The Devil's Footprints

“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.”

Sarah clutched the phone, trying to ignore the surge of adrenaline that already had her heart thudding. She reminded herself that Sean Kelton never did anything without a motive. “Why me?”

“Because I couldn’t get your partner on the phone,” he admitted. “And because you know every tattoo artist in the city. Come on, you always loved working my cases with me. You were good at it, too.”

She smiled, in spite of herself.

“So will you do it? I really could use your help.”

“Would I have to come to the morgue?”

“We could wait and do it there, but I’d rather you come now. The body hasn’t been moved yet, and I’d like to get your take on something at the crime scene.”

“I’m a civilian, Sean. They’re not going to let me waltz through a police barricade without some kind of credentials.”

He hesitated. “Yeah, that could be a problem, but I’ll take care of it. I’m sending a cruiser to pick you up. It’s getting nasty out here. I haven’t seen an ice storm like this since I was a kid.”

In spite of her protests, Sarah was already scrambling out of bed, reaching for a pair of clean jeans from the stack on her dresser. An urgency she couldn’t explain drove her, but her movements were still sluggish and it seemed to take forever to locate a shirt.

“How long until my ride gets here?”

“A couple of minutes.”

A couple of minutes.

Which meant he’d dispatched the car before he called…or else the crime scene was that close to her house.

“Sarah DeLaune?”

The uniformed officer standing on her porch was young, probably around twenty-five, with a broad, pleasant face and twinkling blue eyes. He touched the brim of his cap. “Lieutenant Kelton sent me to pick you up, ma’am.”

“I’m almost ready—” She glanced at his name tag. “Officer Parks. Just give me a second to grab a coat and find my keys. You can come in out of the cold if you want.”

“Thanks just the same. I’ll go wait in the car, keep the heater running.”

“Suit yourself.”

Sarah left the front door open as she shrugged into the wool jacket and gloves she’d dug out of the back of her closet when the cold front hit. A frigid wind blew through the room, lifting the edges of the newspaper on the coffee table.

The paper had been there for a couple of days now, turned to an article about a missing Shreveport woman named Holly Jessup. Sarah didn’t know her, but for some reason, she couldn’t get the name out of her head.

Holly…Jessup.

Grabbing her keys from the hall table, Sarah stepped out on the porch. The icy wind cut through her blue jeans as she struggled with the lock. Then she turned and hesitated at the edge of the porch before negotiating the frozen steps.

Snow flurries whirled over the street and drifted like feathers down to the lawn. Her tiny front yard was white and glistening, a winter wonderland that would vanish as soon as the sun came up.

Sarah hated the cold, but even she could appreciate the rarity of a snowfall in New Orleans. It happened maybe once every thirty years. She wanted to take a moment to enjoy the pristine tranquility of the night, but instead she found herself scouring the icy darkness, searching for the evil that had been awakened by her nightmare.

Ashe Cain.

No matter where she went or what she did, he was always there—watching, waiting, creeping so close at times she could smell the death scent he wore like cologne.

He’d gone away after Rachel’s death, but Sarah’s dreams always brought him back. He was out there tonight. She could feel him.

A shudder gripped her, a cold, black terror. Sarah wanted nothing more than to retreat into her house, to lock herself inside until the nightmare faded, until Ashe Cain had crawled back into the shadows of her past.

Shivering, she forced herself down the porch steps and across the frozen yard to the curb. Officer Parks got out of the car and came around to open her door.

“You didn’t have to get back out,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of opening my own door.”

“Detective Kelton made it real clear I was to take good care of you.”

“Oh, he did?”

Parks grinned at her tone. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not get on his bad side.”

He waited for her to climb inside, then closed the door behind her. A moment later, he slid behind the wheel and flashed another grin. They were probably close in age, but the cop’s boyish looks and reverent demeanor made him seem much younger.

Sarah tugged off a glove and placed her hand over the heater vent. “Are you sure this thing is working?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s going full blast.”

Then why was she still so cold?

Maybe because the bone chill had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with her ultimate destination.

An icy sludge crawled through Sarah’s veins. She was on her way to a crime scene to examine tattoos on a dead woman. The newspaper article suddenly came back to her, and she wondered again at the familiarity of the missing woman’s name.

Holly Jessup.

Where had she heard it before?

“Ma’am?”

She turned. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You seemed a little out of it there for a minute.”

“Did I?” Sarah shrugged. “I was just thinking how much I hate the cold.”

He gave a low chuckle. “You call this cold? Trust me, you don’t know cold until you’ve spent a winter on Lake Michigan.”

