The question startled him. “No, it’s my real name. Why?”
“Because all the Goth kids at my school give themselves lame-ass names like Twilight and Shadow.” She paused with a mocking smile. “And Ashe.”
He scoffed at her suggestion. “Don’t lump me in with those poseurs. I’m not like that.”
“Why’d you come out here, then?” She nodded toward the old farmhouse behind him. “This is their hangout.”
“I came to see the footprints.”
Something darted through her eyes before she gave a derisive laugh. “That’s just a stupid legend. The footprints don’t really exist.”
“Are you sure?”
She scratched the back of her knee. “I’ve been out here lots of times and I’ve never seen them.”
“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not real. Besides, I have seen them.”
“You’ve seen the footprints? Where?”
“I can show you if you want.”
A gust of wind ruffled her dark hair, the same breeze that stirred the bells in the distance. For the first time, he sensed her hesitancy. Not from fear, exactly, but from an instinctive resistance that would have to be slowly and carefully chipped away.
That same thrill of anticipation soared up his spine, and he turned his head so she wouldn’t see his smile.
She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I have to get home. My old man hates it when I’m late for dinner.”
“I hope you’re not leaving on my account. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you.”
Her head shot up. “Do I look afraid? Please. Besides, you even think about laying a hand on me, my dog will kick your Emo ass.”
He glanced down at the complacent mongrel at her side. “I can see that.”
“He’s a lot meaner than he looks,” she warned.
He knelt and held out his hand, and Gabriel came over to sniff for more bacon. “Nah, he likes me. Don’t you, boy? Good dog,” he crooned, burying his hand in the soft fur. “I used to have a dog just like this. Maybe they came from the same litter.”
The notion seemed to intrigue her. “Gabriel just showed up at my house one day. I always wondered where he came from.” She paused as an unwelcome thought struck her. “You’re not going to claim your dog ran away or something, are you?”
“No, he died. Someone poisoned him.”
“On purpose? Man, that bites.” She dropped to the grass beside Gabriel, dinnertime and her earlier reticence forgotten. “What kind of psycho would do something like that to a poor, helpless animal?”
“Someone evil,” he said. “Someone without a soul.”
Their gazes met and he saw her shiver. “My sister keeps bugging my folks to get rid of Gabriel. She hates him.”
“Are they going to?”
“Probably. My dad takes her side every damn time. They both make me sick.”
Her anger caused his heart to beat even harder. He had to take a couple of breaths to curtail his excitement.
Sarah wrapped her arms around Gabriel and gave him a squeeze. “They’ll be sorry, though, won’t they, boy?”
“What are you going to do?”
She lifted her thin shoulders. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe I can help you.”
Her expression turned suspicious. “Why would you do that?”
“Because that’s what friends do. They help each other out.”
“News flash, retard. We’re not friends. You don’t even know me.”
Oh, but I do, Sarah. Still he had to be careful, not push too hard.
“And anyway, I don’t need your help and I don’t want any friends. Gabriel is all I need.” Her tone was harsh and defiant, but he, and only he, could see the bereft shadow in her eyes.
His chest tightened; he knew that pain so well. They were so much alike, he and Sarah. Dark, sad, lonely. Her solitude drew him like a newborn baby grasping for its mother’s breast.
She scrambled to her feet and dusted off the seat of her jeans. “Hey, I’m sorry I called you a retard.”
He smiled. “That’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I hate when people call me that.”
“Who calls you that?”
She answered with a shrug. If she noticed the edge in his voice, she didn’t let on. “Are you coming back out here tomorrow?”
“I will if you want me to.”
“Like I care one way or the other. I was just asking.”
But that was a lie. She did care. Whether she knew it or not, she needed him as much as he needed her. She’d come back tomorrow, because she wouldn’t be able to help herself.
Sitting cross-legged in the grass, he watched her cut across the edge of the field toward the road, Gabriel at her heels. The air chilled as the twilight deepened, and he knew he needed to be on his way, too. The voices inside his head were getting more desperate by the moment. He was out of time. He couldn’t ignore them any longer.
He rose and stood listening to the bells pealing in the distance. Death music. He smiled. A serenade for the doomed.
Chapter 2
Fourteen years later
Winter came late as it always did to the Deep South.
It arrived with only a whisper through the magnolia trees—a creeping shadow, an unwelcome presence easily ignored until a bitter cold front swept down from Canada, bringing freezing rain and record-breaking temperatures all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Downed power lines, disrupted city services, massive pileups on the interstates—it was the kind of chaos New Orleans hadn’t known since Katrina.
Even without the inconveniences, Sarah DeLaune hated the cold. Earlier, as she listened to sleet pelt against her windows, she’d been gripped by a strange anxiety, and she found herself wondering how she would cope if summer never came again. If the winter storm raging outside her house was not merely an anomaly, but a permanent shift in the subtropical climate of the Gulf Coast.
As she fantasized about being trapped in a frozen universe, she’d slipped so deeply into the gloom of her own thoughts that even the Valium she’d taken midmorning couldn’t dig her out.
She’d recognized the early stages of cabin fever, and in spite of the incessant warnings issued by the weather service, she’d gone out, precariously negotiating the icy streets to the French Quarter, where she found the seedy bar that had been her hangout of late warm and inviting.
The party atmosphere, along with a few drinks and half a Xanax, had nudged her toward a mellower outlook, and at midnight she’d gone home to bed, eventually sinking into the kind of bone-melting sleep she hadn’t known in months.
