Out of Mind

She smiled. “Thanks. We’ll try to watch each other’s backs. But that wasn’t why you called.”

“There’s that yellow tape stuff everywhere,” Chris said. “The whole place is off-limits unless you’re a cop or something.”

The Brandt job receded from Willow’s mind. “What place?”

“Where I’ve been watering the inside plants tonight. I took a break to get some dinner. I was only gone forty-five minutes or so, and when I got back, everything was nuts. I want to know if I should go under the tape and finish the job. I still got to fertilize. I’ve got a key.”

“Are you talking about the dance hall on South Rampart? Where the woman lives upstairs?”

“Surry Green. She’s some sort of actress. Complains about the music all the time like she didn’t know she was renting over a dance hall. We do her shopping and take care of her plants. She’s got hundreds of them. You can’t move for the palms in there.”

“There’s crime scene tape all around, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“The dance hall is taped off?”

“That’s what I said. Must be trouble in there. Cop cars all over the place.”

“You left in the middle of a job to get dinner?”

“I knew you’d say somethin’ about that,” Chris said. “She was all in a twist because she had a date. I asked if she’d rather I went in after she left and she said, yes, to give her some time. Should I go up the side stairs anyway? She’ll be apoplectic if she gets home and I haven’t finished.”

“No. The plants can wait. Call her later and explain.”

“Gotcha.”

Willow smacked off the phone. There had been occasions when Chris had taken duty too far. At least he’d called and given her a chance to stop him this time.

The cell rang again.

“Hey, Chris,” Willow said. “What’s up now?”

“Something bad, I think. One of those coroner’s vans is here. Just a minute.” He spoke to someone in the background then said, “Let me find out what they’re saying now. I’ll call you back.”

Willow moaned with frustration, then felt the rig swing awkwardly behind her and collide with the curb. She looked over her shoulder and slammed on the brakes. The trailer teetered toward the sidewalk.

“I hate this whole day,” she yelled, jumping clear.

Ben jumped, too, just in time to stop the almost stationary death trap from finishing up on its side.

He had to make this look good.

Willow tore off her helmet and prepared to watch a total disaster. At least no one was going to get hurt. Would the bank give her a loan if she explained her run of bad luck?

She let her arms fall to her sides.

The trailer, still balanced on two wheels, rocked back and forth in a “shall I fall over or not?” way. Her load of supplies must have shifted, although it had never happened before.

An urge to help right things wasn’t a good idea, she knew that.

The trailer stopped, stood completely unmoving on those two wheels, then dropped, quite slowly, to settle on all four again.

Willow stared, her heart beating too fast. The phone was ringing again, but it took her so long to make herself move that it stopped.

Finally, she rushed to the scooter, just in time to answer Chris once more.

“Surry Green’s been murdered,” he said. “Remember when those singers got whacked?”

She closed her eyes. Chris watched too many crime shows. “Yes,” she said faintly. “It was almost four months ago.” How could she forget when Marley had gotten caught up in the case and almost died? “You’re telling me that since you left to have dinner she’s been murdered, the cops know about it already and they’re all over it?”

“That’s it. Folks around here are saying this is another weird one. Spike through the heart, someone says. Like they kill vampires.”

“Chris,” she said tiredly, “remind them the only vampires in this town are in books.”

Chapter 6

Dr. Blades, what seemed like seven emaciated feet of him, slouched against a refrigeration bank in the morgue.

“Hey, Doc,” Nat said, walking into the Medical Examiner’s lair with Gray Fisher—Marley’s husband—at his heels. “Nice of you to ask us over.”

“I asked you over,” Blades said, giving Gray the evil eye. “If you want him here, it’s up to you.”

“Gray was in on the dragon case,” Nat said, damned if he’d sound defensive. “He may not be a cop anymore, but he thinks like one and it was his wife who came close to ending up as one more of the dragon’s tasty treats.”

“That thing wasn’t a dragon,” Blades said of the monster that had been responsible for the deaths of at least ten women. “It just had some Komodo traits.”

“You never saw it,” Nat said.

“I didn’t have to, I saw the bites,” Blades reminded him defensively.

“Not a dragon,” Blades said, giving Nat the kind of hard stare that told him Blades probably didn’t believe his own words, but he wasn’t going to admit that. “That’s the official word on the subject. You’d better accept it.”

“Yeah,” Nat said slowly, seeing Blades with a slightly fresh eye. The man was no more convinced that New Orleans wasn’t host to a rogue paranormal force than Nat was.

Gray was checking his watch, again. Nat figured his former partner didn’t like being late returning to the Court of Angels where the most important person in his life hung out, Marley Millet Fisher.

“I keep dead-ending on some questions I’ve asked,” Blades said, glancing at Gray as if he wished he would leave—or disappear. “The man and woman who were the dragon’s—I mean the pair who were there when the last lot went down. Your people got them. Where are they? No one’s saying anything about them, or not to me.”

“Eric and Sidney Fournier?” Nat said cautiously. The brother and sister were a thorn in his side. They had some kind of weird connection to the Embran Dragon, as Nat and those who believed New Orleans was under insidious attack called “the thing.”

Blades watched Nat and Nat felt Gray waiting for him to continue, too. “They were bound over,” he told them.

“So they’re in jail,” Blades said. The deep, purplish hollows beneath his cheekbones didn’t get more reassuring to look at. Neither did his dome of a head and pale eyes with no eyelashes. The lack of eyelashes went with the lack of eyebrows.

Nat cleared his throat. “In fact, they’re not in jail.”

“Where are they?” Gray asked. He and Blades had never gotten along, and he said as little as possible in the doctor’s presence.

“Well—” Nat pursed his lips and blew out in a tuneless whistle “—I’ve been told not to ask more questions about that. But I don’t think they’re in custody anymore.”

“What?” Gray said explosively. “Don’t you think you should have shared that with me? We’ve got people to look out for. How can those two crazies be on the loose?”

Gray stepped back and Nat saw the instant when Gray’s attention shifted elsewhere. Gray, Nat could tell by the shuttered distance in his eyes, had mentally checked out of the morgue and the conversation going on there, at least for now.

“How did that happen?” Blades asked. Actual concern replaced his usually impassive expression. “I didn’t hear about it.”