The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (3 page)

The crew stopped work and pulled off their earmuffs. Three pairs of eyes stared at Collin.

“I said I’m going to talk to Elsa.”

A round of hoots followed the announcement of his intentions.

“Stop it, you lousy lot. This is about the plumbing and nothing else.”

Loud cackling followed him out the door. As soon as he reached the office behind the reception area, he heard Elsa’s overly cheerful voice. The woman sounded like she was masking stress with extreme politeness.

He peeked around the jamb and caught a glimpse of her face. Her neck had turned pinkish red. Her blonde ponytail trembled while the rest of her body remained rigidly still, a sure indicator that she was upset. He’d gotten that same reaction from her once. He closed his eyes to recall the moment. Hadn’t she said something unkind to him about returning to Ireland? He smiled. That memory still amused him.

Not wanting to add to her distress, he pulled back out of sight and leaned on the wall near the door.

“No. What time is good for you?” No modulation in her tone at all.

She paused for a moment.

“The lobby of the Sherwood. Seven. I’ll be there, Mr. Wakefield.” The lack of inflection in her voice suggested she wasn’t pleased, like she was being pressured to agree to the meeting.

Warning bells clanged in Collin’s head. Why couldn’t Wakefield come to the work site to meet with Elsa? No matter how hard she tried to keep the meeting professional, Wakefield could very well turn it into something else. It wouldn’t be the first time a Wakefield had become demanding with an employee to the point of sexual harassment. Men named Wakefield had the habit of becoming predators. Maybe this Wakefield wouldn’t, but Collin had his misgivings about the man. Even though he’d never met Les Wakefield, he’d heard enough about him to know he didn’t like him.

Inside the office, the wheels of Elsa’s rolling chair clattered across the makeshift plywood floor beneath the desk. He barged into the room as if he hadn’t been right outside the door. She raised her eyebrows, so he plunged straight into what he wanted to say.

“The plumbing needs rework. The plumber installed the lines six inches to the left of where they should be.” There, that was enough information she should be able to tackle the problem in whatever manner she chose. He dropped a piece of paper on her desk where he had sketched out the misplaced water lines.

She glanced at the paper and then at him. When she didn’t respond, the moment became awkward.

“Well, then, I’m back to work.” He left before she could hit him with a million questions.

And she would have grilled him, giving him very little time to answer. The barrage she usually hit him with sputtered like the fire from an automatic weapon.
Spat. Spat. Spat.

Elsa Madsen was the most energetic person he’d ever met. Full of ideas. Unafraid to meet a difficult challenge. She seemed to be everywhere all the time and appeared to have a difficult time settling down behind her desk. He had observed in her a twitchy restlessness as if she was always on the look out for a grand adventure.

He grinned as he considered Elsa’s personality. That kind of woman could wear a man out, but maybe he wouldn’t mind being exhausted. He shook his head. No sense in indulging in those kinds of thoughts about the woman. He had to get close enough to her to find out what she knew without becoming personally involved with her.

The lobby of the Sherwood would be busy, offering a multitude of places to loiter undetected. When it was time for Elsa to meet Les, Collin would already be there, waiting where he could watch them without being observed.

He didn’t like the eavesdropping, and he especially didn’t like the spying, but he had made Det. Nick Moreau a promise that he would find out how well Elsa knew Les. Although, from the way she had acted while she was on the phone with him, it didn’t appear that Elsa wanted to meet with Les.

****

Nick Moreau pulled the stack of case files toward him. Eight. He shoved them away and grunted with disgust. None of his pending cases had gone away while he recuperated.

He’d taken two bullets in his ten-year career, both of them in the last twelve months, and he had somehow managed to get back up on his feet both times. The next bullet might be… No, he couldn’t think about that. Facing down the barrel of a gun again was not on his must-do-before-I-die list.

The captain’s administrative assistant rushed through the area without breaking her stride. “Briefing in ten minutes.”

That explained the lack of activity in the squad room. Everyone was no doubt huddled around the coffeemaker filling their mugs before they settled in for one of the captain’s long-winded rants.

