Chapter Five
The glow of neon signs lighting the sky and the muted cacophonous mix of saxophones, horns, laughter and shouts from Bourbon Street kept the streets west of the French Quarter from being completely dark or quiet, but Lusinda wasn’t paying attention. She was thinking about the pasty-faced man and how he’d tried to grab her. Rick Easterling had literally swooped in like a knight in shining armor to rescue her, complete with protective fervor lighting his dark eyes.
Lusinda nearly tripped on a piece of broken sidewalk under a shattered street light, but caught herself. She needed to pay more attention to her surroundings. This edge of the French Quarter could be dangerous to walk at night and there were a lot of broken lights on Rampart Street.
Not two seconds later, she felt a tingle at the back of her neck. She sped up slightly, listening. Yes, that was the crunch of footsteps behind her. She kept walking steadily along, with no outward indication that she’d heard anything, but she listened intently, assessing the situation. From the footsteps, which sounded heavier and farther apart than hers, she figured it was a man, probably a tall man. His stride was long, but not steady. The uneven halting footsteps told her the guy was struggling to match his pace to hers on the uneven sidewalk. She could hear him breathing steadily, with an occasional hitch when he had to change pace.
She kept walking briskly, keeping an eye out for broken concrete or rocks that could trip her. She had good momentum going if she needed to run or wheel around and deliver a surprise blow to her follower. Instinctively, her hand went to her cross-body handbag, giving her immediate access to her weapon, except that Sin Stone, cocktail waitress, didn’t carry a gun. It would be a very bad idea if she were stopped by police or worse, if she were searched by Beauregard’s security guards. As soon as they saw her police-issued weapon, they’d know she wasn’t just a girl trying to make ends meet. Her cover would be totally blown. So she’d made do with a can of Mace® in her bag, as well as a smaller can tucked inside her tank top.
She coughed, covering her mouth with her hand, then pulled out the miniature spray can. She palmed the can with her finger on the spray nozzle and kept walking.
She didn’t want to make a move on the man. It was possible he was just going the same way she was and was staying behind her out of politeness or to avoid a situation just like this—where she assumed that he was following her with predatory intent.
They kept up their little parade through the dark streets, until the constant, rhythmic crunch of the man’s shoes behind her reverberated through her entire body. She wanted to turn and scream at him. Maybe, if she’d turned on him when she’d first heard him behind her, she could have co-opted him by looking directly at him and asking him to walk her to the hotel. Surprisingly often, such a direct approach undermined a mugger’s confidence and he’d either comply or run away.
But she was too late now. As she stepped off the curb at the corner of Rampart and Conti, the rhythm of her follower’s gait changed. He’d sped up. He was attacking!
She whirled a fraction of a second too late. He was too close. She lifted her hand, spraying Mace at his face. The man knocked her arm away with one hand and swung at her with the other.
She ducked and swung her handbag.
“Bitch!” He grabbed the bag in time to stop the blow and almost jerked it out of her hands. She hung on. For a few seconds they were in a tug-of-war, then he jerked her toward him.
“Teach you be too good for a paying customer!” he grunted, aiming a right hook straight at the side of her head.
Lusinda threw her head backward and dodged a direct hit. It probably saved her from being knocked cold. But his knuckle caught her lower lip and split it. Dazed, she felt her knees crumple and she dropped her handbag.
The man came at her, cursing. “You know who you turned down back there, bitch? T-Gros Grossman. You and your bartender boyfriend are as good as dead, you stuck-up, stupid c—.”
Lusinda recovered. She swung the bag of groceries at his head and let go of the handles. She followed the swing all the way through, but tripped on a cracked, uneven slab of sidewalk, and she ended up on her knees with her back to him. She crawled away from him, trying to reach her handbag. His hand closed around her ankle. She lifted her free leg and kicked at his fingers. She felt the heel of her shoe hit its target a few times and heard him groan.
He never stopped cursing or threatening her—words and threats no one should have to hear. She kept crawling, trying to reach her handbag or get her feet under her. Finally, her fingers wrapped around the strap of her handbag, her stupid shoes got traction on the pavement and she pushed upward, stumbling forward until she regained her balance and ran. The strap on her bag had done its job. Even when the guy had jerked on it, the strap had held. Struggling to shake off the haze from the blow to her mouth, she felt for the clasp. It was still closed. A miracle.
