The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (20 page)

“I bet you do.” Petrie smiled with perfectly straight, glistening white teeth.

“But there are some delicate situations involved in all of this.”

“I don’t do cover ups.”

Nick snapped his reply. “I’m not talking about cover ups. I’m talking about handling things so they don’t blow up in
our
face and ruin
our
careers.” Like the French Quarter Killer case had almost ruined his uncle’s career because of Nick’s stubbornness. “Can you handle being discreet?”

“I think I understand what you’re saying. Go on.”

“I have three cases on my desk that I believe are related. The death of Audrey St. Clair has broken things loose…I think. For a long time, I didn’t get anywhere on the colder cases because I never connected them, but now that we’ve identified Tanya Delacroix, I’m starting to see…sense…how the evidence is all coming together. And the way these cases are fitting with each other scares the hell out of me.”

Petrie nodded. “I’ve lived in New Orleans long enough to know that anytime a Thoreau is involved things can get kind of dicey. So what three cases are connected? No, wait. I think I can guess by now.”

“Guess then.”

“Brandon Wakefield, Jane Doe, and Audrey St. Clair. Oh, and throw in the hit and run you just told me about. Jamie Thoreau. That’s four connected cases. How are they all related?”

Petrie could count better than Nick. Tying all four cases together would clear up half his caseload, unless of course, something else hit his desk, which was always a possibility. So Petrie had rifled through the files on his desk. He couldn’t reprimand the guy. Nick had done the same thing with the files on Charlotte’s desk when he was her junior partner.

“The Wakefield case is closed.” Nick held his breath, waiting for Petrie to react.

“Is it? Today, we saw a man who looks amazingly like Brandon Wakefield leave the Royale Chateau hotel with a trash bag full of old documents, and it’s obvious that you’re curious as hell about why he would do that. That case is anything but closed.”

Nick nodded. Petrie was right.

“That’s why the case file is still on your desk. You’re still investigating…who? The guy is supposed to be dead.” He paused, and then his eyes glittered with understanding. “Oh. I get it. You’re not investigating the dead guy. You’re investigating the guy whose identity he stole, the one that owns the hotel. It’s strange how the guy looks like the dead guy. What do you think Les Wakefield has done?”

“It’s just a gut feeling…”

“So? What is your gut feeling?”

“Les Wakefield, whoever he is, had something to do with Tanya Delacroix’s death.” He let that sink in before he spoke again. “Because of all the identity confusion…something isn’t right about the man. Something isn’t right about that whole Wakefield clan. I think Les Wakefield is dangerous, and I don’t want to wait until he does something. I want to stop it before it happens.”

“Okay. What’s next?”

Good. He had managed to talk through his fears without mentioning anything paranormal. Had Petrie noticed the omission?

Before Nick could answer his question, Petrie’s cell buzzed like a swarm of bees. The man’s ringtone irritated the snot out of Nick. Petrie held up one finger while he listened to the caller.

“Okay.”

Another second or two passed.

“I’ll get back to you before the night is over.”

Before he disconnected the call, his face had flushed with excitement.

“That was Dixie Thoreau. She told her husband about my visit to Bitsy St. Clair. She said Thoreau is very upset, and he wants to meet with us.”

Moreau liked the idea of making Thoreau sweat a little. “Call her back. Tell her we’ll meet with him tomorrow. Get his cell phone number.”

Petrie did as he asked. Nick could tell that Dixie didn’t want to give up Dallas’s cell number, but if the man wanted to meet, they’d meet on Nick’s terms. Petrie smiled and showed the number to Nick. He added Dallas Thoreau’s digits to his contacts.

“I could tell he was in the background telling her what to say.”

He’d work Thoreau’s anxiety. For the first time, Nick felt like he had the advantage over Dallas Thoreau.

Nick dropped some cash on the bar. “Let’s call it a day. I’m beat.”

Chapter Fifteen

The day had dawned sunny and clear. For once, the air wasn’t weighted with a heavy load of moisture, a rare occurrence in south Louisiana. Looking up into the cloudless, blue sky, it was hard for Collin to believe that life could be anything but good.
Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Elsa and Sophia had seemed to hit it off, gabbing as if they were old friends by the time Dylan and Collin had left them. He’d hated lying to Elsa about his plans for the day, but she would have begged him to stay away from the hotel. No, she would have insisted on coming with him. He’d left with Dylan under the pretense of meeting with a potential new client.

Sophia had tilted her head and squinted at them as if she knew they were lying, but she had kept her suspicions to herself if she had them. Elsa had turned her head as if she didn’t want to meet Collin’s eyes. A stab of guilt shot through him.

Collin and Dylan had come to the hotel with sledgehammers, prepared to do some damage. Truthfully, Collin was angry enough at the spirit that had harassed Elsa that he wanted to annihilate the son-of-a-bitch and send him straight to hell where he belonged. If he couldn’t kill the spirit, destroying his habitat was the second best thing.

“Moreau isn’t going to be happy.” Dylan Hunter stared at the hole that Collin had previously made in the wall.

Collin shook his head. “Right now, I don’t really care what makes him happy. Elsa is miserable, and I need this to be over.”

