The Perfect Stranger (4 page)

Frowning, Saura looked from Renee to the old rosewood secretary she’d picked up for a song at a local antique shop. But she did not allow herself to look through the glass doors, did not allow herself to see a thirteen-year-old Gabe grinning back at her through the shadows of time. But she saw anyway, just as she always did. Dressed in swim trunks, her lanky cousin had one hand outstretched in the peace sign, his other draped around his little sister. Cain clowned around in the background. Laughing, Saura had taken the shot.

Only a few days later all that carefree innocence had been shattered by one well-placed bullet.

“I stopped by his house this morning.” King cake in hand, she’d hoped to get him to open up to her, answer a few questions. “But he didn’t answer the door.”

“Was he home?”

“Not sure. His car was there, but the house was dark.”

Renee let out a deep breath. “He breaks my heart.”

Saura’s, too. She took another sip of water and sat on the edge of an old floral wing chair, toed off her sneakers. “I—” She glanced at the picture, decided against saying anything prematurely. “I might know a way to help him.” If only Saura could find the one person who could make a difference to Gabe—if only she was alive.

“But you’re not going to tell me.”

“Not yet.”

Renee drew her knees up against her chest and studied Saura, as if trying to decide how hard to push. An investigative reporter by training, her friend was not one to take no for an answer—unless she wanted something in return. “You okay?” This time her voice was softer. “You seem…distracted.”

“Just tired,” Saura started to deflect, but something stopped her. For almost two years there’d been no one. Savannah had been gone, Adrian dead, Cain in his own private hell. In the space of only a few months she’d lost them all. And during that time, she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten what it was to share. To give and to take. To sit up late at night, with hot chocolate and bottles of toenail polish, trading gossip and making plans.

But now—the realization of just how badly she wanted it all back closed like a fist around her throat.

“There was this man.” Just saying the words felt odd, like taking off a pair of dark sunglasses and bracing for the harsh light of the sun. “A few weeks ago. At Lucky’s.”

Renee leaned forward. “A man?”

Saura was a thirty-two-year-old woman. She was single. She’d never shied away from risk—or opportunity. The fact there’d been a man should not have made an odd light glimmer in her friend’s eyes. “A stranger,” she clarified. “He pretty much kept to himself.” Except for close to three explicit hours. Then he’d done anything but keep to himself. “Do you remember hearing anything? Maybe Cain said something?”

“Unless he works for Lambert, I’m afraid I’m drawing a blank.”

Saura stiffened. “Lambert?”

“Cain thinks he had something to do with Alec’s death.”

The low buzz started within her. Saura knew what her brother and her uncle thought—she’d overheard them several times. She’d seen their file. That was a big part of why she’d come to New Orleans.

Alec Prejean had been her friend. He’d also been her brother’s partner before Cain had been forced to leave the NOPD. In the months before Alec’s death, his life had spun out of control in ways Saura would never forgive herself for not noticing. She owed it to him to find out what had gone wrong, and who’d lured him to his death.

“Do they have any evidence? Anything to go on?”

“Nothing concrete. Lambert threatened Edouard after I came back to town, vowed he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Edouard’s been edgy ever since.”

That wasn’t the only reason her uncle had been edgy. Saura still couldn’t believe he’d let the only woman he’d ever loved pack up and move away. But he had. Said it was for the best.

“…ask Cain,” Renee was saying. “See if he’s heard anything about a stranger poking around.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Saura said, standing. She had enough to go on. In only a few weeks she’d established an in with Lambert, and now, thanks to the file on his bathroom counter, she had an address. She needed only the sunrise to see what else she could find. Alerting her brother to the fact she’d noticed the stranger would get her nowhere. She was a skilled investigator. She neither needed nor wanted her hand held.

Or kissed.

The thought jarred her. “Chances are he was just passing through,” she said, finding a yawn and stretching. “We can talk more in the morning. It’s late and I’m exhausted. We should—”

“Saura?” Dead serious, Renee stood and crossed the room, stooped and picked something up from beside Saura’s chair. “Care to tell me about these?”

