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  The sound came from behind me. I turned around, saw nothing but empty street and sidewalk, and stood, head tipped to one side, straining to hear beyond the sounds of the rain hitting my umbrella. I took another step in the direction of Bourbon and Iberville and heard the sound again. This time, more distinctly.

  “Help!”

  It was a male voice, stretched and urgent.

  I hurried forward.

  Suddenly a man lunged at me from around the corner of the building, reaching for me with grasping, gloved hands. But his timing was off and he had misjudged not only the distance separating us but his intended victim. His bad judgment gave me enough time to swing my open umbrella between us and thrust it, hard, at his face. When he stepped back to avoid the metal point at the umbrella’s center, I abandoned it, spun on my heel and sprinted away.

  I’d only had a glimpse of my pursuer, but that had been enough to terrify. He wore a black-hooded jacket and a mask, the kind that was available in nearly every tourist shop in the Quarter. Except for slitted eyeholes, it covered his entire face with glossy black feathers.

  I ran as fast as I could up Bourbon Street, spurred on by the footsteps behind me. I hung on to my briefcase, mostly because it didn’t occur to me to let it go, and my purse bounced against my body from the strap that hung from my shoulder.

  I considered screaming, shouting for help, but couldn’t spare the breath until I was closer to a place where my cries were likely to be heard. Impossible, too, to dig my cell phone from my purse without breaking my pace.

  Between me and the lights and traffic on Canal Street was almost a full block of boarded-up businesses, vacant storefronts and narrow, solidly locked entries to a handful of upstairs apartments. I vaguely remembered that there was a Greek restaurant near the end of the block, but I wasn’t certain if it was still open. Even if it was out of business, there were always people waiting just across Canal at the “zero stop” for the St. Charles streetcar line.

  My pursuer was no runner. I spared him only a single over-the-shoulder glance, realized that the distance between us was growing, and then kept my attention focused on the lights that marked the distant intersection. Only half a block, I told myself. I could make it easily. And then I would be safe.

  As I passed the cavernous entrance to a long-defunct topless bar, a second man stepped out directly in front of me, blocking the sidewalk. He, too, wore a feathered mask. It was crimson.

  I swung my briefcase, hard, in his direction as I swerved around him, into the street and kept running.

  He was fitter and faster than the first man. A few steps later he caught up with me. His heavy blow between my shoulder blades sent me to the ground. I landed in the gutter, ended up with my back against the curb. I tried to roll, but my long, loose hair betrayed me. My attacker stepped on it, trapping me.

  Trying to protect myself from further blows, I curled my hands over my head and kept my forearms pressed tightly against my face. I lay there, gasping for breath, as cold water rushed around me, soaking my linen jacket and dress.

  A rush of footsteps and harsh breathing announced the arrival of the other man. The man in the crimson mask leaned forward, grabbed my wrists and wrenched my hands away from my face. Then he straightened and stepped backward, freeing my hair as he pulled my arms over my head, lifting my upper body out of the gutter. I felt the rushing water tugging at the ends of my hair.

  My captor was standing so that I couldn’t reach him. But I fought anyway, trying to free my wrists from his unyielding grip. I bucked, kicked, twisted wildly, screamed at the top of my lungs. All the while, the man in the black mask remained on the sidewalk, his hands shoved deep into raincoat pockets, watching me struggle.

  The man in the crimson mask dropped me back into the gutter so abruptly that my head and shoulders slammed flat against the pavement. Still holding my wrists, he jammed his foot into the intersection of my neck and shoulder and used it for leverage as, once again, he pulled my arms taut. This time, he gave my wrists a vicious twist.

  Agony.

  I was defeated. At least for the moment.

  I stopped screaming. Stopped struggling. I forced myself to ignore the pain, to relax, to think, to plan. If they thought I’d been concussed or gone into shock, maybe they would let down their guard. Maybe they would release my arms. Maybe.

  I went completely limp.

  With shadowed, glinting eyes, my assailants peered down at me like carrion birds, the red-masked man from above my head and shoulders, the black-masked man from the elevation of the sidewalk to my left.

