“Someone knows, Martine. And they’re coming after us.”

Martine Broussard has never forgotten the terrible night years ago that drove her and her best friends apart. Now a vengeful someone is brutally killing each woman involved. Martine has one chance at survival—and that’s the one person she distrusts most! And the passion flaring between them is anything but safe...

Rule-breaking New Orleans detective Jimmy DiBiase wastes no time putting Martine under his 24/7 personal protection. His bad-boy ways caused them to fall out years ago; now all he wants is to guard her and end this nightmare. With every lead they follow, every secret they can’t hide sparks a hunger neither can resist—even as a killer’s vicious end game turns desire into a devastating trap.

“You’re always welcome in my bed, Martine. I made that clear a long time ago.”

“What are you committed to, Jimmy?” Martine’s voice was barely a whisper, and the sound was shaky, like her legs that didn’t want to support her, like her fingers that trembled when they cupped his hand where it rested on her cheek.

Jimmy moved closer, kissed a trail to her ear, then glided down to the corner of her lips. He toyed with her, teasing her lips apart, briefly tasting her, giving her a taste of him, before he lifted his head and met her gaze. His was fiercely protective and possessive and hot.

“You, Tine,” he answered gruffly. “I’m committed to you...”

Dear Reader,

The heroine in this book, Martine Broussard, first appeared in my 1999 release, Murphy’s Law. Best friend of that book’s heroine and owner of a voodoo shop that catered to both tourists and serious practitioners, Martine captured a few hearts besides my own. Dedicated readers periodically asked for her story over the years, and I wanted to give it to them. I just didn’t have a hero for her.

Then, after more than fifteen years of waiting, in walked Jimmy DiBiase. Martine knew Jimmy from a very short-lived and unhappily ended relationship years ago, and she didn’t remember him the least bit fondly. But underneath all that hostility—okay, yes, there was more hostility, along with aggravation and annoyance and irritation. But underneath that, Martine’s little heart squeed just about every time Jimmy came around.

That was when I knew Martine and I both had our guy. Add a few murders, a little voodoo, secrets and threats from the past—and, of course, some of New Orleans’s incredible food—and, as they say down there, Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll.

Marilyn

Detective Defender

Marilyn Pappano

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Oklahoma, dogs, beaches, books, family and friends: these are a few of MARILYN PAPPANO’s favorite things. She lives in imaginary worlds where she reigns supreme (at least, she does when the characters cooperate) and no matter how wrong things go, she can always set them right. It’s her husband’s job to keep her grounded in the real world, which makes him her very favorite thing.

MILLS & BOON

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For the people who have loved New Orleans with me:

Dale

Meg

Susan

And for the special cops in my life:

Brandon and Robert

I love you all!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

It was a strange winter. The sky hung heavy and gray, the clouds so dense that the sun hadn’t managed to break through in days. Damp cold drifted through the French Quarter streets, spreading its chill with each bit of ground it covered. Martine Broussard had lived her entire life in southern Louisiana, and she couldn’t recall any winter that been so relentlessly bleak for so shamelessly long.

Tugging her jacket tighter, she regretted not taking a few moments to run up the stairs from her shop to get a heavier coat before striking out for the river, but Paulina had been so insistent on the phone. You have to come now. I really have to talk to you, Tine.

When a ghost from your past broke twenty-four years of silence with both fear and anger in her voice, what could you do besides go now?

No one sat on the benches in Jackson Square or lounged on the grass, a rare emptiness that was as strange as the chill. The walkways along the four sides saw a bit more traffic, but people seemed eager to go from one place to another. Like them, Martine didn’t linger but lengthened her stride instead. It was only a handful of blocks from her shop on Royal Street, and the walk to the river normally took ten minutes or so as she strolled and dawdled and exchanged hellos with fellow Quarter residents. This afternoon she cut the travel time in half, jogging across Decatur, crossing the trolley tracks, reaching the Moonwalk in record time. It was even colder here by the river, but that wasn’t what caused the prickling of her nerves.

It was the sudden absolute sense of...wrong. This weather was wrong. The phone call from Paulina was wrong. The panic in her voice was wrong. The queasiness in Martine’s gut was wrong. It was a normal Tuesday in a normal week in a normal January in a normal French Quarter, and the uneasiness, the nervousness, the weirdness, were all wrong.

But it wasn’t a normal day, a normal week, a normal month.

The broad path stretching in both directions atop the riverside levee was empty. There were trees, benches and trash cans, all shrouded in swirling fog, but not a sign of life in either direction. Martine reached inside her jacket, touched her fingers lightly to the charm that lay beneath her shirt, then gripped it as a figure materialized a dozen feet ahead of her. A gasp escaped her before she recognized Paulina, but even recognition didn’t slow the pounding of her heart.

“Never thought I could hide behind a little tree, did you?” her old friend commented. Though she still looked very much like the girl Martine had grown up with, she was significantly different, too. Teenage Paulina had always carried an extra ten pounds that gave a soft roundedness to her beauty; she’d rarely been without a smile; her blond hair had gleamed and her blue eyes had glistened with life, love, anticipation and promise.

This woman needed an extra ten pounds to fill out the hollows in her face. Her hair hung dull and limp, and her eyes were hollow, too. She wore black pants that bagged on her skinny frame, a dingy white shirt and a gray fleece jacket that helped her blend into the steely day.

She would have been voted “the girl most likely to...” if their generation had done such things. Most likely to sleep with the boys. To talk back to the teachers. To flirt with the handsome football coach. To get suspended for being a wild child and named homecoming queen in the same year. To go to college, to live life loud, to run wild and travel far, to have the perfect career, marry the perfect man, birth perfect children.

Like the day, the weather and everything else, that title would have turned out to be wrong.

Realizing she was still clenching her charm, Martine let it drop and slowly closed the distance between them. “It’s been a long time, Paulina.”

“Not long enough. I’d hoped I’d never see you again.”

Though the baldly spoken sentiment stung, Martine couldn’t take offense because subconsciously she’d reached the same conclusion long ago. For fifteen years they’d been best friends—the two of them plus Callie and Tallie, the Winchester twins, and Robin Railey—but one June night had ended that. Robin had refused anything to do with them starting the next day. The twins had moved their summer visit to relatives in England ahead by a month and left without a goodbye, and Paulina had escaped to college two months early. As far as she knew, none of them had ever returned home.

“Why don’t we get out of the cold? Get some coffee?” Martine gestured vaguely to her left, her wave taking in Jax Brewery and Café du Monde.

Paulina shook her head and went straight to the point. “Someone knows.”

Without thought, Martine reached for the charm again, caught herself and forced her hand away. A chill swept through her, unsettling and eerie and totally irrational. She knew that last part in her brain—had tried to convince her friends of it twenty-four years ago but never could. She gave herself a mental shake and Paulina a faint smile. “Knows what, Paulina? That five girls who’d had too much weed played some silly games in the woods one night?”

Paulina’s features looked as if they would crack if she tried to return the smile. They were masklike, the coloring off, the contours exaggerated, the eyes shallow and empty of any emotion that might come down on the lighter side. A not-real mask of how a real Paulina might look if she were scared to death.

Scared to death? Because of something they’d done when they were kids?

“They know what we did, Tine. I don’t know how—maybe they saw us, maybe Callie or Tallie or Robin told someone—but they know, and they’re...they’re...” Her gaze swept the area, her eyes wide. She hunched her shoulders and lowered her voice. “They’re coming after us.”

Martine shuddered, reminded of too many late girls’ nights watching horror movies on TV or wandering the entire town after everyone else was in bed, snitching tomatoes from Mrs. Bush’s plants, peaches from Mr. Everard’s trees, sharing plans and jokes and stories to scare the pants off each other. Paulina had always been best at those, holding a flashlight so her face was mostly shadows, creating voices for every character, including low, growly, vicious ones for the villains. She’d never failed to make Martine shriek with good-natured fear, followed by laughter.

But a look at Paulina showed the great release of laughter wasn’t on the agenda today.

Again, Martine gestured toward the more populated area a few dozen yards away. “Come with me, Paulina. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and some beignets. You always said they were God’s dessert, and they’re as good today as they were then.” She even took a few steps before realizing that Paulina hadn’t moved.

“Have you talked to Callie or Tallie or Robin?” the woman asked. “Heard anything about them from your family or on Facebook?”

