"What?" she demanded.

"No, I still think… maybe you should take a vacation."

"I can't take a vacation. We just lost a guide, remember? And everyone else was shaken up, too."

He leaned forward, speaking softly. "The rest of us aren't seeing ghosts, Nikki. And Max could get his ass back from wherever he is to help out."

"I'm fine," she insisted.

They were seated in the courtyard, and Nikki wasn't surprised when Madame came out with more coffee, pausing to fill her cup.

"You doing okay, Nikki?"

"Yes, thanks, Madame."

"No, she's not doing okay at all," Julian said.

Nikki kicked him under the table.

"She's seeing ghosts," Julian said, grimacing and rubbing his shin.

"Ghosts?" Madame said, not appearing shocked, just concerned.

"Andy comes and talks to her at night."

"Julian!" Nikki could have kicked him again.

"Oh, Nikki," Madame said with soft sympathy. "This has been really hard on you, huh?"

She sighed. "I'm not ill, guys. I'll be fine."

"Well, you know I'm here for you, Nikki, if you need me," Madame said. She glared at Julian. "Sometimes… well, grief and trauma can do strange things. Anytime you need to talk, you just come to me."

"You going into palm reading, picking up the tarot, Madame?" Julian asked.

She scowled at him. "What Nikki doesn't need is for her friends to make fun of her."

"Ouch. Sorry," Julian said.

Madame gave him a superior stare and moved on to the next table.

"I'm going to strangle you," Nikki hissed to him.

"Well, sorry, but you are seeing ghosts."

"It's not something we need to share. Not till I know what's really going on."

"So you admit you may not really be seeing ghosts?"

She groaned. "Julian, I'm seeing them. Whether that means that ghosts exist or that I'm losing my mind, I'm not sure. The point is, one way or another, I'd rather not share my state of confusion with the world."

"Sorry… sorry," he murmured quickly. "I just thought that if I said it out loud like that, it would make you… well, make you see that it's kind of crazy."

She glanced at her watch. "Meeting here, in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes?"

"It's almost three."

"Wow, the day just kind of went, huh?"

"Time flies when you're talking to the cops, thinking you've seen dead men walking around and explaining it all to a shrink," she assured him.

"Hey, you know what we didn't do?" Julian said.

"What?"

"Get the real lowdown on that guy… Tommyhawk or whatever."

"Blackhawk."

"Yeah, yeah… he came up with that picture, you recognized it, we were told the guy was dead… and you freaked."

"I didn't freak."

"You did."

"All right, all right, so?"

"So we didn't really find out anything about him, either. The dead guy or Blackhawk. We really should find out everything there is to find out about both of them. The entire story about the dead guy." He looked around, as if he was suddenly afraid of being overheard. "Okay, point one. You may suddenly have the ability to see ghosts. Point two—my personal choice—the mind does play tricks. Because there's something in your mind that can't quite get to the front burner but should."

"What does that mean?" Nikki demanded.

"Maybe you know something. Something you shouldn't know. And Andy knew it, too. Maybe you and Andy knew something that had to do with the guy at Madame D'Orso's."

"The dead guy?"

"Yes, except maybe he wasn't dead when you saw him the first time." He leaned closer still, a tone in his voice that sent tremors down her spine. "Maybe he said something, maybe there was something about him… and Andy died because of it. And that… well, that wouldn't be good news for you."

Nikki sat back, staring at Julian in horror. "What on earth are you saying?"

Julian apparently realizing mat he'd really frightened her, sat back himself. "Nothing… nothing! I don't know."

"Dammit, Julian… You're scaring me big-time."

"I don't want to scare you. I want you to be careful. Beyond careful. Until the cops get… whoever. What I'm saying is that we need to understand what's going on around here. Oh, what the hell do I know? I'm just a storyteller."

"But still… "

"But still, we have to keep living, breathing—working. Making our lives normal, right? And look, here come the lovebirds, right on time. Right now we've got to get on with the meeting."

He stood. Nikki could see Patricia and Nathan coming their way, both carrying cups of coffee.

She forced a smile, still plagued with goose bumps.

So Julian thought that she knew something.

What?

All she had done was give a guy twenty bucks. A guy who had wound up dead. And she was really seeing ghosts.