  I made my face an expressionless mask of flesh, staring past them, focusing upward on the rain falling from a stone-gray New Orleans sky. It was a perspective problem, I told myself. How would I draw individual drops from this angle?

  The carrion birds leaned in closer, their heads tilted, curious. The stretched tension on my arms relaxed, the vise on my wrists eased and the foot shifted on my neck.

  I waited. In another moment the man who held my wrists would be overbalanced. Then I would use my weight against him, yank him forward, put him on a collision course with his colleague. Whether he released my wrists or hung on as he fell, I’d have an opening, an opportunity to scramble out of reach, a chance to get to my feet and run. I braced my spine and heels against the pavement, lifted my knees slightly, getting ready.

  But the man in the black mask acted before I could.

  His hands were still in his pockets when he lifted his right foot off the sidewalk and put it on my stomach, just beneath my ribs. He was a big man—not tall, but bulky. His foot spanned my body from side to side.

  If he stepped on me with all his weight…

  I remained still, holding my breath and tensing my abdominal muscles, hoping they would offer some measure of protection, knowing that they wouldn’t.

  The man in the black mask nodded at his accomplice, who tightened his grip on my wrists. Then the larger man pulled his hands from his pockets. He leaned in, putting more weight on my stomach.

  I clenched my teeth, stared up into his black-feathered face, and imagined him smiling. I would not scream, I told myself. I would not give the sick bastard the satisfaction….

  He raised his hands.

  A click, a flash, and I was momentarily blinded by bright, white light.

  A camera mechanism whirred.

  Another flash. Then, suddenly, I was free.

  And the carrion birds took off, running.

  Chapter 7

  The rain was steadily falling, the daylight rapidly failing and my attackers, not I, escaped to the intersection of Bourbon and Canal. I struggled up from the gutter in time to see them jog to the end of the block and around the corner.

  My purse lay, undisturbed, on the sidewalk where I had dropped it and my briefcase was a yard or two beyond that. I staggered over to the purse. As I leaned forward to grab the thin leather strap, the throbbing in my head went from dull to acute, the world around me grew abruptly fuzzy and I made a frantic grab for a nearby light post. I caught it, hung on and lowered myself to the sidewalk.

  I started to cry. No matter that I hated to cry and didn’t want to cry, I couldn’t stop my body’s reaction to stress, pain and frustration. Hot tears streaked my cold cheeks and, into that exhausted, vulnerable moment came a devastating thought. If my attackers returned, I wouldn’t be able to run away.

  At some level I knew that my fear was irrational. Whatever they had set out to do, my attackers had done. And, goal met, they had gone, left of their own accord. But, like the tears, I couldn’t control trauma-driven anxiety. The two men might have already doubled back. They could be nearby. Hiding. Waiting. Watching.

  For the first time that evening—probably for the first time in my life—I panicked. After dark, the temperature had dropped ten degrees and I doubted it was much warmer than fifty. I was already shivering from the cold, but painful tremors now racked my body and I found myself gulping for air. My eyes darted up and down t
he street, searching the shadows. If I let down my guard, they would attack again. Fear twisted my stomach and bile rose in my throat as I waited, convinced that they would come back. Convinced that, this time, I would not survive.

  Fortunately rational and irrational impulses coincided as I decided on my best course of action. I had to get help. Soon. With trembling hands, I snagged my purse and retrieved my cell phone. Easy enough and logical to call the police. Or Uncle Tinh. But instinct rather than logic prevailed. My hands continued to shake as I punched in the newest number on my speed dial.

  Thank God, he answered.

  “Beauprix, here.”

  “This is Lacie Reed,” I said. “I need…your help. Please.”

  The sob that I couldn’t hold back carried over the phone.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Bourbon Street, east of Iberville.”

  “I’m on my way. Are you hurt?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice wavering. Then I reconsidered. “No,” I corrected.

  Beauprix’s urgent voice became measured and ultra-calm.

  “Lacie, are you bleeding?”

