Behind the Mask

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lindsey Latham—She was determined to put old memories behind her, but someone wasn’t letting her…

Graham Dufour—He wasn’t good enough for Lindsey ten years ago, but he’s the only one who can save her now.

Katie LeBlanc—Married to the wealthy owner of the Uptown mansion where the murder took place, she claims total innocence. But how much does she really know?

Thomas LeBlanc—Is he the dashingly handsome playboy he seems—or something far more sinister?

Ruby Oleander—The faithful housekeeper who has her own agenda.

Garon Oleander—Ruby’s youngest son. He keeps his secrets well.

Jerome Oleander—Ruby’s clever son, a man who plays by his own rules.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

Lindsey Latham lunged for the support rail as the jerky movements of the Mardi Gras float propelled her forward. She breathed deeply, determined to ward off a persistent bout of queasiness, and stared out into the never-ending sea of faces. They were all one now, a voluminous cloud of eyes and mouths floating in space. And hands. Thousands of hands, all waving wildly and begging for the baubles that glittered in the moonlight like precious jewels.

“Hey, lady, throw me something—for the baby!”

Lindsey adjusted her feathered mask for the umpteenth time and looked down at the demanding man, and at the small boy he lifted toward her like some heathen sacrifice. He was weaving dangerously close to the slow-moving float, throwing caution to the winds to get his share of the carnival bounty. But the child was adorable, no more than a toddler, grinning through lips coated with the sugary remains of cotton candy.

Lindsey reached into the box at her feet and took out a small stuffed alligator. The crowd around the man surged forward at the appearance of the cheap toy, all with hands outstretched, pleading for their chance at one of the prized throws. Prized, at least, for the duration of the parade.

She dropped it into the child’s chubby hands and then quickly threw a handful of doubloons to the crowd waiting patiently on the walk. She threw another one of the alligators, too, far into the crowd, to reward those who were heeding the safety warnings and staying clear of the unwieldy floats.

“I can’t believe this is your first time to ride on a Mardi Gras float, Lindsey. Don’t you just love it?” Brigit asked, her voice bubbly with excitement.

“It’s different,” Lindsey admitted. “The verdict is still out on the fun part.”

Lindsey watched as Brigit dangled a long strand of silvery beads, taunting the spectators so that they clamored around her, begging for the sparkling throw. She twirled the necklace in the air flippantly and then leaned over to drop it into the hands of an eager teenage girl.

“Wow, get a look at that!” Brigit yelled above the din of the crowd. “Just the guy I need to keep me warm at night.”

“Which guy? There’s only a few thousand out there,” Lindsey quipped good-naturedly.

“The hunk. Over there, in the LSU shirt.” She pointed with one hand and dug around in the overflowing box at her feet with the other. “I’ve got to throw him something good. Like my phone number,” she said teasingly as she caught his eye and tossed him a long string of imitation pearls.

He snagged them in his outstretched hands and blew her a kiss before adding them to the multitude already draped about the shoulders of the blonde who stood at his side.

“Glad you only threw the beads,” Angela offered, leaning over from her spot on the other side of Lindsey.

“Yeah,” Lindsey said, “I’d hate for you to waste a perfectly good phone number on a guy who probably has his own phone book.”

The procession of brightly lit and elaborately decorated floats made its way slowly down St. Charles Avenue as police on horseback tried in vain to keep the crowds pushed back. They were good citizens who’d never think of crossing an officer of the law at any other time, but carnival fever had hit. Fun was the supreme ruler from now until Fat Tuesday.

The float jerked and then came to an abrupt standstill. Lindsey clung to the side. “I hate these sudden stops,” she lamented. Even the most reserved parade viewers left their places on the walks and the neutral grounds that bordered the parade route to swarm around them. She backed away from the edge as the noisy crowd pushed closer, climbing atop friends’ and parents’ shoulders to shove hands and even faces into her space.