Retracing her steps, Martine returned to her original spot. “No.” The end of their friendships had come too fast, had been too hard. She’d moped around alone and lonely after they’d abandoned her, until finally she fled, too, though not far: only the fifty miles to New Orleans. She’d put them out of her head and eventually out of her heart, and she’d made new friends and built a new life with no room for them. The day she’d realized she could think of them dispassionately—Oh, that blonde looks like Paulina or She reminds me of Robin with the way she walks—had been a very long time coming.

“Well, you can’t talk to Callie. She’s dead. They tried to kill Tallie, but she got away. No one knows where she is. I haven’t been able to find Robin, so I don’t know if she’s still alive. And that leaves you and me, Tine. Me, I don’t stay in one place very long. You, though...you’re living over there on Royal Street. Hell, you’re even listed in the phone book. You need to leave. Run. Find a dark little hole and pull it in on top of you, because they’re coming after us, and they’re not going to stop until we’re—we’re...”

She said the last word in one of those scary-story voices, little more than a whisper but still loud enough to echo inside Martine’s head: “Dead.”

A passing ship chose that moment to blast its horn, both muffled and amplified by the heavy air. Martine gazed at it a moment, headed downriver. Once it reached the Gulf of Mexico, its crew could go anyplace they wanted in the world. A tiny part of her wished herself on the deck, where soon the sun would shine and all of life’s possibilities would open up before her again.

But she couldn’t run away, wouldn’t, especially from a problem that wasn’t even really a problem. Those foolish kids from twenty-four years ago hadn’t done anything deserving of punishment. Besides, she had a business here, a home and the best friends a woman could be blessed with. Who gave up perfect to run from unfounded fears?

Apparently Paulina. When Martine turned away from the ship and back to her friend, Paulina was quickly disappearing into the mist ahead. “Paulina, wait!” Boots with three-inch heels weren’t made for running, especially when the ground was damp, but she got close enough to snag the trailing hood of Paulina’s jacket. “Paulina, please, let’s talk about this. I’ll get you a place to stay. You can get a good night’s rest, tonight I’ll cook your grandmother’s gumbo, and in the morning we’ll have beignets and coffee and straighten all this out.”

Paulina’s gaze took on a scornful cast as she spun around to face Martine. “You don’t believe me, do you? You, with all your voodoo and charms and black-magic curses—you think I’m crazy. I knew Tallie would doubt me. She and Callie never had half a brain between them. And Robin...she always thought I didn’t have half a brain, either. But you—you make your living off this stuff, you’re surrounded by it all the time, and you think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t, Paulina, I don’t think you’re crazy at all. I just want—I want to understand it. I want to know what’s happened. I want to wrap my head around it. We can do that together and maybe even find Robin. Just come back to the shop with me. Come on, we’ll talk it all out and—and find some way to make things right, okay? We always made things right, didn’t we?”

Stiffening, Paulina gave her a haughty stare. “You think I don’t remember your lying-your-ass-off voice? So innocent and sincere that every adult you used it on believed every word you said?”

Heat flushed Martine’s face. She hadn’t realized when she slipped into the voice, but she’d recognized it by the end of her little speech. Her best friend Evie called it her dealing-with-psychos voice. A popular French Quarter psychic, Evie had her own version, the tourists-wanting-their-money’s-worth voice.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” A screech rushed up from the fog that hid their feet, making them both jump. An instant later, an angry little dove flew up into view, hovered for a moment to chitter at them—they must have interrupted his dining on whatever scraps he’d found below—then darted off.

At the same moment, Paulina darted off, too. She moved fast and silent, either sure of her footing or not caring if she took a wrong step. Martine watched her go, tugged her coat even tighter and headed back to the shop.

* * *

Jimmy DiBiase didn’t have the typical wanderlust. He had no desire to travel to every state in the union. He didn’t like flying enough to want to spend hours in the air to tour Britain, France, Italy or Greece. He didn’t care about China or India or Vietnam or any of hundreds of foreign places he’d never been. He’d been born and raised within spitting distance of the Mississippi River, and he was happy to stay within that same narrow range.

But he did like moving.

When he woke up, he knew automatically that it was Wednesday, and without looking at a clock, he knew it was too early for him to be awake, for which he could thank the person calling his cell. He knew it looked like another grim, dreary day, and he needed to take a leak, but he didn’t know where the bathroom was because, not for the first time in his life—or even this year—he didn’t know where he was.

First things first. He picked up the cell, setting it on the table next to the mattress. The mattress and the box spring were the only other furniture in the room, and the tile seemed to radiate out from them in dark shiny waves. Shoving his hair from his face, he answered the call as he sank back under the covers. “What time is it?”

“Five fifteen.” The voice belonged to Jack Murphy, the homicide detective he worked with most often, and he sounded as unready to roll out of bed as Jimmy. Understandable when he had a beautiful wife curled up next to him. “Spare me the complaints, James. We got a case.”

“How’d we get a case when our shift doesn’t start for nearly two hours?” Jimmy sat up and swung his feet to the floor, then saw the wall of windows on the other side of the room. This was his new apartment. He’d seen it only once before and never in the dark, but there was no mistaking all that glass eight stories above the ground.

“Personal connection,” Murphy said. “I’ll pick you up in five.”

“I’m at the new place.”

“I’ll be out front.”

The call ended, and Jimmy thought for about ten seconds about stretching out again, but there was nothing in the world he loved as much as his job—not even sleep when his head was thick and his ass was dragging. Add in Murphy’s personal connection to a homicide case, and he moved fast enough that he was standing on the sidewalk when Murphy pulled to the curb.

Jimmy slid into the passenger seat, angling the computer away to give himself some space. He fastened his seat belt and reached for the travel mug of steaming coffee in the holder nearest his seat. A carefully wrapped muffin sat on top of the cup—carrot and walnut, by the smell of it. Evie Murphy was a princess among wives. Murphy was damned lucky to have her.

Jimmy’s behavior in his one and only marriage had proved he didn’t deserve any kind of wife. The way he’d treated Alia must have seriously pissed off the gods; judging by the sorry state of his relationships since then, it seemed they were done with him.

With his dark hair standing on end and his tie looped around his neck instead of tied, Murphy was stoic and silent, not yet awake. He drove through the freaky, patchy fog, following empty streets past houses where outdoor lights cast dim halos. It wasn’t raining, but everything was wet, and the dampness helped the cold penetrate deeper into a person’s bones. Jimmy hadn’t even begun to warm up until his muffin was gone, he’d downed half his coffee, and a swirl of ghostly blue and red emergency lights ahead announced their destination.

“A cemetery?” He glanced at Murphy. “You volunteered me for a case in the middle of the night at a cemetery that looks like a set for Halloween 47: Everyone Dies?” Then he realized he hadn’t shown the courtesy of asking about the connection. “Do you know the victim? Does Evie?”

“No.”

“Favor to family?”

“No.”

“A former employee? A neighbor? Parents of one of your kids’ friends?”

Murphy parked near the other vehicles and shut off the engine. He pulled on gloves before picking up his own coffee. “The only thing the victim had on her was a prepaid cell phone that had made only one call—to Charms, Notions and Potions.”

Jimmy blinked. He was familiar with the business name. He’d worked half his life in the French Quarter and spent the other half partying, celebrating, crashing or living there. The cutesy name belonged to a shop owned by Martine Broussard, Evie’s best friend, where up front she sold tourist stuff: good luck charms, candles, voodoo ritual kits, how-to books and worry dolls, along with the usual New Orleans T-shirts, coffee mugs and mass-produced voodoo dolls. In the back room she offered the serious practitioner stuff. Her market for that was mostly local. Tourists rarely ventured through the door separating the two rooms.

Family friendship aside, Jimmy wasn’t sure he would have dragged himself out before dawn to Halloween 47 just because the murder victim had called Martine’s voodoo shop. Maybe she’d wanted directions. Maybe she’d been looking for a love potion or an Obatala candle for self-purification, or maybe she’d wanted to know if the bar across the street whose name she couldn’t remember was open yet.

Not that it mattered. Murphy had wanted the case, and they had it. Now it was time to get out of the car, wander into the cemetery and start working it.

The cars belonging to the officers assigned the initial call and those of the crime scene technicians were parked along the street. Bright lights had been set up some fifty yards away among the graves, and a canopy had been erected to protect the body from the elements. As Jimmy buttoned his overcoat, he noticed it was starting to rain, just small half-hearted drops, as if the fog had worn itself out and was liquefying in the sky.

He’d spent a lot of time in cemeteries—investigated a few murders that took place there, attended plenty of victims’ funerals to see who else showed up and even gone to a few funerals for friends or distant relatives. Cemeteries didn’t normally creep him out, but there was something about this scene...the weird weather, the unusual hush of the voices, the edginess that kept everyone focused on their duties. He wasn’t the only one who’d rather be home in bed.

