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Which meant that, as much as she dreaded it, she’d have to make a visit to Isabella Delacroix.
“YOU GOT A DOLLAR, mister? I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and I’m real hungry.”
“Hungry, are you?” The guy took the dirty hand Becky held out to him and pulled her beneath the streetlight. He shoved her mass of thick, black curls away from her face. “What’s your name?”
“Are you a cop?”
“A cop? Whatever gave you that idea? I’m a businessman, and I may be able to help you.”
“Hmmp. Not a lot of people looking to help me, but my name’s Becky Lane.”
“Are you from around here?”
“What’s that got to do with anything. I stay here now.”
“I see. Do you have any family here?”
“You sure ask questions like a cop.”
“I can assure you that I’m not in law enforcement.” He looked her over, from top to bottom and up again. “You may be exactly the kind of girl who can do well in my business.”
Becky studied the man, afraid of what he might really want from her. He was a honky, tall and skinny, with slicked-back black hair that looked as if he’d soaked it in motor oil. The man gave her the creeps, but he was dressed nice, and she was hungry.
“I just need a few dollars or whatever you can spare,” she said.
“What you need is a job, so you can buy your own food and some nice clothes. A young lady has needs.”
“What kind of job are you talking about? I’m not a hooker, you know.”
“A hooker? Such a disgusting term. I don’t deal in disgusting. I deal in class.”
“How old would I have to be to get this job?”
“Eighteen would be old enough. You look eighteen to me.”
She was barely sixteen, though she did look eighteen when she wore lipstick and had her hair fixed. She didn’t mind lying about her age, as long as he didn’t want some kind of proof. “I’m eighteen, but I don’t have a driver’s license or anything like that.”
“You won’t need to drive in this job.” He led her to the circle of illumination beneath a streetlight, then tugged on her blouse, pulling it to the back so that the fabric fit tight around her breasts. “You have a nice shape and nice skin,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “Men like light-brown skin when it’s as soft as yours. We’d have to do something with that hair, of course, and you’ll need decent clothes, something expensive. Have you ever worn silk?”
She didn’t answer, just stared down at her worn, dirty jeans and stained sneakers.
“I’m talking high-class, Becky. Very high-class. No gutter talk. No gutter clothes. No gutter ways. Just high-class dancing, and being friendly. You’re a friendly girl. I can tell. This will come naturally to you.”
“When would I start?”
“We’ll talk about that later. In the meantime, let me take you to see a friend of mine. She’ll see that you get a good meal and have a nice bed to sleep in tonight. The rest of this can wait until tomorrow.”
Food and a bed. She wasn’t about to turn that down. As for the job, she’d make up her mind about that later. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Mr. Gaspard.”
“That’s a nice name.” And so far he seemed like a really nice man. She hadn’t met too many of those. Maybe New Orleans would be the place where her life got turned around for good.
GEORGETTE PARKED her beige sedan in front of the shotgun house in old Algiers. Some guys next door were working on their car in the street, their jeans hanging so low on their hips, she could see the band of yellowed underwear at their waist. They were shirtless and shoeless, and one was gulping down a can of beer.
He finished it, crushed the can in his hands and tossed it to the curb as she got out of the car and started up the front walk to her mother’s house. Some parts of old Algiers had experienced a rebirth over the last few years. The historic old houses had been restored and the yards and streets cleaned up. They’d started neighborhood watches and gotten rid of the run-down vacant houses frequented by addicts looking for a place to flop.
A neighborhood like that would have tossed Isabella Delacroix out.
The old feelings were potent as Georgette climbed the front steps and knocked on the door. It had been over a year since she’d seen her mother and then it had been at a café in the Quarter at Isabella’s request. It had been five years since Georgette had been in this house. That had been the night her grandmother had died.
Georgette lifted her hand to knock again, then dropped it to her side. She couldn’t do this. She absolutely couldn’t be drawn back into curses and gris gris and mysterious spells. She turned and had reached the steps when she heard the door open behind her.
