Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (26 page)

“Can they not just email it over?” I
asked.

The suggestion made Joshua give a short bark
of a laughter. “Aside from the fact the servers are backed up with
everyone trying to save their work, the request won’t fall high on
the list of priorities.”

“Well, can it not wait until after the
storm?” I asked. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but surely a couple
of days weren’t going to hurt?

Joshua shrugged. “Probably.”

I bit my lip and slid into the chair next to
him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He lifted his head from his hand to look at
me, his ocean blue eyes unblinking. “Not here.”

I nodded and together we stood. I waited
while he took some notes and then watched as he pulled his phone
out of his pocket and took pictures of the board. He turned, caught
me staring, but softly shook his head as he slipped the phone into
his pocket. “Come on,” he muttered, holding the door open for
me.

I stepped out into the corridor, surprised to
watch him step out and lock the door behind us. Maybe I had trust
issues with angels and their lack of locking anything, but surely,
if you’re going to leave anything unlocked, it would be in a police
station? And more to the point, who would want to steal
paperwork?

I followed Joshua outside into the late
afternoon sun – a hotter and more humid version of the morning sun,
and then followed him to his car. Silently we got in. Once again,
it was like an oven in there. Joshua turned the air up and the
radio on and we pulled away.

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at
today’s choice in music. “Country? Seriously?”

I wasn’t trying to be funny, but it earned me
a sly grin off Joshua, who leaned forward and turned the volume up
to sing along with the song. I don’t like country music, but I’ll
be completely honest, if Joshua had pulled out a guitar and started
singing an acoustic version of this song, at that moment, I would
have been converted. As it was, I was finding a new appreciation
for the musical genre.

After a while, I leaned over and turned the
radio down, somewhat reluctantly by that point. “What didn’t you
want to tell me in the precinct?”

We drove several blocks before he answered. I
was almost certain he was ignoring my question and I had opened my
mouth to repeat it when he finally spoke. “Someone removed
information from those files. Someone in that office.”

“Surely it’s plausible for a few sheets of
paper to be missing when they’re transported over, or a detective
to leave a sheet on his desk, especially considering you said
everyone was worrying about this hurricane?”

“Sure it’s plausible,” he agreed. “But it
wasn’t a couple of sheets. It was almost everything of importance.
And I could understand it if it was one case file and one
detective, but three of the guys I spoke to were adamant that those
files contained significantly more information than we received.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “You can’t possibly believe it was a
coincidence that the files that you deemed relevant to this serial
killer were the ones where the information went missing.”

I frowned. That seemed a little extreme. “You
mean like a mole?” I asked him, slowly.

Joshua shook his head. “This isn’t a
television show with a governmental conspiracy, Angel.”

“Well I wasn’t comparing you to Jack Bauer,”
I told him, dryly. “But how can you be certain? I mean, why would
anyone in there want to remove evidence? You’re the police.”

He gave me a wry smile. “You’re either
incredibly naive or you really want to believe the best in
people.”

I frowned, unsure if that was a compliment or
an insult. “But why on earth would someone want to take the
information from you, unless... unless they were trying to protect
someone?” I asked, feeling stupid as I asked it.

“Exactly,” Joshua muttered, exhaling deeply,
as we stopped at a red light.

“You think,” I started slowly, mulling it
over before I voiced my crazy suspicion. “You think that there is
an officer who has something to do with these murders?”

There was another long pause and Joshua took
a deep breath, turning to face me. “I hope not,” he told me.
“Because those guys are my friends, and I can’t, for one moment,
believe that one of them would be capable of doing that, but I
can’t think of any other possible explanation as to why that
information would be missing like it is.”

I stared back at him, chewing at my lip. The
look in his eyes was almost begging me to tell him he was wrong –
that it wasn’t possible and he was just imagining things – but as I
thought about it more and more, I could see exactly why he thought
that.

