Chapter Twenty-One

The Monroe Travel Agency worked out of an aquamarine two-story townhouse a few blocks over from the Quarter. I couldn't remember if Gemma worked there, or if it was just someone she knew—a friend, or a sibling—but I remembered the building from her Facebook page. I remembered her posing under the arm of an older woman outside in the mid-afternoon sun with a goofy grin on her face. I'd only doom scrolled through it a half-million times in the last week.

I'd woken up late into another rainy afternoon. Charlemagne had done his best to keep me up right until the sun had forced him to Sleep. He'd been trying to distract me from Marcus and Gemma, but I'd woken up with both of them on my mind. What the hell had she been doing buying vervain? I needed answers and I only had so much daylight to get them in. Preferably before Charley woke up and realized I was gone.

I parked on the opposite side of the street and cut the engine. I slid out of the car, tucking my keys into my jacket pocket before I hurried across the street, ducking inside from the rain. I shivered in my jacket, shaking rain out onto the welcome mat just inside the door.

"Would you like a towel?" I glanced up at the woman who'd spoken. Manning the front desk, she was about my age, a blonde streak in her otherwise black hair, she blinked at me from behind a pair of red cat-eyed glasses. She held up a rolled-up towel. "We keep them on hand."

"No, um, I'm okay." I said, dragging my fingers through my damp hair before I crossed the space to her desk. "Thank you, though."

"You're welcome." She said, dropping the towel back onto the counter before she leaned forward on her elbows, tucking her chin against her clasped fists. "How can I help you today?"

"Um," I bit my lower lip, unsure of how to broach the topic with some level of tact and sensibility. "This is gonna be weird, I guess, but did you know a girl named Gemma Thib—"

"Gemma?" She leaned forward, eyes widening behind her glasses. "Yeah, of course, I knew her. She used to work here." She mumbled. "Were you friends with her?"

"We went to high school together." I said, my shoulders slumping a little. "Did you know her well? Could I ask you a few questions?"

She glanced around the empty front office. "We have coffee in the breakroom. The good kind." She said, standing from the desk before offering her hand. "I'm Tandy."

"Abby." I took her hand, her skin warm against my clammy skin. "Uh, is it okay for me to go back there?" I mumbled, a strange knot tying itself up in my stomach.

Tandy glanced around again before she bopped her head in a nod. "We'll be fine, and I can still hear the door from the breakroom." She said, stepping out from behind her desk to lead me a little down a hall off to the right.

The breakroom was actually a small, light blue kitchen with white shutters and matching cabinets. Tandy moved towards the coffee machine to grab the carafe and carry it to the sink. "We have cookies in a cupboard somewhere." She added, nodding over her shoulder to the kitchen island for me to sit down. "What do you want to know about Gemma?"

I settled at the kitchen island, biting my lower lip, as I leaned forward on my elbows. That knot tightened and I finally realized why. It was the way she got the coffee ready, the way she only pretended to not know exactly where that sleeve of cookies was. She'd done this before. "Do you talk about her a lot?" I asked softly, watching the back of her dark head as she spread the cookies out on a plate.

Tandy paused briefly before she bunched her shoulders up in an awkward half-shrug. "Not a lot, or anything, but… a few reporters have stopped by to ask questions, and I kind of just got used to answering them." She mumbled, turning around to place the plate on the counter between us. "Look, I know it's totally morbid, but… Gemma's my first. Murder victim, I mean. She was a sweet girl and I feel totally bad about this, but it's fascinating too. No one asked after her when she was alive. She wasn't even a very good travel agent, she didn't have many upsales—the only reason Mr. Monroe didn't outright fire her was cause he was dating her aunt and he felt bad."

She blinked at me from behind her glasses, dark eyes going a little wide. "You think I'm awful, don't you?" Tandy shook her head. "I just can't shut up."

I exhaled; it wasn't my place to judge how anyone else dealt with their grief but calling a girl your "first murder victim" was really shitty. And I was judging. "It isn't my place to judge." I muttered. "It might not even be my place to ask these things, but was there anyone you can remember coming to see Gemma? Maybe a man? Tall, dark-haired?" Emerald eyes.

"A man?" Tandy's brows rose above her frames. "No, I didn't see any man, but um, that's kind of not surprising. I did see a woman though? Really pretty, model-type almost, with dark hair. Didn't see her eyes though, she usually came in after six wearing sunglasses. She'd walk Gemma out."

