Sudden Insight

He heard the accusation in his voice when he said, “You knew she was going to die!”

ONLY A FEW BLOCKS AWAY Carter Frederick sat in the back booth of a bar. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, he fit in with the casually dressed evening crowd. The Jazz Authority wasn’t the most private spot in the world, but he needed a drink.

When the waitress brought him a double shot of bourbon, he chased it with a NOLA ale. He liked the local brew well enough.

He might have asked for more bourbon, but he wasn’t finished working for the night, and he had to keep a clear head. In his mind, he was planning what he was going to say to the Badger, spinning it the best he knew how.

Evelyn Morgan had been a tough old broad. She had narrowed her eyes and refused to tell him why she was in New Orleans. Then she’d come up with some surprising moves.

He’d thought he could handle any woman. Not this one. She’d attacked, and they’d fought. When he’d pushed her away, the back of her skull had come down hard against the edge of the radiator. Too hard. One look at the blood pooling around her head, and he’d known that she was done for, and that he had to get out of there before anyone figured out that he’d been in her room.

Even so, he’d taken precious minutes to go through her stuff and make it look like robbery was the motive. While he was ransacking her luggage, he’d found a daybook with the names of two locals. Rachel Gregory and Jake Harper.

At least he had that much. Not enough to satisfy the Badger, but he’d already put off his report as long as possible. Anticipating a nasty few minutes, he signaled for the waitress and paid for his drinks.

When he was outside on the street, he lit up a cigarette and took several deep drags before tossing it away. Finally knowing he couldn’t delay any longer, he pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed a number in Portland.

The Badger answered, and he started talking before Carter could get any of his carefully planned words out.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m listening to CNN. A woman visitor to New Orleans was killed this evening. I guess you made an effing mess of the assignment,” he said as soon as he heard Carter’s voice.

“Not my fault. Why didn’t you tell me she had martial arts training?”

“News to me.”

The man might or might not be lying. In Carter’s experience, the Badger said whatever was most effective at the time. And he might change his tune if another story was more convenient.

“Nobody can connect you with the incident?”

“I’m clean. I didn’t talk to anyone at the desk. I paid a delivery boy to ask for her room.”

“Okay.”

“Afterward, I went down the back stairs.”

“So you got away, but we’re at a dead end.”

“Not exactly. I got the names of two contacts that she visited in the city.”

They talked for a few more minutes with the Badger pressing him for results and Carter wishing he’d never accepted the freaking assignment.

Not that he had a choice. Once you got on the Badger’s Christmas-card list, you stayed on it.

After hanging up, he clamped his fingers around the phone as he automatically studied the evening crowd to make sure nobody was listening in.

Then he started planning his next moves.

Chapter Three

Rachel dragged in a breath and let it out. “I saw something in the cards.”

“Her death?” he clarified.

“I thought so. But it’s never hard and fast. There are always alternate interpretations of anything I see.”

He swore under his breath. “You were thinking, ‘You’re going to die.’”

“But I couldn’t say it. Not like that.”

“Did you warn her?”

“No.”

His voice turned sharp. “Why not?”

Rachel couldn’t help being defensive. “Would you tell anyone something that devastating? I could have been wrong. I never tell people anything so … upsetting. I let her know she was in for a rough patch. At the end of the session, she asked me to meet her at her hotel room tonight.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You think I’m lying?”

“No.”

They had been so close a moment ago. Too close, and they must have been thinking the same thing. It was time to put up some barriers.

She moved away from him and automatically felt to see if her hair was messed up. Some had come loose, and she worked stray strands back into place.

Her head was throbbing, making it hard to think.

“Coming here was a mistake,” she said as she stood up and smoothed out her dress.

He kept his gaze on her. “Something happened between us. Don’t you want to find out what it was?”

“Lust.”

“You know damn well it was more than that.”

Maybe she did, but she wasn’t going to admit it to him. Not now. Not when she was still shaking inside from the intensity of what she’d felt—on so many levels.

Turning on her heel, she left the office and walked through the restaurant, feeling the eyes of the maître d’ and some of the diners on her.

She kept walking, out onto the street, then headed back toward her building. The shop door was on Toulouse Street. The entrance to her apartment was in a little courtyard with an iron gate. She unlocked it, glad when the light came on as she stepped into familiar surroundings.

She’d fixed up the area with potted plants and patio furniture. Sometimes she sat down here; sometimes up on the upper patio outside her living room. Tonight she just wanted to get inside her apartment and lock the door.

When she was finally feeling safe, she sat down at the table by the window and stared out into the darkened street, trying to figure out what had really happened tonight.

A woman had been murdered. A woman she’d done a reading for a little over a day earlier.