  “No.”

  “Were you raped?”

  “No. No. I’m fine.”

  He apparently didn’t believe me.

  “Is anything broken? Can you walk?”

  “I’m okay. Really. Just some bruises. And my head hurts. I wanted to walk to Canal, but I got dizzy. So I sat down.”

  I looked around me, finally able to ignore the empty street and growing darkness. A burned-out neon sign surrounded by jagged, broken bulbs advertised a boarded-up strip joint.

  “I’m a few yards west of a strip joint,” I said. “Big Al’s All Girl Review.”

  “Vice shut that place down last year. What the hell are you doing there?”

  The effort I’d made to convince him that I was battered and bruised, not shot or stabbed, had gone a long way toward soothing my jangled nerves. And his drawled question, which sounded like an accusation, hit me like a splash of cold water to the face.

  “Getting mugged,” I snapped.

  “Yeah. Okay,” he said, sounding almost relieved. “I’m almost there. Five minutes, tops. You just keep on talking.”

  He made it sound like he was instructing a dim-witted child. He had called me “little girl,” that morning, intending to offend, and I reminded myself that the man annoyed me. Annoyance felt a lot better than fear, so I encouraged the feeling.

  Why, exactly, had I called him? I asked myself irritably. Police response time in New Orleans was sometimes slow, but I could have waited. Uncle Tinh would have overwhelmed me with his fussing, but I could have coped. Instead, I’d called the city’s most chauvinistic cop.

  “No need to tie up your line,” I said shortly. “I’ll redial if there’s a problem.” Then I disconnected.

  While I waited, I worked hard on not feeling too pathetically grateful.

  In a lobby streaming with refugees from the storm outside, Beauprix and I were an unremarkable sight. On Bourbon Street, he had wrapped his raincoat around me and run the heater in his car full-blast as we drove the few blocks to the Intercontinental. His arm was around my shoulders as we walked through the lobby and took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Though I was feeling enough improved that I was certain I could make it across the lobby unsupported, I was grateful for the additional warmth. I was no longer shaking from fear but from the beginnings of hypothermia.

  “First, let’s get you warm,” Beauprix said once we were inside my room. “Then we’ll talk.”

  He dropped my briefcase and my purse on the floor, then helped me out of the raincoat.

  I kicked off my sodden shoes, took a few steps and lowered myself onto a chair that was just around the corner from the foyer.

  With coat in hand, Beauprix disappeared from my line of sight as he leaned into the closet. He traded the coat for one of the hotel’s extra blankets, gave it a quick shake to unfold it and wrapped it around my shoulders.

  “You just sit for a minute.”

  He went into the bathroom and I heard the shower turned on full-blast. Then he pulled the bathroom door shut as he stepped back across the tiny foyer to the closet. My suitcase was there, lid unlocked and open, on the rack that the hotel provided. It never occurred to me that Beauprix would rummage through it. But moments later, when he stepped back into my line of sight, I discovered that he’d been doing just that. He was clutching a wad of my clothing in one of his hands. I identified my gray sweat pants, a baggy Northwestern University sweatshirt and a pair of pink underwear.

  Oblivious to my growing irritation, he pushed open the bathroom door and held it wide as a cloud of steam escaped.

  “Come on,” he said, gesturing for me to step into the warm room ahead of him. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”

  I wasn’t sure if he intended to help me undress. But he now seemed to think me incapable of doing anything for myself. Give a male chauvinist an inch, I thought irritably, and he’ll take over your life.

  I snatched my clothing from his hand.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think I can handle it from here.”

  Then I firmly closed the door between us.

  I worked the shampoo through my hair, using my fingers to discover and remove bits of the debris that the gutter had deposited in my long, kinky curls. Then I rinsed and shampooed again. Three shampoos later and I was convinced that the smell of the gutter was finally out of my hair.

  After almost thirty minutes, I emerged from the bathroom, clean, dry, warmly dressed and completely exhausted. Beauprix had only tapped on the door once to ask if I was okay.

