran. Even when the déjà vu hit. Even when it closed around me.

Even when it wouldn’t let go.

I’d run before. I’d seen these buildings before. But I didn’t know when—or even if the buildings were the same. They all looked alike, old and brick and dark.

Until I heard the cry of a tugboat call from the river.

Then I stopped and braced my palms against my thighs, tried to catch my breath.

Earlier,
I realized. I’d seen the buildings earlier, in that awful room in the house on Prytania. But first I’d seen Jessica, lying on the mattress with her hair tangled and her eyes terrified, then huddled in a dirty gown in a corner with her arms wrapped around her knees.

But between those two flashes, between the bed and the corner, I’d seen Pitre.

“No,” I whispered. Just … no.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the images I’d seen there in the darkness kept oozing through me, Pitre sneering, Pitre laughing. Pitre closing the door and shoving a chair up under the knob so the door to the room with the mattress could not be opened.

“Wait! Come back! You can’t leave me here!”

“No.” The word was little more than a whisper. Not Pitre. That had to be residue. A remnant from the game of truth or dare we’d all played, when Jessica had crossed so many lines. They’d had words that night. She’d insulted him. He’d insulted her back. He’d been the one who found me. And he’d been the one to help me. He’d been kind. He’d texted me the next day. He’d found me at school and asked if I was okay. He’d been with Chase at the field by the airport. And he’d been at the house that afternoon. He’d been there when I came downstairs and—

The memory of the look on his face made me double over yet again.

He’d looked horrified.

The perp always returns to the scene of the crime.

Oh, dear God, no. I shook my head, making myself stand straight and gather my bearings, even as more thoughts sliced through me. Pitre wouldn’t have framed me like that. Pitre wouldn’t have—

Or would he? At the end of the day, I really knew him no more than I knew Chase, and look how that had turned out.

And where was Jessica now?
Where was she?
I’d seen her at the house, seen Pitre … then I’d seen her again, bunched up in a dark corner, rocking.

Then I’d seen the buildings, tall, brick, and dark. Abandoned.

And I’d started to run.

She’d been alive …

I spun around and took it all in, the buildings on either side of St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo and the Presbytere. The old apartment buildings that flanked Jackson Square. All brick.

But none abandoned.

Other things started to register, dotting in from the haze like pinpricks of light. I’d made it all the way to the edge of the Quarter, where the pedestrian mall gave way to the riverfront. Tourists and locals mingled along the parade of shops and bars. The scent of fried food and stale alcohol filled the air, while two street performers did gymnastics as a third, spray painted in all silver, stood like a statue. And in the center of it all, the wrought-iron fence surrounded the park, where the life-size statue of Andrew Jackson balanced on the back legs of a bronze horse.

And the psychics. Table after table of them. They surrounded the square, each with their own collections of cards and mirrors and flashlights.

I started to move. Slowly at first, drawn. Unable to stop.

My mother had been here. Not recently, but she’d been here. She’d done this. She’d had a table. She’d sat where so many had sat after her. She’d watched and waited. She’d put herself on the line.

And in the end, she’d been murdered.

I picked a table at random. It was farther down, toward Decatur, where by day artists captured life that went by. Even now, one or two remained, along with the horse-drawn carriages waiting alongside the wet street to give outsiders an inside look at the haunted city of my birth.

A black cloth draped a small square table. A young woman sat facing me, with long, snow-white hair and eyes lined in black. She watched me approach, neither smiling nor frowning. Just … watching. On her table sat three decks of cards and two flashlights. A small sign advertised tarot and palm readings.

My hands found my pockets, and slid inside.

I stopped a few inches from the table. She looked up at me, waiting.

I looked down at her, waiting.

She was really quite beautiful in a striking, poignant kind of way. There was something in her eyes, something haunted and wise and … wary. Her dress was as black as her eyes, all drapey and flowing. A silver chain hung around her neck, with a small oval dangling in the middle. In the center was one engraved word: Grace.

“Hello, Trinity,” she said, and I almost jumped out of my skin. The step backward was automatic, but still she neither smiled nor frowned. Just watched.

“Why did you say that?” I asked, and wow, even I could tell how freaked out my voice sounded.

“What would you have liked me to say?” she asked.

“Why …
Trinity
?”

“Isn’t that your name?”

I made myself swallow. Made myself breathe.

The breathing was harder.

“Why would you think that?” I asked, neither confirming or denying.

She smiled, her extreme, bloodred lips curving ever so slightly. “I think we both know the answer to that,” she said.

My heart slammed so hard it hurt. “I…” Questions jerked around for voice. “Is someone following me?”

“Now?” Her eyes never left mine. “… or all your life?”

I backed away. Slowly at first, not letting myself look away. Not trusting myself
to
look away. Then something in her eyes, something sad and … scared, had me twisting around so hard that I smashed straight into something warm, and soft.

“Oh, excuse me!” came a voice, and I blinked, swallowed hard as I made myself focus, see.

The woman was unusually tall, with short silver hair and a nice, concerned smile. “N-no,” I stammered. “That was me.”

Around her seven other older folks moved toward the river, and I let myself get swept up with them, walking with them, like I belonged.

Anything to get away from Grace.

“Are you okay?” the woman who looked like your average all-American grandmother asked. She even wore polyester bright blue pants and a turquoise shirt, with all sorts of tacky Mardi Gras beads draped around her neck. One read Harrah’s, and immediately I knew where she’d been—and the grandmother image took on a whole new dimension.

“Dear?” she asked, and then I remembered she’d asked me a question, and as the pedestrian walk light came on and we moved to cross Decatur, I answered.

“Fine,” I said. “Just…” What? Spooked? Freaked?