The House on Prytania (Royal Street #2)(17)
Author: Karen White
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been speaking with Samantha?”
At her blank look, I added, “His girlfriend and podcast partner.”
“I know who she is. Why would you ask?”
“Because she and I just had an almost identical conversation. I told her I didn’t want to get involved because . . . well, it would mean me rekindling a relationship with Michael Hebert, a close family relation to the people responsible for your abduction. I thought I’d made it clear that I would rather stick knitting needles in my eyeballs than ever speak with him again, but she thinks I’m considering it because I should want to get back at Michael. You can ask Beau if you want to know all the sordid details.”
“I know. He told me. Which made me think you might be up for some revenge.”
I stood. “Why does everyone seem to think I’m motivated by revenge? I just want to leave it all behind me.”
She held my gaze. “Even if it means saving a life? Because Beau’s not going to stop until the Broussard family stops him. Permanently. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. Could you?”
I was spared from answering by a soft knock on the door and then Jolene’s voice from the other side. “Is everything all right?”
I gratefully opened the door. “Yeah. We were just chatting and getting to know each other.” I felt Sunny watching me.
“I’ve been sent to let you know that supper is on the table. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m so hungry I could eat the butt off a hobbyhorse.”
Sunny approached, and I smelled the faint scent of cigarettes again. With an accent that mimicked Jolene’s, Sunny said, “And I’m so hungry I could eat the paint off the walls.”
Jolene sent her an appreciative look. “Well, my goodness, Sunny. You sound just like my cousin Speedy. Her real name is Darlene, but no one has ever called her that, since she’s slow as molasses, but she was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta and has an accent to prove it.”
Sunny absently rubbed at her wrist tattoo, reminding me of Beau and his rubber-band-snapping habit. “Thank you. I’m a quick study. I guess I had to be. With my dad’s job in the Air Force and us moving around so much, I picked up accents wherever we lived, just to fit in. I think I learned that one when Dad was stationed at Barksdale, in Bossier City, Louisiana.”
“Well, I’m impressed, and that’s saying something.” Jolene stepped out into the hallway. “We should hurry. There’s nothing worse than cold hush puppies.”
Sunny put a hand on my arm, holding me back. In an almost-whisper, she said, “Will you think about what I said?”
She dropped her hand, her gaze lingering on mine for a long moment before she followed Jolene into the hall and down the stairs. I paused in the doorway, her words having hit me like a hard shove. My stomach churned as I saw from Sunny’s perspective my reluctance to help—a petty, self-absorbed reaction to a betrayal, and embarrassment about having been played. Yes, Michael had broken my heart and I wasn’t completely sure that I was over him. Yet I couldn’t dismiss the small tingle of excitement at the possibility of revenge. Or the actuality that I might protect Beau from real harm.
I hurried down the steps to where Sunny and Jolene waited for me in front of Charles Ryan’s portrait in the foyer. A cool breeze blew at my face, moving my hair. Sunny shivered, her gaze darting between Jolene and me. “Please don’t think I’m weird or anything, but is this house supposed to be haunted?”
We found ourselves gazing at the portrait of Charles Ryan, his painted eyes boring into mine. “Well,” Jolene said, “it would depend on how you define the word ‘haunted,’ but I will share with you two of the most important things my grandmama taught me.” She began counting off points, starting with her thumb. “The first is that all old houses are full of memories of those who’ve passed on, so cold spots and shadows are as much a part of the house as wood rot and creaky floors.”
She dropped her hand and headed toward the dining room, and Sunny and I followed her like ducklings waiting for bread crumbs. “What’s the second thing?” Sunny asked.
Jolene paused at the threshold. With a serious voice, she said, “Never iron or fry chicken naked.”
* * *
• • •
My feet pounded against the asphalt running path at Audubon Park as I finished my third lap around the lagoon. Because of the whole Michael Hebert thing, I hadn’t previously returned to what had once been part of my daily routine. The park was where we’d first met, and he lived across the street, on Audubon Place, making my chances of running into him fairly high. Which was exactly the reason why I’d been avoiding the park until now. I wasn’t sure why, since Michael should be the one avoiding me. But the lingering thought that he might want to see me made me both hopeful and terrified that I’d run into him. And despite having been given a script from Sam as to what I should say to Michael should I see him, I still wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth if I did.
Jolene had been awake before me, as was her annoying habit—annoying except for the freshly brewed coffee and hot muffin she had waiting for me on the table—and she’d forced me into hot pink running shorts with a coordinating top. Even the socks matched. She seemed to think that I had a better chance of encouraging Michael’s attention if I wore something other than my usual running clothes. Which, according to Jolene, were a cross between her grandpa’s hand-me-downs and Goodwill rejects.
I slowed my pace to check my fitness tracker, debating whether I needed a fourth lap. Eating baked goods every day, complete with gluten and white flour—previously not words in my vocabulary—was a great motivator. But I was tired, having stayed up too late the night before trying to find the right notes to the song I’d been writing since I’d moved to New Orleans. I’d written a whole line—hardly enough to make the loss of sleep worthwhile.
I pulled my phone from the handy side pocket in Jolene’s running shorts and made my way to a bench by the fountain at the front of the park. I opened my fitness app to check on my running partners, Melanie and my aunt Jayne, and noticed that Melanie had again “forgotten” to turn on the app, so nothing had been updated since her last run. She usually made up for this lapse in memory by manually inputting her stats, which always made me roll my eyes. Either she was running both ways between her house and her favorite doughnut shop, Glazed Donuts on King, or she was stretching the truth. Or both.
An incoming text beeped from Melanie. I opened her garbled message, stifling an inner groan as I prepared my brain for a workout. For a person who was otherwise thin, she apparently had very fat thumbs, so her accuracy rate while texting was about five percent, and if she attempted voice dictation, Siri thought she was speaking Swahili, which made for very interesting messages. It had taken me years to be able to translate her texts, but I was an expert now. The biggest challenge was filling in the empty spaces in words where bottom-row letters on the keyboard should be but weren’t since she always missed them and hit the space bar instead.