Chapter Twenty-five
I made a move to get up.
“Don’t go,” John murmured. “Please?”
The “please” got me, even though I didn’t feel I should stay. How many ways did he have to tell me there could never be more than sex between us?
Where once the idea of being wanted for my body had been a novelty, it had fast worn thin. I wanted to be wanted for myself. Who didn’t?
As he’d said—what we want most is what we can never have. Ain’t that always the way?
The room was dark and cool. I fell asleep, awaking an indeterminate amount of time later with a start to an empty bed. My ears strained to catch the slightest sound.
Was John still in the apartment? Had the rush of the shower, the click of the door, the tread of a footstep drawn me from sleep?
I wrapped the sheet around me and walked through the house. He wasn’t there.
Neither was very much else. I’d noticed the minimalist decorating in the living room, the monkish state of the bedroom, but there was nothing personal beyond clothes and toiletries here at all. Not a picture, not a book, not a letter. No driver’s license, birth certificate, passport, not a single slip of paraphernalia for tax purposes.
It was as if John Rodolfo had popped up in New Orleans out of thin air.
Maybe he had another house in a different city or state. Maybe he kept everything important there. But why? What did he have to hide?
The lack of personality, the lack of a past revealed in his living quarters only brought home to me once more that I didn’t know enough about the man to trust him with my cat—if I’d had a cat. Why in hell was I trusting him with my body, my heart, and perhaps my life?
I had no idea; but I should stop.
I returned to the bedroom, flipped on the overhead light and got dressed, becoming severely annoyed when I realized I was surreptitiously checking the floor, the pillow, the bathroom mirror for some kind of note.
“Pathetic,” I muttered, then cursed when I tried to button a blouse that no longer had buttons.
What had been erotic earlier just pissed me off now. I stole what appeared to be a brand-new light blue T-shirt from Rodolfo’s clothes pile, then let myself out of the house.
Night had fallen; the crescent moon hovered. The area around Rodolfo’s apartment was not well lit or well populated at this time of the evening. I would have liked to take a cab back to Rising Moon, but there wasn’t one to be had.
I hurried along, headed for the bright lights of Bourbon. I was probably paranoid, but I could have sworn someone followed me.
Whenever I moved, they moved with me. I only caught the pitter-patter of other feet interspersed with the thud of my own. If I stopped, so did the footsteps. If I turned, no one was there.
“Sullivan?” I murmured, then bit my lip. Did I really want to meet him again, out here alone in the dark?
Stupid question.
The creepy-crawly sensation of being followed continued and by the time I neared Bourbon I was running. I flew around the corner and nearly smacked into a wall of teeming humanity. The place was packed—curb to curb—with revelers.
I let out a sigh of relief and plunged into the mass of bodies. If someone, or something, was following, good luck catching me now.
The mounted police milling down the side streets, as well as making their way through the crowd, reassured me. From their exalted perch, they’d catch sight of a wolf long before I did, and they’d notice a crazy-eyed, rabid stranger even quicker.
I shook my head, laughing at myself. If this kept up, I ’d be the crazy person.
Then the mass of humanity parted for just an instant, and I saw …
Katie.
Suddenly I was pushing people, shoving them aside, shouting her name, getting drinks spilled on me, some thrown at me. The crowd converged, blocking her out, and when it separated again, she was gone.
I stopped moving, staring at the place she’d been. I closed my eyes, tried to remember her face, then the face I’d seen. They’d been different somehow, though I couldn’t put a finger on exactly how.
Had that been Katie? I wasn’t so sure.
After she’d disappeared, there’d been a hundred times I thought I’d seen her—in places she couldn’t possibly be. I’d heard that was common when you lost someone. The mind plays tricks; the heart tries to find a way to cope.
“Miss?”
I opened my eyes. A horse stared me in the face.
I took several steps back, caught my heel on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell. I was caught and tossed in the other direction with a good-natured shove.
The horse blew his opinion of my clumsiness from loose lips, spraying me with equine spittle. It went very well with the alcohol, orange juice, and soda spotting Rodolfo’s blue T-shirt.
“You okay?”
The mounted police officer peered at me. I guess I did look a little foolish, standing on Bourbon Street with my eyes closed.
“Yes, thanks. Do you see a blond woman”—I pointed—”that way?”
He rolled his eyes. “I see a million of ‘em. Wanna be more specific?”
“Blue eyes. Small, but curvy. She was wearing… red. Her hair is longer. I mean long. Midway down her back.”
The officer was already shaking his head. “About a thousand of those. You should scope out a meeting place ahead of time for when you lose your friends.”
“Thanks,” I repeated, but he was already making his way through the crowd in another direction.
And I was late for work.
Sure, I would have liked to search the bars, the restaurants, the hotels, interview each and every person on this street, but even if that were possible, I wouldn’t have. If the face in the crowd had been Katie’s, she would have run to me as I’d run to her. Instead she’d disappeared—just as she had three years ago.
I’d seen a dream, a wish, perhaps a ghost. I didn’t want to believe the latter; nevertheless, I was beginning to wonder. If Katie were alive, why hadn’t she contacted me?
Though I’d told myself I wouldn’t worry about the bloody, dirty bracelet until we had solid evidence, in the back of my mind, I was more than worried. I was devastated.
Katie’s blood type and graveyard dirt. I’d never been any good at math, but even I could add that much and come up with dead.
Leaving Bourbon Street behind, I went to work.
King was having a hard time meeting the demands of the sizable crowd, but one glance at my soaked T-shirt, and he j erked his head toward the stairs.
“Change,” he ordered. “Then get your ass down here.”
I did, but by then the police had shown up. Mueller again. I wasn’t surprised.
“Did you find him?” I asked.
“Who?” Then understanding dawned. “Oh! Detective Sullivan. No. Nothing.”
“How can there be nothing?”