It was harder than I thought it would be, saying goodbye to Andrea, but in the end, there was no dramatic embrace or tears. Instead, she gives me a kiss on the cheek, and a smile. “E-mail me when you get a chance. I promise, I'll check it from time to time, although I don't know how often I can reply.”

“Good luck, Andrea. I will,” I say, watching her climb into the cab. She actually slipped me another hundred bucks from her pile to pay for my cab, which is waiting for me behind hers. I watch her cab pull away, and I get into mine, where the driver is waiting relatively patiently, especially after seeing the Benjamin that Andrea gave me.

“Hey man, that's one fine lady. Your girl?” the driver, a guy with a non-New Orleans accent, asks. He sounds like maybe he's from up north some, not all the way to 'Yankee land’, but maybe Arkansas or Tennessee.

“No, she's my sister,” I say, my tone clearly showing I don't want conversation. “Federal City.”

“You the boss. Mind if I play some music, since you don't sound like you up for talking?” the driver asks, putting his cab into gear. “Federal City's a hell of a drive from here.”

“Go ahead,” I say, leaning back and closing my eyes. I'm not sleepy, but I still semi-doze as the cabby drives me to Federal City, lulled by the sound of the RnB. I come back to full awareness when he pulls over and turns around. “I'm good, I wasn't sleeping.”

“All right man, but you need to give me more directions than Federal City. This is a pretty big place, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, go along General Meyer here a bit,” I say, recalling what I know about Federal City, “I need some clothes and stuff. Let's find a mini-mall or something, you can drop me there.”

The cabby shrugs and we drive for about a mile before he finds a strip mall with a hardware store, a dollar store, and a pizza joint. Pulling over, the cabby looks at his meter. “That's forty-five dollars, my friend.”

I pass him three twenties out of my wallet, keeping Andrea's hundred for later. “Keep the change, man. Thanks for the ride.”

“Have yourself a good afternoon,” he says, and I get out of the cab, watching him pull out. I look down at the clothes I'm wearing and realize I need to get rid of it. The name brands, the custom tailored gear... that was the old Jackson DeLaCoeur. The new Jackson... he's not that sort of guy.

My first stop is the hardware store, where I find a pair of carpenter's jeans that's way too baggy, but as I change in the bathroom, transferring my wallet and phone to them, I feel somewhat comforted. They remind me of jeans that Katrina would wear, the same sort of functional bagginess, even down to the fact that I cinch the waist tight with a friction buckle web belt. I chuck my pants in the dumpster outside, and toss my button-down shirt behind it, leaving me in just my tank top undershirt. Going down the mall's sidewalk, I stop in the dollar store and buy a two pack of plain black v-neck t-shirts which ironically costs seven dollars, strange for a place calling itself a dollar store, along with a cheap mesh backpack for ten bucks. I peel off my tank top and pull on one of my new t-shirts, but keep the shirt, tucking it into my backpack. I'm down to sixty dollars, and I don't care.

Content that I won't be recognized as Jackson DeLaCoeur any longer if someone's looking for me, I take out the address from my wallet along with my phone, and do a quick GPS search. My phone still works at least, and I see that I'm about a half mile away, the address being next to the river, in a line of warehouses it looks like. As I walk, I feel myself walking faster and faster, hoping that whoever or whatever is there, maybe there’s a future for me.

The building is like I expected, although it looks like the former warehouse has undergone some renovations since the BRACing of Federal City a few years ago. The main door's got a security system along with a line of mailboxes, like a lot of office buildings, or maybe artists’ flats. I hit the button for the second floor. “Hello?”

There's no answer, and I start feeling panicked. What if Nathan was fucking with me? What if whoever gave him the address was fucking with him to fuck with me? I take a deep breath and hit the button again. “Hello? I was given this address. Can someone inside help me?”

There's a click on the intercom and then the door buzzes, and I yank at the handle, pulling it open before whoever's inside can change their mind. I step inside and take a deep breath, looking up the narrow, steep staircase. It switches back before reaching the second floor, and I start up, my steps echoing off the painted concrete walls. Ten steps, and then a mini-landing, where I turn and go up another ten, and then another five to reach the landing for the second floor. There's a single steel door with a pane of security glass in it. The glass has been painted over though, clearly a leftover from the days of the building being used by the military.