Yellow-and-black crime scene tape draped limply from crypt to crypt, cordoning off the area where the body lay. Uniformed cops stood outside the perimeter, detectives and crime scene investigators inside. Between them, he caught a glimpse of legs, ankles showing between sodden pants hiked to the calves and canvas sneakers, the skin unusually colorless under the bright lights.

“Detectives.” A grim-faced patrolman lifted the tape so they could duck under, keeping his back to the scene. He looked so young that this was likely his first body, and he was doing his best to avoid it.

It was far from Jimmy’s first, and probably just as far from his last.

“What do we know?” he asked, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

It was a uniform who answered. “Neighbor out with his dog saw suspicious activity by the angel.” He gestured behind him with one hand. “Myself and my partner didn’t see anything from the street, but when we walked over here, we found...” He gave the body a quick nod that prevented any details from registering.

Everyone under the canopy mimicked his look at the victim, then turned to the angel. It adorned a spire atop the crypt twenty feet away, its gray marble turned dingy by time and weather. Her face was tilted to the sky, her wings stretched out. In prayer? Pleading? The promise of protection?

Had the victim seen the angel? Had she had a chance to pray? Or had she already been dead when she was brought here?

“She has no ID,” Leland, the senior of the crime scene guys, said. He and Jimmy had started with the department at the same time, Jimmy an ambitious patrol officer, looking for arrests, wanting to make a meteoric rise through the ranks, and Leland a lab rat, perfectly content with handling corpses. The dead were so much less annoying than the living, he’d insisted. He’d risen through the ranks, too, to the point that he often had to deal with the living, as well. “No driver’s license, no credit card, no jewelry, nothing. Just two hundred bucks cash in her jacket pocket and the cell phone with its one call.”

“So it wasn’t a robbery.”

Jimmy didn’t notice who’d stated the obvious—not him, not Murphy. He studied the woman instead: wet hair of dirty blond or light brown. Thin face, sunken cheeks, deep shadows under her eyes. Lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, signs of worry or general unhappiness. Her T-shirt clung to her in wet folds, once white but now a vague shade of gray. She’d lost weight recently, judging from the long loop of drawstring that held her pants around her skinny hips and from the way her skin sat uncomfortably on her frame. Her clothes were cheap, maybe secondhand, but something about her didn’t strike him as a secondhand-clothes person. There was a line on her left index finger where she’d long worn a ring, not a tan but a bit of shiny skin where the ring had rubbed back and forth, and all ten of her nails were bitten to the quick.

What there wasn’t was an obvious cause of death. She didn’t look like she was just sleeping, though Jimmy had seen his share of dead people who did. No, it was apparent with the quickest of glances that this woman was dead. The lights were out; the soul wasn’t home.

Which meant the cause was on her back side. “Can you roll her over?” he asked, and the crime scene guys moved to comply. Something dark stained the back of her head. Blood, possibly from a blunt object, possibly the entry wound of a small-caliber bullet.

“There’s something under her shirt,” Leland said, and they returned her to her original position. He pulled up her T-shirt to reveal a large bandage, sticky clear film protecting some type of dressing. It was centered over her chest, crossing her breasts, extending above and below several inches.

“So she has surgery, someone kills her and dumps her in the cemetery?” It was the same voice that had stated the obvious earlier. This time Jimmy looked and identified its owner as one of the crime scene guys who’d so far managed to stay on the perimeter, not doing much of anything. Maybe one of their lab rats who’d thought working out in the field would be fun, or maybe a new guy who was destined to get on Jimmy’s last nerve pretty quickly.

Ignoring his coworker, Leland began peeling back the edge of the dressing. He worked it loose carefully, teasing the adhesive from the skin, as gentle as if his patient were alive and watching, then abruptly he stopped. He looked a moment, then folded back the flap of bandage as his distraught gaze met Jimmy’s. “I think we’ve found the cause of death.”

Jimmy and Murphy both leaned forward, concentrating on the small area of chest that had been revealed—not pale smooth skin but a wickedly ugly wound and, inside, emptiness. Not real emptiness, of course, but the essence of something missing. Something important.

“Damn.” Jimmy breathed the word the same time Murphy did, then looked to Leland for confirmation. Leland nodded.

“The killer removed her heart.”

* * *

After a restless night, Martine gave up any hope for peaceful sleep, pulled her robe on and shuffled to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. She’d had dreams all night—ugly, unsettling ones involving deep shadows, woods, birds screeching that had raised the hairs on her arms. If she were fanciful, she’d say the fog was keeping the happy dreams at bay. It didn’t want her nights to be any more cheerful than her days had become since it moved in.

“It’s just fog,” she groused, pouring cream and sugar into her coffee. “A cloud of tiny water droplets hovering above the earth. It doesn’t think or care or even know you exist, Tine.”

The old, almost forgotten nickname made her pause before taking the first sip of coffee. Where was Paulina this morning? Had she checked into a motel or crawled into a hole and pulled it in after her? Had she stayed safe last night? Had she gotten anything hot to eat?

Was she crazy?

Martine had tried to put all the memories behind her when she got back to the shop yesterday, a task made easier by an influx of tourists. They’d worn a variety of N’Awlins T-shirts, a few had sported Mardi Gras beads or feather boas around their necks, and they’d done their best to project the carefree, good-time-in-the-Big-Easy air that most tourists came by naturally, but it had been a struggle for this group. Even inside the brightly lit shop, they’d huddled together in small numbers, their voices muted, lamenting the lack of sunshine and the mild weather they’d expected. They’d been worried without knowing why, and they had cleaned the shelves of every single good luck charm and candle in sight before leaving the way they’d come.

After the shop was closed, after Martine had finished off a po’boy from down the street and locked herself inside her cozy apartment, the memories had come knocking again. A search of the internet had proved true one of Paulina’s claims: Callie Winchester had died three months ago in Seattle. The details reported by the news outlets were scarce, but the obituary confirmed it was their Callie. Her parents, who’d once lived two blocks from Martine’s family, were now in Florida, and her twin, Tallie, made her home in London.

Callie...dead. Though Martine hadn’t seen her in twenty-four years, though she hadn’t thought about her much in twenty of those years, it hurt her heart to know she was dead. Callie had always been so vibrant, full of humor and wild ideas that usually ended in trouble for all of them. She’d been beautiful, with sleek black hair that reached down her back, olive skin and gray eyes, and she’d done a perfect imitation of her posh mother’s British accent, but there had been nothing refined or elegant about her huge booming laugh. Tallie, identical in every way except the laugh, had compared it to a braying jackass, which merely made Callie laugh even harder.

And now she was gone. Someone had stolen her very life and discarded her for someone else to deal with, as if she were no more important than an empty burger wrapper.

That thought raised goose bumps on Martine’s arms and stirred an ache in her gut. She was browsing through the pantry, looking for something to settle it, when the doorbell rang, echoing through the floorboards.

The clock on the microwave showed the time was 7:23. No one came to visit her before nine, and rarely without a phone call to alert her. Maybe it was just some punk, walking along the sidewalk and pressing doorbells. But no sooner had that thought cleared her brain, the bell rang again, seeming more impatient. Her nerves tightened, and apprehension throbbed behind her eyes. Whoever was downstairs on this ugly dreary morning after her ugly restless night couldn’t possibly be good news for her.

Unless it was Paulina, come to take her up on her offer of coffee and beignets.

Hope rising over the dread, Martine hurried down the stairs as the bell rang a third time. Reaching the bottom, she jerked the security chain loose, undid the dead bolt lock and yanked the door open, prepared to meet her friend with a smile and a comforting hug—

But it wasn’t Paulina. Jack Murphy stood on the stoop, dressed in the white shirt and dark suit that were his usual work clothes. He looked as if he’d slept in them, hadn’t had time to shave and had forgotten to comb his hair, and his eyes were dark and somber with shadows.

Panic clutched Martine’s chest, cutting off her breath. “Oh, God, please tell me nothing’s happened to Evie or the kids.”

His eyes widened, an instant of alarm followed by sudden regret. “No. No, God, no, they’re fine.”

Her knees going weak, she sagged against the doorjamb, one hand pressed to her chest. “Aw, jeez, you about gave me a heart attack! Don’t do that again!” For emphasis, she poked him with one finger. “Not ever!”

“Is she always this ditzy?” a voice drawled from the curb, and Martine realized Jack wasn’t alone. He’d brought along her least favorite police officer in the world—her least favorite person. It was too damn early in the morning—too damn early in the year—to face Jimmy DiBiase.

