The heather graham bundl.., p.46
The Heather Graham Bundle, page 46
“Yeah, Vince Haggerty isn’t into mumbo jumbo,”
Massey responded.
Brent ignored the mumbo-jumbo part. “You’re con-
ducting separate investigations?” he asked.
“Not really,” Joulette said. “Haggerty has access to
everything we’ve got. But the guy is a real loner. He
wants to work on his own, and doesn’t want to share
what he has. He will give us whatever he’s got eventu-
ally. If we can find him. You’d think Owen and I grew
up in the bayou and never went to school, the way he
acts. Or,” he added bitterly, “that I should still be say-
ing ‘Massuh’ when I talk to the guy.”
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123
“So, here we are,” Massey said. “Marc and I work-
ing two cases…and in neither case do we have so much
as a semisolid lead to anything. At least in Garfield’s
case we can hit the clubs, get some help from the narcs.
As to the Andrea Ciello case, well, I’d hoped Nikki Du-
Monde would be able to give us something solid. All
she did was hand us a ghost.”
Brent was silent for a moment, then lifted his shoul-
ders and let out a sigh. “I think I’ll take one of Miss
DuMonde’s tours,” he said.
“That’s how you’re going to find a killer?” Joulette
said skeptically.
“I think your murders have something to do with
one another,” Brent said flatly.
“We don’t even know that the girl’s death was a
murder. What makes you think the two deaths are con-
nected?” Massey said. “A fed, undercover, and a for-
mer junkie. What motive could connect them?”
“I don’t know. But you’re looking at two heroin
overdoses.”
“Hey, he’s a psychic,” Joulette told Massey.
“Look, guys—” Brent began.
But Joulette started to laugh. “Hey, go for it, man.”
“Yeah, you do what you have to do,” Massey said.
Brent arched a brow.
“We actually kinda like you,” Joulette explained.
“’Cause you’re not some superior fed.”
“Next to him, hell, you can bring in all the ghost
busters, voodoo priestesses, palm readers…whatever.
You want ’em, you bring ’em on,” Massey said.
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“Great. Well, then, gentlemen, let me get to it. And
I swear, what I know, you’ll know,” Brent promised.
Brent left the station thinking the two of them were
probably laughing at his expense.
But what the hell, they liked him.
Things could be worse.
Dr. Boulet was a man of about forty. He was pleas-
ant, nicely dressed and comfortable to talk to.
He did have a couch, but he also had an easy chair.
“Am I supposed to lie down?” she asked.
“If you like. Or just take a seat.”
She chose the chair.
“So what’s the problem?” he asked.
“I’m seeing dead people.”
“Do you want to give me a few details?”
She waved a hand in the air. “Ghosts.”
“Have you always seen ghosts?” he asked, not
blinking.
She smiled, lowering her head. “Only since my
friend died. Or maybe right before she died.”
“Why don’t you tell me the story from the begin-
ning.”
She did, and he paid rapt attention, his expression
grave. He took notes.
When she had explained it all—starting with the
man in the café and ending with her recent shock at the
police station—he quit writing and waited.
“That’s it,” she said.
“Do you really believe in ghosts?” he asked.
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125
“I must—I’m seeing them now.”
His smile deepened. “But you didn’t—before all
this?”
“Um…no.”
“Even though you give ghost tours for a living?”
“I’ve always had a…sense, I guess you’d call it.”
“A sense?”
She waved a hand vaguely in the air. “I don’t know
how to explain it. When…I’m in certain places, I can
feel past events…even see something like a mist.”
“Aha.” He started to write.
“No, it’s not an aha!” Nikki protested. “I’ve never
actually seen a ghost before, and sure as hell, one never
talked to me before.”
“Someone important to you died tragically,” he re-
minded her softly.
“Yes.”
“Well, the mind is far more incredible than any com-
puter. You might have imagined your dream, you see.
It might have been implanted when you heard what
happened, or even when the policeman came up to
you. Take déjà vu for instance. We go somewhere, and
we know we’ve never been there, but it’s familiar. So…
were we there in another lifetime? Or has the brain
given us a memory that doesn’t exist?”
“You’re asking me?” Nikki said.
“I’m giving you suggestions. When someone close
to us is killed, there’s often a matter of guilt. Survivor’s
guilt, it’s called. She’s dead, I’m not.”
“But I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel that I should be
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dead. I’m horrified that Andy died, and I’m angry. I’m
furious that someone could do that to her.”
