Chapter Thirty-six
I didn’t find him; I didn’t really expect to. John had been outwitting Jäger-Suchers for over fifty years. A PI from Philly didn’t stand a chance.
I ended up sleeping one last night in my room above Rising Moon. King returned as I was packing. He stood in the doorway, beneath the worthless horseshoe. “Watch your back, girlie.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. Though I didn’t feel fine. I felt bruised, battered, deep down achingly sad. I was going to miss John for the rest of my life.
“Your sister could be anywhere,” he continued. “She might come after you.”
“I hope she does.”
“She ain’t Katie. She will kill you.”
I pulled out my letter opener, turning it this way and that, until the light caught the silver and sparkled.
“No,” I said, and met King’s eyes. “She won’t.”
King peered at me for several seconds. “You’ve changed.”
“The whole world’s changed.”
King spent the night in Rising Moon with a baseball bat across his lap, protecting the place against looters. I figured I was safer there than anywhere. In the morning, I’d catch a plane to Philly. In the meantime, I needed to figure out what I was going to tell my parents. Certainly not the truth.
Bright and early, there was a knock on the door of the club. Sullivan stood on the stoop.
I was tempted to sneak out the back and head straight for the airport. From the expression on King’s face, he expected me to.
Instead, I opened the door, then moved as far away from the detective as I could get and still be in the same room. His gaze lit on my packed bag, then lifted to my face. “You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“What about your sister?”
He didn’t remember what Katie had become, what she’d done to him, and that was good. I wished I
didn’t.
“I don’t think she’s here.” I figured Katie was as far away from New Orleans by now as she could get.
“Something’s changed.” Sullivan fidgeted, uncomfortable. “I did something or said something that’s made you…” His gaze met mine. “Hate me.”
He had, but I couldn’t explain it to him. He deserved the oblivion Elise and the Jäger-Suchers had provided.
Sullivan was a good man once more, and he’d go on to do great things.
“I don’t hate you,” I lied. “But I have to go home.”
“It’s Rodolfo,” he said.
“Yes.”
He nodded as if he’d expected as much, then crossed the room to take my hand. I flinched; I couldn’t help it.
Why couldn’t I cut Sullivan the same slack I’d cut John? Why couldn’t I see that the beast who’d hurt me wasn’t the same man as the one in front of me? Perhaps because I’d never seen John as Henri, but I had seen Sullivan as Satan.
Or perhaps it was because I’d never completely trusted John, sensing something in him he was holding back. But I had trusted Sullivan; I’d felt safe with him. For Sullivan to turn on me, even though it hadn’t been him, had been devastating. I doubted I’d ever get over it.
Sullivan dropped my hand, but he was still too close for my comfort, and I inched out of his reach.
“I was sick,” he said. “I don’t remember things. I’m taking a leave of absence from the force until I feel more… myself.”
“That’ll be good.”
I wondered momentarily if he’d give up on his quest for the serial killer, but I kept my lip zipped in case Edward had purged the NOPD of the case. From what I’d seen of Edward, he probably could.
Our good-bye was awkward. He wanted to hug me; I didn’t want him to, and he knew it. We shook hands, and as soon as he left, I did too.
Back in Philly, life just wasn’t the same. How could it be? I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told King the whole world had changed.
Now I knew that evil could lurk behind every smiling face. The night held horrors I easily imagined. I’d seen them, touched them, almost become them.
In the first hour back in my parents’ company I lied to them so many times I lost count.
“The DNA was Katie’s,” they greeted me as soon as I walked in their door.
I’d completely forgotten we’d sent evidence to the crime lab.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “The bracelet was found at the j azz club Rising Moon.”
“Katie had to have been in New Orleans after she disappeared from here,” my father said.
“Yes.”
She had been, just more recently than we’d thought.
“So she must be alive.”
My parents were conveniently ignoring what blood on a bracelet might mean, and I decided to let them.
“Sure,” I lied.
Katie wasn’t alive. Not really. She wasn’t even Katie anymore. However, I couldn’t tell my parents that, so I began to avoid them.
My j ob bored me. My friends too. Suddenly I didn’t fit in in the place I’d been a part of my whole life. I spent most of my time searching the Internet, trying to find a trace of Katie somewhere. That is, when I wasn’t looking equally hard for a trace of John.
When Edward called and offered me a j ob, I jumped at the chance.
“You’re going to hunt for your sister anyway,” he said. “Why not do so with the resources of the Jäger-Suchers behind you?”
I couldn’t think of a single reason.
The night before I was scheduled to leave for J-S training, I watched the sun set from my window and sighed.
“You need to stop searching for me, chica.”
I spun around, the pure silver knife I’d bought to replace the letter opener in my hand. John stood just inside the room.
He didn’t look much better than I did. Oh, his black pants were pressed and his white dress shirt was spotless, but he was pale, with dark circles under his eyes; he’d lost weight too. He’d shaved off his goatee, but his five o’clock shadow darkened his j aw, making him appear both dangerous and a little bit sad.
“Who said I was searching for you?”
“Elise.” His smile did not reach the deep blue eyes I just couldn’t get used to seeing. “The woman knows everything.”
I scowled, not only at the knowledge that he’d spoken to her and not to me, but at the revelation Elise knew so damned much. I shouldn’t be j ealous—the two of them couldn’t even touch without getting a migraine—but I was.
“She told me to come here,” John said.
My spirits fell even further at his words. He hadn’t come because he couldn’t bear to be away from me any longer, he’d come because Elise had told him to.
“You’ll never move on with your life unless you see the truth,” he continued.
“What truth is that?”