“Just relax, Lindsey. Have fun. This is the best part. The rough part comes later, when we hit Canal Street,” Angela said, the thrill of the night adding a lilt to her Uptown accent. She tossed a large supply of beads and doubloons into the street below them, clearly taking her own advice.

“Enjoy it. This is the best part,” Lindsey repeated to herself. She should be having a ball. The other seven girls on her float were.

But they were native New Orleanians, she reminded herself. Even in high school, they had been far more practiced at carnival revelry than she. Not that she hadn’t loved the Mardi Gras season. It was just that her tendency to order and organize had always made it a little more difficult for her to dissolve into a state of total chaos.

But here she was, back in New Orleans with her high school classmates, partying as if it hadn’t been ten years since they were young and eager seniors at Dominican High. She was here, and she had followed their urging, joining in all the Mardi Gras festivities. Parties, masked balls, coronations...

And the krewe’s big parade.

The float jerked forward, bucking like a nervous horse. The motion sickness Lindsey had been fighting all evening attacked again, this time with a vengeance. She held on to the sides of the float and silently ordered her stomach to cooperate.

She knew better than to ride in the parade. But saying no to this bunch of party animals had been about as useless as that last order she had given her stomach. Especially with Grace Ann resorting to her infamous pleading look. The one that had been known to topple powerful men like matchsticks.

Grace Ann had been one of her best friends in school. Sweet, pretty, incredibly rich and generous to a fault. And now she was Queen Grace Ann, of the Krewe of Minerva, a regal monarch who wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. What was the good of being queen, she had argued quite persuasively, if your friends wouldn’t help you celebrate?

So here she was, Lindsey mused, atop a tractor-pulled contraption of brightly painted papier-mâché figures, her costume slipping off her shoulders and her mask riding her nose like a loose saddle. And she was trying not to even think what her stomach was doing while the float snaked along at the pace of an aged snail.

Brigit leaned over the edge, dropping toys and decorated plastic cups to a group of youngsters who were all but climbing in with them. “Come on, get with it,” she told Lindsey playfully. “Your adoring public is begging for treats.”

Lindsey tossed a supply of beads into the crowd, high above the heads of those who swarmed around her. She tossed more toward a balcony full of gray-haired women hanging over the rails. Brigit was probably right about this being the best part of the route. Huge oaks and massive old homes lined the wide streets. And the crowd, though rowdy by her standards, was mostly families, out to enjoy a beautiful evening and all the excitement of Mardi Gras.

She reached for more beads, but the float jerked to a stop, sending her swaying against the rail.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Here? Now? You can’t be.” Brigit offered a reassuring pat. “But, if you must, aim for that tall guy with the stupid hat. He grabs everything I try to throw to anyone else,” she suggested, only half joking.

Lindsey smiled in spite of herself, although Brigit would never see her expression beneath the stiff masks all the float riders were forced to wear. “I’m serious. I may have to bail out. I could signal one of the policemen to get me a ride.”

“Sure, there are plenty of medical people around,” Danielle threw in, stepping from the back corner to join in the conversation, “although it’s usually the marchers that pass out, not the riders. But you’d miss all the fun.”

“But I don’t know how much more fun I can handle,” Lindsey countered. “The two hours of serious toasting before we even started rolling is a tad more than I’m used to.” She leaned back, resting her head against the float’s center frame. “I’ll try to make it a while longer, though,” she conceded. “Who knows? I might get the hang of this, if I last long enough.”

The band that marched in front of the float swung into a popular rock tune, and the fun-loving spectators broke into applause. The faces in the crowd were shifting now, moving and swaying to the music as the float inched forward. Lindsey stood between her two friends and strived to adopt their carefree manner. She stared into the night, trying to focus on eyes, mouths and noses that appeared and then disappeared, like Alice’s Cheshire cat. Now you see them, now you don’t.

She flung a multitude of colored beads into the distance. Patterns of purple, green and gold swirled magically through the night sky, falling like manna from heaven into the upstretched hands.

