What about yesterday, and Miss Ady and the cancer?
Things like this didn’t happen to her, she told herself firmly.
But the evidence said they did.
Her hand suddenly jerked across the table.
Ann started again, and Kendall forced herself to laugh. “I’m sorry. Late night last night, I’m afraid.”
“Wait, I recognize you,” Ann said.
“You do?”
“I saw you sing last night—you and that guy out there, Vinnie. Hey, you two were great.”
“Thanks.”
Ann kept talking. Vinnie was really wonderful. Vinnie was so cute.
Kendall just nodded absently. Vinnie did have that effect on women. Meanwhile, she couldn’t seem to concentrate. All she could think about was the strange things that seemed to be happening.
Weird sensations. Cards…coming to life. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, although once or twice she had felt unnerved, uneasy, and the cards had looked…off.
As if she needed an eye doctor.
More sleep. That was what she needed.
She heard her own voice. Somehow, despite the absurd panic that kept seizing her, she was speaking, even making sense. She was rising and wishing Ann a great trip and a good life, reminding her that her fate was in her own hands.
Ann left, and Kendall could hear her talking excitedly to her friend and the two men up front in the shop.
“What’s with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mason asked from the doorway of the room where he’d been doing his reading.
“I’m tired. I told you that,” Kendall said.
Mason looked past her into her room. “Hey, your cards are all over the floor,” he told her, and swept in to pick them up. “Grab that one right under your feet.”
She looked down. The skeleton was looking up at her. Doing nothing, nothing at all.
It was just a tarot card.
And yet, as she reached for it, she felt again as if ice-cold fingers of bone were somehow closing around her heart.
Somehow Aidan managed to get back to the city by six.
He’d made a couple of calls from the road, so after he returned his car to the hotel valet, he walked down the street to meet Jeremy at a quiet place near the old convent school. He filled his brother in on the information he had learned about Jenny Trent, and Jeremy showed him what he’d gotten on her credit card files.
All her charges in the city were from a single day. She had gotten gas at a station just off I-10; she had charged a café au lait and a beignet that morning at Café du Monde. She had purchased a T-shirt on Decatur Street, lunched at Bambu in Harrah’s.
He knew already that she’d been to the Hideaway on Bourbon Street that night, and a charge to a business listed as Dreams, LLD, was the only other item.
Aidan looked up at Jeremy. “That address…”
“Yeah, it’s Kendall’s shop.”
“Did you ask her about Jenny, by any chance?”
Jeremy shook his head. “The only picture I have is really grainy. Besides, I knew you were seeing her tonight.”
“I have a better picture. Betty Trent provided it.” Aidan frowned. “Kendall didn’t object when you told her what time I’d be picking her up, did she?” He should have asked if she had protested his coming by for her, period.
“No. She didn’t say anything. They had customers. Looked like a couple of Valley girls,” Jeremy told him.
Aidan looked at his watch. Six-thirty. He had to be at Kendall’s apartment at seven-thirty, but they could walk the few blocks to Bourbon and he could still get back to pick up his car again with time to spare.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I feel like stopping by the Hideaway.”
“Hoping to catch the Stakes again?” Jeremy asked.
Aidan only nodded.
It was exceptionally early by Bourbon Street standards, but the Stakes managed to bring in the locals looking for a quick drink on their way home from work. Jeremy paused to say hello to a few of the cops in the place, probably those who had helped him. Aidan noted that there were a few single people sitting at tables in the shadowy far corners of the place. He chose a spot close to the band. When the waitress came with the beer he’d ordered, he drew out the picture of Jenny Trent.
“Thanks,” he said, as she set down his beer. “Mind if I bother you for a minute?” He smiled and dropped a bill far larger than his tab on the tray.
“Sure. And it’s three for one tonight. I just thought I’d keep your other two beers cold,” she said pleasantly. She was no kid but an attractive woman of about thirty. She wasn’t spilling out of her outfit, either. Some people just worked, and worked hard, on Bourbon Street, he thought.
“Do you remember seeing this girl in here?” he asked her.
“Sure,” she said, after examining the picture closely for a minute. “A few months ago. She was a sweet kid.”
“Was she alone?”
“Wow, that’s hard to say. She was friendly. I think she talked to half the people in here that night, including the guys in the band. They might be able to help you.”