When Nick entered the meeting two minutes late, his uncle, Captain Ed Moreau, stopped mid-rant and nailed him with a hard glare. “Looks like we’re all here now. Thanks for joining us, Nick.”

Riley Fontenot spoke for the group, something he usually did, much to everyone’s irritation. “Thank God you’re back. No one wants to work with Petrie.”

Muffled laughter bounced around the room until the captain cleared his throat.

Nick caught his partner’s eye and grinned, hopefully sending him unspoken encouragement. Petrie returned his grin and then lowered his head. Thankfully, the guy wasn’t overly sensitive.

Petrie’s temporary partner probably hadn’t been as encouraging or as patient as Nick. Temporary was, after all, only temporary. Rookies took abuse, but Nick would have Petrie’s back just because Petrie was his partner. The squad needed to lighten up. Petrie had been a detective long enough he was almost past his rookie status.

Nick glanced at Maris Couvillian. She shook her head, an almost imperceptible movement. Apparently, Petrie had been spared the razor’s edge of Maris’s blunt personality. She rolled her eyes toward Alan Darrousette. Alan looked the most overjoyed to have Nick back on the job. Mystery solved.

Captain Moreau rambled on about assignments for a while. Near the end of the meeting, he announced that a consulting firm had studied reorganizing the Investigations Division, and some detectives would be reassigned to renamed squads within the next six months. A collective groan rose to the ceiling. Every few years when the brass took heat from the community for a policing disaster, the chiefs would hire a consultant to address the public relations nightmare, and the consultant would saddle them with a solution that didn’t work. The plan of action usually meant restructuring and disrupting the existing caseload.

This time it was probably Nick’s fault. The mishandling of the French Quarter Killer case was his mistake, yet somehow the captain had become embroiled in the public conflict that resulted. When the units were restructured, either Nick or Riley, or maybe even both of them, would be moved to another squad. They were Ed Moreau’s nephews, and the local press had screamed bloody murder when they had discovered the nepotism in Ed’s squad room. Charges of police cover ups soon followed, as if Ed would cover up anything for anybody. Ed was a by-the-book sort of cop, and he would send his own mother to jail if he had evidence she’d committed a crime.

The meeting ended with a bellow from Ed to get to work. Before everyone had shuffled out of the room, Ed grabbed Nick’s elbow and held him back. Once the room cleared, Ed dropped his boss persona. “Are you sure you’re ready to come back?”

“You got the medical report.”

“That jerk doctor would say anything to get a cop back on the job. I’m asking you as family. Are you ready?”

His uncle was one of the few people that knew there was more to Nick’s injury than a bullet wound.

“I’m fine.”

“How’s the girl?” Ed never could remember Jerilyn’s name.

“She’s going to be all right.” Eventually. Maybe.

“You won’t get distracted with phone calls from her ten times a day?”

Jeri had never, ever called him that many times in a day. Yeah, her situation had engrossed him for a few months, but that business had been resolved.

“She’s cool.”

“Okay, then. Get to work.”

Nick nodded and grinned. “Yes, sir.”

Once back in the squad room, Nick dropped into his task chair and scooted up to his desk. The folder on the top of the pile was the Brandon Wakefield fraud case. The case was not a homicide, but there had been a related murder in another jurisdiction and some of the fraud had occurred in New Orleans. Ed had reluctantly agreed that Nick could assist the sheriff in St. Denis Parish, mostly because the sheriff used to be a member of Ed’s squad when she was on the job in New Orleans. The fraud case had officially closed when Brandon Wakefield had hung himself. It had been almost a year, but Nick hadn’t yet sent the file to the storage room. Despite Brandon’s death, the case didn’t
feel
like it was closed.

Brandon had stolen the identity of a man from South Carolina named Les Wakefield. The two men were not related to each other, at least not by any common ancestors in modern history. As it turned out, the thief having the same last name as the victim was merely a coincidence, but it was a large one.

There was good reason to be suspicious of the real Les Wakefield. His reaction to finding out his identity had been stolen hadn’t seemed authentic. Even more suspicious, once he’d been named the true Wakefield heir, he’d inherited a large estate that he claimed he’d previously known nothing about, and when he had been told of its existence, he hadn’t reacted the way a normal person would have to the news. The sheriff in St. Denis had discovered that Wakefield had known about his inheritance before she’d told him about it. Why had the man lied about his prior knowledge?