Saura stared at the strappy stilettos, not that different from shoes she’d once owned, but light years beyond the sneakers and flip-flops she’d worn for the past two years. And Renee knew it. “A girl’s entitled—”

“And your hair?” Renee reached out to twirl an auburn strand around her finger. “You didn’t really think I wouldn’t notice, did you?”

The slow, silly smile surprised her. So did the urge to pull the woman who’d once been her best friend into a hug. It’s what she would have done before. Tease Renee, parcel out just enough information to make her crazed with curiosity, then laugh and give her an air kiss, flounce away.

Now Saura felt her face go tight, something jagged lodge in her throat.

Renee dangled the stilettos. “Two plus two are adding to one very interesting—”

Saura snatched the shoes. “Two and two add to four,” she said with an abruptness that surprised her. But she couldn’t stop it. “Not everyone can go back,” she whispered as Renee’s eyes went dark, and this time her voice broke. “For some of us, there’s only forward.”

Renee’s hand fell away from her hair. “Saury, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean, it’s just sometimes I forget—”

“Well, I don’t.” Saura refused to let her voice break again. Refused to let herself break. “I
can’t.
” With that she turned and headed down the hall, left Renee standing there.

Only after she closed the bedroom door did she allow herself to pull the blanket from her bed and wrap it around herself as she fired up her laptop.

But she didn’t stop shaking.

He came to her in her dreams, just as he had every night since they’d made love. But this time she saw the hard glitter in his eyes. She felt the possessiveness in his touch. And this time, she pulled away.

Ignoring the tightness in her chest, Saura passed an old five-and-dime on Canal Street. A cool breeze blew off the river, but hunched down in a bulky New Orleans Saints jacket, she did not feel the bite—and she no longer shook.

I tried to let her go…

Before in her dreams, he’d said nothing. Only watched her. And reached for her. Touched her. And loved her with a raw intensity that left her damp and tangled in her sheets. But this time, in those brittle predawn moments before she’d pulled herself awake, there’d been words.

…but I couldn’t do it…

Pulling the baseball cap lower, Saura waited with a group of tourists and locals for the light to turn green. New Orleans was a city that stayed up late and woke up early, vibrating with too much life and vitality to stay still for long. Not even Katrina had changed that.

…couldn’t just lie there and let her walk away…

The words followed her across the street, much as they’d whispered around her in the shower. But now she ignored them and lifted a cardboard-wrapped paper cup of
café au lait
to her mouth, savored the rush of warmth down her throat.

By the time she reached the abandoned five-story building on Prytania, the man was barely more than a hazy memory. There was only the burn of excitement, the surety that somewhere within the red brick walls, she would find what she needed to make sure Alec Prejean had not died in vain.

Only a few blocks from the elegance and charm of St. Charles Avenue, the old hotel looked lost. Abandoned. Like an old woman in a faded dress. You had only to look in her eyes to see the echoes of her youth, and know that once she’d been beautiful.

But now darkness bled from her windows, and boards barred the once-grand entrance. Broken bottles and empty fast-food wrappers littered the crumbling mortar at her foundation. Even the wrought iron shutters and columns were chipped and peeling.
Le Vieux Maison,
she’d been called during her last incarnation. The Old House. Once, the name had charmed. Now, with the hotel abandoned for nearly ten years, the name seemed sadly appropriate.

Easing along the side, Saura made her way to the back and found the door barred shut. But the windows were another story. She put a gloved hand to one with two broken panes, and lifted.

Mold and dust and bourbon hung like a rancid perfume in the stale air, and as Saura made her way through what had once been a kitchen, she would have sworn she smelled coffee and roses.

But that was impossible.

The shadows pulled her deeper into the cool stillness. The furniture had all been removed, the only remaining artwork was the graffiti scrawled over faded murals and peeling plaster. Near the main staircase, against a curved banister with broken spindles, someone had airbrushed a Spanish-moss infested live oak.

Saura swallowed hard, told herself she did not hear music. Could not hear music. That was only her imagination. As was the lingering scent of soap and leather.