At that point, he looked at his watch.
The sigh he gave then was everything she would
have imagined, as were his next words.
“I’m afraid we’re out of time. You might want to
think about the things I’ve said. And schedule an ap-
pointment for next week with my secretary. Do you
want something to help you sleep?”
“Pills?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive, thank you.”
“Then we’ll meet again. And we’ll get to the bot-
tom of this,” he assured her cheerfully.
“So…I’m not exactly…crazy?” she asked pleas-
antly.
“The mind, as I said, is incredible. You’ve been
through a terrible trauma. You want answers. You want
an explanation for how something so terrible happened.
There could be many reasons.”
“Maybe ghosts really exist,” she suggested.
“In our minds, of course they do. When we love
someone and lose them, they’re always with us, in a
way.”
“I don’t love a stranger I never saw before,” Nikki
said.
“No…but the memory of having seen him not long
before Andy’s death might be confusing the picture.”
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127
“A logical explanation for everything,” Nikki mur-
mured.
“It can take some time to get all the ghosts out of
our minds,” he said, glancing at his watch again.
Nikki rose. “Thanks,” she managed to say.
Julian was pacing the waiting room when she came
out. He rushed quickly to her side. “Well? Do you feel
better?”
“No, not really.”
“Did he say you were having delusions or…well,
what the hell did he say?”
“He didn’t call me crazy. He talked about the mind
playing tricks, and how I might be dealing with survi-
vor’s guilt.”
“There you go.”
“Right—and that explains why I saw a dead man?
I still don’t even know who he is—only that the guy
who showed up at the right time showed me a picture
of him. I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Nikki, you are going to see the doctor again,
right?” He sighed. “You need help.”
“Sure. I’ll see him again. Can we eat?”
A little later, over po’boys at Madame D’Orso’s, Ju-
lian said, “Maybe you should take some time off.”
“Why?” she demanded, staring at him.
“Well, we actually do ghost tours, no matter what
we call them.”
“We talk about history, and history includes the su-
perstitions and rumors that have sprung up through the
years.”
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Heather Graham
“Yes, but don’t you think that may be bad for you
right now?”
“No!”
He sighed, sitting back. “Well, you’re on for the
eight o’clock tour tonight. You sure you’re up to it?”
“Of course. Who’s on with me?”
“Me. We can rotate, you know. I can lead the tour.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “I’m not going to let
the monster who did this to Andrea ruin my life, as
well.”
Julian was silent.
“What?” she demanded.
“No, I still think…maybe you should take a vacation.”
“I can’t take a vacation. We just lost a guide, remem-
ber? And everyone else was shaken up, too.”
He leaned forward, speaking softly. “The rest of us
aren’t seeing ghosts, Nikki. And Max could get his ass
back from wherever he is to help out.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
They were seated in the courtyard, and Nikki wasn’t
surprised when Madame came out with more coffee,
pausing to fill her cup.
“You doing okay, Nikki?”
“Yes, thanks, Madame.”
“No, she’s not doing okay at all,” Julian said.
Nikki kicked him under the table.
“She’s seeing ghosts,” Julian said, grimacing and
rubbing his shin.
“Ghosts?” Madame said, not appearing shocked,
just concerned.
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129
“Andy comes and talks to her at night.”
“Julian!” Nikki could have kicked him again.
“Oh, Nikki,” Madame said with soft sympathy.
“This has been really hard on you, huh?”
She sighed. “I’m not ill, guys. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, you know I’m here for you, Nikki, if you
need me,” Madame said. She glared at Julian. “Some-
times…well, grief and trauma can do strange things.
Anytime you need to talk, you just come to me.”
“You going into palm reading, picking up the tarot,
Madame?” Julian asked.
She scowled at him. “What Nikki doesn’t need is for
her friends to make fun of her.”
“Ouch. Sorry,” Julian said.
Madame gave him a superior stare and moved on to
the next table.
“I’m going to strangle you,” Nikki hissed to him.
“Well, sorry, but you are seeing ghosts.”
“It’s not something we need to share. Not till I know
what’s really going on.”
“So you admit you may not really be seeing ghosts?”
She groaned. “Julian, I’m seeing them. Whether
that means that ghosts exist or that I’m losing my mind,
I’m not sure. The point is, one way or another, I’d
rather not share my state of confusion with the world.”
“Sorry…sorry,” he murmured quickly. “I just
thought that if I said it out loud like that, it would make
you…well, make you see that it’s kind of crazy.”
