After some quick farewells, Eugenie and I made our way back across the verandah toward the transport. I had a few hours to check in to the Monteleone and take a nap before Jean returned to the city, or I could do the responsible thing and track down Alex.
“Why don’t you come to the hotel with me and hang out?” I asked her as we stepped into the transport, and I used the staff to power us back to New Orleans. “I’ll treat you to a mani/pedi on my Elder Express credit card.”
“Maybe a rain check? I have something else I need to do.” She didn’t elaborate, but closed her eyes until we materialized behind St. Louis Cathedral, made sure the coast was clear of tourists, and left the transport. “I hate that squished feeling, and I’d forgotten how cold it was here.”
We quickly bundled ourselves back into our coats and set out to see if Alex’s SUV was still parked nearby. We’d been gone almost four hours, so I didn’t have much hope.
“So what do you have planned?” Whatever it was, I hoped it didn’t involve going anywhere near Rand.
“I need to think about things for a while. I want to go home and put my feet up, enjoy the fire, and just think,” she said. “It was good for me to get away from all the worries for a few hours. I don’t feel so much like I’m drowning. But Rene agreed with you about the wizards.”
“Which part?”
“He said the wizards will—how did he put it? They’ll stick their big noses in my business and try to control everything, including my pregnancy. So I need to decide what I want and how I’m going to handle things before I get the choice taken away from me. Was he exaggerating?”
She looked at me with such a serious intensity that I knew she deserved the truth, without sugarcoating. “No, he wasn’t exaggerating. It’s why I wanted to get you out of there today before Zrakovi could barge in and start barking orders or asking questions you weren’t ready to answer.”
She nodded and we walked along silently for a few moments. “Thanks for being honest. Don’t try to protect me from the truth. You’re the only one I can really trust to be on my side. Promise me.”
That stung a little, but if I’d been straight with Eugenie from the beginning that Rand wasn’t who or what she thought, she might not be in this situation. I wasn’t letting her down again. “I promise. I’ll be straight with you, and I’ll always have your back, no matter what.”
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled me into a hug. I closed my eyes and hugged her hard, thinking how close we’d come to losing a friendship that meant a lot to both of us. I didn’t know where all this would end up, but she’d be okay. I would make sure of it.
“What do you think will happen next?” She glanced in the shop windows as we resumed our walk through the Quarter.
I thought about all the possible scenarios. “Damned if I know.” That was the God’s honest truth. “It depends on what happened with Zrakovi, so I’ve got to talk to Alex and see how he reacted.”
We turned the corner and, as expected, Alex’s SUV was nowhere to be found. “Let’s walk back toward the Monteleone and find a cab.”
The sidewalk was still slushy in the shadows where the sun hadn’t reached, and if it got as cold as predicted tonight, we’d have treacherous layers of ice to walk on.
“What did you think of Collette?” Quince Randolph notwithstanding, Eugenie had pretty good instincts about people, and she’d spent a couple of hours in Collette’s company. “Did you like her?”
Eugenie laughed. “Yeah, I did. She’s crazy about Jake, too. She said something that made me stop and think about my situation a little differently.”
Pregnancy advice from a loup-garou? “And that was?”
“She told me about being turned into a super-wolf and how her life had changed. She used to be a model and had all these plans to go to California and try to make it big-time. Now she has some of the same problems as Jake. You know, keeping everything under control.” Eugenie pointed at a cabbie parked in front of another hotel, and we sped up to make sure we got it before a sneaky tourist slipped in ahead of us.
Score one for the locals. “So, what did she say that made you think?” We settled back in the cab and gave the driver Eugenie’s address. If Alex wasn’t home, I’d get my stuff and have the cabbie drive me right back to the Quarter.