Mitchell had come to the house to break the news to her. She’d been so stunned and distraught, she hadn’t asked for many of the details that first night. It was only later that she’d found out Johnny had been shot three times.
According to the coroner, the first bullet had only maimed him. He’d tried to get away from his assailant, but the second shot to the heart had killed him. The third shot had hit him in the face and obliterated his appearance so that even a forensic dental exam had been useless.
“Evangeline? That you up there, hon?”
She’d been so engrossed in dark memories, she hadn’t noticed her elderly neighbor approach the walkway in front of her house. The woman stood at the edge of the yard, peering through the falling dusk.
“You’re out kind of late, aren’t you, Miss Violet? Is everything okay?”
“I’m looking for Smokey. That blame cat got out again. You haven’t seen him, have you?”
“No, but if I do, I’ll grab him and bring him home.”
“Thanks, hon. I’d be much obliged. Ornery ol’coot ain’t worth much, but he’s all I got. I’d hate to lose him.”
“Try not to worry. I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Evangeline promised.
She watched as Violet shuffled back across the street. The woman stood in the yard for a few minutes, calling loudly for her cat before she finally gave up and went inside.
The night fell silent, except for the occasional burst of laughter from down the street. A moth flitted past Evangeline’s cheek, and as she swatted it away, she caught a movement off to the side of the porch.
She froze, trying not to react, but her heart thudded against her chest, and she suddenly wished she’d brought her gun outside with her. She, of all people, knew how dangerous the city had become, with roving gangs of thugs terrorizing neighborhoods that had once been considered safe havens.
As Evangeline searched the darkness, she thought about her son, all alone in the house. If someone were hiding in the shadows, it would be up to her to protect him.
She waited, breathless, but nothing happened.
After a few moments, she got up and went inside. Locking the door, she turned out the light and went straight for her weapon. Then she moved back to the front door and parted the curtain.
Nothing moved outside. Maybe it had been her imagination.
But for the longest time, Evangeline watched the darkness. She felt restless and uneasy, and she couldn’t shake the notion that someone had been at the corner of the porch, watching her. That he might still be out there now, waiting for her to go to bed.
She left the window and headed for the nursery. She could see the glow of the night-light from down the hallway, and as she pushed open the door, her gaze went immediately to the crib, where she could see her son sleeping.
Nothing was out of place, so there was no reason to worry. No reason at all for the chill that slid up her spine as she stepped into the room or for the hammer of her heart as her gaze fastened on the baby.
He was lying just as she’d left him earlier, and yet…
Something was…not right.
Evangeline could feel it. It was as if the very air had been disturbed by…what?
Her breath came a little too fast as she reached for the light switch. The sudden brilliance caused her to blink and J.D. fretted in his sleep. Quickly, she moved to the side of the crib as her gaze darted around the room.
The space was furnished with only the baby’s bed, a changing table and a rocking chair by the window. Evangeline could see the whole room in one glance, and she knew, without a doubt, that she and her son were alone.
So why was the hair at the back of her neck standing on end?
Why was she suddenly so uneasy in her own home?
She walked over to the window and parted the curtains to glance out. It was still early and she could see a light shining in the window of the house next door. But the fact that her neighbors were up and about did little to assuage her disquiet.
As she turned from the window, she saw something on the floor. She thought at first it was a piece of transparent paper that had fallen off the mobile or out of the box that it had been packed in. But when she stooped to pick it up, she jerked her hand back in revulsion.
It wasn’t paper, she realized with a shiver.
It was a bit of molted snakeskin.
By the time Evangeline dropped the baby off at her mother’s house the next morning, listened to the latest tirade about her father and fought rush-hour traffic back into the city, she felt as if she’d already put in a full day.
Waking up tired was getting to be an annoying habit with her, but she supposed it was the same with any new mother. This time, though, she couldn’t blame her exhaustion on the baby. He’d slept soundly through most of the night, but even with the house so quiet, Evangeline had slept fitfully. Paul Courtland’s grisly murder had mingled with that piece of molted snakeskin to create some very disturbing nightmares.
She was convinced the skin had fallen out of the box the mobile had come in or else she or Jessie had carried it inside on the bottom of a shoe. Just in case it had come from the crime scene, Evangeline had used tweezers to bag the skin, and then she’d put it in her purse to drop off at the lab.
With her heart in her throat, she’d gone through the house checking in cabinets and underneath furniture, although she didn’t see how a snake could get inside. For all she knew, the skin could be an old one. The reptile that had shed it was probably long gone.
Still, the very thought of a snake lurking somewhere in her house gave her uncontrollable shivers, and before she’d left that morning, she’d arranged to have a professional exterminator come and search every square inch of the house, including the tiny attic. She’d left a key with her neighbor, who had promised to come over and supervise the search.
The fact that the skin had been in J.D.’s room made Evangeline all the more nervous. She was glad he would be spending the day with her mother in Metairie.
As soon as she got to the station, she went straight for coffee, but she barely had time to stir in a packet of sweetener before the captain called her and Mitchell in for a briefing. The Courtland homicide was shaping up to be a high-profile investigation, and that was exactly the kind of case that Angelette Lapierre liked to micromanage.
She was seated behind her desk reading the
“Not yet,” Mitchell said as he settled into his chair. Like Evangeline, he’d carried in a cup of coffee, which he placed on the corner of Lapierre’s desk. “What’s going on?”
“Paul Courtland’s murder made the front page. You two should be happy they got your names right.”
“You hear that, Evie? We’re famous. Think we can parlay our fifteen minutes into a book deal?”
“I’d rather you parlay it into an arrest,” Lapierre said dryly. She was a gorgeous woman, the kind that generated controversy and gossip everywhere she went. But she wasn’t exactly known for her sense of humor.
“Goes without saying,” Mitchell muttered.
She gave him a withering look. “The murder of a wealthy white attorney puts a different face on the violence down here, so you better believe the media will milk it for all it’s worth. And once they get wind of how Courtland died, they’ll go ape-shit crazy. That’s why I want to keep a lid on this thing until we know what we’re dealing with. Don’t go talking to reporters, either of you. Let me handle the press.”
Evangeline resisted the urge to shoot Mitchell a knowing glance. “Fine by me.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he agreed.
Lapierre folded the paper and tossed it aside. “Where are we on the investigation?”
“I’ve located Courtland’s loft in the Warehouse District,” Mitchell said. “I’m meeting his landlady over there
