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  “That’s not what I hear,” she said. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”

  If he’d needed a therapist he’d have found one a long time ago. “I’m not hard on myself. I’m a realist. I hope you find someone who can really help you, because you’re nice. Very nice. And you deserve better than me. I’m washed-up. Used up. I’m working at getting my own shit together.” Offending ladies wasn’t a favorite pastime, but she’d hit too many nerves he wanted permanently dead. “I’m no good anymore. To anyone.” Least of all himself. He considered finishing his drink. He didn’t want it.

  “Can I do something to help you?” she asked, her voice so low he only just caught the words.

  Pity. “Save the help for yourself,” he said, and stood up. “I hope you find someone to take on your case. To tell the truth, I’ve kind of priced myself out of the general marketplace. You might even say I’ve become too dangerous to afford.”

  Three

  The night whined.

  Wet grit whipped against Sonnie’s bare ankles and stung. Despite the rain Duval was crowded, and it was late enough for drunks to rule.

  Chris Talon had offered to bring her home. Offered while he looked at a space somewhere above her right shoulder—probably longing for her to leave. Leave the Rusty Nail, and leave him alone.

  He’d get his wish. She’d leave him alone. But she would continue to work for Bo and Roy because the job got her out and gave her an opportunity to gather information on what was going on around the island, and because she’d accomplish nothing if she stayed at the house and stewed.

  Somewhere on the island there was someone who knew something; there had to be. It could be some small detail that didn’t seem to mean anything to them, but to Sonnie it might be the key to the door she’d been unable to as much as crack.

  Chris Talon thought she couldn’t afford him.

  She could have argued that point but hadn’t felt like it. Lack of enthusiasm oozed from his every pore. She didn’t need help from a man whose disinterest was that obvious.

  He didn’t even know what her problem was.

  She wasn’t sure what her problem was. But she knew she had one, and if she couldn’t get it resolved, she’d never be able to put the pieces of her life back together. She wasn’t sure she could anyway—too much had happened that couldn’t be reversed—but she had to try.

  “Too dangerous to afford.”

  Why? He hadn’t been referring to money at all, had he? He’d been a detective somewhere up north, he said. And he’d retired—quit—at thirty-four or thirty-five. Old enough, he’d said. But there’d been something else, something he wasn’t talking about.

  Chris Talon was hiding out. Of course he was; that was why he gave an impression that he needed a solid barrier between himself and any intruder-even a harmless one, like one crippled and not very impressive woman. Used up. Worn-out. Or whatever he’d said to discourage her. It all amounted to his having something to hide—just like she did.

  Maybe she didn’t want help from someone with baggage. But maybe that was just what she did want—a man who, no matter how hard he protested, had his own reasons for needing to find new focus.

  Sonnie checked her uneven stride and looked back. Shadows punctuated garish light. She’d known Roy and Bo only a short time, but she trusted them. Roy wouldn’t suggest his brother could help her if he’d thought it was a bad idea.

  This was what being absolutely alone felt like. And the feeling should be an old friend by now.

  She continued on to Truman Avenue. The street was a hodgepodge of nineteenth-century wedding-cake mansions—most of them converted into boardinghouses—and tiny, three-room clapboard houses that had once belonged to cigar makers.

  The house Sonnie’s father bought for her when she’d convinced him she intended to marry Frank Giacano had two stories. In front, a balcony ran the length of the second story. On the ground floor a veranda wrapped around the entire house. A pretty place with old-island charm. Bob Keith hadn’t understood his daughter’s choice in husbands, or Frank’s complete lack of interest in the house, other than wanting his name on the title. But Sonnie’s dad had gone along anyway and presented her with the deed. Frank’s name had not been on that deed.

  Sonnie’s sister Billy had brought home Frank and his brother Romano. Billy had shown great promise as a tennis player in the junior leagues. And she might have gone far as an adult if she’d been able to control some of her habits. As it was she’d hung on for several years, occasionally qualifying, but always going down to an early round defeat. She met the Giacanos on the circuit. The family liked Frank’s brother, Romano, who had originally dated Sonnie. They did not like Frank.