“You’re from Chicago?”

“Slidell. But I went north to stay with my grandma when I was a kid.”

“Why’d you come back down here?”

“Why do you think? I couldn’t stand the cold.”

He was smiling at her again, and there was enough ambient light in the car that Sarah could see the brief flare of attraction in his eyes. She wondered how long his interest would hold once he got to know her. She’d always had the ability to frighten off even the more ardent admirers.

Sean had been the exception. He’d lasted longer than most. But in the end, he couldn’t take it, either. He could put up with the pills but not the secrets.

Parks nodded toward her seat belt. “You might want to buckle up. We’re not going far, but the streets are like glass. If we skid into a light pole, I don’t want you going through the windshield.”

“I don’t want that, either.” Sarah fastened the shoulder harness, then put her hands back up to the vent. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering. “Where exactly are we headed?”

“The body was found at a vacant house on Elysian Fields.”

Just a few blocks from Sarah’s place on North Rampart.

“Do you suppose that’s the killer’s idea of a joke?” she said dryly.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Greek mythology. Elysian Fields. The final resting place for the souls of the heroic and virtuous.”

Parks gave her an uneasy glance. “Ma’am, I don’t think that’s the kind of thing this guy’s into.”

Three

Adamant, Arkansas

Esme Floyd prowled her tiny house, her arthritic knees protesting every step. She didn’t know why she was so uneasy tonight, but she reckoned the weather had something to do with it. Not a fit night out for man or beast, her mama would have said.

But even on mild nights, Esme sometimes stayed up until all hours. Came from all those years of waiting for her son, Robert, to come dragging in at dawn, and then later, her grandbaby, Curtis, although he’d never been as bad as his daddy to lay out.

Not until that one winter…

Esme pursed her lips. She wouldn’t study on that tonight. What would be the point?

Whatever devil had been riding the boy all those years ago was gone now. He’d turned into such a fine young man. A doctor, of all things! Esme was so proud, she could strut. Not a single generation of Floyds had ever made it through high school, let alone college and medical school. Robert had quit in the ninth grade and by the time he’d turned twenty-one, he’d served time in Cummins.

Esme had no idea where her son was now. Dead, for all she knew. He took off right after he got out of the pen, leaving Curtis and the boy’s mama to fend for themselves. Esme had ended up raising the child from the time he was twelve years old. He’d been a couple of years older than Rachel when he came here to live, but the two became thick as thieves once he let down his guard.

Thankfully, the DeLaunes hadn’t minded him being around. Esme had been especially worried about James who was mighty particular about Rachel’s friends. The family had been good to her, and she would have hated giving up her job. But Curtis had always been a quiet, easygoing boy, even when he was little, and he’d had enough sense to make himself scarce when he needed to.

Except when it came to Rachel.

That trouble had started brewing right from the get-go, but Esme hadn’t the heart to take away the one good thing in her grandbaby’s life. So she’d sat back and watched his friendship with Rachel DeLaune turn into fierce devotion and later, heartbreak when the girl moved on to someone more suitable.

Esme had worried then, as she still sometimes worried on nights when she couldn’t sleep, that Curtis’s attachment to Rachel might have crossed the line into obsession.

But it didn’t much matter now. Rachel was dead, God rest her soul; had been for fourteen years.

Her killer had never been caught, but most folks in Adamant had their suspicions. The body had been found at the old Duncan farmhouse where Buddy Fears’s boy used to hang out. Esme had seen him out there herself, lollygagging about with that no-account bunch he ran with.

Smoking dope and God only knows what. Nothing but trouble, every last one of ’em.

Derrick Fears had been the worst of the lot. Not a lick of respect for his elders, or even his own body, what with all those piercings and tattoos. Marks of the devil, Esme thought with a shiver.

William Clay had been the county sheriff back then, and she’d heard him tell James once that he knew in his gut that pack of degenerates had killed Rachel, probably during some devil-worshipping ritual out at the farmhouse. And if it took him the rest of his life, he’d see them boys fry.

But it didn’t work out that way. Sheriff Clay had gone to his grave beaten and weary, Rachel’s murder the only black mark against an otherwise outstanding career.

And all these years later, the killer was still out there.

Esme tried to turn away from her dark thoughts. She got out her Bible, but she was too jittery to read. And her joints were starting to ache. The arthritis in her knees and shoulders was getting worse all the time.

Curtis had been after her to retire ever since he’d come back home to work at the hospital in El Dorado, but to Esme, retirement was one step away from the old folks’ home. She wasn’t so stove up yet she couldn’t make herself useful.