I sat up straighter, my brows bending. A woman? "Did Gemma ever mention this woman's name? Did she come in often?" I asked, interest piqued.

Tandy shook her head. "No, and I tried to ask her about it once, but she wouldn't tell me anything. I thought… maybe cause it was new, you know? The woman only started dropping by about a week before Gemma was killed. Kinda tragic when you think about it. Gemma was really happy those last few days. Really over the moon." She glanced up at me. "Why are you asking?"

Bunching up my shoulders, I shook my head. "Just this feeling." I muttered. Sunglasses after six. Dark haired. Model-type. Sounded like a vampire to me. I could name six of Charlemagne's exes with dark hair. Someone I'd met? "Um, is there anything else you remember about her last week here?" I asked.

Tandy considered it before she shook her head. "Not really? Just that she was happy. She was doing okay, I think. It was nice to see. Gemma didn't have the, um, brightest demeanor, I guess." She shook her head, reaching up to push her glasses off her nose and rub her eye. "Tragic, like I said."

Yeah. Tragic.

The rain was still coming down in thick, cold sheets as I drove through Rue Jarden. Hunched over the wheel, I was trying to search the house numbers painted over the doors. Tandy, as helpful as ever, had given me the address for Gemma's aunt, Elise Thibodeaux. Guilt ate at the pit of my stomach. There was little part of me that wanted to intrude on this woman's grief, but I couldn't pass up the chance she knew something about Gemma and her new friend.

I circled the block twice before I finally found the right house. A single shotgun house painted a lilac purple with navy blue trim. I parked on the street and cut the engine before crawling over the center console and into the passenger seat. Pressing my nose to the cool glass, I peered through the window up at the house, sending a silent prayer to the angels and saints that Elise was home.

Taking a breath to steady myself, I shoved the door open, slamming it behind me as I sprinted towards the front stoop. I ducked under the overhang and pressed close to the door, lifting a trembling hand to knock. Despite the short dash, I was soaked through to my skin, hair slicked to the sides of my face. My teeth chattered as a hard shudder passed down my spine. I was tempted to knock again when the curtain by the door twitched out the corner of my eye.

I dropped my hand, hunching my shoulders beneath my jacket. I pressed closer to the door to listen for footsteps, or the lock, when it swung open, and startled me back a step. It was the same woman from the picture on Gemma's Facebook page. Older with patches of silver hair in her black curls, Gemma's slate gray eyes, and round face. Taller and thinner though. "Ms. Thibodeaux?"

She stared at me, scrutinizing my face as if she were trying to place it. I started to open my mouth again when recognition dawned across her features. "Are you Abigail Braden?"

I blinked at her, my lips still slightly parted. Had we met before? "Uh, yeah, actually." I frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't—"

"We've never met." Elise mumbled, still staring. "Gemma used to talk about you. She thought it was really cool that someone she'd known in high school had written a book."

My throat tightened. "She came to my first signing." I said softly. "I... I'm really sorry to do this, I just— I was actually hoping I could ask you some questions about, um, about Gemma?"

Her eyes darkened, features starting to close. "Are you writing another book, Miss Braden?" She asked, an uneven tightness creeping into her voice, her knuckles paling as her grip tightened on the door handle.

I blinked at her again, "What? N-no, no, I'm not." I said, shaking my head. "That isn't— I'm just trying to understand what happened, Ms. Thibodeaux. The last time Gemma and I spoke, we were supposed to get coffee and catch up. Time got away from us, and it— I'm having a hard time processing all of this. That girl, Tandy, she said, she said Gemma was happy, that she was seeing someone, and I don't—" I swallowed hard.

Every word was the truth. Minus a vampire or two. I really didn't understand how this could have happened to Gemma. Or how much of it had happened because of some faint connection to me. The gnawing guilt in my stomach grew worse. "I'm not trying to exploit you, or her. It's the last thing I want to do. I just..." I shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry. It wasn't, isn't, my intention to hurt you,"

She watched me wearily as I started to take a step back, ready to give up and go home. "I told Robert he should fire that girl. She talks a lot." Elise said finally, loosening her grip on the door handle as she stepped out of the way. "What do you want to know?"

Exhaling a shaky breath, I stepped into the warmth of the house. "Thank you." I mumbled, shivering in my wet clothes. "Um, like I said, Tandy mentioned that Gemma had started seeing someone? Dark hair? Did Gemma ever mention her?"