“Georgette.”
Her mother’s voice crawled under her skin the way it always did. It was lyrical and haunting, as much a part of who and what Isabella was as the bright colors she wore and the bracelets and earrings that jingled when she walked.
Georgette took a deep breath, then turned to face her mother. “Hello, Momma.”
“Come in, Georgette. Please. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
Georgette looked for words but didn’t find them, so she just walked to the open door and stepped inside. Isabella hugged her then stepped away and started straightening some magazines on a small table. The house hadn’t changed. The front room was where her mother did business. Telling fortunes, reading tarot cards, giving psychic advice. As always, it smelled of incense and spices, and was dimly lit by lamps whose shades were draped with red silk cloths. Music played in the background, an aria from an unfamiliar opera.
“Come with me,” Isabella said. “Let me look at you under the bright light.”
Georgette followed her into the small kitchen at the back of the house. It was exactly the same as it had been five years ago. The appliances were old but clean, and the small wooden table and chairs were the ones Isabella had bought in a second-hand furniture store on Magazine Street when they’d first moved here from down the bayou.
Charcoal drawings Georgette had done in high school were thumbtacked to the wall next to the refrigerator, and an eight-by-ten framed picture of Georgette in her cap and gown hung on the wall behind the table. It had been taken the day she’d graduated from Tulane Law School.
Isabella ran her fingers through Georgette’s shoulder-length hair, then cradled her cheeks in her hands as if she were a small child. “You are so beautiful. You look like your grandmother did in her old pictures. You have the same hair. Silky and black as pure onyx.”
“You have the same hair, Momma.”
“Maybe once. I don’t remember. Are you hungry? I could fix us some lunch. I have an appointment at two, but nothing before then. That gives us a whole hour and a half to visit.”
Far more time than Georgette planned to be here. “I’m not hungry,” she said, “but fix something for yourself if you like. We can talk while you eat.”
“I’ll eat a bite later, but I’ll make us some herbal tea. It’s good for the tempers.”
They didn’t talk as Isabella filled the kettle and adjusted the flame on the front burner of the gas range. When she finished with that, she dropped two tea bags into a teapot and took two delicate china cups from the cabinet.
“I wish you’d come to see me just because you wanted to,” she said, taking the chair closer to Georgette, “but I think it’s something much darker that brings you here.”
“It is.” Georgette spread her hands on the table. “I’ve been seeing images of a young woman who appears to be in danger.”
“Is it someone you know?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“What do you see in the revelations?”
“The first time she had her hands and feet tied, but last night she was in a swamp. She’s running. I think someone must be chasing her but I only see the young woman.”
“She’s calling out to you.”
“Then why aren’t things clearer?”
“It’s the way of the gift. It only shows what it wants to show. When did the visions start to appear?”
“A few nights ago. I’d gone to the hospital to see a prostitute who’d been assaulted. She died while I was there.”
“So you think the images are tied to the victim?”
“I’m not sure. The first time they appeared was when I talked to the man who claimed he had found her and called an ambulance.”
“You sound as if you don’t believe him.”
“I don’t know what to believe. I saw him again a few days later and the images returned.”
“Do the images only materialize when you’re with this man?”
“No. Last night…” Her voice trailed off as the images shadowed her mind.
“What happened last night?”
“I had a nightmare. I was running through a swamp and when I woke my heart was pounding so I was afraid I might have a stroke or a heart attack.”
“You are experiencing her fear.”
“So what do I do to make the images stop?”
“Find a way to help the woman.”
“How can I? I don’t know who she is or where she is.”
“Go back to the man and tell him what you see. Demand that he tell you the truth.”
“I can’t do that, Momma. I’m a junior prosecutor. I can’t go around telling people about visions. They’ll think I’m …”
“Crazy as me?” Isabella reached over and put her hands on top of Georgette’s. “If I could have, I would have spared you this anguish, Georgette, but withholding the gift isn’t within my power. You have it. You must learn to live with it.”