  In my absence, he had opened the drapes. Wind-driven rain flowed down the wall of windows. The room was now lit by the twin lamps that flanked the queen-size bed. Room service had come and gone. A small writing desk, which was tucked into a corner between the bed and the windows, now supported a silver tray laden with a coffeepot, cream and sugar, a pair of porcelain cups and a plate piled high with cookies.

  Beauprix was standing by the window, staring out into the darkness as he talked on his cell phone. In the window’s reflection, I could see that he was frowning. He was wearing a dress shirt, which was open at the throat and rolled up to just below his elbows, in a shade of pale tangerine. His softly pleated slacks were black, as were his loafers. When he heard the bathroom door open, he looked in my direction and lifted an eyebrow and his chin in the direction of the bed. Then he turned his back on the room again.

  Though my impulse was to sit in the room’s overstuffed chair, just to prove I could, the promise of the soft, warm bed was too tempting. I tucked myself in between the quartet of cushy pillows, leaned my sore back and shoulders against the padded headboard and tucked my legs beneath the top sheet and a duvet-covered comforter.

  “That’s everything,” Beauprix was saying. “Yeah, the witness is absolutely reliable. If she say’s that’s what she saw, that’s what happened. Yeah, well, I trust her. I know, I know. And so does she. Just do whatever you can with it.”

  He flipped the compact phone closed, tucked it into his pocket and turned his attention to me. He didn’t look happy.

  “Bit of a problem selling the ‘big bad bird attack’ story?” I asked, trying to sound flippant, trying to feel flippant.

  He didn’t buy it.

  “I’m sorry, Lacie,” he said seriously.

  And I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing for the attack, the police department, or the fact that sometimes reality sucked. Maybe all of the above.

  He lifted the carafe.

  “I asked for decaf coffee,” he said, “but if you’d prefer–”

  “No. That’s great,” I said. “Lots of cream, no sugar.”

  He poured, added cream and handed me a cup. Then he moved the plateful of cookies to the edge of the table so that it was an easy reach from the bed.

  I picked up a butter cookie and nibbled its fluted edge as he pou
red himself coffee, dragged the desk chair closer to the bed and sat down. He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, took a sip of coffee and regarded me over the top of his cup with serious, hazel eyes.

  “I know it annoys the hell out of someone like you, but I was brought up believing that it was a man’s job to protect a woman, to take care of her, to treat her right. Didn’t matter whether that woman was family, friend, lover or stranger.”

  And suddenly I knew exactly what his earlier apology had been for. He was sorry that he hadn’t been there to take care of me. Which was silly. And sweet. And maddeningly male.

  “By the way,” he continued, “you look a hell of a lot better.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “My job,” he retorted, then added a quick smile.

  He took another few sips of his coffee, then put the cup aside.

  “So, as you guessed, the investigating officer wasn’t real happy with the information you gave me. Masks and hoods. Ordinary clothing. No odd gaits or mannerisms. One guy medium height and weight. The other slightly shorter and heavier, wearing dark-blue-on-white Nikes. Like you said when you described the SOBs to me, that about narrows the field to half the male population of New Orleans.”

  “Nothing like it has happened to anyone else?”

  “No. It would have made more sense if you were robbed or raped or murdered—”

  He hesitated, apparently hearing what he had just said. But I knew what he was getting at.

  “I agree,” I said. “This was too brutal for a prank, but too pointless to be much else. Except for the photo.”

  “Except for the photo,” Beauprix repeated, half sighing. He uncrossed his ankles and shifted forward in his chair, his expression intense. “About a year ago, there was a case out west. A guy—a lawyer, I think—went around exposing himself to women, taking pictures of their shocked expressions. Kept the photos as souvenirs. Maybe there’s a weird kind of sex thing going on here.”

  Or maybe, I thought, someone had followed me from Uncle Tinh’s, deliberately targeting and threatening me, but not actually hurting me. Because of my relationship to Tinh Vu? I asked myself. But I couldn’t think of how his enemies would know who I was or what the purpose was behind the attack.