She didn’t stop running and only glanced backward once for an instant. Her brain registered a tall gray-haired man with a barrel chest and large hands brushing dripping egg yolks and broken shells off his head and face. Good. She’d hit him!
She slowed down for a few seconds, her police training kicking into high gear and warring with her need to maintain her undercover persona. She’d heard every word he’d said. If only she had a gun so that she could declare herself a cop and take him into custody. But all she could do was run. She checked behind her a couple of times but didn’t see him again.
Inside the hotel’s foyer, she held on to the stair banister until she caught her breath, never taking her eyes off the big wood and glass street door. Once her pulse stopped pounding in her temples and her cut lip, she dug in her bag for her keys to unlock her apartment. She wanted to get upstairs and record everything she remembered about the attack while it was fresh.
The keys weren’t there. She felt all around for the familiar macramé key fob the landlord had given her, but didn’t find it. What the hell? Her bag had been zipped while she was fighting the man. She knew that. So what had happened to her keys? She thought back to her actions when she’d heard his footsteps. Had she opened her bag to get a tissue, a part of her pretense of coughing? No. All she’d done was cover her mouth and pull out the Mace, right?
Crap. She wasn’t sure. She remembered having her keys, because she’d locked the locker. She was almost sure she’d put them into her handbag. Almost.
She licked her lips and tasted the metallic, salty taste of blood. Her tongue explored it, making it sting and burn. Then she touched it with her finger, wincing, and looked at the gleaming reddish-black smear on her fingertip. Yep. Blood. Her lip throbbed, as did her head. And her arm and her foot.
Not wanting to believe she’d lost the keys, she patted the pockets in her skirt, but the keys weren’t there. Were they lying on the ground beneath the broken street light? What corner had that been? Toulouse? Or St. Louis? How many blocks had she run after she got away from the attacker—three? Four?
God, what was the matter with her? The Police Academy emphasized the importance of recalling details. But she’d never been attacked, except in training.
Had she done anything right? Right now, her memories of the attack were blurry. She covered her face with her hands and tried to think. The only thing she knew for sure was that she’d had her keys in her hand at one point, because she’d locked her locker.
Standing in the dusty, drab foyer of the old hotel, her grip on the handle of her bag and her gaze on the large street door, something shifted inside her. No matter how long Lusinda Johnston had yearned to be a cop, no matter how long she’d planned and dreamed and trained, the fact was, she was a rookie, barely two years out of the academy. Probably the only reason she’d even gotten the job in Baton Rouge was because her dad was something of a legend in the city and he’d been killed on the job by one of his own.
She’d gotten the detail to the Bureau of Public Integrity in New Orleans because—well, maybe this job was because of her dad too. Or maybe she’d gotten it because she was reasonably attractive and they needed an inexperienced female cop who wouldn’t ask too many questions?
It didn’t matter why she’d gotten the job or why she’d been assigned this case. What mattered was that up until now, she’d thought of herself as tough and smart. She’d never run into anything she couldn’t handle. And that included her stepfather, Abe the Asshole.
But tonight, she’d received on-the-job training in So You Think You’re Tough? And she’d failed. From the instant Pasty-Face had grabbed her, she’d known, somewhere deep down inside her, that she was out of her league. She might have aced her training, but she’d failed at the job.
I’m sorry, Daddy, she whispered under her breath as she looked out through the windows back down the street. She reached toward the door, but her hand trembled and she couldn’t lift a foot. She looked at her trembling fingers, then made a fist, squeezing until her fingernails dug into her palm.
A stunning truth staggered her. She could not go back out there alone. It was too dark and she was too afraid.
Her gaze slid up the stairs past the second-floor landing and on up to the third—to her apartment. It looked a mile high. Her bruised arm ached and the cut on her mouth stung. Plus the thought of climbing the stairs added a throbbing pain in her left knee to her other aches.
With a sigh, she took the first step—and stopped. Why was she even going upstairs? To try the apartment door? That was useless. One thing she did remember was double-checking the lock this morning. She dug in her bag for her phone—thank goodness it had been inside the zipped handbag or it would probably be gone too—and dialed the landlord. The machine picked up. “We’re closed now but we regret we missed you. Please call back after nine in the morning.”