A car honking behind us broke our gaze, and
we both looked ahead to see the light had turned green. Joshua
pulled away, keeping his attention on the traffic. “So how do we
prove that theory wrong? Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

“Who do I tell?” he asked me. “I told you –
they’re my friends: people who have worked on the force for years.
Respected and decorated cops. I feel wrong for even contemplating
that one of them could be the person who did it, much less that one
of them could be capable of hindering an investigation like that. I
would rather...” he trailed off.

“See where the evidence leads before pointing
fingers?” I finished quietly. Joshua nodded. “So how do we do
that?”

“We start by filling in the blanks,” Joshua
told me. “We find out what information was missing, and we try to
work out the connection.”

“And where do we start with that?” I asked
him.

“At the beginning with the first case,” he
replied. He glanced in my direction and shrugged. “Well, the second
case.”

“Technically, it’s the third,” I mumbled,
staring out the window as we headed east. The further east we went,
deeper into one of the Wards, the worse the houses were looking.
There were some that had either survived Katrina remarkably well,
or someone had spent time rebuilding and fixing, but sadly, there
were still far too many which had been left in the same state
Katrina had left them nearly a decade ago.

The house we pulled up outside of looked
considerably worse than the abandoned ones on either side, which
still had the faded black spray-painted marks by the door,
indicating they had been checked for bodies. The lawn was
reasonably well kept, except for the area around a car which looked
like it was becoming a permanent fixture.

It had a long drive, with a tattered looking
trailer parked on it. Outside of the trailer was an elderly
gentleman sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe. He watched us
with mild interest as we walked up to him. “Mr. Johnston?” Joshua
asked. The man just jabbed his hand at the trailer’s front
door.

I couldn’t stop my eyebrow from curving up,
but I said nothing, instead following Joshua to the door. He pulled
back the storm door, which was hanging on by two loose screws at
the top, and fell to an awkward angle as he opened it. Carefully,
he knocked on the door and stepped in.

It was dark inside, especially after the
bright sunlight outside, but it was just as warm. There was a woman
at the sink, washing dishes, while, sitting in the back, hidden in
shadows, was another figure, huddled in a chair. “Mrs. Johnston?”
Joshua said, directing his attention to the woman at the sink.

She turned and I was shocked to see she was
probably younger than the man outside – maybe only in her forties –
but from the way her back had hunched over the sink, and the gray
in her tight, curly hair, I was certain she had been at least
twenty years older. There was also no doubt in my mind that this
was Preston’s mother. A quick glance at Joshua told me he too had
picked up on the family resemblance instantly.

“Who wants to know?” Mrs. Johnston asked,
wearily.

“I’m Detective Walsh, with the NOPD,” Joshua
told her, producing his ID. “I’m here to ask you some questions
about Preston, ma’am.”

“
More questions?” she asked, wiping her
hands down. “How could y’all possibly have
more
questions?”

“We’re from a different precinct,” Joshua
explained. “It shouldn’t take long, but we have some new
information which might be relevant to your son’s killer.”

“My son was a good boy,” Mrs. Johnston said,
becoming defensive. “I don’t want to hear nothing about him being
in any gangs, because Preston was not like that. He was going to
graduate college and be the first in this family to get an
education.”

Joshua softly shook his head. “This lead
doesn’t involve gangs, ma’am, you have my word.” I thought she was
going to cry, but she nodded, and leaned back against the side, her
knuckles purpling as she grasped tightly to the counter top. “I
just want you to tell me about the night he died. Do you remember
what he said he was going to do?”

“Of course I did, like I told the last
detective,” she snapped at us.

“I know,” Joshua agreed, quickly, much to my
surprise. “But I need to hear this in your own words, without me
suggesting anything.”

Mrs. Johnston’s expression softened. “He was
heading to the Quarter. Said something about a new bar.”

I was trying to pay attention, but the
strangest thing was happening. The area around Mrs. Johnston was
beginning to glow, like someone had stuck a spotlight behind her
and the light was shining around the edges. Only this light was
green. A rich, leafy green. It should have been pretty, but it left
me feeling uneasy, especially with the light around her heart. This
light was even more disconcerting. It looked dirty… like whites
that had long since lost their brightness with too many washes, and
were now gray.