Elise shut the door and gestured for me to follow her into the living room. There was a heater working in the mouth of the fireplace and she pointed to an ottoman for me to sit. She dipped out of the room and came back with a large threadbare towel. She draped it over my shoulders before settling in the recliner across from me. "She never said her name. She was secretive about it. But Gemma was like that. She used to think if she kept things quiet, it made them less real if they went sour."

She sighed and dropped her gaze into her lap, fidgeting with her hands. "She was happy that last week. Excited. She kept to her room, mostly, which wasn't that abnormal either." She splayed her hands. "I just thought she was—she said she was writing again." She blinked at me, her eyes dark in their bruised sockets. "She mentioned you that last week. She wanted to talk to you about, about her work." She swallowed. "I'd forgotten all about that. We were just…having dinner…" She made a vague gesture towards the couch. "We always ate out here."

My heart throbbed in my chest. She was drifting. The grief was swallowing her whole. I leaned forward, dropping my elbows to the top of my knees. "Can I see it?" I asked softly, throat tightening. "What she was writing?"

Elise stared, pressing her lips tight together before she shrugged and dropped her head in a nod. She stood from the recliner and led me out of the living room, down the hall to the last bedroom. She started to reach for the handle before she dropped her hand. "You can go in." She swallowed hard. "Take whatever you want. If it's good, maybe you can—" She cut herself off with a shrug. "I'll be in the kitchen."

I watched her walk away before I opened Gemma's door and slipped inside. I pressed back against it to sweep my graze over her room. Burgundy walls littered in Buffy and Dracula posters, a flatscreen sitting on a messy vanity facing the full-sized bed. The comforter and sheets were still bunched at the end of the bed from the last time Gemma Thibodeaux ever got up. She had two bookshelves pressed into one corner, crammed and double stacked with books and old journals. Her desk was pressed up against the single window in the room, laptop shut, journal and papers on top.

I crossed the room to her desk, brushing my fingers over the top of her journal. I couldn't bring myself to open it and look inside. It didn't feel right. I wasn't family, barely a friend. Throat tightening, I shifted it off to the side to look through her papers. Short story pages marked in red ink and pencil. Beneath the stack, my fingers touched plastic. I moved the pages aside, curling my fingers around the hard plastic edge of a manuscript sleeve.

Tugging it to the surface, my eyes skirted the sticky note pressed to the front of the clear plastic cover. Show Abigail. Me? Swallowing, I flipped the cover open to scan the title page. Le Mangeur de Coeur.

The Heart-Eater.

My heart sat heavy in the pit of my stomach. The rain had slowed to a soft patter and the sun had set while I read Gemma Thibodeaux's story. Sitting on the edge of her bed with my back to the door, the words on the page swam. I'd read them repeatedly. The words on the last page blurring together. Curling my fingers tighter around the edges, I bent double, a tremor moving through me.

Sucking a harsh breath in through my teeth, I stood up and went to the desk again. I grabbed Gemma's journal and returned to the edge of the bed. I hadn't wanted to look, but I needed to. Le Mangeur de Coeur. She'd been writing about Charlemagne. My vampire. Someone had been telling stories.

I flipped it open to the end, to her last entry, and scanned the page. L said it would be time to kill Le Mangeur soon. She wants me to go Madame's and buy the vervain. I glanced up, wracking my brain—L, L, L, L—before I stood. I tucked the journal and Gemma's short story against my chest and hurried out of her room. "Thank you for everything!" I called over my shoulder, slipping out the front door.

I dashed for my car, ducking into the passenger seat again and slamming the door shut behind me. It was full dark now, the rain a soft, pressing mist. Exhaling, I scooted to the edge of the seat before turning to place Gemma's things down and crawl over the center console into the driver's seat. I keyed the engine on, the sudden rush of air fogging the car windows. Charlemagne was going to be furious with me. I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up—

A knock at my driver's side door startled me. I blinked at the window but couldn't see anything more than a vague silhouette outside. "Charley?" I breathed out, shoulders slumping as I leaned towards the door to roll the window down. "Don't be—" I started when I jerked away from the window.

My heart slammed into my ribs. A glimpse of dark eyes—Reflexively, I cowered away from the sound of metal tearing as the door was wrenched from its hinges. I barely had time to register what was happening when fingers in my hair wrenched me forward, driving my skull into the steering wheel—

Pain exploded in my skull, and the world went dark.