“Nine in the morning?” Lusinda muttered, remembering what Rick had told her. “Are you freaking kidding me?” She knew the landlord’s apartment was behind the staircase because that’s where she’d met him to rent the roach-infested hovel in the first place. She strode up to the wooden door with the faded sign that said LANDLORD, and banged on it. Nothing. She kept banging and finally heard footsteps.
“Hey! Stop with the noise. Come back in the morning!” came a sleepy, aggravated voice.
“I lost my key,” she yelled back through the door.
“In the morning! After nine!”
Anger almost took her voice away. “Listen to me—” she started.
“Tomorrow!”
“I can’t get in my apartment! Please help me.”
She heard an annoyed hiss. “Hundred dollars for a duplicate.”
“A hun—what?” she said. “That’s extortion!”
“Take it or leave it.” She heard the footsteps moving back away from the door.
Lusinda licked her lips, tasting blood. “I don’t have that kind of money,” she said truthfully. Her cash tips had amounted to twenty-two dollars and change. There were three twenties hidden in her apartment. She’d paid the first week’s rent in advance. She hadn’t brought much cash and her credit card was hidden in the apartment with the twenties. She’d been determined to play the broke waitress authentically. “Let me into my apartment and I can pay you eighty-two dollars. I get paid tomorrow and I can give you the other eighteen dollars tomorrow evening.”
He didn’t say anything. Had he gone back to bed?
“Give me a break! I’ve got nowhere to go.”
She heard his footsteps retreating. “Tomorrow.” His voice was barely audible. She heard the faint sound of his bedroom door closing.
“Bastard,” she said, but she was talking to no one but herself. She dragged herself up the stairs, hearing her stepdad’s voice in her head, warning her that her habit of twirling her keys instead of stowing them in her bag was going to get her in trouble one day.
“Thanks, Abe,” she muttered bitterly. “You got one thing right.”
She leaned against the locked door and dug in her bag one last time, but the damn keys were not there. She counted her cash again, digging to see if she could find more. Two more dollars, crumpled in the bottom. Yay. Twenty-four dollars. Not enough for a different hotel, or even a cab to her real apartment—for which she had no key because she’d stupidly left it in her locker at the precinct.
“After nine,” she mocked, then added, “bastard.”
Checking her phone, she saw that it was two a.m. She yawned and rubbed her face. Eying the scuffed hardwood floor, she decided it was probably going to be her bed tonight. Then a thought occurred to her.
Maybe her attacker had inadvertently given her a way to get into Rick’s apartment. She’d wait on the stairs to the second floor so he’d pass her on his way to his apartment. Beauregard’s closed at three. With any luck at all, he’d be walking up the stairs by three fifteen.
Unless he gets a better offer, the annoying devil’s advocate in her head whispered. “Shut up,” she whispered back.
So she sat on the stairs and waited, glancing around to be sure there weren’t any cockroaches. She didn’t remember ever seeing a roach on a staircase, although that didn’t mean there weren’t any. She huddled back against the banister and crossed her arms. It had been a long day. A very long day. This morning she’d been naïvely confident that she could happen to meet Rick Easterling as he arrived at the hotel and charm him into believing that she’d forgotten to pay her rent. It was a terrible plan, which had become far worse when she tripped and fell on top of him.
To say that she had not charmed him was an understatement. In fact, it had been the reverse. She’d annoyed him and he’d charmed her. But then who wouldn’t be charmed by a knight in shining armor who stepped up, metaphorical sword in hand, to protect and defend them against the fiercest dragon?
According to Deputy Chief O’Reilly, while Rick Easterling was a cowboy who did whatever it took to close his cases and never let his personal feelings interfere with his job, he also had a personal code of honor. He never got involved with anyone while on an undercover assignment.
Lusinda gave that some thought. Never? She doubted that. She imagined that whatever it takes would trump never gets involved if Rick thought he could use sexual attraction to obtain vital information about his case. What if she knew things about Beau that Rick didn’t know? And what if she hinted that she could share that information, under certain circumstances?
An erotic thrill slid through her at the thought of having sex with Rick Easterling, or at least showing him that she was interested. Still, it didn’t matter how much interest she showed if he wasn’t interested in her. She smiled to herself. But he was. She’d felt the proof.