A beam of light caught Lindsey’s attention and held it. A tiny sliver of illumination in an otherwise darkened house. There were no people on this balcony, just a lit window in the middle of a rounded turret. The curved French window was pushed open, and the night breeze caught the wispy curtain, billowing it like a sail.

A couple danced into view. The girl was dressed in flowing velvet, her long blond hair encircling her face like an ethereal halo. The man held her close, and she rested her head on his broad shoulder.

They were dressed for the evening. She was the traditional Southern belle, he the dashing uniformed soldier. But they were obviously in no hurry to leave the privacy of home for a costume ball.

Young and in love. Lindsey remembered the feeling well. Too well. Especially here in this town, where it had all begun for her. Begun and ended. Squeezing her hands into fists, she smiled determinedly. She was here for fun, not to be tortured by old memories.

Mesmerized, she watched the young lovers, ignoring the chanting crowds around her. She sighed as he tipped his face toward the girl’s and slowly lowered his mouth to hers. Framed in the golden light, they were as clear as a motion picture, acting out their roles, celebrating carnival in their own intimate way.

He ran his hand along her arm, down to the sheath at his side. His lips never leaving hers, he pulled a shiny dagger from the sheath. He was a picture, all right, the brave young soldier, ready to protect his woman.

No, not to protect. Lindsey’s heart leaped to her throat. Oh, God! It couldn’t be!

She watched, a scream stuck in her throat, suffocated by the terror that washed over her, bringing with it bone-chilling paralysis. Watched as the dashing soldier raised the weapon high above his head and plunged it deep in his lover’s heart.

Lindsey blinked and shook her head to clear it of the warped confusion. The images couldn’t be what they seemed. A deception, a cruel joke, but not what they seemed.

Yet the woman was slumping to the floor, the green velvet pooling around her, drinking up the crimson river that flowed from her chest. The man turned, for an instant, for an eternity. Then his eyes bored into Lindsey’s. For a moment, they were as one—the cold, hard perpetrator and the silent witness.

Her body began to shake, spinning as the float jerked forward, but still she couldn’t scream. And she couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear her face from the nightmare that had begun with a kiss.

Then, suddenly, the sliver of light went black. Lindsey fell forward, and her whole world was bathed in darkness.

Chapter Two

Detective Graham Dufour dragged himself into headquarters at half past two in the morning and poured himself a mug of old and mercifully strong coffee before plopping down in his swivel chair. He rubbed tired fingers across his brow and lifted the mug to his lips. No need to worry about caffeine overload tonight. As tired as he was, he’d drop off to sleep in two seconds flat. With luck, he could persuade his body to wait until he got home and into bed first.

Another one down, he reminded himself, with the smallest inkling of satisfaction. The first big weekend of this year’s Mardi Gras season was half-over, and there had been no major incidents reported. Now, if that record could just hold until the big day...

He picked up the computer printout of the night’s routine complaints. It was a bad habit of his. Minor infractions weren’t his responsibility anymore, not since he’d been promoted to homicide. Nothing but the big stuff for him, except during Mardi Gras, of course. For two weeks a year, everybody pulled a few extra duties. It was the only way the good old NOPD could stretch its manpower to safe levels.

Lack of sleep blurred the names as he skimmed the list. A few drunks arrested in the Quarter. Nothing serious, just tourists satisfying appetites they didn’t give in to at home. Several fights, a mugging on Esplanade, a parade watcher hit in the stomach with a cymbal. And some woman claiming she’d witnessed a murder.

Instinctively his mind jumped into working gear. Female on Minerva float, slightly inebriated, passed out and came to in Touro Infirmary mumbling something about seeing a murder.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. A few drinks and those rich society babes in the Minerva parade are liable to see anything,” he mumbled to nobody in particular.

Lindsey Latham.