“How long have you known her? She’s already got you whipped.”

Collin grunted. He wasn’t going to defend his relationship with Elsa. He’d observed Dylan’s interactions with Sophia. The man should shut up. Sophia had Dylan right where she wanted him, and the man seemed happy with his situation.

No, he hadn’t known Elsa very long, but the woman had yanked his heart clean out of his chest and refused to give it back. Opposites attract, right? Her focused determination about everything offset his easy-going personality. He’d never been involved in such an intense relationship, and she claimed she’d never felt so open to letting life happen. His spontaneity offset her need to be in control. Sure, sparks flew between them, but he loved the fire they generated.

The need to go back to her and hold her socked him in the heart. The memory of her lips, how her body molded to his…

Dylan smacked Collin on the shoulder. “Hey, where’d you go?”

Collin smiled and shook his head.

Dylan snorted as if he knew exactly where Collin’s mind had gone. Dylan took a step closer to the rupture in the wall and peered through the gap. “Doesn’t seem sinister in there to me. Just looks like a hallway.”

“Yeah, it’s a hallway that’s been hidden for years, maybe decades. You don’t think there’s anything weird about that?”

“Now, I didn’t say it was normal. I said it doesn’t look sinister.”

There was no need to minimize the weird vibe the place put off. Dylan had lived through some seriously sinister events, but dammit, this wasn’t a competition.

“It never looks sinister with the lights on.” Collin mumbled his objection to Dylan’s light-hearted, dismissive attitude. The guy could be a jerk.

The sun shot fingers of golden light through the windows that faced the walkway and the courtyard. Even with the lights off, the atmosphere in the room seemed less ominous. Just to be on the safe side, in case they needed to make a quick escape, they’d slid out the hinges and removed the door.

Dylan knocked on the wall as if searching for hollow spots.

Collin smothered a laugh. “What are you doing? We already know there’s a hall on the other side of the wall.”

Collin had told him of the previous night’s adventures. Elsa had added her own harrowing story about her hallucination while she was behind the wall. It wasn’t like Dylan was going into the situation in the dark.

“I was locating the studs. If they’re load-bearing, we don’t want to bring the roof down on us, do we?”

Collin nodded at the wall. “You go first.” He recalled when he’d said the same thing to Elsa. That had been the beginning of the most frightening experience of his life. He’d be damned if he’d let Dylan minimize it.

He had dared to return to the hotel because he wanted his happily ever after with Elsa to begin, and he wasn’t sure it would until she could breathe easier knowing a malicious spirit wasn’t going to invade her soul and take her life. If Collin demolished the wall, then whatever lay hidden behind the plaster would be exposed. Maybe the spirit that wandered the hotel would no longer have a place to hide. Maybe the light would kill the spirit’s dark force. The presence of light had lifted the oppression before. Maybe it could do it again.

Collin’s grandmother had warned him many years ago to stay away from such dark forces, but he couldn’t. Not when Elsa’s life and happiness, maybe even her sanity, were at stake.

It had taken Dylan and Collin almost an hour to drag the furniture out of the room and store it next door. Elsa would have had a fit if their demolition efforts had ruined the valuable antiques. Collin wasn’t much for old stuff, but Elsa always got a glow on her face when she was going on about the authenticity of furnishing the hotel in period pieces from the era in which the hotel was built. He sighed. Elsa had dreams of turning the dump into a luxurious hotel and returning the place to its former elegance. That wasn’t going to happen. Neither of them could work with Les Wakefield any longer.

“The temperature just dropped.” Dylan shivered and slipped a mask over his mouth and nose.

Collin positioned his mask on his face and stared at the spot on the wall where he planned to make his first strike. He lifted a sledgehammer from the floor, tightened his grip on the handle, and prepared to bust out a piece of wall. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. A cold breeze brushed across his skin, causing chill bumps to form.

Dylan lowered his hammer and brushed the back of his head. “Is something crawling in my hair?”

Collin glanced at the other man’s head. “It’s just the creepy getting to you. Let’s get this done.”

Dylan made the first hit, followed by Collin. Back and forth they went, taking turns slamming their hammers into the plaster. The longer he worked at bringing the wall down, the heavier his hammer became. He was about to stop for a break when the last chunk of plaster dropped to the floor. The hall and the three rooms along it were no longer hidden.

“So are we gonna tear those rooms out too?”

Collin considered Dylan’s question. The original site plans didn’t show the additional rooms on the back of the third floor. If he got rid of them, how would Les Wakefield ever prove the rooms still existed? No, he didn’t believe Wakefield would say or do anything for fear of exposing his secrets. Sure, Elsa had found mention of the servants’ quarters in a very old book, but the hotel’s original floor plan had obviously been modified since the book was written. If not for the mention in the book, would anyone ever remember the hotel had servants’ quarters? Probably not.

Was demolishing the rooms necessary to thwarting the forces of darkness that hovered over the place? He glanced toward the stairwell. That end of the hall disappeared into semi-darkness. He avoided answering Dylan’s question by offering a different objective. “I want to see what’s at the bottom of those stairs.”