Especially when she was wearing what passed for pajamas and a robe: tank top, shorts, an old boyfriend’s flannel shirt. She was exposed from the top of her thighs to her bare toes, to a letch like DiBiase with a freakishly cold fog silently creeping everywhere. No wonder her skin was crawling.

She was torn between slamming the door and fleeing upstairs to wrap up in her favorite quilt and inviting Jack inside while pointedly leaving DiBiase in the cold. Neither action would surprise Jack; he knew DiBiase was an acquired taste for most women besides strippers, hookers and cop groupies.

Then the realization clicked in her brain: Evie and the kids were okay, but Jack was still here, still in work mode. That meant someone else... “Who is it? Anna Maria? Reece? Jones? Alia? Landry?” Her brain was spewing forth names faster than her mouth could get them out.

Paulina’s voice sounded faintly through the mist, sending a bone-deep shiver through Martine: They’re coming after us, and they’re not going to stop until we’re dead.

Dear God, could it be her?

“I’m sorry, Martine,” Jack said. “I’m handling this badly. We’ve got a...victim.” The grimness returned to his expression. “No ID, nothing but a call to your shop yesterday afternoon.”

Martine thought longingly of the quilt, and of the coffee she’d left on the kitchen counter. She needed warmth. She needed a lot of it to melt the ice that suddenly coated everything inside her, slowing her heartbeat, making it difficult to breathe. Paulina had warned her, had told her they were in danger, and Martine had done nothing. Had let her walk away. Had let her die.

Because she knew in her heart Paulina was gone.

“Oh, God.” She swayed forward, and a hand caught her arm, holding her steady. It was a big hand, strong, the skin olive-hued, the fingers bare, and the overcoat sleeve above it was gray. Jack’s overcoat was black. She knew, because she’d helped Evie shop for it. Which meant this coat belonged to DiBiase.

The hand holding her up was DiBiase’s hand. For one brief moment, she let herself accept the warmth and comfort and strength that seeped from him, just one moment when she was too weak to do otherwise. Then, with the stubbornness she’d been legendary for back home, she tugged free, folded her arms over her chest and hid her fisted hands against the soft flannel.

“I guess you should come in.” Her voice was flat and numb, a pretty good match for the dismay and sorrow building inside her. She’d been a fool for letting Paulina walk away. Paulina had obviously not been herself; she’d needed taking care of. Needed someone to pretend to believe her, to take her home and help her until she was better able to help herself.

Twenty-four years ago, Martine had been the person Paulina turned to first, before anyone else. Oh, Tine, he broke up with me for good. Tine, I’m failing algebra, and my dad will take my car away for sure. Tine, my mom and dad are fighting again. Tine, I think I’m pregnant, but I’m too young to have a baby!

They had been best friends—had had a bond that should have been unbreakable. But now, after all those years, when Paulina came to her again, Martine had let her down. She hadn’t even tried. She’d just wanted to get out of the cold and go back to her shop and take care of business. She’d wanted to stuff the past back into its cramped little corner of her brain and never take it out again.

At the top of the stairs, she turned left into the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee,” she suggested with the same numbness.

“We’ll do it.” Jack touched her arm. “Go get some clothes on.”

She glanced down. Her legs and feet were an unflattering shade of blue, thanks to the cold, and goose bumps covered every bit of skin. When she lifted her gaze again, it automatically went to DiBiase, who was also just lifting his gaze. Jerk. Self-centered, unfaithful, two-timing, arrogant—

Giving him a look of loathing, she went down the hall to her room, where she dressed in comfort clothes: fleece pants, a long-sleeved shirt, thick wool socks and cozy slippers. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the two men had their coffee, and Jack had reheated hers in the microwave until it steamed.

“You want to go into the living room?”

Martine paused, then shook her head. “In here.”

* * *

Jimmy was the last to walk through the doorway she’d indicated. She went first, turning on lights, opening curtains, and Murphy followed. Jimmy stood at the threshold, taking in everything before invading it.

He would admit, he didn’t know Martine well. That time he’d tried to get her to go home from Murphy’s party with him had been only their second meeting, and since then she’d looked at him like he was some kind of bottom-feeder. He did know that he wished things had happened differently back then, that she and Evie Murphy were like sisters, that his ex-wife, Alia, had been welcomed into their group last year and that Martine ran the voodoo shop below: part good fun, part legitimate business. He knew she was serious and mysterious and superstitious and sometimes wild and worrisome.

This room didn’t seem to go with any of that.

It had once been a dining room, he suspected, from the general size and shape, the proximity to the kitchen and the arched doorway into the living room. Now it looked like it belonged in a suburban house, reigned over by a crafter who indulged creativity in the lulls between being World’s Best Soccer Mom and World’s Best Cheer Mom. The woman belonging to this room drove an SUV, had a closet filled with conservative trendy clothes, was organized enough to keep complex schedules for four kids in her head, never missed a PTA meeting and terrorized any mother who did.

It looked nothing like the Martine he’d offended a few years ago.

It held a large rectangular table, the top etched with a one-inch grid, and four perfectly matched chairs. Every available inch of wall space was covered with white bookcases, and the shelves were filled with books, craft supplies, an array of tools, fabric and a lot of things he didn’t recognize, all of it in color-coordinated hampers or boxes. The lamps in the room gave off bright white light; for the first time in a week or more, he could see clearly again. The fog had lifted, at least inside this small space.

Martine settled on one side of the table. Jimmy sat on the opposite side next to Murphy. She opened a white bin, neatly labeled with the years, and pulled out a photograph, laying it on the table in front of him and Murphy.

Jimmy leaned forward to study the shot of the smiling blonde in an off-the-shoulder gown. Gaudy decorations behind her suggested a high school prom, an innocent time. It was funny the things twenty-plus years could change and the things they couldn’t. This pretty, smiling, well-nourished, blue-eyed blonde shouldn’t have a thing in common with the underweight, hard-worn, weary woman they’d seen in the cemetery this morning, but he had no doubt they were one and the same.

Murphy knew, too, but he still offered his cell phone to Martine. She glanced at the picture—quickly the first time, as if afraid there might be damage she didn’t want to have in her mind, then for a still quiet moment. Shivering, she held her hands to her coffee mug before lifting it for a drink.

“Her name is Paulina Adams. We grew up together in Marquitta. She called yesterday afternoon and asked to meet me by the river.” Her voice sounded hollow and distant, making its way through a thick haze of shock and emotion and guilt and sorrow. Jimmy had heard that voice a hundred times from a hundred different people, when he broke the news that someone they loved had died. God, he hated that part of the job. Today, because it was Martine, he hated it even more.

“Did you meet her?” Murphy asked. Of course she did. Jimmy wouldn’t even have asked.

“She, um...she looked like she’d been having a tough time. She was frightened. She said...” Her breath sounded loud in the room. “She thought someone was trying to kill her. I thought she was being paranoid. But I guess it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you, right?” Her smile was faint and sickly and slid away faster than it had formed.

With prompting from Murphy—a lot of it; the hesitations and pauses started long and got longer—she related the conversation with Paulina. Paulie, she’d called her, and in return Paulina had called her Tine. After a time, she fell silent, locking gazes with Murphy. “How did she die?”

Death notifications were Jimmy’s least favorite part of the job, and definitely the least favorite part of that job was answering questions like that. No one wanted to hear that their sixteen-year-old daughter was raped before she was murdered, or that their elderly father had been beaten with a baseball bat by the thugs who broke into his house. Certainly Martine did not want to know that her friend’s heart had been cut from her chest.

“We’re waiting for the autopsy report,” Murphy said gently. All cops, no matter how tough or gruff or abrupt, had a gentle side—even Jimmy himself. Granted, the only people who ever saw his were the victims and the officers he worked with. Martine couldn’t see anything when she pretty much pretended he didn’t exist.

“Why would someone want to kill Paulina?” he asked, part curiosity, part to remind her that he did exist.

Martine breathed deeply, her fingers running along the edge of the storage bin in a slow back and forth pattern. Her nails were painted dark red, and heavy silver rings gave an elegant look to her hand. Those hands could perform magic. He’d felt it for himself that last night, when everything had been full of promise. He didn't know even now what he had expected at the time—a few hours, a few dates, maybe even something serious—but what he'd gotten was rejection and her never-ending scorn. Most of the time, he was okay with that. Most of the time, he provoked her just because he could. But sometimes he caught himself wondering what if...