The name jumped out at him like a striking snake. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the pain that settled in his gut. Old memories died hard. And some never quite made it to oblivion.

Lindsey Latham was one of those. The vivacious sweetheart of Dominican High. Daddy’s girl. She’d been the prime example of what brains, looks and money could produce. She’d had it all, including Graham’s young and impressionable heart. But what was the heart of a poor jock worth? Evidently nothing, judging from the way she’d dropped him when it was time to move on to greener pastures.

Graham reached for the mug and swallowed another gulp of the black coffee. The bitter taste was suddenly a good match for his mood. It was stupid to let a mere name from his past have such a devastating effect on his ego.

Besides, Lindsey hadn’t been back to New Orleans in ten years. No reason to think she’d returned now. No, the Lindsey Latham hallucinating at Touro was probably some party-loving young debutante, hell-bent on creating her own excitement.

“Are you still here? It’s almost 3:00 a.m. I thought you’d be home and in bed now, especially on a night as quiet as this one.”

Graham nodded at the young detective who had stuck his head in the open door. “I’m on my way. But if I had a sweet little thing on the string like you do, I would’ve been out of here long ago. In fact, if I’d known you weren’t taking care of her tonight, I might’ve been entertaining her myself,” Graham joked.

“You would’ve wasted your time trying. My woman never settles for second best.”

Graham managed a smile. Rooster was a good man. One of the best young ones to come along in a while. He’d worked with him on several cases, and he was always thankful to have him as a backup when the going got rough.

“Did you work the Minerva parade?” Graham asked, trying to sound only mildly interested.

“Yeah, matter of fact, I did. Why?”

“I was just looking over this report. It says one of the float riders passed out and ended up in the hospital. She claims she saw someone murdered.”

“We checked it out. The streets were packed, and not one other report came in to substantiate her story.”

“So you think it was a false alarm.”

“No doubt about it. There was lots to see out there tonight, believe me, but fortunately, there were no dead bodies.”

Rooster started to leave, then turned around and lounged in the doorway. “You know, it’s amazing what body parts some girls will show for a string of cheap beads.”

Graham drained the last drop of coffee from his cup and rose to go. “Not all women settle for cheap beads, old boy. Some want it all. Power, prestige and lots of cash. Especially cash.” Flicking off the light, he headed for the front door.

“Don’t tell me you’re back on that old gripe again. You need a good woman, Graham. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

“I need sleep. And I’m on my way to get some, right now. You’d better do the same. Anything might happen during the next week and a half, and probably will.”

Graham toyed with the keys in his pocket as he took the steps to street level. He was tired, but there was only one way he’d get any sleep tonight.

He’d have to make a quick stop at Touro first.

* * *

LINDSEY TRIED to catch her breath. She’d been running for hours, looking everywhere for something...someone. She couldn’t remember.

“Lindsey, are you all right?”

The voice seemed to come from nowhere. She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. A strong hand wrapped around hers, stroking tenderly.

“That’s okay. Don’t try to wake up. The nurse says you need to sleep. I’ll be back in the morning, and you can tell me everything.”

She breathed deeply. It was Graham. He’d come to help her find...something, but what? It didn’t matter. Graham was here now. Everything would be all right. She closed her eyes and rested.

* * *

“HEY, Sleeping Beauty, welcome back to the land of the living. Or are you just passing through again?”

Lindsey blinked her eyes repeatedly, trying to bring the unfamiliar surroundings into focus. She was flat on her back in a single bed that was as hard as a rock, definitely not her own. The dimly lit room smelled of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol.

“I thought you’d never wake up. I’ve been sitting right here in this dreadful place for over two hours.”

“Brigit? What’s going on? Are you all right?” Lindsey reached out and grasped the hand of her friend, grateful for contact with warm flesh and blood and a semblance of normality.

“I’m fine. It’s you who passed out on us. You mumbled something about a soldier. Next thing we knew, you were lying on the floor of the float in a lifeless heap. Nearly scared us all to death.”