The death of Brandon Wakefield had left too many questions unanswered. The strange behavior of Les Wakefield had only added to the mystery surrounding Wakefield Plantation. Collin McVey had told him Les had begun renovations on the old hotel in the Quarter. That had left a very sick feeling in the pit of Nick’s stomach. A Wakefield was in his town. Trouble followed men named Wakefield wherever they went.

Nick might have closed the Brandon Wakefield fraud case as far as the New Orleans Police Department was concerned, but his investigation of the Wakefield clan was far from over. Sometimes criminal acts had to be investigated off the record until there was good reason to make the investigation official.

Then, there was the other odd thing about Leslie Wakefield IV from South Carolina. Who knew what was really in the man’s gene pool? When the sheriff in St. Denis had requested a DNA profile for Les Wakefield, just to make sure the man was really the heir to the Wakefield estate, the results had been shockingly unbelievable. Nick still couldn’t believe a living man could have the exact same DNA profile as an ancestor who had been dead almost seventy-five years. That was supposed to be mathematically improbable.

Chapter Three

Collin was ten minutes early, and as far as he could tell, Les and Elsa hadn’t shown up yet. The Sherwood was tall, scraping the sky on the Canal Street end of the French Quarter. His entire house times six would fit into the spacious lobby. Les and Elsa could meet and leave without Collin ever seeing them.

He waited on the edge of the large crowded space, hovering behind a support column. A multitude of people entered the hotel from the street and traipsed across the polished marble floors to the bank of elevators. On the other side of the lobby from where he stood, a chain shop emitted the distinctive aroma of brewing coffee. He didn’t usually go for such an expensive cup of caffeine, but the smell was enticing.

He checked the time on his phone’s display. Just past seven. Maybe he’d missed them. He was about to give up and slip out, hopefully without being seen, when Elsa waltzed through the front door as if she owned the place. A grin spread across his face. The woman could project more self-confidence than anyone he’d ever met.

Collin stepped further back behind the column, but not so far that he couldn’t keep her in sight. She stopped in the center of the lobby and glanced around her. Her gaze strayed upward toward the balconies that accessed the meeting rooms on the second floor.

With a disgruntled expression on her face, she settled into a seat only a few feet away from him in a section of squishy-looking chairs grouped around oval, glass-topped tables. She messed with her phone for a while, and he guessed she was on a social media site the way she kept flicking her thumb up and down the display screen.

You should be on your guard with Les Wakefield.
He warned her as if she could hear him, as if they had some sort of mental telepathy.

After five or six minutes, Les appeared, coming toward Elsa at a brisk pace from the elevator bank. He halted in front of her chair, and when he cleared his throat, she finally glanced up at him. Collin got the impression that her delayed acknowledgement of Les’s presence was a calculated action.

“Mr. Wakefield, how are you this evening?” Her voice echoed around the open space, her volume a little louder than necessary. Was she nervous, or did she just want a witness to note her presence with Les Wakefield?

Guilt shot through Collin. He should have told her about Nick Moreau’s suspicions. The woman probably had no idea she might be in danger. Moreau hadn’t wanted to label the man as dangerous without something more to go on than his hunch, but maybe the cop was being too hesitant. Hadn’t Moreau gone through a lot of crap for accusing the wrong man of murder not more than six months ago? Moreau had taken a bullet because of his mistake. Collin hoped Elsa didn’t pay the price for Moreau’s reluctance.

Elsa stood until Les sat across from her. Then she retook her seat in a slow, graceful descent.

A busload of tourists entered the lobby from the garage side of the building, ramping up the decibels. After that, Les and Elsa’s conversation ebbed and flowed, but Collin couldn’t make out what they were saying. He had a clear view of Les’s face and the back of Elsa’s head. Wakefield projected the persona of a smooth, sophisticated man of means, a man with an aristocratic demeanor, a man used to having people leap at his demands.