Now all she had to do was come up with information that Rick needed. Carlos Montoya! Right before she tripped on the stairs, she’d heard him say to Rick, There are things you should know about Beau. She could talk to Carlos.
Now, that was a plan. She nodded in satisfaction, then almost immediately, her back stiffened in fear and doubts flooded her brain. All her plan required was seducing Rick and co-opting Carlos Montoya. She took a deep breath. She could do this. After all, Rick might be a dirty cop and Carlos might know more than he should about the premier New Orleans drug lord, but she had truth and right on her side.
The sound of the lobby door opening below her and two unfamiliar voices raised in loud laughter had her jumping up and casting about for what to do. She leaned against the banister and tried for a bored expression, as if she were waiting for someone. The laughter got louder as hard, stumbling footsteps echoed on the stairs.
“Shh,” a woman said. “It’s late.” Then laughter broke out again. Lusinda saw two heads appear as the couple climbed up to the second floor. She’d seen them once before, but only in passing.
“Wait’ll we tell him what an ass he was tonight,” the man said, his words slurred. He giggled and the woman joined in.
“Can’t wait,” she responded.
As the couple passed her, Lusinda looked up. She half-nodded, then dropped her gaze back to her phone, keeping them in her peripheral vision. Both of them frowned at her.
“Honey, you okay?” the woman asked.
Lusinda looked up, then glanced around. “Me? Sure.” She shrugged and went back to studying her phone with a concentration that dared them to interrupt her again.
“Okay, then,” the woman muttered, which prompted more giggles from both of them. Lusinda held her pose until they were inside their apartment at the far end of the landing. Then she sat back down on the step, ready to jump up again if someone else came by. Add a sore right hip to the rest of her aches and pains, she thought, and shifted position with a small groan.
She was tired and hungry and thirsty. She thought about her small bag of groceries, the cans of orange juice and the carton of eggs that she’d sacrificed as a weapon to get away from the man who had attacked her. She should have drunk more of the fresh orange juice.
Shifting again, she tried to ignore her sore body. Maybe, before she got too sleepy, she should write down everything she remembered about the attack, the man and her reaction. Taking out her phone, she composed a text message to herself.
She closed her eyes. He was tall. Maybe over six feet. Gray hair—thinning on top—and a face pockmarked by adolescent acne. Kind of a big nose. That’s all she could remember. It had been too dark to see his eye color or the color of his clothes. She thought he’d been wearing a jacket—not a hoodie—and pants. She frowned, thinking. Not jeans. More like dress pants or khakis.
She opened her eyes and typed the information into the text message using her thumbs. It was a laborious process and a couple of times she almost dozed off. Once she nearly dropped her phone. But finally, she had everything she could remember recorded. She started to hit Send, but then she remembered she hadn’t written down what he’d said.
She wanted to get it right. He’d said, Bitch, teach you to be too good for a paying customer. Was that exactly what he’d said? No. He’d said, teach you be too good, in a Cajun accent. She wasn’t sure they were his exact words, but they were close. But the most interesting thing was the name he’d given her. You know who you turned down back there, bitch? T-Gros Grossman. You and your bartender boyfriend are as good as dead, you stuck-up, stupid c—. Again, maybe not the exact words, but close. She keyed in that information and then hit Send.
After sticking her phone back into her bag, she stretched, moaning as soreness and aches spread through every part of her body. Just as she thought she might doze off, the lobby door opened again. She listened, hoping it was Rick, but the low-pitched grunts and mutterings she heard were not from a man. They sounded like an older woman. Whoever it was scuffled slowly across the hardwood floor below Lusinda.
By the time she realized the dragging footsteps were headed toward the landlord’s door, she heard a key inserted into a lock and a door open. She pushed herself to her feet, but before she could call out to the woman to wait, the door closed. As slowly as the woman had walked, she was quick to unlock the door and get inside.
Lusinda sighed in disgust. If she’d been less drowsy, she might have been able to make it down the stairs in time to catch the woman before she got inside. Maybe she—the landlord’s wife or mother?—would have let her have a key. She could have been safe inside her own roach-infested bedroom. Lusinda closed her eyes and tried to pretend she didn’t feel like crying.