* * *

Chapter 8

Though he was feeling increasingly curious about Nikki DuMonde, Brent decided his best use of the early afternoon would be a few hours spent in the local library.

He wondered why he hadn't thought to come here before. Maybe he had just considered old Huey to be something of a whiner.

Growing up with a Lakota heritage had taught him a lot about bitterness and chips on the shoulder, but the past was just that—the past—and now people needed to focus on entering the twenty-first century, reaping the benefits of progress and technology, without losing sight of a heritage that was something precious, something to be preserved.

In Huey's case, though, he had lived in the past. His tormentor had a name. He should have looked into Huey's situation before this; he owed it to the old ghost.

Property records had been computerized by some wondrous soul, and once he had homed in on the right records using the family name, Brent had little difficulty finding Huey's sadistic master.

Archibald McManus.

Apparently old Archibald had inherited the plantation from his father, who had worked hard to bring the property along. He'd married three times, and his wives had not fared well, either, each of them dying within a few years of her marriage. Each marriage had produced a single child.

In 1861, soon after the outbreak of war but before New Orleans had been taken over by the Yankees, there had been a slave revolt. The plantation had caught fire. There was no mention of what had happened to the three McManus children, but Archibald's body had been found in the burned-out ruins of the grand foyer.

In pieces.

Not a happy ending. Not a death you would wish on anyone.

And yet…

God alone knew whether or not McManus had practiced a brutality that had not only robbed his slaves of their natural lifespan but of his young brides', as well.

McManus's remains had been interred on the property—public land now, having reverted to the parish of New Orleans. That was it. There was nothing more on any descendants. Wife one had borne a girl, Theresa, in 1848, wife two, a son, Alfred, in 1855, and wife three, another girl, Editha, in 1857. They must have left the area. There were no records regarding the family after the fire and the discovery of Archibald's body, and the ensuing reversion of the property to the parish.

Brent ran off the pages, folded them, paid the copy fee and thanked the very helpful librarian. He decided not to head to the cemetery then—it would be filled with tourists and tour groups that came by day, since visitations at night were fiercely discouraged by the local police.

Instead, he returned to the police station, wondering if he would even find Detectives Massey and Joulette in.

In fact they were both at their desks, entangled in paperwork.

"Hey, Blackhawk, what brings you back?" Massey asked him.

"I was wondering if you'd let me see what you've got on the Andrea Ciello case," Brent told them.

Joulette immediately stiffened.

"I think there might be a connection," Brent said.

Massey frowned. "That's what you said. But I don't see how."

"Could you humor me?" Brent asked.

He was certain that Joulette was about to tell him no, but instead, he went stiffer, looking past Brent, toward the entry.

Brent turned and saw that a man was coming toward the detectives' desks. He was tall and lean, with dark hair clipped close to his head, Ray-Bans and a black suit.

He seemed to reek of being a federal officer.

"Good afternoon, fellows," the man said, nodding curtly and looking a little curiously toward Brent. "I needed to see if you'd come up with anything new," he said to Massey and Joulette. "Who the hell are you?" he asked Brent.

Massey stood. "Vince Haggerty, this is Brent Blackhawk."

Haggerty had apparently heard Brent's name. He didn't look pleased.

"I didn't think you were going to be in the way, although I heard you'd be here," Haggerty said.

Brent looked around. "I don't think I'm actually in the way, though quarters are tight."

"We do life-and-death work," Haggerty told him, his tone dismissing Brent as if he were a candy-selling Boy Scout taking up space.

"Good to hear it," Brent murmured.

"We don't have anything new," Massey said, staring at Haggerty.

"If you hold back on me—"

"Hell, I wish I had something to hold back!" Massey said, his frustration evident.

"Are you actually doing anything?" Haggerty asked bluntly.

"Hell no, we're just sitting here with our thumbs up our asses," Joulette said, obviously furious.

"Our crime scene guys didn't give us a hell of a lot to go on, and gee—neither did yours," Massey reminded Haggerty, his expression bland. "So we've been hitting the streets. Bar after bar, looking for witnesses. Anyone who might have seen your guy. Eventually we'll catch a break. And we'll catch that break because we're doing things—like pounding the streets. You can feel free to do the same."