Abandoned buildings had a feel to them, she knew. Old warehouses and factories, hospitals, plantations, even something as benign as a gas station or fishing shack, they all shared the same heavy silence. Long after the last occupant walked out the door, the buildings remained. Waiting. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. Fading in the sun.

Tracing her hand along the tree, she kept close to the wall as she edged toward a door at the end of the narrow hall.

He wasn’t alone.

John slipped back into the stairwell and eased the door shut, held himself motionless as he listened. Footsteps coming down the warped wood planks of the fourth-floor hallway. Soft. Light. Cautious.

The stillness bled through him, the way it always did in those raw moments when just one wrong breath could be his last. Slowly, he reached for his Glock, curved his finger around the trigger, and waited.

From the moment he’d stepped inside the old hotel, he’d known he wasn’t alone. But then, he hadn’t expected to be. That was why he was here. Because of the address he’d seen jotted on a piece of paper in Lambert’s folder.

From outside, the squeal of tires broke the silence. As brakes screeched, John reached for his walkie-talkie, but before he could contact his friend standing lookout, glass shattered somewhere nearby.

And the footsteps stopped.

“Sweet Christ,” came the scratchy voice through his headset. “Pull back, pull back!”

“What the hell?” John roared, but already he smelled smoke. And the footsteps turned into a hard, dead run.

On blind instinct he threw open the stairwell door and lunged into the hallway. Smoke engulfed him, as greedy red flames licked at the rotting woodwork.

John barely recognized the snarl that ripped from his throat. He was close, damn it. So close to finding—something…something Lambert would rather destroy than risk falling into the wrong hands.

“Get out of there, man!” But John didn’t move. Couldn’t move. “The place is a freaking tinderbox!”

Through the smoke he saw her. Running toward him. Coughing. Stumbling.

Falling.

“No!” he roared, lunging, but then the voice of reason shouted in his ear.

“Pull back! Not much more time!”

She wasn’t there. He knew that. She’d never been there, not in the smoke, not in the shadows of his imagination.

Throat burning, he squinted through the growing darkness—and saw nothing. Heat blasted him. Somewhere nearby a wood beam crashed. And another. A wall collapsed, and flames licked into the hall.

Coughing, he spun and pulled open the stairwell door, lunged into the darkness and down the steps, fought to breathe.

This time, she wasn’t getting him killed.

T
he smoke punished. Thick gray clouds swirled through the fourth-floor hall, stinging Saura’s eyes and her throat. She squinted and tried to see, to breathe. Couldn’t. The fire consumed the oxygen at an alarming rate, leaving only toxins to singe her throat. Coughing, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled, knew smoke killed more people than fire.

And she would not be one of them.

Eyes stinging, she reached for the doorknob and found it warm, not hot, knew it was safe to go in. If the fire burned inside, the glass would have blistered her hand. With a quick shove she gained access and slammed the door behind her, tried to gain her bearings through the dense smoke. Crawling for the window, she stripped off her jacket and grabbed at her T-shirt, pulled it over her head and wadded it into a ball. Just as quickly she slipped the jacket back on and reached for her backpack, pulled out a bottle of water and poured it onto the fabric. Then she brought it to her mouth and breathed.

Five minutes. Maybe seven. That’s how long she had before the room went up in flames.

Nostrils burning, she used her hands to guide her, felt the large crate. And another. And another. Four of them before she reached the window. With the door closed it was safe to pull it open, let oxygen flow inside.

But the wooden ledge would not budge.

Gasping, she lifted a leg and kicked out a pane. “Help!” she shouted against the roar of the fire. “Help!”

But there was no one to hear.

In the distance, sirens sounded above the hissing, but the realist in her knew help would never arrive in time. The smoke thickened with each second. She fought it, kept her face to the window, but her vision blurred, and the fuzziness pushed closer.

She heard the groan too late. Twisting, she lifted her arms to shield her as the beam crashed inches from her legs. Heat poured in on the boiling air, bringing with it the outer bands of the fire. She scrambled backward, said a prayer. “No!”

There would be no rescues, she realized in some hazy corner of her mind. No firefighters storming through the door. No net to catch her when she jumped.