Realizing he was watching her, she stopped the rubbing and clasped her hands. “I don’t know. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen her in twenty-four years.”

“But you were best friends.”

“Were,” she repeated for emphasis. “In school.”

“What happened?”

Again she drew a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to imply her annoyance at being questioned by him or if she was using the time to figure out the right answer. Right answers never needed figuring. The truth came easier to most people than evasions or lies.

“We were kids. We went to the same school, the same church, had the same interests. Then we graduated and...things changed. We changed. The ones who went to college went elsewhere. The ones who didn’t moved elsewhere, too. We wanted to see what the world had to offer, and we lost touch after a while.” A narrow line creased her forehead. “Are you still in touch with your best bud from high school?”

“I am. I introduced him to his wife. His kids call me Uncle Jimmy.”

The crease deepened into a scowl. “Of course they do.” Snideness sharpened her tone. “Most of us move on after high school. We all found new lives and new friends.”

“And yet when Paulina was having a tough time, when she thought someone was going to kill her, she came to you, someone she hadn’t seen in twenty-four years. Doesn’t that seem odd? That she wouldn’t go to one of those new friends you all replaced each other with?”

Martine’s face flushed, giving her the first real color he’d seen since she’d found them at her door. Anger? Embarrassment that she didn’t have an answer for a perfectly reasonable question? Guilt that if she wasn’t outright lying, she was at least not being entirely truthful?

He had to give her credit: she didn’t shove back from the table, pace around the room or throw him out of her house. He’d watched plenty of people do all three. He’d even been on the receiving end of a few punches in the process of being thrown out. No, Martine might have surpassed the limits of her tolerance for him, but she retained control.

“I don’t know where Pauline’s new life and new friends are,” she said, a clenched sound to her words. “I don’t know where she went after school, what she did, how she lived, whether she married or had children, if she kept in touch with her family or anyone else. No one could have been more surprised than I was when I heard her voice on the phone, or when I saw her, or when she ran off into the fog. We were friends a lifetime ago, but after twenty-four years, she’s as much a stranger to me as she is to you. I’d have better luck coming up with suspects who want you dead than Paulina.”

If the conversation hadn’t been so serious, he might have laughed at that. He’d been a cop for eighteen years. Everyone could come up with a list of people who wanted him dead.

She slid her chair back and stood, replaced the picture in the bin and closed the lid. “I have to get ready to open the shop, and I need time to...”

Jimmy silently completed the sentence for her: grieve over a stranger who’d once meant the world to her. He needed time to figure out whether he believed everything—or even anything—she’d told them. His first two questions for himself after an interview were Did she lie? and Why? He wasn’t looking forward to telling Murphy he believed his wife’s best friend had lied.

Murphy made the small talk to get them out the door—thanks, sorry, take care—then they took the stairs in silence. The street was just as empty of life as it had been when they came.

Murphy started the engine and turned the heat to high before thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Notice how she just happened to have that box on the table? The yearbooks were inside there, too. A lot of pictures, souvenirs, old cards. Seeing Paulina yesterday upset her more than she wanted to show.”

“Maybe she was wondering how Paulina went from that kid at the prom to that woman on your phone. Or maybe seeing her made her nostalgic for the good old days.”

Murphy snorted. “I know you didn’t miss the fact that she wasn’t telling us everything, so don’t make excuses. I love Martine, but I’m not here because she’s my kids’ godmother. My job is to find who killed Paulina and why.”

“But you can’t forget that she’s your kids’ godmother, can you, and that makes the job harder. Evie and the kids would never forgive you if you treated her like a suspect or an uncooperative witness.”

“Hey, I can be tough,” Murphy said in self-defense. “I once handcuffed Evie and took her to jail.”

“Yeah, and you’ll never do that again, will you?” That arrest had been the end of their relationship the first time around. Once Murphy realized he’d been duped, he’d had to solve a few murders, arrest a few corrupt feds and grovel like hell to get back into Evie’s life. In Jimmy’s opinion, that was a hell of a lot of work for one woman.

Which probably explained why he hadn’t stuck with just one woman in a long, long time.

Chapter 2

Oh, God, she’d lied to the police—and not just to the police, but to Jack.

Groaning, Martine dragged her hair into a ponytail. Instead of being bouncy and perky like it should be, it just dangled limp and heavy—the way she felt, coincidentally. She’d put on makeup as soon as the detectives had left, but she’d had a hard time finding the balance between enough and too much. Even now, she couldn’t tell whether she looked like someone who’d had a shock or someone trying to pass for a clown.

She hadn’t actually lied to the police. She just hadn’t volunteered a few things, like the fact that Paulina believed their voodoo curse was the reason for the threat against her. Or that one of their other best friends had been killed just a few months ago, allegedly because of the curse. Or that Tallie, Robin and Martine herself were on the supposed hit list, too.

Martine couldn’t get past the cold hard fact that the others ignored: their voodoo curse wasn’t real. It had been far more Dr. Seuss than Marie Laveau. They hadn’t raised any spirits; they hadn’t disturbed the peace between this world and the other; they hadn’t done anything a million stupid kids before and after them hadn’t done.

What had happened to William Fletcher had been a coincidence—not even a surprising one, according to gossip. He’d been warped in his tastes and careless in his pursuit of them, and Callie and Tallie’s mom had often said that one day the consequences of his actions would catch up with him.

That Saturday night they had.

But it wasn’t her fault, or Paulina’s or the others’.

Heaving a sigh that echoed with restlessness and sadness, she pulled on a bright yellow-and-pink madras plaid rain slicker and a pair of boots and headed out. Back in the day when the shop was new and finding its way, she’d made time to bake goodies for her employees’ breakfast and breaks, but business had luckily picked up about the time her baking interest waned. Now she visited Wild Berries, a small shop on Jackson Square, and bought treats far better than she could make.

The strange dampness made her pull the slicker hood over her head as she walked. It wasn’t raining exactly. It was more as if the drops of water were suspended in air and broke only when a person bumped into them. The few that trickled down her face were ridiculously cold and sent shivers all the way to her feet.

And all the weather people could say was Unusual weather patterns or Maybe a break this weekend. Anise, one of her employees, kept insisting the sun was never going to shine again, but then, Anise was a gloom-and-doom sort of person. With her distinctive Goth appearance, Martine hadn’t decided whether she added to the ambiance of the shop or scared the customers instead.

When Martine stepped inside Wild Berries, a bell dinged overhead, and a small high voice sang out, “The sun will come out tomorrow...”

She slid her hood back to revel in the brilliant smile the shop owner, Shelley, gave her. Even on her worst day she summoned more optimism than Martine could even imagine at the moment. Shelley was happy, she’d once told Martine—truly, seriously, contented all the way down to her soul. Martine knew days of deep satisfaction, but she envied Shelley her pure unwavering light.

“How’s business?” Martine asked as she strolled the length of display cases, her mouth watering with each new discovery. Lemon and brown sugar and chocolate perfumed the air, along with buttery pastry and cinnamon and coffee. If it was possible to absorb calories by osmosis, Wild Berries was the place to do it.

“My early birds are reliable. It’s slow right now, but it’ll pick up by lunch. How about your place?”

“People come, buy and go. Let me have twelve of your most decadent creations, would you? Make one lemon with a sign that says ‘Hands off. For Martine’s pleasure only.’”

With a laugh, Shelley folded a brightly decorated cardboard box and began filling it. “I thought I saw you pass by yesterday afternoon, but you were moving so fast, I wasn’t sure.”

Martine kept her smile in place by sheer will. “Yeah, I—I had a—a meeting.” With a woman who’d been murdered twelve hours later. God, that sent a chill through her soul. She wondered about Paulina’s parents: Where did they live now? When would they be notified? How thoroughly would the loss of their only daughter devastate them?

And more questions. Had she been married? Was there a husband out there worrying where the hell his wife had gone? God have mercy, what if there were kids feeling the same?

And what about Tallie and Robin? They should know, too, because they’d been Paulina’s friends, too. The five of them had shared a lot of history.

And they deserved a warning because, even if Martine didn't believe in the paying-for-their-curse business, it seemed someone else might.

Paulina had believed it, and she was dead. Callie had believed it, and she was dead, too. Martine couldn’t have helped Callie, and she hadn’t helped Paulina, but if she at least contacted Tallie and Robin...at least gave them a heads-up...

A flash of color wavered in front of her, and she blinked hard, bringing the plastic bag holding the pastry box into focus. Shelley wore her usual smile, but it was tinged with a bit of concern. “You okay, Martine?” she asked, and Martine was pretty sure it wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah, sure. Nothing a few days on a tropical beach wouldn’t cure.”

