Freud had said most dreams had sexual undertones. She thought about her nightmare, which had seemed so real—and yet on some level she had known all along that it was only a dream. Try as she might, she couldn’t find anything sexual about it. It had been frightening, plain and simple, and she wasn’t going to think about it anymore.
She decided to think about Aidan Flynn instead. She was torn. She wanted to dislike him, but she couldn’t help it: for some reason, she respected him. It was like a love-hate thing. There had been times—admittedly mostly early on—when she had come pretty close to hating him. She hadn’t known him long enough to love him, though. Had she? She did love sleeping with him, and a part of her admitted that she was terrified of getting too close to him, because he just might be the man she could fall in love with, and she probably wasn’t a woman he could ever want to be with forever.
She poured herself another cup of coffee, then walked to the back of the apartment and pulled the drapes back from the French doors. It looked like a beautiful day—no threat of storms, much less a rain of blood—and she unlocked the door and stepped out into the courtyard.
Even though she had just showered, she found herself looking at her hand.
No blood.
Out in the courtyard, she sipped her coffee. None of her neighbors were in evidence, so she stood there in solitude and enjoyed the soft breeze. October was a beautiful month, she thought.
The courtyard still looked much as it had for almost two centuries; her house was one of the few that had survived the fire of 1788, which had destroyed most of the city. This neighborhood might be called the French Quarter, but most of the architecture for which the city was so famous, including the “cities of the dead,” dated from the period when the area was under Spanish rule. Once, the narrow alley that ran behind the courtyard had been the main entrance. There was still a huge old gate there, which was used early every morning by the lawn maintenance company that kept up the courtyard.
Wicker tables and chairs were surrounded by flower beds and beautifully potted plants. The old carriage house stood to one side, and a high brick wall protected the tenants’ privacy.
She wandered toward a chair and sat, taking a moment just to enjoy the beauty of a morning that reminded her why she loved this city that had always been her home and would never want to leave.
As she sat there, she noticed something lying near the French doors of her apartment, something she had missed when she first stepped outside.
Something…
She felt her fingers tense around her coffee mug.
She set it down and rose, walked back to her doors and bent down to see exactly what had caught her eye.
It was a doll.
A voodoo doll.
Not like the beautifully crafted ones she sold, but the kind for sale at any souvenir store, but with the addition of long hair made out of auburn yarn, and big green buttons for eyes.
When she instinctively went to pick it up, it fell apart, and she saw the deep slashes at the juncture of head and neck, the arms, legs and torso, where the pieces had been held together by mere threads.
The doll had been made to look like her. And it had been dismembered.
14
Saws were whining, and hammers were slamming.
One cup of coffee gave Aidan enough energy to get into the shower and out of the house. On the lawn, the contractor was meeting with the electricians, and he turned, pleased to see Aidan.
“Your brother wants the place by Halloween,” the contractor told him cheerfully.
“And you can make that date and still do everything all right?” Aidan asked.
“I’ll show you the plans.”
He spent an hour going over blueprints and schedules, and had to admit that his brothers had managed to bring on an efficient captain who knew what he was doing.
The house should have been his biggest headache, Aidan thought. Instead, it was proving to be nothing at all.
Except for that feeling he couldn’t shake…
There were ghosts in the cemetery, Jimmy had said. Aidan found himself walking in that direction again, almost as if drawn. It was just a graveyard, he told himself. He was probably only spooked because he had found dried blood on one of the tombstones. Even so, he promised himself to look around more thoroughly later in the day.
But first, he had things to do in the city. He got into his car and reached the end of the driveway just in time to see Zach coming toward him on the river road. He beeped and waved to tell his brother to pull over, then filled him in on the squatter who had been living in the old slave quarters.
“Did you throw him out or call the police?” Zach asked.
“Neither. I gave him my sleeping bag.”
Zach grinned, called him a soft touch, then asked, “You’re sure he’s harmless?”
“Pretty sure. He works nights up at the gas station. I’m going to check into his story. If he was lying, I’ll give him the boot, but if he was telling me the truth, I want him around a while longer.”
“Really?” Zach asked, surprised. “You don’t think he was fooling around with voodoo dolls to drive us off the place, huh?”