Packing up their things to move was a pain—both Deanna and Heidi were the type to throw everything everywhere. She actually tried to work on being annoyed; it kept her mind off the strange events happening around her.
When she had everything together, she lugged it all out to the curb and called for a taxi.
The driver, who mostly spoke an unidentifiable foreign language, was definitely not happy that he had to pack his car with so much stuff just so one person could travel a few blocks.
She impatiently promised him a big tip.
The address on the card she had been given went with a house on Bourbon Street, one she had never seen before. There was a lawn, along with a pool in back; there were trees, flowers and a winding path. The gate was wrought iron.
The house itself stood back from the street and resembled a Southern plantation with its handsome porch.
The taxi driver deposited Lauren and her bags on the sidewalk.
When she tried to explain that she needed help getting to the door, he pretended not to understand English at all, just took his money and drove off.
But no sooner had he disappeared than she saw the front door to the house open. A slim woman of about five- foot-three appeared on the porch and hurried down the walkway.
She was followed by a cop. Lauren had seen him before; he was the officer who had been with Lieutenant Canady in the alleyway behind the bar.
He in turn was followed by Big Jim the sax player.
“Hey!” the woman called cheerfully. “I’m Stacey Lacroix. Lauren, right? Sean called about you. Come in. Come in. We’ll grab all this stuff.” She might have been tiny, but she seemed like a small whirlwind of energy. “Oh, and this is Bobby Munro,” she said, introducing the cop.
“We’ve kind of met,” Bobby said with a lopsided smile.
“In the alley,” Lauren said. “Hello, again. I’m Lauren Crow.”
“And this is Big Jim Dixon, best jazz sax player in all fifty states,” Stacey interjected.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Jim Dixon said, taking her hand. “And we’ve kind of met, too.”
“At the bar,” she said. “And I think I saw you playing in a funeral procession the other day,” she said.
“That was me,” he agreed, and easily lifted one of the heaviest bags.
Despite the welcoming tone in Stacey’s voice and the ease of her introductions, she looked around uneasily as she grabbed the canvas tote bag that was Deanna’s carry-on.
So much for it being difficult getting everything up to the house; with the four of them, it would only take one trip.
But before heading up the walk, Lauren found herself pausing, looking around as Stacey had done.
The sky seemed to have taken on an ashen color, and clouds suddenly billowed darkly and menacingly overhead.
Birds suddenly took flight over the house.
“Let’s go in,” Stacey urged.
Lauren sensed a sudden urgency in the air, though it was unspoken. Big Jim was already halfway to the house. She followed quickly.
The place was wonderful. She fell in love with it the minute she stepped inside. She thought that it must be very old, which wasn’t unusual for the area, but it had been meticulously maintained and restored. The bannister was polished and gleaming. Woven rugs lay over the hardwood floors. A grandfather clock chimed as they entered, and a crystal chandelier cast a warm glow over the entry.
“My desk is back there in the hall,” Stacey explained. “I’ll have you sign in after you’ve seen your rooms. The owner is out of the country right now, but I think you’ll be happy with your accommodations. We hadn’t actually planned to have guests right now, but when Sean called…well, I could hardly say no. At least you’ll have lots of room.”
Bobby Munro and Big Jim were already heading up the elegant stairway. Stacey locked the front door and followed. Lauren trailed behind her.
The stairs led to a long hallway that stretched in either direction. “Guest rooms to your left,” Stacey advised, looking back. “There’s a balcony that extends across the back, with a wonderful view of the pool. There’s only one rule here. You don’t ask anyone in, anyone at all—
Stacey was looking back at her with a smile, but there was something strange about the way she spoke. As if it the rule, if broken, could cause dire consequences. Like a carriage turning back into a pumpkin. Or worse.
“It’s a beautiful house,” she said politely.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
Big Jim and Bobby were just emerging from one of the guest rooms. “Don’t know where you want what, exactly,” Big Jim said. “We just put it all in the one room.”
“I understand that there are three of you,” Stacey said, “but one friend is in the hospital and the other—Heidi, is it?—will also need a place tonight. Anyway, this is you, Heidi is right there, and if and when you need a room for your other friend, she’ll be right across the hall.”
“I’m not sure we need quite so much room,” Lauren murmured. The door to the bedroom she’d been assigned was still open, and the room was huge. There was a massive bed, a desk, French doors that led to the balcony, a
