Two beings like me. Two.
I stifle a sob as I realize that the only way out of this is Sawyer, and Sawyer is dead.
CHAPTER 23
I came awake with a start, gasping, trembling.
“You okay?” A flight attendant leaned over me, the concern in her voice belied by the watchfulness in her eyes. If I so much as blinked funny, she was going to signal the nearest air marshal.
The woman next to me and the man next to her were leaning as far away from me as they could get with their seat belts on. Everyone else in the vicinity was staring.
“Fine.” I wiped my face. My hand came away drenched with sweat. A bead ran down my cheek. The air from the vent couldn’t stir my hair because every strand was plastered to my head.
“We’re on our descent,” the flight attendant said. “I’ll get you a cup of water, but you’ll have to hurry.”
I nodded and glanced out the window. Lights reflected off pools of black water—swamps with gators, Lake Pontchartrain—and in the distance ships cruised down the winding Mississippi, which spilled into the sea. New Orleans was surrounded on three sides by water, which was both beautiful and foolish.
“I don’t much care for flying, either,” the woman to my right murmured, her voice so full of the South I could see Spanish moss on the trees and smell the magnolias in bloom. She patted my hand, withdrawing with a mew of distaste when her fingers slid on my slick skin.
“Sorry,” I said.
She gave me a tight smile and went back to her book.
We landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport, and I retrieved my bag then rented a Jetta. I figured I might as well drive something I was familiar with, and I doubted they had any vintage Impalas around.
The instant I walked out of the terminal New Orleans hit me in the face. August in the Crescent City, not the best idea in the world.
The humidity swirled around my head, clogging my nose and throat, making my limbs lethargic and my eyelids heavy. I practically dived into the car and cranked the air-conditioning to ice.
Though the sun was still up, it was falling steadily toward night. I checked into a hotel in the French Quarter. Certainly I could have stayed near the airport, but why? I was in New Orleans.
The last time I’d been here, I’d attended a bartenders’ seminar. After spending the mornings inside a banquet room, we’d spent the both the afternoons and the evenings on the town. I had fond memories of New Orleans. Memories I hoped I didn’t tarnish too badly on this journey through.
I had no trouble getting a room in a tall, narrow hotel several streets from Bourbon. At this time of year, I could have gotten a room with a balcony that opened onto the legendary street itself, but I wanted to be far from the lights and the music.
I did have a balcony, but it gave me a view of a less traveled side street, just what I’d asked for. I wanted as few eyes as possible—preferably no eyes at all—to witness what I had planned for when the sun went down.
After a long, tepid shower and a change of clothes, I hustled to Bourbon Street and found a bar—ha, I couldn’t not find a bar—that was showing a baseball game on a mammoth plasma TV, then I ordered a Sazerac—a traditional New Orleans cocktail with rye whiskey—and fried alligator, followed by a muffuletta. If I were still alive in the morning, I’d walk down to the river and buy beignets with strong, black chicory coffee.
What was it about this town that made me so hungry? Probably the food.
I strolled back to my hotel as the sun gave its last gasp. A few times I could have sworn I felt someone following me, but even though the tourist trade was nearly nonexistent at this time of year, there were still plenty of people on Bourbon Street, so people were following me. They couldn’t help it. I was in front of them.
I ducked into a T-shirt shop, chose a few new shirts since I’d had to toss so many lately, and kept my eyes open for suspicious characters. An exercise in futility. Everyone seemed suspicious around here.
Like the guy dressed as a jester playing a saxophone on one corner, or the girl who appeared pale enough to be empress of the undead selling ice cream from a cart across the street. Several soon-to-be senior citizens in full black leather chaps and vests strolled into a strip club. A drag queen in a sundress, black chest hair curling over the yellow bodice, strutted down the sidewalk walking a cat on a leash. The cat wore a Mardi Gras mask that matched the guy’s dress. God, I loved this place.
It took me a while to find a shirt that wasn’t pornographic. I could have walked over to the French Market and found something more appropriate, but now that the sun was down, I didn’t have the time.