  Sonnie slipped rapidly past the low white stucco wall in front of the grounds and turned in at the driveway. She kept the iron gates open. When she’d flown down from Denver, home of Keith Beers, she’d rented the Camry, but she rarely drove anywhere.

  Everything was dark. This was the season of the year—the low season for tourists because the heat kept them home—when the locals ventured forth again, but they’d gone to ground to wait out the storm. Between July and November, tropical storms were a way of life, and hurricane was a word on everyone’s mind. This storm was predicted to blow itself out by morning.

  Despite the heat in the wind and rain, Sonnie shivered. She rubbed her arms and glanced at the house. It seemed unbelievable that she and Frank had lived there as man and wife…when he wasn’t on tour. He’d spent most of their married life on tour, and he hadn’t liked her tο travel with him. He said she was a distraction.

  The key to the front door was in the pocket of her cotton wraparound skirt.

  The fronds of a fan palm swayed sideways to the ground before her, and the branches of a giant poinciana tree rustled. In the morning, petals from the red poinciana blossoms would carpet the ground.

  Sonnie stood still beside the fan palm.

  Her skin prickled.

  She narrowed her eyes to look upward, toward the small, rightmost second-story window. She’d caught sight of a light there—inside what was now a storeroom. Hadn’t she?

  The rain grew heavier by the moment. She was soaked.

  No light showed now. It had probably been moonlight on the glass…There wasn’t a moon anymore. A streetlight a few yards past the property gleamed on the downstairs windows. That was what she’d seen.

  She studied the upper windows again. If what she’d seen had been a reflection from the streetlight, it would still be there.

  One thing she’d never been was easily frightened. Just as well. If she had been, she couldn’t have dealt with these last months. She hadn’t really seen a light—an impression of one could be caused by many things.

  A hot shower; then she’d lock herself into the room where her suitcases stood open on the floor and her hanging clothes were draped over several chairs.

  She must force herself to open the house properly. She’d start on that in the morning, take her things to one of the bedrooms and put them away, make the place feel alive again.

  If she could become convinced that the story she’d been told in the hospital was true, she’d find peace. That was the best she could ask for now—peace. And when and if she found that peace, what then? Where did you go when the one plus in your life was a chance to start over? How long did it take to forget the past and grab the chance?

  Billy hadn’t wanted her to come here. Older by five years, Billy worried about Sonnie. But the time had long since passed when Sonnie could allow her sister to lead the way.

  This is ridiculous. Rain drizzled down her face from hair plastered to her head. Her shirt and skirt clung to her, and her feet squelched in her sandals. Accompanied by a popping sound at every step, she went to the front steps, climbed, and crossed the veranda. Once she’d found pleasure in filling pots with the tropical flοwers that thrived here, then clustering the pots about the veranda posts. Why not try to get interested in those things again?

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nbsp; The screen needed oiling. It didn’t just squeak when she opened it; it screamed. Sοnnie gritted her teeth at the noise and slid the key into the lock. Once inside the broad entry she noted that the smell of disuse hadn’t gone away yet. Tomorrow she’d open all the doors and windows and let the sweet air in.

  “You’ll stay where you are, Sonnie. You understand me, girlie?”

  She stood still again. Her father’s voice wasn’t one that came to her often. There were others that set up a discordant cacophony in her brain, but Daddy’s usually remained silent. He’d been afraid she might decide to leave Denver again. He hadn’t known where she might go, just that she was restless and distant. Daddy loved her, but he didn’t understand her, and the only way he knew to reach out was through orders and demands.

  “Just let yourself go, Sonnie. Go on, let go. Go to your baby now. You know you want to. She’s waiting, Sonnie. Your baby’s waiting.”

  She threw her hands up before her face. “Stop it.”