A soldier. The dashing man in uniform. The long dagger. The gush of red on the green velvet. It was coming back now. All of it. In living color. She squeezed Brigit’s hand as a frightening chill inundated her body.

“It was awful, Brigit. He murdered her in cold blood!”

With determined movements, she rose to a sitting position, throwing her bare feet over the side of the bed.

“Hey, take it easy. You’re not going anywhere. Not yet, anyway,” Brigit insisted, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Get the police, Brigit. I have to talk to them. Now. While they still have time to catch the murderer.”

“You don’t need the police. You need a doctor, and you have one of the best. Dr. Benson, a friend of my dad’s. He says you’re suffering from a case of pure exhaustion. And an overdose of partying, of course.”

“Nonsense,” Lindsey protested. She maneuvered past Brigit’s well-meaning attempt to restrain her and pushed to her feet. Her resolve was short-lived. The room began to spin like a carousel. She sank back to the bed.

“The doctor said you’d be a little dizzy when you woke up. It’s the drugs. Aspe... Oh, I don’t remember. Something with a long name.”

The doctor was right. Now even the bed was spinning beneath her. And her mind was playing cruel tricks. She could have sworn it was Graham and not Brigit who had sat at her side during the night.

But of course it hadn’t been Graham. He didn’t even know she was in town. And even if he did, he wouldn’t be interested. It was just the drugs that were reviving thoughts she’d carefully tucked away, deep in her subconscious.

“I don’t understand it, Lindsey. What do you do up at that university that’s so important you don’t even take time to eat or sleep?”

Lindsey massaged her brow with shaking fingers. She had to clear her mind, put foolish dreams of Graham aside and remember all the details of the gruesome scene she’d witnessed. The drugs were not making it any easier. And as for working too hard, that was a way of life for her. A situation that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.

“I don’t know what you or the doctor are talking about. I’m fine. But I need to see a policeman. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re ready for them, because after the way you talked to that old buzzard that was on duty when we arrived last night, I don’t think they’re going to be too friendly.”

Lindsey took a deep breath. A few hazy recollections were churning about in her mind, but none of them made much sense.

“You do remember talking to the cop, don’t you?” Brigit asked patiently. “I’m sure he remembers you. You were pretty much out of it, though. Mostly mumbling incoherently. You were a frightful—”

“So the police already know about the murder?”

“Now just stay calm, Lindsey. Dr. Benson says you shouldn’t get all choked up.”

“I have no intention of staying calm. A girl was brutally murdered. Now answer my question. Do the police know what I saw?”

“They know you were mumbling about some guy with a dagger, thanks to our benevolent head nurse. She couldn’t wait to report your so-called murder. I told her you were out of your head, but she didn’t budge from her position. Hospital policy, you know.” Brigit mimicked the nurse’s haughty manner, but Lindsey ignored her attempt at humor.

She traced the folds in her hospital sheet, then stared out the window. Even through closed blinds, it was obvious the sun was high in the sky.

“What time is it?”

Brigit studied the jeweled timepiece that adorned her wrist. “Exactly 11:36 a.m.”

“Oh, no... All night and half the day wasted.” Taking a deep breath, she pulled her drugged body up to a sitting position again. She shivered. The room felt cold, and no wonder. The only thing covering her was a thin hospital gown, and it wasn’t covering much.

“Get my clothes, Brigit. I’m not exhausted, and I’m not ill. You know me. I’ve always had trouble with motion sickness. And I probably had a little too much champagne.” She rocked forward, cradling her spinning head in her hands. “Maybe way too much champagne.”

“It’s probably not the liquor, Lindsey. The doc gave you a shot. He said it would make you sleep. And it did, too. Right through the policeman’s questioning.” She suppressed a giggle. “Except when you told him to get his fat, lazy self out of here and catch murderers. Only you didn’t put it quite that nicely.”