Les must have said something Elsa didn’t like because she jumped to her feet. She retrieved a wad of papers from her bag on the floor and shoved the paperwork at Les, but he didn’t reach for the documents.

Collin dared to move closer so he could better hear their conversation.

Elsa lowered her stiff arm with the paperwork still gripped in her fist. “I thought we came here to discuss progress on the renovation.”

“That can wait. I’d like for us to get acquainted. I think we could be very good for each other.”

Elsa’s back stiffened, and her jaw jutted out. “I think we should stick to business, Mr. Wakefield.”

Les smiled, but no warmth reflected in his gaze. He peered at Elsa much like a hawk eyes its next meal. “I can introduce you to a lot of people, but I can also make it difficult for you to contract another project.” His even tone slipped out of his mouth smooth as silk.

“I have plans tonight.” She bit out her stiff answer.

A second passed before Les spoke again. “Break them.”

Collin closed his eyes for a moment. She might not forgive him for interfering, but that’s exactly what he was about to do. He circled around to the other side of the column as if he was coming from the side entrance and approached them from behind Les.

“Elsa, there you are.” He dared to walk past Les and kiss her on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late. We’re going to have to walk fast to make our reservation. Are you done here? I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

She had the presence of mind to take his lead. “Mr. Wakefield and I were just finishing up our meeting.”

Collin held out his hand to the man. “I’m Collin McVey, the foreman on the hotel project.”

Les appeared to be confused for a moment. His hand remained at his side, his attention on Elsa. “You’re seeing someone else?”

Collin dropped his arm, but left the fake smile on his face. “Really? She never mentioned it?”

Elsa grabbed her bag from the floor and shoved the paperwork at Les. “Let me know if you have any changes you’d like to make to the final plans.” When Les took the papers, she slipped her hand into the crook of Collin’s arm. “I’m ready to go.” She turned her gaze toward Les. “Have a good evening.”

The man pivoted on his heel and marched off toward the elevators.

Elsa waited until Les was out of sight before she spoke. “I think you pissed him off.”

“I’m not worried about him. Did I piss you off?”

“Not unless you came here on purpose to interfere with my meeting.” She smiled at him, clearly amused at what she must have thought was an unlikely possibility. When he didn’t respond, the smile dropped from her face. “You knew I was meeting him tonight, didn’t you?” She removed her hand from his arm. “Were you listening to my conversation with him on the phone?” She didn’t wait for Collin to respond. “You were outside my office door eavesdropping.”

He stepped back from her, afraid she’d punch him. “He was about to force you to go with him.”

She slipped the strap of her bag over her head. Her eyes narrowed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Sure, you can.” He wasn’t being sarcastic, but somehow his comment came out wrong.

“I’ve worked around men since I was fourteen years old. My dad’s construction crew could get kinda crude. Some of them put a move on me. If Dad had found out, those guys would have been dead, so I never told him. What he didn’t know didn’t hurt anyone.” She paused to catch her breath. “I’ve been pushing guys away from me since I was twelve. For some reason, they all think I’m easy just because I’m outgoing and I’m blonde. I’m not stupid, you know. I wasn’t going anywhere with him that I didn’t want to go.”

His heart faltered. Maybe she had wanted to go out with Les Wakefield. If that was the case, he was doubly glad he’d interrupted them.

“Oh, don’t get that look on your face, Collin McVey. I don’t want to go out with Les Wakefield. That’s just…” She cringed as if the thought nauseated her. “He’s implied before that he wanted to…get better acquainted with me. Whatever the hell that means. He probably just wants sex. I think he was about to come right out and say so. I don’t know what I would have said or done, but
that
isn’t happening.”

“Not unless he overpowers you and makes you.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“He’s a man. You’re a woman. And… You’re such a little thing.”

“Sure, Collin. I’m such a little thing.” Her loud sarcasm attracted the attention of a few people in the lobby. She reached into her bag and withdrew a stun gun. “But I pack one of these.”

He pushed her hand down and shoved the weapon back into her bag. “Put that away. It’s illegal to have that here.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Are you going to call the cops?”

He pulled his hand back and rubbed his neck where the tension had coiled tight.