“You and me both. Sun, sand, cabana boys...my dearest dream. Maybe the lemon tart will take you away for a few moments, at least.”

Martine traded her debit card for the bag, then looked inside and located the tart underneath the box’s cellophane lid. In fine print across the pastry, Shelley had written with frosting, Reserved for Martine. With a laugh, she pocketed the debit card again. “My employees are most grateful, and so am I.”

“Have a good day. And don’t let the weather get you down. No matter how dreary, it’s still New Orleans, and that beats a sunny LA or New York or Chicago any day.”

Martine waved as the bell dinged above her again. Shelley was right. A bad day in New Orleans was better than a good day anywhere else. She’d had a lot of dreams growing up, but in terms of distance, they’d ended fifty miles from her hometown. She enjoyed traveling, but at the end of every trip, she was happy to be home where she belonged.

Would always belong.

And no one—no old friend, no murderer, not even Detective Jimmy DiBiase—could take that from her.

She was halfway past Saint Louis Cathedral when the nerves between her shoulder blades prickled. The power of a look never failed to amaze her: this one was as physical as an actual touch, and it made shivers dash down her spine. She tried to casually glance over her shoulder to see who was watching her, but when she moved her head, the hood of the slicker stayed where it was, instead giving her a good look at the pink lining. Stopping and actually turning around was a bit obvious, but when she reached the intersection, that was exactly what she did.

It was truly raining now, so much more normal than the earlier damp that some pressure deep inside her eased. The few people around were intent on getting to their destination, except for a crowd of tourists huddled beneath a lime-green golf umbrella and conferring over a map. No one showed any interest in her. No one seemed to notice she existed, despite her yellow-and-pink slicker.

Nerves. She wasn’t a person usually bothered by them, and they were making her jumpy. Bad weather, slow business, Paulina, DiBiase... It was all enough to give anyone a case of the creeps.

Satisfied that was it, she headed down the street again. Her path took her past the house where Evie and Jack lived, with its smaller entrance leading to her psychic shop. Guilt curling inside, Martine ducked her head and lengthened her stride. She would talk to Evie soon, but not yet.

Only half a block separated her from the dry warmth of her shop when footsteps sounded behind her and, too quickly for her to take evasive action, Detective DiBiase caught up with her and flashed that grin most women found so charming. She had once found it charming. If he ever caught her in a wildly weak moment, she feared she might find it so again. “Wild Berries. I like their stuff.”

One of the lessons Callie and Tallie had taught her early on was that ignoring people who didn’t want to be ignored was a waste of time. They had pestered her relentlessly until she gave in and dealt with them. She fell back on that now. “Think of more questions, Detective?”

“A few. You have one of those caramel bread puddings in there?”

Crossing the street between parked cars, she dug in her pocket for her keys, unlocked the shop’s old wooden door, jiggled it a bit and pushed it open. Rain made the wood swell and stick, but the door with its wavy glass was decades old. She hated to replace it with something new and inferior.

The lights that were always left on—one above the display window, others over the checkout counter in the middle of the room—banished some of the gloom but not enough for Martine. She flipped switches as she walked through the shop, pushed aside a curtain of beads and went into the storeroom/lounge, where she set down the pastries, then stripped off her slicker. She didn’t need the slight squelching sounds behind her to know that DiBiase had followed. Just as she’d been aware of someone’s attention at the square, she felt it now.

Damn, had he followed her all that way without her realizing it?

“What do you want?”

His gaze slid to the pastry box inside the wet bag, reminding her of a hopeful puppy. Grimacing, she shoved it across the table toward him, then started the coffee. The clock ticking loudly on the wall showed ten thirty, but it was still set to last summer’s time so she had thirty minutes before opening the store, probably twenty minutes before Anise arrived. Wonderful. DiBiase could annoy her that long without even trying.

“You like lemon tarts, huh?” His deep Southern drawl scraped along her skin, an irritation she couldn’t banish, like the cold, the fog and now the rain. “Appropriate.”

Her gaze was narrowed when she faced him. “What does that mean?”

“Well, you are a bit sour.”

He helped himself to a generous serving of cheese Danish, the ruffled white liner contrasting vividly against his dark skin. On a general scale of attractiveness, he ranked high. Even Martine couldn’t deny that. With dark hair, devilish eyes, the grin and muscles that still impressed though his college football years were long behind, every woman she knew thought he was gorgeous. The problem was, he knew it and took advantage of it. Everywhere he went, he was waylaid by women wanting great sex, and he was happy to comply.

Even six years later, it still embarrassed Martine that she had almost been one of them.

It angered her that, on rare occasions, she even kind of regretted that she hadn’t been.

“Consider the company,” she said in response to his calling her sour. Then she turned her back on him and her thoughts, lifted a couple of boxes from the storage shelves and carried them to the front of the store.

* * *

Of course Jimmy followed her—not to the counter where she was ripping open the boxes with too much enthusiasm, but through the beaded curtains. He turned down the first aisle he came to and followed it around the perimeter of the shop. Despite living in Louisiana his whole life, he had little personal experience with voodoo. His parents had seen to it that the family was in church every Sunday—in their small town, it had been more a social event than a sacred one—and they had never encouraged questions about other beliefs. When he’d thought as a kid that he was so much smarter than them, he’d assumed it was because they were so tenuous about their own beliefs that they didn’t feel qualified to debate them. Later he’d realized that their unwillingness to debate had also been more a social thing than religious. In a small town, it was easier to go with the flow.

Most of the merchandise on the shelves could be bought in a dozen places in the quarter. Some was strictly fun, some for tourists, some for posers. But in the room behind a door marked Private, that was where the real stuff was, according to Jack—the stuff that couldn’t be picked up just anywhere. The stuff for the practitioners, the true believers.

Jimmy watched Martine over a display of crudely made dolls and wondered if she was either, or merely a supplier of goods. Her mouth was set in a thin line, and her brows were knitted together. She didn’t want him here, and that was okay. In his job, he was used to people distrusting him. The prejudice against police officers that had surged in the past few years made a tough job a hell of a lot tougher. When it got bad, he wondered why he spent his days wearing a gun, walking into dangerous situations, doing his damnedest to protect communities that didn’t appreciate it, but the answer was simple. He was a cop. He’d saved a lot of lives. He’d helped out a lot of people. He’d found justice for a lot of victims.

It was what he did best.

That, and piss off pretty shop owners who had a thing about fidelity.

As he finally circled to the counter, Martine began sliding small plastic bags onto rods extending from a display case. “Don’t you have better things to do this morning than aggravate me? Like, I don’t know, telling Paulina’s parents what happened or, here’s an idea, maybe even finding the person who did it?”

“Her parents live in Alabama. The police over there are making the notification. By the way, her name is Bradley now. Was Bradley.”

Her fingers slowed, the tips tightening briefly around the plastic package that held an astrological charm. “Did she have children?”

“No.” That always seemed a good thing to him with murder victims. Not having kids meant less damage, less grief. But without children, what do they leave behind? his father sometimes asked. Jimmy figured the old man didn’t want the family name dying out. He was the only son his dad had, and neither of his sisters had been willing to hyphenate their married names. Poor Pops was stuck.

Jimmy picked up a worry stone from a dish filled with them, his thumb automatically rubbing the depression in the middle. “When Paulina called you yesterday, what did she say?”

“She wanted to meet me.”

“No chitchat? Hey, long time, how are you?”

She glanced out the window, and Jimmy followed her gaze. The fog had risen high enough to cover a few inches of the glass. It was like being in a dream: the street disappeared from sight; a man walking his dog, both of them legless; a delivery truck driving by, its wheels invisible. There were going to be a lot of trips and falls and battered shins as long as this lasted.

“She said, ‘Tine, it’s Paulina. I need to see you. Meet at the river as quick as you can get there.’ I told her I was busy. I had customers. She said, ‘You have to come now. I really have to talk to you.’ So I went.”

Still rubbing the stone, he walked around to stand near her. “First contact in more than twenty years, and she demands you meet her on a day like yesterday, then tells you that someone’s after her.”

Martine paused a moment before nodding. After hanging the last of the charms, she stuffed one empty box inside the other, moved a few feet to a tall display of candles, guaranteed to bring a person health, riches, love or whatever else his heart desired, and started rearranging them.

“Did she ask you for money?”

“No.”

“For help?”

“No.”