“She hurts, child.”

The voice was soft but gravelly. Low enough
that Joshua and Mrs. Johnston hadn’t heard it, or were perhaps
ignoring it. It sounded really weathered. I gave Joshua a quick
glance – just to see if he was choosing to ignore it – and was
almost blinded by the light of his aura. I had never seen it
before, but he glowed, bathed in a beautiful silver light, which
was so warm, and so inviting, it was calling at me to stay close to
him.

“You be seein’ dem, don’tcha.”

It should have been a question, but it
wasn’t. I turned my head to the purple light I could see from the
corner of my eye. This royal purple was radiating from the woman in
the corner and was just as inviting as the silver of Joshua’s.

Almost in a trance like state, I left
Joshua’s side and moved over to the woman. If Mrs. Johnston looked
old, this woman looked like she had several centuries on her. She
was tiny, lost in the chair and blankets she was wrapped up in,
despite the uncomfortable warmth. She looked as faded and withered
as the neglected buildings outside, but her eyes sparkled like
onyx.

“You be one of dem, ain’tcha.”

Again, it wasn’t a question. I perched on the
armchair opposite and nodded. “How do you know?”

“You glow like dat boy does,” she told me. A
small smile crept across her face as I tried to see the glowing
light I was supposed to emit. “Doze like you can never be seein’
your own aura, child.”

“What’s it like?” I whispered, my eyes again
attracted to the purple light around her, wishing I could see that
around me.

“We no share de same color,” she told me,
somehow knowing what I was thinking. “And it not the same as the
boy. Yours be white. Pure white, like lightnin’, and you light up
the room like lightnin’ too.”

“Does that mean something?” I asked her.

“Of course it do, child,” she said, chuckling
to herself. “It means you be special. But you be knowin’ dat.”

I looked back at Joshua. He was nodding his
head at something Mrs. Johnston was telling him, frowning slightly
in concentration. Even from here, the silver was still mesmerizing.
“What about Joshua’s?” When she didn’t answer, I looked back to
her, surprised to see the knowing smile on her face. “What?” I
asked, suspiciously.

“You know auras be tellin’ a person a lot
about dem,” she chuckled. “I see dat pink.”

My head swung back around as I studied
Joshua’s aura. It was completely silver. I glanced back at the old
woman with a frown. “What pink?” I blinked and looked back at
Joshua. As quickly had they come, the auras were gone.

“Dey gone nowhere,” the woman assured me.
“You just be faulty. He have the pink too, but I be seeing it when
he looks atchoo. But I be talkin’ ‘bout de pink in you, child. You
two be havin’ such a clear, pretty pink. None of dat baby pink – it
be bright. You be likin’ him.”

“What does the green mean?” I asked her
quickly. “It didn’t feel…” I couldn’t work out what word I was
looking for, but the woman seemed to know.

“Happy?” she suggested. “She be mournin’, but
it be de gray dat be de problem. She be blamin’ herself for
Preston’s death an’ de fear be sittin’ round dat heart of
hers.”

My attention turned back to the woman in
question. Her arms had snaked around her own waist and I could see
the pain in her eyes. It was like she was literally holding herself
together. I could tell Joshua could see it too. I couldn’t hear
what he was telling her, but she was nodding at him and allowing
him to hold her arm. The way she spoke about her son made me wonder
what color her aura had been before Preston had died.

Which suddenly made an idea pop into my head.
I turned back to the woman. “Ma’am,” I muttered, thinking the idea
through in my head so that I didn’t hear what she said. I shook my
head. “Excuse me?”

“You be callin’ me Mama, child,” she told me,
snuggling further back into the worn chair. “Nobody be calling me
anythin’ other den Mama Laveau.”

“What are you?” I blurted out before I could
stop myself.

The woman laughed before I could apologize
for my rudeness. “I be many things. Witch doctor, oracle, Voodoo
Queen...”