The teakettle started to whistle. Isabella went to the range and poured the water over the two tea bags. Her long skirt swayed with her hips and the charms dangling from at least a dozen bracelets jingled with every movement of her arms.
Isabella was fifty-one, eighteen years older than Georgette, but she could have passed for mid-forties. She was striking, with dark eyes and thick black lashes that set off her soft brown eyes. She possessed all the beauty traits Creole women were famous for, and yet Georgette knew her mother never saw herself as pretty.
Not that she saw herself as ugly. It was just that Isabella lived on a different plane. She saw things no one else saw, but she never saw herself. She just took her looks the way she took life, as if it were in control and she was there to do its bidding.
Isabella set the teapot on the table and settled back in her chair. “Maybe you’re not giving the visions a chance, Georgette. You can’t fight them or try to push them away. That only thwarts the power that lies inside you and keeps you from seeing things clearly.”
“I don’t want to see any more, Momma. I want you to tell me how to make them stop.”
“And what about the young woman?”
“She’s not my responsibility. I didn’t ask for any of this. I refuse to let it claim my life.”
“It’s not so simple, my sweet one. You can’t choose when the gift shows itself or when it goes, but you must listen to it.”
“Why? Why do I have to pay attention to something that has no place in my life?”
Isabella took her hands in hers. “Look at me, Georgette. Look into my eyes and listen carefully to what I say. If you deny the gift and ignore the images you may be sentencing this woman to death. And if you do that, her blood will be on your hands and it will never go away. Never.”
Isabella put her hands in front of her, staring at them as if she could actually see blood running between her fingers and dripping onto the floor.
The room grew icy cold and Georgette longed to bolt and run away, but something held her. “Did you ignore the gift and let someone die, Momma?”
“It doesn’t matter. The past can never be undone. Tell me about this man who first caused the images to appear.”
“His name is Tanner Harrison. He’s a truck driver, I think. He doesn’t have a criminal record. I checked. But I have this feeling that he’s not leveling with me.”
“You must be careful, Georgette. Be very, very careful.”
“Then you think he’s dangerous.”
“All I know is that sometimes when the images are so strong that they won’t let you go, the danger can reach out for you, too.”
“What should I do, Momma? Please. You must tell me.”
“Talk to this man. Spend time with him, and go where the images lead you.”
“Are you saying I should go into a swamp and look for her?”
“It might help. All I know for certain is that you must let the visions guide you. Follow them, but don’t let your guard down. Not for a second.”
The tiny kitchen seemed to be closing in on Georgette, and she hated that she was here, that she was talking of spells and curses and psychic visions. Hated that her insides were tumbling around and making her nauseated. Hated that she’d been sucked back into a life she’d tried so desperately to escape. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“You’re right. I’ve probably said enough for now.”
Even Isabella seemed relieved to let the subject drop. Georgette drank her tea, then said a hurried goodbye. If she were half-smart, she’d go back to her office, bury herself in her work and not give any more thought to the blond woman in the swamp. She’d pretty much convinced herself to do just that when she turned on the radio and heard the latest news.
A young woman’s body had been pulled from the Mississippi River in Plaquemine Parish. She’d been identified as Simone Billings, a prostitute who’d been listed by her friends as missing a month ago.
…her blood will be on your hands.
Isabella’s warning echoed in Georgette’s mind as a new plan formed in her mind. Swerving into a U-turn, she headed toward Tchoupitoulas Street and another visit with Tanner Harrison.
Chapter Four
Tanner had spent half the night searching for leads, and he was bone-tired when he got the message that Georgette Delacroix was in the front office of Crescent City Transports and asking to see him—again. For some reason the news didn’t surprise him, maybe because the exotic beauty with the strange habit of blacking out on him had been on his mind far too often since she’d swayed against him in the conference room.
