The second officer was leaning against the wall as if he had collapsed in relief.
Danni had found Jenny. She had found her beneath her dressing table, where she had hidden behind the decorative table skirt. With Danni’s coaxing, she was emerging from her hiding place, which had barely been big enough to contain her.
Jenny was shaking uncontrollably. Danni was trying to help her get up without cracking her head. Quinn turned quickly and called down the hallway, “It’s all right. Let Mr. Henderson through, please.”
Brad came running down the hall. Jenny turned from Danni’s arms into his, sobbing uncontrollably.
Quinn left the room and headed down the hallway to talk to the officer who had waited with Brad.
“This isn’t just your average break-in,” he said. “I’m calling Detective Larue and—”
“Already done, Mr. Quinn,” the officer said. “Our sergeants have been drilling us every morning. We know what’s going on.”
“Thank you,” Quinn told him. He was relieved that even the patrol officers were aware of what was happening. It wasn’t that New Orleans hadn’t seen its share of violence before; after the summer of storms, things had been very bad for a long time. Not that New Orleans had become a hotbed of evil, it was just those with evil intent would always take advantage of a bad situation. At that time, there had been a big difference in petty crime, as well. It was one thing to break a window and steal electronics; it was another to break into a grocery store for bread.
“Detective Larue should be here momentarily,” the young officer told him. He cleared his throat. “Sir, I have to ask you and the others to be careful, this being a crime scene and all.”
“Yes, of course.”
Quinn’s phone rang. Larue.
He was moments away, and he wanted them all to sit tight until he arrived.
That wouldn’t be too hard, Quinn thought. When he returned to the bedroom, Jenny, Brad and Danni were seated at the end of the bed. Jenny was sobbing on Brad’s shoulder.
Brad tried to soothe her. “I won’t leave you again, not for a moment. I’ll never leave you again, Jenny.”
“You were so smart to hide,” Danni said.
The second officer was still sagging against the wall, watching them uncomfortably.
“Larue is on his way,” Quinn said.
As if he’d been relieved of a giant burden, the officer nodded, found the strength to stand straight and headed out to the parlor.
“Brad, did you notice in the parlor—was anything missing?”
“What?” Brad said.
“Was anything missing?”
“I—I don’t know. I was thinking about Jenny. I didn’t really look.”
“We should do that now,” Quinn said.
*
The two men left the room, and Danni held on to Jenny, trying to soothe her.
With Brad out of the room, Jenny clung to her. She had a strand of Danni’s hair caught in her fingers and it hurt, but Danni didn’t say a word. She just waited until Jenny felt ready to speak.
“The face!” Jenny said. “It was so... He made my skin crawl.”
“He’s a man, Jenny. Just a man. And if you saw that same mask during Mardi Gras, you wouldn’t think anything of it.”
“But I could see his eyes,” Jenny said. “They were...awful.”
“What color?” Danni asked.
Jenny was silent for a minute. Then she said, “I—I don’t know.”
“You just told me you saw them.”
“Yes! And I saw...I saw brutality and evil and...” She trailed off and turned to Danni. “But I can’t remember the color at all. They might have been brown. Or gray. Dark, I think. But there seemed to be a strange light in them. Like fire, like...death.”
A chill rippled down Danni’s spine.
Just then Brad and Quinn walked back into the room. Brad sat by Jenny again, his arm around her shoulders.
Jenny loosened her death grip on Danni—and her hair.
Quinn had the ability to impose a sense of order and security on a situation. Danni realized that she still felt frozen, numb, herself when he came over and hunkered down before Jenny. “Detective Larue is on his way, Jenny, and we’ll get everything down on paper. You were incredibly smart to hide.”
“I should have been here. I have a gun,” Brad said angrily.
“I have a feeling that this man knew you were gone. I suspect he’s started watching and waiting, aware that no one is going anywhere alone anymore and that the word is out that people shouldn’t open their doors, even to friends,” Quinn said quietly.
“He was here—in our room!” Jenny said, sounding on the verge of hysteria. “He touched our things! I’ll never be able to sleep here again.”
“You will, but you don’t need to sleep here tonight. You can come home with us,” Danni said. “My dad’s room is empty, and Billie and Bo Ray are both up in the attic.”