He told her so and she smiled. “Thanks. Micki doesn’t have much around here to eat.”
That didn’t surprise him. “I have to go now. Is there anything you need before I do?”
“What if I need to reach you?”
“I’ll give you my number.” She grabbed her pencil and sketch tablet; carefully wrote the number and his name beside it. “You can call me anytime, Angel. No matter what.”
She looked up at him, expression quizzical. “But you’re coming back?”
“Yeah, sure. Mick too.”
“Good.” She cocked her head. “I like you, Zach. At first I wasn’t sure, but now I do.”
He smiled. “I like you, too.”
“You promise you’ll come back?”
“I promise.” He crossed to the kitchen doorway, stopped and looked back. “Angel? How do you know what you do isn’t being a real artist?”
She pursed her lips in thought. “Real artists can draw what they see and make it look right. I can’t do that.”
“Not always. Have you ever been to an art museum?”
She shook her head. “No, but I used to look into the windows of art galleries in the Quarter.”
“Would you like to go sometime, when all this settles down?”
“And I’m safe?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “There’s one here, in New Orleans?”
“Yup, at City Park.”
“I’d like that. Thank you, Zach.”
“You’re welcome. Remember, don’t leave the house or open the door for anyone.”
She promised she wouldn’t.
He let himself out, and found Parker waiting for him at the curb, car engine running. He reached across the seat and opened the passenger side door. “Get in,” he said.
Chapter Forty-seven
Thursday, July 18
2:15 A.M.
“Where are we going?” Zach asked, buckling his seat belt.
“There are some people you need to meet.”
“Who?”
“That you’ll learn when we get there.” He pulled away from the curb. “I know you have the girl.”
“What girl?”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Harris. You’re better than that.”
“Who told you?”
“Friends.” Parker glanced at him. “There’s nothing you can do that I won’t eventually find out about.”
“But eventually can be a very long time.”
“Or no time at all.” Parker made the jog from St. Charles Avenue onto Carrollton. The streetcar, bright red, rumbled past them. “Gomez is at Dare’s. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. She should be safe there. At least for a while.”
“From the Dark Bearer that tried to kill her.”
He nodded. “How did you locate her?”
“Her friend Fran called me. She ran there after Brite warned her the Dark Bearer—”
“Was coming for her.”
“How did you know that?”
Parker ignored his question. “You should have contacted me immediately. Why didn’t you?”
“A feeling,” he said, deciding on a partial truth. “That she was better off with me and Mick.”
“You were right.”
“She’s safer at Mick’s because she’s not one of us.”
“Yes.”
“Is it dangerous for me to be in contact with her?”
“For the moment, no. But you’ll need to move her. Someone Dare knows and trusts. Someone you’ve never met.”
“Why? What’s going to change?”
He didn’t take his gaze from the road. “You’ll know soon enough.”
“More evasions?” Zach snorted. “Getting damn tired of them, P.”
“You sound like Dare.”
“She’s not so bad. At least I know where I stand.”
“That’s what this is all about.”
Zach didn’t bother to ask Parker what he meant; he knew the man wouldn’t give him a straight answer.
They fell silent. Zach gazed out the window, counting the streets they passed, noting their names: Oak, Willow, Spruce.
An interesting area, he thought. As they neared the I-10 connection, the sprawling live oaks and gracious old homes lining the avenue gave way to a sorry-looking commercial development.
To Zach’s surprise, Parker didn’t take the interstate, but continued on Carrollton, going under the overpass and emerging on the other side, the character of the landscape changing again. Residential. Old shotguns and southern style cottages. A look of disrepair.
“Mid-City,” Parker said. “It got slammed by Katrina, but is coming back in a big way.
After seven blocks, Parker made the turn onto Canal Street. Zach saw the change then. New life in the form of old homes repurposed into businesses. An advertising agency, a bed and breakfast, law offices, restaurants. Funeral home. Most with sparkling windows and shiny signs, neatly tended gardens and freshly painted shutters.
“We’re almost there.”
“The people I need to meet—” He shook his head. “Over-the-top cloak and dagger, P.”
“You have no idea.”
He studied the man a moment. “This isn’t a hit, is it?”
Parker grinned. “We’re the Bureau, not the mob.”