“For advice? Sympathy? Directions? Did she want to say goodbye? Did she leave a message for her parents or her husband?” He watched each tiny shake of her head, then impatiently asked, “Then why the hell did she bother calling you, Martine? Just to say, ‘I think someone wants me dead. Hey, I like your hair that way, and I hear your shop’s doing pretty good. I’ll probably die in the next twenty-four hours, so I won’t be seeing you again. Have a good life’?”

“Stop it!” she demanded. “She’s dead! Show a little respect.”

“I’m not disrespecting her.” It was part of the problem today: everyone wanted respect, even when they were lying, cheating, stealing, killing and telling the rest of the world to screw themselves. Martine didn’t want to be questioned again, she didn’t want any pressure even though she’d been less than forthcoming the first time around. Whatever she was hiding could be nothing. It could be personal, between her and Paulina. Or it could be integral to solving the case. It wasn’t up to her to decide.

Her face was pink, her breathing unsteady, when the rattle at the door announced a newcomer. A woman—early twenties, shiny black hair, pale face, dark makeup, black clothes—stepped inside, gave a shake like a great big dog, scattering rain everywhere, then looked up at them through water-splattered glasses. “The sun’s never gonna shine again,” she said in a doleful voice. She shuffled over, a huge black tote bag hanging from one shoulder, and stopped a few feet away. “I’m Anise.”

Though he could feel hostility radiating from Martine—or maybe because of it—he grinned at the girl. “I’m Jimmy.”

“Don’t talk to him, Anise,” Martine snapped before the girl could open her mouth again. “He’s not welcome around here. In fact, if you could do a few wards to banish him from the premises, I would be most grateful.”

Jimmy shifted his full attention to Anise. “You can banish me? Where, like, I wouldn’t be able to walk in the door?”

“Maybe. I’m just a novice, but I’m pretty sure I can at least make it very uncomfortable for you to be here.” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose.

He made a dismissive noise. “Your boss can do that with nothing more than a look.” Once upon a time, she'd made him very uncomfortable with no more than a look...but in a most desirable way.

The color in Martine’s face deepened. She murmured something—he saw her lips move but heard no words and figured it was a prayer of some kind—then with a deep breath faced him. “You should go now.”

He good-naturedly shook his head. “You should tell me the truth now. All of it.”

“I—”

“Have kept all the good parts to yourself, like why someone wanted Paulina dead, what happened to your friendship, why she came to you. You’re a bad liar, Martine. I know it, and Jack knows it.”

The look she gave him was defiant, with her jaw jutted out and her eyes darker than usual. A muscle quivered in her jaw, and her lips were thinned. He moved a few steps closer and lowered his voice for his last volley. “I intend to find out what you're holding back and why. So I’ll be back, Martine, no matter how many wards Anise casts. I’ll find out the truth, and God help you if anyone else gets hurt in the meantime.”

For a long moment, their gazes locked. There was the usual annoyance and dislike in her eyes that sparked the usual regret in him, but along with them was fear. He hadn’t thought she was even capable of the emotion.

It made him that much more determined to find out what the hell she was hiding.

* * *

Without enough customers to keep two employees busy, much less four, after a few hours, Martine gave up, said goodbye and went out the front door. The stoop to her apartment door was only a few feet away, just one big step when she could actually see it, but with the fog lingering, she went down the shop steps, up the other steps and let herself inside. The staircase was narrow and dimly lit, and she reminded herself for the tenth time to buy a couple of higher-wattage light bulbs for the top and the bottom.

As soon as she got to the top, though, the airy colors and tall windows that usually let in the sun made her forget about the stairs. They were just the gauntlet she had to run to reach the cozy comfort of her home.

Grabbing her laptop, she went into her workroom, curled in a chair next to the window and logged on to a search engine. There she paused. Paulina and Callie were dead. Tallie was in hiding, and Robin had long been lost, according to Paulina. Martine had zero idea how to find them, so she did what she used to do when she was stumped: she called her mother.

Bette Broussard still lived in the house where Martine had grown up, not that she spent a lot of time there. A few years after divorcing Martine’s father, Bette had made herself over into a travel writer, taking advantage of everything the internet had to offer, and had become successful enough that these days, “vacation” meant staying at home for longer than a weekend. She’d finagled her travel-tip columns onto some very prestigious websites, had her own YouTube channel and boasted social media followers in the mid–six figures.

It had taken Martine five years just to get her shop’s very simple website online.

After a couple of rings, her mother’s husky voice greeted her. “Ha! When I got up this morning, I crossed my fingers and turned in a circle three times, chanting your name, and here you are!”

“You know, you could have picked up your phone and called me without risking getting dizzy and falling.”

“I can’t fall. I’m sixty-five years old. It could be dangerous.”

“Just because you say you can’t doesn’t mean it can’t happen anyway.” Would that it were true. Martine would be spinning in circles and chanting her heart’s desires until she passed out. Paulina can’t be dead. Callie can’t be dead. Tallie and Robin and I can’t be in danger. I can’t have to see Detective DiBiase one more time.

“In my world, it does.” Bette said something in an aside, and Martine heard a British-sounding, Yes, ma’am, of course, ma’am. “Where are you?” she asked.

“Home. Where are you?”

“London. That was Chelsea. She’s my translator on this trip.”

“They speak English in London, Mom.”

“Yes, but apparently they don’t think I do. It was impossible to get anything done with them constantly asking me to repeat myself.”

“Because they love your accent.” Her mother sounded as if she’d stepped straight out of Southern belle charm school, her words all rounded and sweet and enchanting, gliding slowly one into the next and putting a person in mind of sultry afternoons on a veranda, sipping mint juleps and saying y’all a lot.

DiBiase’s accent was pretty much the male version of Bette’s.

Martine scowled hard until the thought disappeared from her mind.

“What’s going on with you, Tine? You rarely call me in the middle of your workday.”

Too late, of course, Martine rethought the call. Did she really want to deliver sad news to her mother while she was on a business trip? Bette had adored her daughter’s friends, and they’d felt the same about her.

But her mom was always on a trip. She could handle news, and she would want to know.

“You remember Paulina? And Callie?”

Bette snickered. “That’s like asking if I remember your father. Those girls practically lived in our house. I never really knew what happened between you all, but you know, it was like losing part of the family. One day I had all five of you underfoot, and the next you were all gone. Moved on. I knew it was inevitable, of course, but I wasn’t prepared for it. Then your father left, and I...”

Martine remembered her mother’s shock as well as her own when Mark Broussard had packed his bags and moved into his fishing cabin ten miles outside town. He hadn’t had an affair. He hadn’t wanted a divorce. He’d sworn he was happy and loved Bette and Martine as much as ever. He’d just needed some time alone.

Bette had given him time—six months, a year, two, her life effectively put on hold—and then she’d given him an ultimatum: life together or divorce. He’d refused to choose, so she had.

Twenty-plus years he’d lived in that cabin, working when he had to, fishing when he could, communing with nature and his own spirit and still insisting that he loved Bette and Martine as much as ever. It was strange, but Martine believed he was genuinely happy.

Bette’s sigh was long and blue, then her voice brightened. “Have you heard from the girls? Is that why they’re on your mind after all this time?”

“Sort of. I saw Paulina for a few minutes yesterday. She was, uh...” Martine had to stop, had to close her eyes to push back the tears that threatened. When she thought it safe to continue, her words wobbled with emotion. “She was murdered last night, Mom.”

For an instant, the silence on the line was thick, then her mother’s own voice wobbled. “Oh, honey... Good Lord, how awful. Her poor parents... Was it a mugging or a robbery or what?”

Her fingers aching, Martine switched her phone to the other hand. “I don’t know. Just...her body was found this morning, and Jack is assigned to the case.”

“Well, it’s good to know New Orleans has their finest on the case. Still...so sad. Heavens, I can’t imagine what Paulina’s parents are feeling right now.”

“Not just Paulina’s parents. It’s weird, Mom, but she told me Callie had been murdered a few months ago.”

That bombshell rendered Bette speechless. Martine worked her boots off, then drew her feet onto the chair and gazed forlornly out the window. The tiny courtyard below that never failed to make her smile failed now. The fountain was turned off, the bright-colored cushions for the chairs stored downstairs. The plants drooped as if they might collapse under one more drop of rain, and everything looked sallow and depressed, in need of a dose of brilliant sunshine.

“Poor Callie,” her mother said at last. “And poor Paulina. What a sad, sad coincidence.”

A lot of people didn’t believe in coincidence. They insisted there was a great plan, that everything happened as it must. Her mom wasn’t among them. She thought coincidence was a lovely wrinkle that delighted her more often than not.