Setting aside the Bible, she got up and padded on bare feet to the bathroom to get a glass of water. She wouldn’t take her medicine just yet. Not until the pain got so bad she couldn’t stand it. She was too afraid of getting hooked on the pills.

She went into her bedroom, but instead of crawling under the warm layers of blankets, she shuffled over to the window to look out. The night was clear and cold, the moon so bright she could see ice glistening on the barren tree branches.

Her cottage window faced the back of the DeLaune house, and she stood for a moment admiring its graceful lines through the tree branches. Oh, how she loved that place. Over a hundred years old and still just as regal and elegant as she remembered it from her childhood.

Thomas Duncan’s daughter had lived in the house, and Esme remembered when the old man had moved in with her. By then, his hair had been as white and wispy as cotton, his eyes frosted with cataracts. He’d sit in a cane rocker on the veranda for hours, mumbling to himself, paying no mind to the taunting neighborhood children who called him Crazy Ol’ Tom.

Esme used to see him out there on Sunday mornings when she and her mama walked home from church. Sometimes his two little granddaughters would be playing in the yard and Esme would stop to watch.

“Stop that gawkin’, Esme Louise,” Mama would scold with her lips pooched out in stern disapproval. “You act like you ain’t never seen old folk before.”

But it wasn’t Thomas who fascinated Esme; it was the two little girls who always seemed to be dressed in white.

“How come they don’t never get dirty, Mama?”

“They do get dirty, child, what a foolish notion. They get dirty same as the rest of us. Only difference is, they got somebody to wash up after ’em.”

“I wanna live in a house like that, Mama.”

“Esme Louise, the only way you ever gonna live in a house like that is if you the one doin’ the washin’ up. And that ain’t in the cards for you, baby girl, ’cuz I mean for you to get an education. Then you can go to Little Rock or Memphis and get yourself a real job. Make your own way. I don’t want you havin’ to do for nobody but yourself.”

Esme hadn’t said anything, but she’d thought to herself that it wouldn’t be so bad washing clothes and scrubbing floors if she could live in a place like that. She didn’t mind housework, not even the ironing that her mama took in.

Anything was better than field work. Chopping cotton under a blistering sun in the summer and picking up pecans in the fall and winter when the ground was cold and wet and cockleburs stuck to your hair and clothes like prickly brown leeches.

Spring was the only time Esme enjoyed being outdoors, before the cloying heat of summer settled like a wool blanket over the countryside, while the air was still drowsy with roses and lilacs, and strawberries lay hidden like Easter eggs in lush, dewy vines.

Her mama had died in the springtime.

Esme had just turned thirteen, and she’d left school to take care of her younger brother and sisters. She’d married at sixteen, had a baby at seventeen and was widowed by the time she turned twenty.

When James and Anna DeLaune moved into the house as newlyweds, Esme had already been working there for years. James had paid her a visit, hat in hand, one Saturday afternoon and asked if she would please stay on and help them out. His young wife was frail and couldn’t handle that big place all by herself. Esme had been there ever since.

Forty years she’d spent taking care of that house, and for the most part, she’d been content with her work. But after Rachel’s death, everything changed. A terrible darkness had settled over the place.

James had doted on that girl—everyone did—and once she was gone, he couldn’t bear to step foot inside. He’d spent most of his time holed up in his chambers at the county courthouse, ignoring the needs of his troubled child and heartsick wife.

Anna hadn’t been strong enough to carry the burden of her grief alone. She’d died a few months later. They said it was heart trouble, but Esme had her doubts. Anna had been a young woman, only thirty-six, and Esme suspected that Doc Washington had fudged the death certificate out of compassion for a family already broken by grief and guilt.

Esme had wondered then—and she would wonder until the day she died—if Anna DeLaune had deliberately taken her own life, leaving her youngest behind to deal with the sorrow in the only way she knew how.

Poor child.

Sarah had always been such a puzzle to Esme. She’d never had any friends to speak of. Didn’t give a hoot about parties and sleepovers the way Rachel had. Instead, she’d spent her time roaming the countryside by herself, sometimes at all hours.

And those eyes…

Lord have mercy, the way that girl could look at you would lift the hair right up off the back of your neck.

But for all her peculiar ways, Sarah had been Esme’s favorite. Maybe because of the way her daddy treated her.

Never made any bones about who his favorite was.

After the funeral, Sarah had closed herself off. Wouldn’t talk to a soul about what happened. Even the special doctor called in by Sheriff Clay couldn’t unlock the secrets trapped in that child’s memory. But there were nights, while in the grip of a nightmare, that she would whisper a name.