She’d been dreaming about her dead sister when the phone woke her up. She had no idea how long it had been ringing, because even after she opened her eyes, the sleep demons held her firmly in their grasp. Rachel’s disembodied head floated above the bed, and the barest hint of sulphur hung on the chilly air, then another piercing ring sent the nightmare skittering back to the darker realm of Sarah’s subconscious.
Her movements lethargic and dreamlike, she sat up in bed, willing her hand toward the receiver. But the caller had given up. In the ensuing quiet, Sarah could have sworn she heard the ghostly ticking of her alarm clock, even though she’d unplugged it days ago.
Leaning back against the headboard, she wondered how long she’d been asleep. She wanted to know the time, too, but not enough to get up and go find another clock. Nor did she check her phone to see who had been calling at so late an hour. A phone call after midnight was never a good thing.
Her first thought was that her ailing father had taken a turn for the worse. When she’d been there a week ago, the doctor had warned her that the old man had only a few months at best. The doctor had tried to break it to her gently, but he needn’t have worried. Sarah would hardly be grief-stricken when the time came. She and her father had never been close. Sometimes, when he looked at her with the same old contempt, she wondered why she even bothered. She could have drifted along quite happily in their estrangement if Michael—Dr. Garrett—hadn’t persuaded her to try and make amends before it was too late.
He liked to tell her that avoidance wasn’t a solution, but Sarah wasn’t so sure about that. Sweeping her problems under the rug had worked pretty well for her in the past. Might have continued to work, if the insomnia hadn’t forced her back into treatment. And now, thanks to her visits back home, the nightmares had also returned.
Everything is connected, Sarah.
Well, no kidding.
She jumped, realizing that she’d drifted off again. Sitting upright in bed with her eyes wide-open. She hadn’t been asleep, but the last few moments—or had it been hours?—had passed without her awareness. Now the phone was ringing again.
Someone really wanted to get in touch with her.
Sarah waited a moment, hoping the caller would give up again. When that didn’t happen, she reached for the phone with a sigh, as she glanced out the window. Just beyond her tiny courtyard, the dead branches of an oak tree windmilled in a frigid gust.
“Hello?”
“Finally.”
She recognized the voice at once, and his exasperated tone was like the prick of a needle against her spine. How like Sean Kelton to think she had nothing better to do, even in the middle of the night, than wait for his call.
“Are you there?” he demanded.
“Yes, I’m here. What do you want?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Her hand tightened on the phone. “What do you mean?”
“It took you forever to answer and now you won’t say anything. It’s like you’re there, but you’re not.”
“For God’s sake, it’s the middle of the night. I was asleep.”
Sean fell silent. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a bit. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
“It couldn’t wait until morning?”
“I didn’t know I’d wake you up,” he said defensively. “You never sleep unless...” His voice trailed off with the slightest edge of accusation. “What are you taking these days?”
“That’s none of your business. You gave up the privilege of poking around in my private life when you moved out.”
Hang up, a little voice urged her. Just press the button and make him go away.
His voice was so familiar, the regret it stirred was still so deep that Sarah’s free hand reached out for the pill bottle on her nightstand. Not finding it in the dark, her fingers scrambled across the wood surface.
“It may not be any of my business, but I still care about you, Sarah. I’ve been hearing things lately that worry me.”
“What kind of things?”
“You’ve been hanging out in some pretty rough places.”
“What, are you spying on me now?” The crablike hand searched through the nightstand drawer and closed, like a claw, around a plastic medicine bottle. She cradled the phone against her shoulder as she twisted off the cap, then dry-swallowed half a Xanax. The bottle was alarmingly empty.
“I’m concerned about you. I know how you get when you drink. Especially if you’re still popping pills.”
“Oh, and how do I get, Sean? Why don’t you tell me?”
Another pause, one that seemed filled with his own regret. “You get reckless.”
“You used to like that about me.”
“There’s a difference between being reckless and self-destructive. Took me a while to figure that out, but I see it pretty clearly now.”
“Is that why you left?”
“You know why I left.”
No, she really didn’t, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask any more than it would let her chase him down the morning he walked out.
Looking back, Sarah realized that he had been trying to tell her for weeks that it was over, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it, so she refused to listen. She’d been out running errands that morning and had noticed something different about the house the moment she walked through the door. But she hadn’t stopped to consider what it might be. Instead, she’d gone into the kitchen for coffee and that was when she found his note propped against the sugar bowl.
You’re going to hate me for this, but I did what I had to do. If you want to talk, I’ll listen, but I don’t think there’s much left to say at this point.
Sarah had folded the note and slipped it into her pocket as she walked calmly into the bedroom, then opened the door of the closet as if trying not to set off a bomb.
Sean’s side was always a mess, but not that morning. His clothes were all gone. Suits, pants, shirts, everything. Nothing left but a couple of hangers dangling from the rod and a crumpled shirt on the floor.
He’d cleaned out the bathroom, too, and as Sarah walked through the house, she saw what her subconscious had noted earlier. Missing CDs and books. His laptop. Favorite pictures.
Everything of his—gone.
A big chunk of her life—gone.
And now here he was, nearly a year later, calling her in the middle of the night.
“How long can you just sit there and not say anything?” he asked angrily.
“You’re the one who called me. I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Sarah—”
“Just get to the point, Sean. I’d like to go back to sleep sometime tonight.” Although she knew that wouldn’t happen. She was wide-awake now.
“All right,” he said in a resolved tone. “I’m calling because I need your help.”
Sarah was instantly suspicious. “I’m not in a generous mood these days.”
“It’s not personal. I need your help with a case. We’ve got a body covered in ink, but no ID. I was hoping you’d come have a look, see if you recognize the artist.”