  An androgynous voice. A sexless whisper. She’d heard it twice before, or was it three times? But not since she’d left the hospital.

  Sonnie backed to the wall beside the front door and fought for breath. When she’d been close to death, someone had told her to let go and die. Yet when she’d fully regained consciousness and there was increasing hope of her recovery, everyone around her had insisted she would get better, and had shown her in so many ways that they wanted her to. And, despite her injuries, her physical rehabilitation had been dramatically rapid because she was fit, and because she had things she wanted to do.

  She had dreamed the voice.

  And now she was remembering the dream again.

  Sweat had joined the rainwater. She was burning up. And sick to her stomach. And afraid.

  Drawing herself up, edging away from the wall, she pushed the door shut, put the key on top of a wicker chest, and walked toward the parlor. Sleep was what she needed.

  A single, mighty slam came from somewhere high up in the house.

  The wind had blown a door shut.

  The doors were already all shut. And the windows.

  Sonnie reached the foot of the stairs and stood, gripping a newel post with both hands while she listened. The storm moaned outside, yet there was stillness inside. Her heart beat hard, almost painfully. Her back, still healing from torn muscle and ligament, ached from holding herself stiff. So did the areas where her ribs had been crushed on impact—and her left leg, her right foot.

  Why tonight? Why would she be jumpy tonight when she’d been fine, or more or less fine, since she’d returned?

  Somewhere in this house other ears strained to catch sounds, the sounds of her movements.

  She shook her head, her throbbing head. Billy was right; she shouldn’t have come here alone. But why not? If everything she’d been told she should believe was true, she had nothing to fear.

  She wasn’t alone.

  A presence filled what should have been a void. No one would understand if she tried to explain, but she was right. Someone was in the house, biding time, waiting to…Waiting to what? Kill her?

  Sonnie backed from the staircase until she connected with a wall. Then she turned, wrenched open the front door, and fled back the way she’d come.

  Still it rained.

  And still the wind blew.

  There was nowhere to go—except a motel, maybe—until it was light. She didn’t have a purse with her. No credit cards.

  Ahead, several figures, their arms linked, swayed and roared out the incoherent lyrics to a song she didn’t recognize. Sonnie ducked behind a wall and waited for the drunks to pass. This wasn’t a good idea, not in any way. She was putting herself in fresh, unnecessary danger, and dragging back the phobic state she’d taken months to overcome.

  There was someone in her house.

  She ran, and felt every recovering injury protest. She dragged in air that burned her throat, and dashed as fast as she could.

  Not fast enough to quell the panic. Her body wasn’t ready for this, but she couldn’t stop.

  At Duval—she’d known she would go to Duval Street because the only people she could ask for help were there at Duval she hovered at the curb, panting and shaking.

  Roy and Bo had been good to her, more than good, and they owed her nothing. There wasn’t a soul here who owed her anything.

  But she could pay for what she needed—someone to help her sift through the past, a particular part of her past, and find out the exact details of a night filled with fire—and blood.

  Christian Talon’s opinion of her had been as clear as if he’d told her aloud. He thought her colorless, uninteresting, and not worth his time. She might be colorless and uninteresting as a woman, in his eyes, but she could turn out to be a whole lot less than boring, and she could certainly be well worth his time.

  Also, Mr. Talon had given himself away. While he’d been so busy convincing her that he wasn’t what she wanted or needed, he’d shown a piece of his own vulnerable underbelly. She hadn’t been married to Frank Giacano for three years and learned nothing from him. Frank had believed that the way to bind an ally to you was through discovering their weakest point. Chris Talon had a weak point that had made him, carelessly, refer to himself as dangerous. If necessary, she’d find out what he really meant.

  He’d made a mistake. She might be colorless in some ways, but she had a big will that had brought her from death when there’d supposedly been no hope of her living.

  She had never, ever, forced herself on anyone. But she had never, ever, been as out of options as she was tonight.