I see another intercom button and hit it, finding out that it's a buzzer as well. There's a click in the door and I try the handle, finding that it opens easily. Inside, the room is dark, and near the far wall, which has a window that looks like it leads to a fire escape and overlooks the river, is a tall, dark figure. “Hello?”

“Enter, Jackson DeLaCoeur. You have come to the right place,” the figure says, and I can tell right away that whoever it is, they're using some sort of voice distorter, there's a clear electronic hum to their voice.

“Who are you?” I ask, stepping in closer. It's so dark I can barely see anything, but there's enough light coming in that I can at least avoid running into anything. “I was given your address by... a friend.”

“Nathan Black is a friend, is he?” the figure asks, circling around to the side. I circle with it, and as we move, the light from the window illuminates the person a little more. They're wearing a floor length robe, or maybe some type of cloak with a hood, the kind that looks like it's definitely straight out of a Halloween getup.They're also wearing a Mardi Gras mask, one of the type that covers your entire face and has painted decorations over the eyes, the type normally worn by women. But, if this person is a woman, she's a very tall woman, with shoulders bringing her up to definitely a man's size. “I didn't think Nathan had many friends.”

“I don't know if he calls me a friend, but it's a convenient word to use,” I reply, not getting rattled. Less than seven hours ago I kicked my father in the stomach and unleashed enough hell to put him in jail for life. Somebody using some parlor tricks and lighting to try and hide themselves isn't going to rattle me, even if it is confusing. “I trusted him enough to come here when he gave me this address, if that's a better definition.”

“Better,” the figure says. “Have a seat. I have some questions.”

I look behind me and see a couch, although it's not much. It's probably been sitting here since this was a military building, and I sit down, carefully avoiding the small coffee table in front of it. I see there's some stuff on the table, but the light's too dim now in the early evening to figure out what it is. “Okay, I'm sitting. What are your questions?”

“First, are you going to use that gun?”

I reach into the waistband of my jeans and take the pistol out and set it on the table. “I don't think I'm going to need that here. I assume Nathan told you I had it?”

“He and I have talked. What brought you here?”

The figure's question stops me, and I think for a moment before answering. “Hope, I guess. Hope that there is a future for me.”

“You're Jackson DeLaCoeur. Even with your father in police custody, you should have plenty of money and the ability to get in with the right society people. What do you mean, hope for a future?”

I laugh harshly and roll my eyes. “Money? I've got sixty-three dollars in my pocket, a cell phone that I might be able to hock for twenty bucks, and that's it. To hell with those society people with their connections. And to hell with any money I could scrounge from Peter DeLaCoeur. It's blood money. I can't spend it anymore.”

“Who could? Hypothetically, who would be clean enough to spend it?”

“Who?” I ask with a laugh, shaking my head. “Well, I can think of two people. Andrea, my half-sister, and she got herself a share before we left that place... and if she were alive, Katrina. She deserved the whole damn pile.”

The figure nods, barely moving. “Tell me about Katrina Grammercy.”

I sit back, shaking my head in disbelief. “Are you nuts?”

“It’s important to your future,” the figure says, the voice emphatic even if it is distorted. “Tell me about Katrina Grammercy.”

“What can I say? She was tall, deadly, smart... and so beautiful. I miss her so much. For six years as children, she was my best friend, and in just over a few weeks as adults, I realized she was the one for me.”

“Do you love her?”

I stop, and nod, looking down. I reach into the pocket of my jeans and take out the two stones that Andrea gave me, and set them on the table. “If I regret anything about the time I spent with Katrina, it's not that she died. It's not that I'm still living, because as long as I do, there's a part of her that won't die. My only regret... my only regrets are that I didn't have a chance to apologize to her for letting money come between us... and I regret not telling her that I love her. I’ll always love her. As we were leaving the plantation, Andrea gave me these two stones, saying that I should give them to someone special someday. I've carried them for the past seven hours in my pocket... and I don't want them anymore. Because the only woman I want to give them to is Katrina.”

“How?”

I look at the figure, who's stepped closer, kneeling down on the other side of the coffee table. “If I could, the diamond would be in her engagement ring... and the sapphire would be in a necklace that I'd give her on our wedding day. The blue is the same shade as her eyes were. So yeah, I guess your answer to your question is, yes. I love Katrina, even if she's gone.”

The figure reaches for the chin of its mask, pushing it up, and my jaw comes unhinged, dropping into my chest.

“I'm not gone,” Katrina says, pushing the mask off and the hood back. “I'm right here, Jackson. And I love you, too.”