Sometimes it seemed to Esme that, if she listened closely enough, she could still hear that name in the wind.

Shivering from the cold seeping in through the window, she lifted her gaze to the roof where moonlight glinted off a thin layer of snow. For a moment…

She blinked and looked again. Jesus Lord.

Someone was up there.

She could barely see him against the backdrop of night sky, but he was there, a nebulous form moving quickly up the slanting roof.

The glass slipped from Esme’s hand and shattered against the cold, tile floor. Shards bit into her bare feet, but she paid scant attention to the pain. Her focus was still on the roof.

He must have been stooped over before, because now he rose up against the moonlight, a towering silhouette with a pale face and dark-rimmed eyes.

Esme tried to scoff at herself. She couldn’t see that kind of detail in the dark. It was nothing more than an old woman’s superstition.

But he was there. No matter how much she wished to deny it.

And in the split second before he bounded over the peak and disappeared on the other side of the roof, Esme could have sworn he’d seen her, too. She could feel the heat of his eyes burning into her soul.

Four

Sarah spotted the glow from the pulsing lights even before they turned onto Elysian Fields. The street was the main thoroughfare through Faubourg Marigny, a neighborhood that had become increasingly hip and trendy as refugees from the French Quarter fled across Esplanade Avenue to escape the tourists.

As they made the corner, she saw the police cars and emergency vehicles lined up at the curb. She counted three patrol cars, a crime-scene van and a vehicle from the Orleans Parish coroner’s office. A grim motorcade that almost always signaled a violent crime.

Even at this hour, lights burned in some of the pastel-painted bungalows and guest cottages along the street, and the curious had begun to gather. A few worried neighbors had thrown coats over their pajamas and hurried out to investigate the commotion. They stood in a tight cluster, breaths frosting on the cold air as a procession of cops marched in and out of the house.

Crime had never been a stranger in New Orleans. A brief calm had settled over the city after the flood, but once the state police and National Guard moved out, the local authorities had been overwhelmed by the escalating violence. Longtime residents already knew to keep a constant vigil. There were places you did not go alone and at night, but the Marigny had never been one of them.

Now, with so many neighborhoods still unlivable, a new breed of criminal—bolder and more violent than ever before—had moved into the upscale safe havens. Once the sun went down, everyone but the very brave or the very foolish was already home, sequestered safely behind locked doors and windows until daylight.

As Sarah got out of the car, a blast of cold air blew down her collar and jolted her from the lingering effects of her Xanax haze. Parks came around to her side and they crossed the street together. She could feel the curious eyes of the neighbors on them, and when she glanced back, a silence settled over the crowd. They shifted uncomfortably and looked away, no doubt wondering about her relationship to the victim.

Parks said something to one of the officers guarding the perimeter, and then he motioned for Sarah to follow as he ducked under the police tape and started up the walkway. Like most houses in the area, the Creole-style cottage was elevated from the ground with steps leading up to a narrow, gingerbread-trimmed porch.

Before they reached the top, the front door opened and Sean came out. Sarah paused with one foot on the next step, her gaze lifting. Someone pushed past her and clambered up to the porch, spoke briefly to Sean, then hurried into the house. Behind her, Parks gently nudged her forward, but Sarah ignored him. Her focus was only on Sean.

He was tall, trim, a commanding presence even at the age of thirty-three. At one time, he’d been the youngest homicide detective on the force, but no one who knew him had been surprised by his rapid ascension. Sean had always been quick to take advantage of an opportunity.

His black wool overcoat was unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. Sarah was surprised he even owned one. The cold front had caught most people unprepared and they’d had to make do with layers of sweaters and jackets.

The coat, however, was his only concession to the frigid temperature. His head was bare, and when he moved from beneath the porch roof, snowflakes settled in his black hair. He brushed them away as he stood gazing down at Sarah.

She’d told herself after his phone call that she wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t let him see how much he’d hurt her. How much seeing him bothered her. Driving by his house in the middle of the night was one thing, but here she had nowhere to hide.

And yet she found herself clinging to his gaze, remembering the intimacy, remembering every nuance and gesture, every whisper, every promise.

She caught herself then and glanced away, but almost immediately her gaze came back to him. He’d called her tonight. He’d asked for her help. She didn’t have to hide or pretend. She had every right to be here.

He came down a step or two and gave Parks a curt nod. But his gaze never left Sarah’s. “Got her here in one piece, I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks for that.”

“No problem.”

Parks headed back down the stairs as Sean waited for Sarah. When they reached the porch, he pulled her away from the congestion near the front door.