Dylan dropped his hammer to the floor and reached into his toolbox for a high-beam flashlight. “Okay, let’s go.” He headed down the hall never breaking his steady pace. The man rushed in when it might be wiser to consider all the options first. It was Dylan’s style.

Collin retrieved his light and jogged to keep up. Being alone in the corner room was not his idea of fun. He rushed down the stairs, close on Dylan’s heels, and reached the bottom in a matter of seconds. The combined light of their flashlights provided a surreal illumination to the space. To Collin’s surprise, there was a steel door at the bottom just as Elsa had said there would be. His nervous system jumped, sending a wave of jitters up from his feet, through his body, and all the way to the tips of his fingers. The narrow width of the stairs closed in on him. The urge to run nearly caused him to turn and race back up the stairs.

The metal door wasn’t merely a part of Elsa’s overactive imagination. Someone or something had planted the image in her mind.

Dylan banged on the door with the end of his flashlight. “It’s hollow core.”

Collin noted the absence of a doorknob. “Let’s shove on it and see if it moves.”

Together they leaned their shoulders against the door, and to Collin’s surprise, it moved a few inches.

“Something is blocking it on the other side.” Dylan grunted his observation, ceased his efforts to open the door, and brushed dust and cobwebs from his shirt. “Whatever is on the other side, it’s too heavy for us to move.”

Collin studied the door and guessed its location. “The kitchen pantry should be on the other side. I’ve gone inside the pantry several times, but I don’t remember seeing a door.”

Dylan turned his light upward toward the landing. “Let’s go to the pantry and see if we can find the other side of the door then.”

That meant climbing the stairs, taking the walkways, and going back down the front stairs. The thought made Collin weary. Their trip down the stairs and the climb back upstairs seemed anti-climactic. He had expected something to happen, like a paranormal manifestation of a dark spirit trying to prevent him from exposing its dark secrets. As it turned out, the stairs were only stairs, not a portal to another dimension. And the door was just a door that probably gave servants access to the pantry and the kitchen beyond it without passing the guest rooms.

Disappointment crept into his soul. Why hadn’t he been able to draw the spirits out and end this thing? The hotel was haunted. He’d seen the manifestation of the spirits that remained there. He’d felt their presence.

As he cleared the top of the stairs, a quiet voice whispered across his spirit, burrowing deep into his soul.

Elsa is the only one who can see us.

The inaudible message startled him. “I made a mistake.”

Dylan dropped is flashlight into his toolbox and turned toward Collin. “What’s that?”

“I wanted to keep Elsa away from here for her own good, but the spirits can’t rest here without her help, and I don’t think she’ll be able to rest until she helps them find their peace. Every time she experiences something here, it messes with her mind. She’s a strong person, but the hits to her psyche…they keep chipping away at her. I don’t want her coming back here, but she’s the only one who can help them.”

Dylan’s eyebrows drew together, bunching across the bridge of his nose. “How do you know that?”

“One of them just told me so.”

Dylan laughed. “Are you saying you can hear spirits, Collin?”

“I inherited the gift from my grandmother.”

He’d always denied it, had always shied away from his gift, never deliberately put himself in situations where he might explore the gift’s potential. He’d left Wakefield Manor before he’d ever had the opportunity, and he had been grateful for the excuse to run away from the possibility. He’d never even acknowledged he had the gift until he’d met Elsa.

“Have you ever met Jordan Clark? He says he can feel how many spirits are haunting place. I think both of you are cracked.”

Collin wasn’t going to argue. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Talking and walking usually didn’t bother him, but he was huffing and puffing by the time he reached the pantry. The trip through the hotel had flown by while he tangled with his inner thoughts. He’d found the other side of the door in the pantry just where he thought it would be and banged his fist on the partially open steel door.

Collin laughed. “It’s just a door.”

Dylan joined him in his feeble attempt at being amused. “Nothing sinister about that.”

Were they both allowing their relief to spill over into laughter? Collin had a bad feeling that they were relaxing too soon.

He kicked the shelving unit that had been nudged when they had pushed on the metal door from the stairwell side. “I might have seen the door sooner if it hadn’t been for the shelving blocking it from view.”

Dylan scraped the toe of his boot across the floor. “That shelf has been moved back and forth away from the door more than once. Look at the scratches on the floor.”

Collin squatted next to the shelves. “You’re right.”

Dylan lowered his tall frame into a squat next to Collin. “You think Les knows about this back way into the servants’ quarters?”

“That would explain why there was a fresh rose on Delia DeCuir’s pillow. She’s been dead since 1967, you know. If she’d been given a rose back then, then it would be dust by now.”

Dylan grunted as he straightened into a standing position. “I know the sheriff in Wakefield said the DNA results proved that Les was the great-grandson of the first Les Wakefield, but…”

“After what Moreau told us about that weird stuff with the DNA, I’m starting to wonder…”

“If there really is a legitimate heir to the Wakefield bloodline.” Dylan shivered as if the cold had settled into his bones. “How would anyone be able to know for sure if the DNA results can’t be relied upon to verify identity?”

Were they finishing each other’s thoughts now?