No strangers with hard eyes and gentle hands.

In her mind she could see him, much as she’d imagined him minutes before, lunging for her. Running. Shouting…

Blinking at the illusion, she knew it was starting. Her mind, starved for oxygen, was beginning to play tricks. Her body, slowly shutting down. Refusing to let go, she realized she no longer had a choice. She had to jump.

But the fire had other ideas. On a greedy rush, it raced toward the supply of oxygen and licked out the window, blocking her escape. Blindly, she spun for the door, saw only smoke as the flames drove her to her knees. She crawled until she found the door, reached for the knob. She would not give up. She could not—

Smoke awaited her. It licked and curled and consumed—

But then he was there, emerging through the gray and shouting. Coughing. Swearing.

She could make out no detail, only that he reached for her, pulled her into his arms and over his shoulder, held her tight as he spun and started to run.

He didn’t care who she was. Didn’t care what she was doing there. Who she worked for. He only knew that she was real, and she’d been trapped in the building.

He’d tried to tell himself he was only imagining things. He’d gotten as far as the second floor before he’d bolted back up the stairs. If there was even a razor-thin chance anyone was trapped, he could not leave them to die.

And then he’d opened the door and run through the haze, saw her.

Now he coughed against the thick smoke and took the stairs two at a time. The heat pushed down on him. The lack of oxygen made him dizzy. Battling it, he shifted her in his arms, shifted her out of the firefighter’s hold so that he cradled her, could use his body to shield her if anything fell.

“John! Where the hell are you?”

No time to answer. He pulled her closer and kept running. She was light in his arms, clinging to him with an intensity that surprised him. After the way she’d fought to survive, he would have expected her to collapse. To go limp and pass out. But she did none of that. She held on like a lover in the heat of passion and buried her face against his throat.

“Hang on!” Rounding the last corner, he ran down the steps and kicked open the door.

The smoke was less intense down here, the temperature at least thirty degrees cooler. He could see again, and he could almost breathe. But still he ran, even as he heard the fire engines. They would arrive any minute. With them, the police.

He could not let them find him—or her. Neither of them belonged there.

Against him she coughed, forcing him to realize how tightly he held her face to his jacket. He carried her through the kitchen and pushed open the rear door, staggered into the chill of early morning.

“Breathe!” he told her, but barely recognized the rough edge to his own voice.
“Breathe.”

“Look! Someone’s coming out!” he heard a man shout, but he kept running against the burn of his throat and his eyes, his muscles. She shifted again, dislodging the baseball cap pulled low over her head.

And a long, dark braid tumbled against his arm.

He felt himself stagger, felt himself recover as he rounded another corner and darted into a quiet side street. All the while the braid swayed against the leather of his jacket, and burned clear down to the bone.

Possibilities pushed in from all directions. She’d set him up. She’d left the calendar on Lambert’s counter on purpose. She’d lured him to the old hotel as a test. A trap.

An execution.

“Put me down,” she rasped against his jacket, but he held her tighter, wouldn’t let her move. Just kept running. Until they were far enough away. Far enough that no one would find them. Stop him.

“Please,”
she said, and now she started to struggle. But he was bigger, stronger, and he’d not just come within an inch of meeting his maker to surrender now.

Something had gone wrong. She’d been trapped, too. Maybe the fire started too early—he had no doubt it had been deliberately set. Maybe she’d messed up, had not gotten out in time.

Or maybe Lambert wanted her dead, too.

The thought twisted through John on a violent rush. He glanced around the old houses on either side of the street, saw the overgrown yard beyond the remains of a picket fence. In less than ten strides he was there, kicking open the broken gate and running up the cracked walkway, to the wraparound porch.

He took the three steps in one and rounded the side of the house, didn’t stop until he reached the back door. Which again, he kicked open.

Only then did he let himself slow. Think. Breathe.

Only inside did he release his death grip on her and let her move, let her body slide down his and her feet settle against the warped linoleum.

Only then did he take her face in his smoke-scarred hands, and crush her mouth to his.