  The weather had all but closed the street down. The shutters were up at the Rusty Nail, and several lights showed in the apartments above, where Bo and Roy lived. Sonnie knew that if she went to them, the two men would do their best to comfort her, but comfort wasn’t what she needed anymore, not the kind of comfort that patted the head, but did nothing for the endless motion inside the brain.

  A skinny alleyway opened between a T-shirt shop and an establishment where a psychic held court when she wasn’t too tripped out to do business. The alley led behind the row of buildings, on the same side of the road as the Rusty Nail. Roy’s brother was living in some sort of guest house behind the bar. Sonnie had heard it spoken of a number of times.

  Most of the Duval Street establishments had storage buildings or garages in the back. Despite the lack of light making every step dangerous, Sonnie kept going. Rainwater ran underfoot, turning dirt to mud that splashed her legs.

  An abrupt rush of desperation filled her eyes with tears. No time for tears.

  No time for the clogged sensation in her throat.

  “Hush little baby, don’t you cry…”

  “Not now. Please, not now.” What she knew, what she’d known from the instant this trip had become inevitable, was that she was trying to convince herself that somehow Jacqueline’s death hadn’t been her fault, at least not her fault alone.

  She’d never been out here. Roy and Bo’s “guesthouse” was a small building, evidently with painted metal sides and a tin roof.

  She shouldn’t wake the man.

  Unless he slept with a light on, he wasn’t asleep.

  Sonnie approached a door that faced the back of the Rusty Nail. She would convince him of two things. The first, she hoped without clueing him in to how little there was to go on, would be the worthiness and the strangeness of what she needed to find out. The second point, and the one most likely to bring him onto her team of two, was her ability to pay just about anything for his services.

  Metal slat shades covered two windows, one on either side of the door. Music—violin?—sounded as if it would be loud inside. Sonnie looked down at herself. Regardless of her mood, she always took care with her appearance. Tonight—or this morning now—she could pass for a member of the homeless.

  It didn’t matter. There was no one to impress. She knocked, and crossed her arms to wait. He was probably the type who wouldn’t an
swer unless he was in the mood.

  The door swung open almost at once.

  If the man who blocked light from inside were not Roy’s brother, Sonnie would flee.

  “Holy…What are you doing, you little idiot?”

  “Coming to see you.” She felt horrified, horrified by the disbelief on his face, and horrified that she was there and looking wild.

  “I told you there’s nothing I can do for you.”

  “I think there is. You just don’t want to.”

  “You’ve been walking around in this, haven’t you? Walking around in a storm, in the dark? Alone?”

  “I haven’t been walking around. I went home, then changed my mind, is all.”

  “You should have stayed at home.’’

  Crying wouldn’t accomplish one thing with this man—much as she felt like doing just that. “May I come in, please?”

  “You don’t know when to quit. You just don’t know.” He stood aside to let her pass. “If there were anything that mattered around here, I’d tell you not to drip on it. You’re going to be sick.”

  “You don’t get sick from being wet.”

  “You do get sick from doing what you’re doing to yourself. There isn’t one damn thing in this life that’s worth that much pain, Mrs. Giacano.”

  He’d have to be from another planet not to see her desperation, but she didn’t like it that he could look at her and see exposed emotion. “Don’t mistake sartorial disaster for anything else, please.”

  “Whatever you say. Get in here before you collapse.”

  The violin music sounded like something intended for snake charming. “Nice of you to care,” she said, entering a crowded room.

  “I don’t. Α body on the doorstep could ruin a man’s day.”

  She smiled and it almost felt good. “I’m not close to death. Just wet and muddy.” She looked around, gauging where she could safely stand without making something dirty.

  “Ah, hell.”

  Sonnie looked at Talon sharply. With his hands on his hips, he bent forward so she couldn’t see his face. She’d swear he’d spoken aloud without knowing he’d done so. He wore only jeans. His feet were bare.