Could it be coincidence? Martine really wanted to believe it. Life was dangerous. Some people were willing to kill for a pair of shoes, a handful of change or because they felt slighted. It could be just really bad luck that first Callie, then her old friend Paulina had become victims. Just because their lives had been connected didn’t mean that their deaths were.

But she couldn’t quite convince herself of that.

“Mom, I wanted to get in touch with Tallie and Robin to let them know about Paulina, but I don’t have any idea where they are. Do you have phone numbers or addresses for their parents?”

“I’m not sure, but I do know their mothers follow me on Facebook. I’ll look them up and email their info to you right away, okay?” There was a brief pause with the faint sound of typing in the background. “And Tine? Be careful, honey. It would rip my heart right out of my chest if anything happened to you. I love you more than my life.”

Martine swallowed hard. “I love you, too, Mama.”

After disconnecting the call, she gazed down at the courtyard again. The barren branches of the crape myrtles faded into the brick wall behind them. The fog lifted here, swirled there, but thanks to the protection of four walls, it mostly just hovered.

It made Martine feel cold and damp and heavy.

Her gaze went distant as her mind shifted back to the conversation. She’d never imagined she would be contacting Paulina’s or Callie’s parents. Never imagined she would be offering condolences on their daughters’ deaths. Never imagined two of her four former best friends would be murdered. Never imagined for even an instant that Tallie’s or Robin’s or her own life might be in danger.

Movement in the courtyard caught her attention, drawing her to her feet and closer to the window. Nothing was there, just the fog bumping into the walls that constricted it, then slowly settling back into its lazy ramble. Still, a shiver passed through her, leaving her ice cold as she sank back into the chair.

Danger or coincidence: Did it matter? Either way, it didn’t change what she had to do.

Resolutely she typed a message on her phone, drew a deep breath and hit Send.

Now all she could do was wait.

* * *

Jimmy had a hundred favorite hangouts in New Orleans. Today it was a bar on Bourbon Street, relatively small, with wood floors, tables closely spaced and tall French doors usually open to the sounds, sights and smells of the Quarter. Today the cold kept all but the main entry closed, but he didn’t mind. There was blues on the sound system, he had takeout from his favorite Cajun restaurant and his ex-wife was seated across from him.

Alia had provided the takeout, easily enough for four people and most of it for herself. She had a passion for food that few people he’d ever met could match. Luckily, she was also blessed with a passion for working out and a metabolism that favored her.

She buttered a piece of corn bread but paused before taking a bite. “So this new case of yours...the victim was a friend of Martine’s.”

“Yeah, best friend from high school.” He didn’t ask how she knew. She was a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. She was also friends with Evie and Jack, and her husband, Landry, was co-owner of the place and tending bar at the moment. She had a lot of sources.

“I bet she’s thrilled with you,” Alia said with a smirk.

“She likes to pretend I don’t exist.”

“A lot of people like to pretend you don’t exist, Jimmy.” There was no bitterness in Alia’s voice or her smile. She liked him a lot better now that she wasn’t married to him, which was only fair. He’d been a crappy husband. He just hadn’t...cared.

Oh, he’d loved her. He still did, in different ways. But he’d been younger, stupider, more reckless, less understanding. Marriage had been more about taking a chance than making a commitment. Practically everyone in his circle of friends had been married and divorced at least once; it was no big deal. You tried it; if it didn’t work out, you moved on.

Now he knew—years too late—how idiotic that attitude had been. He’d hurt Alia, hadn’t done himself any favors and had convinced a lot of people that he was a complete jackass.

Alia had gotten over him and was much happier with Landry than she ever would have been with him. Jimmy had gotten over himself, too. But a lot of people still thought he was a jackass.

He didn't often admit it, but on occasion he found himself wishing Martine wasn't among them. After the way things had ended between them before they'd even really started, he should have forgotten her—written her off as one of the few women he couldn't seduce. But she was a damn hard woman to forget.

“I also heard the killer removed her heart,” Alia went on. “Is that true?”

This time Jimmy scowled at her. “Did Evie tell you that?”

“Ew, Jack would never tell Evie anything that gross. Isn’t that a voodoo thing? The heart of your enemy makes you strong?”

“I think around here it’s more of a movie thing. I’d have to ask someone who knows more about voodoo than me.”

“Ooh, and Martine is just such a person.”

He scowled again. “Yeah, we’ll let Jack handle that. I’ll stick to digging through the victim’s life and finding out all her secrets.” That part of the job was both interesting and off-putting. Cops were curious; it was part of the job. But wasn’t Paulina Bradley entitled to a bit of privacy after her death? Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d died violently, alone and afraid? Did it have to come to light now that she was a lousy housekeeper, that she read porn, that she daydreamed about things she would never accomplish? Did it matter now that she kept chocolate stuffed in her underwear drawer, that she had a crush on her neighbor or that she drank too much when her husband was gone?

“It’s kind of like a car wreck,” Alia said sympathetically. “You know you should look away, but you have to see what happens. There’s so little dignity after a violent death.”

“I do my best.” His phone buzzed with an incoming text message, and he finished his last bite of gumbo before picking it up. “Crap. Jack’s out of town—”

“Since when?”

“Don’t know. He got me out of bed two hours early this morning to take this case, then he headed to the coroner’s while I interviewed the guy who called 911. Let’s see... Lincoln, Nebraska, PD picked up his double-homicide suspect that jumped bail last month, and he’s on his way to get him. And Martine’s decided to share some information with him that she didn’t give earlier.”

Alia grinned. “She’s going to be disappointed when you show up instead of Jack. Maybe you should politely remind her that the sooner she tells you everything, the sooner she’ll be rid of you.”

“Yeah. Though I don’t think she’s gonna fall for anything polite after I called her a liar a couple hours ago.” He stood and shrugged into his overcoat. He hated the coat; it was constrictive and awkward when he was running or needed to draw his pistol or Taser. He could dress down, like most of his fellow detectives, but he shared one quirk with Jack: work clothes meant shirt, coat and tie. Old-fashioned but respectful of the job and the victims and the families they dealt with.

“Aw, Jimmy.” Alia stood and straightened his collar for him. “I’d chastise you, but you’ve seen me do worse with an uncooperative witness. Just remember, she’s also our friend.”

Not his friend, he thought as he waved to Landry, then walked out onto the street. At the time they’d met and almost made it to bed together, he hadn’t cared about having female friends. But, like he said, he’d gotten over himself since then. He had more than a few female friends now. It said an awful lot for Alia that she was one of them.

When he reached Martine’s store, he wiggled and jiggled the swollen door to open it, stepped inside and reached back to close it. When his fingers wrapped around the knob, electricity jolted through them, minor, little more than static but enough to make him jerk his hand away and swear softly.

“What happened?”

He glanced from his hand to Anise, still looking as gloomy as the weather, even though a spark of interest lit her black-rimmed eyes. “I got shocked.”

“Hmm. That wasn’t the effect I was going for. I’ll have to try again.” Turning without a sound, she disappeared into the depths of the store as if he was no longer there. A lesson she’d learned from her boss, probably.

His nose wrinkling against the particularly strong odors of the incense on the shelf beside him, he headed for the central counter. The kid slumped over a textbook there straightened to his full height of six foot four, maybe five. He was thin, long-necked, long-armed, long-legged, long-haired and apparently short on words. No Can I help you? or How are you today? He just stood there, giving Jimmy a long steady owl-like gaze, and waited.

Jimmy showed the kid his badge. “Martine?”

The kid lifted his gaze to the ceiling, then accompanied it with one long thin finger pointing straight up.

“Niles, we’re not supposed to talk to that guy,” Anise called from the back. “Don’t tell him where Martine is.”

Niles, poor guy, turned red and very slowly folded that finger back down, then hid his hands behind his back for good measure.

Jimmy grinned at him and went back out the front door. Once again, when he touched the knob to close the door, a shock fired through his fingers. It might not be painful, but it was going to become annoying pretty damn quickly.

He stepped across from one stoop to the other and was about to ring the doorbell when the door opened with a haunted-house-worthy creak. The hair on his neck stood on end, and his hand was already sliding beneath his coat to the .40 holstered on his belt before the thought even crossed his mind. He stilled when a woman with wild hair and pink glasses popped out from behind the door.

“Did I startle you? I’m Ramona.” She squeezed by, then patted his arm. “Go on up, Detective Murphy. She’s waiting.”

She was definitely expecting Jack. Jimmy was going to piss her off this time just by walking into the room. But that was okay, because this time he wasn’t leaving without some answers.

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