She smiled sweetly. “I didn’t think so. Where do you think I got this? You can’t go down to the sporting goods store and buy one, you know. I know a cop. He got it for me.”

Collin shook his head. “Okay, then. You can take care of yourself. Excuse me for interfering. I’m gonna head on.” He turned to walk away.

“Wait a minute.” She grabbed his elbow.

He paused and glanced over his shoulder.

“I thought you were taking me to dinner.”

Was he?

“That’s what you told Les.”

That, he had.

The woman was full of surprises.

He grinned and offered her his arm, and once again she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. By the time they exited onto the street, the sun had gone to sleep for the night.

****

“You’re not off the hook for spying on me, you know.” Elsa swirled the ice in her water glass.

He had suggested a glass of wine, but she had declined without explanation. Maybe the woman didn’t want to drink with him.

He gazed at her through the dim lighting of the restaurant. “No, I don’t expect I am.”

“You’re sexist.” She raised her eyebrows as if expecting a defense for his behavior.

He smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

She traced the edge of her water glass with her fingertip. “I heard that you and your crew worked out at the old Wakefield Plantation house.”

Okay, if she wanted to change the subject, then he’d go right along with her down a different road. “Not this bunch. My last crew quit when I told them I was working for another Wakefield. They’re a superstitious lot.”

“Superstitious?” Her eyes lit with interest.

“Wakefield Manor is haunted. They weren’t going to work in another place owned by a Wakefield.”

She laughed with a large dollop of derision. “Ghosts? There’s no such thing as ghosts. Are you sure they didn’t refuse to work for you because you’re a…”

“I’m a what? Those guys are more sexist than I am. Leaving had nothing to do with me. I’m a good foreman. I pay my crew a fair wage, and I don’t bark at them… And I hired a woman.”

Her smile lit up the room. “So you think that means you’re not really sexist?”

He threw up his hands. “Oh, are we back to that now?”

She smiled. “You brought it up again. So tell me about these so-called ghosts.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. She knew she was leading him in every which direction.

“I’ll tell you about the one I saw with my own eyes.”

She leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “So tell.”

“Sophia and I went out to the Wakefield family cemetery—”

“Who’s Sophia?”

He suppressed a grin. Did he detect a hint of jealousy in her question?

“She’s Dylan’s girlfriend.”

“Who’s Dylan?”

“Let me tell the story.” He waited a moment, and when she didn’t comment again, he proceeded. “Did you hear about the man who stole Les’s identity?”

She nodded. He was surprised that she had.

“His name was Brandon Wakefield, no kin to Les. When he had control of the property, he hired Dylan to restore Wakefield Manor, and he hired Sophia to do the interior design restoration.” He chuckled. “That was kind of a tense working relationship until the two of them decided they were a couple again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, they had been together in college. I think he cheated on her. Lots of tension between those two.” He shook his head at the memories of working with them while they were pissed at each other.

“Most women don’t take cheating too well.”

She was right about that. Some of them threw things at a man for even looking at another woman. Collin rubbed the spot where he’d once been hit with a flying high-heeled shoe. He’d learned to keep his eyes to himself when he was with a woman. He imagined Elsa tossing her shoe at him and didn’t much care for the mental image.

“They were sharing a trailer at the work site. Well, you know, living so close together was a little bit tense. She told me they’d had a fight. He disappeared that night and didn’t show up for work the next day, so she asked me to help her find him. We searched the grounds, and that’s when we found the old Wakefield family cemetery.”

He would have expected Elsa to shiver. Instead, her eyes glowed bright with anticipation. “I bet that was creepy.”

“An old woman came out of the fog, like she’d materialized right out of the swamp.” He made a movement with his hands like a magician might when making something appear out of nothing. “The old woman said some crazy things. She scared Sophia, and Sophia doesn’t scare easy. Then the ghost appeared, all shiny and bright in this long flowing white dress. But it was her eyes that were so strange.”

“What did they look like?”

“They glowed bright white. Whiter than the white of her face if that’s possible. Just two balls of light. Hypnotizing. Like they could see into my soul. Made me want to crawl into a hole in the ground.”

“So then what happened?”