She glanced at her watch. “Meeting here, in ten
minutes.”
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Heather Graham
“Ten minutes?”
“It’s almost three.”
“Wow, the day just kind of went, huh?”
“Time flies when you’re talking to the cops, think-
ing you’ve seen dead men walking around and explain-
ing it all to a shrink,” she assured him.
“Hey, you know what we didn’t do?” Julian said.
“What?”
“Get the real lowdown on that guy…Tommyhawk
or whatever.”
“Blackhawk.”
“Yeah, yeah…he came up with that picture, you
recognized it, we were told the guy was dead…and you
freaked.”
“I didn’t freak.”
“You did.”
“All right, all right, so?”
“So we didn’t really find out anything about him,
either. The dead guy or Blackhawk. We really should
find out everything there is to find out about both of
them. The entire story about the dead guy.” He looked
around, as if he was suddenly afraid of being over-
heard. “Okay, point one. You may suddenly have the
ability to see ghosts. Point two—my personal choice—
the mind does play tricks. Because there’s something
in your mind that can’t quite get to the front burner but
should.”
“What does that mean?” Nikki demanded.
“Maybe you know something. Something you
shouldn’t know. And Andy knew it, too. Maybe you
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131
and Andy knew something that had to do with the guy
at Madame D’Orso’s.”
“The dead guy?”
“Yes, except maybe he wasn’t dead when you saw
him the first time.” He leaned closer still, a tone in his
voice that sent tremors down her spine. “Maybe he
said something, maybe there was something about
him…and Andy died because of it. And that…well,
that wouldn’t be good news for you.”
Nikki sat back, staring at Julian in horror. “What on
earth are you saying?”
Julian apparently realizing that he’d really fright-
ened her, sat back himself. “Nothing…nothing! I don’t
know.”
“Dammit, Julian…. You’re scaring me big-time.”
“I don’t want to scare you. I want you to be careful.
Beyond careful. Until the cops get…whoever. What
I’m saying is that we need to understand what’s going
on around here. Oh, what the hell do I know? I’m just
a storyteller.”
“But still…”
“But still, we have to keep living, breathing—work-
ing. Making our lives normal, right? And look, here
come the lovebirds, right on time. Right now we’ve got
to get on with the meeting.”
He stood. Nikki could see Patricia and Nathan com-
ing their way, both carrying cups of coffee.
She forced a smile, still plagued with goose bumps.
So Julian thought that she knew something.
What?
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Heather Graham
All she had done was give a guy twenty bucks.
A guy who had wound up dead.
And she was really seeing ghosts.
8
Though he was feeling increasingly curious about
Nikki DuMonde, Brent decided his best use of the early
afternoon would be a few hours spent in the local library.
He wondered why he hadn’t thought to come here
before. Maybe he had just considered old Huey to be
something of a whiner.
Growing up with a Lakota heritage had taught him
a lot about bitterness and chips on the shoulder, but the
past was just that—the past—and now people needed
to focus on entering the twenty-first century, reaping
the benefits of progress and technology, without los-
ing sight of a heritage that was something precious,
something to be preserved.
In Huey’s case, though, he had lived in the past. His
tormentor had a name. He should have looked into
Huey’s situation before this; he owed it to the old ghost.
Property records had been computerized by some
wondrous soul, and once he had homed in on the right
records using the family name, Brent had little diffi-
culty finding Huey’s sadistic master.
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Heather Graham
Archibald McManus.
Apparently old Archibald had inherited the planta-
tion from his father, who had worked hard to bring the
property along. He’d married three times, and his wives
had not fared well, either, each of them dying within a
few years of her marriage. Each marriage had pro-
duced a single child.
In 1861, soon after the outbreak of war but before
New Orleans had been taken over by the Yankees, there
had been a slave revolt. The plantation had caught fire.
There was no mention of what had happened to the
three McManus children, but Archibald’s body had
been found in the burned-out ruins of the grand foyer.
In pieces.
Not a happy ending. Not a death you would wish on
anyone.
And yet…
God alone knew whether or not McManus had prac-
ticed a brutality that had not only robbed his slaves of
their natural lifespan but of his young brides’, as well.
McManus’s remains had been interred on the prop-
erty—public land now, having reverted to the parish of
New Orleans. That was it. There was nothing more on
any descendants. Wife one had borne a girl, Theresa,
in 1848, wife two, a son, Alfred, in 1855, and wife
