Seven

They left Barbara’s armed with a piece of information that both electrified and sickened Ava. For the first time, her numbness was pierced, and pierced sharply. She felt as if she’d been hauled up into a boat at last, able to ride on top of the dark, lapping waves that had threatened to drown her for days. But also as though, between one surge and the next, she could glimpse something mammoth and sinister below the surface, finned and sharp-toothed, and waiting not for her, but for Mercy. The sort of information that could close its jaws on him, and sink its teeth.

Reese insisted they meet up with the others before they went further, and Ava reluctantly agreed. They would need all the muscle they could get, where they were headed next.

They convened at a picnic table beneath the shade of a live oak at Audubon Park. Alex and Tenny showed up with coffee and wrapped deli sandwiches, and despite the churning uncertainty in her stomach, Ava found that she was starving.

“Babe,” Tenny said, with a pout that Ava thought was mostly for show. “We talked about this. You were supposed to stay with them at the hotel.”

Reese shrugged and pulled a pickle off his sandwich; folded it into his mouth. “I stayed with them. At Barbara’s house. It saves time if we split up.”

Tenny didn’t answer, which was as good as a concession.

Ava looked across the table at Alex. “What did Dandridge say?”

“He agreed to look into old school records to see if he ever got in trouble for something. Or if he can track down friends from his class. Speaking of…” He sent Colin a meaningful look.

Colin, mouth full of sandwich, paused chewing and said, “Whuff?”

“He went to public school here, genius,” Tenny said, “and so did you, and you’re, what, a year younger than him?” Tenny held up both hands, and slowly drew the points of his index fingers together. “Connect some dots.”

Colin’s brows flew up, and he choked on his sandwich in his sudden attempt to swallow. Maggie patted him on the back until he could suck in a breath and say, “I didn’t know him. I never saw him before!”

“It was more than twenty years ago,” Alex said. “I’m sure he looked a little different.”

“I would know if I was friends with someone named Harlan Boyle.”

“Maybe not friends, then,” Alex pressed, and his face and his voice screamed cop . “But you could have passed each other in the halls. Had a class together. Been lab partners.”

Colin sneered. “Are you serious? What, you think I’ve been holding out on y’all this whole time? That I did a science fair project with the asshole and just forgot to mention it?”

Alex shrugged. “Those sorts of things happen. A fleeting moment of contact for you could have been momentous for him. Just as it apparently was with Felix.”

“Oh, bite my–”

“ Boys ,” Maggie said, in her Mother Voice. The brothers fell silent. Even Tenny’s brows quirked. Gentler, she said, “Alex is right – wait, wait.” She laid a hand on Colin’s arm before he could argue. “Sometimes we bump into people who think that meeting each other – no matter how briefly – was really important, while the other person couldn’t pick them out of a police lineup afterward or even remember their name. But that doesn’t mean Colin ever met him. Until we know which schools he went to, and if the sergeant can track down any friends, let’s not waste time arguing with each other.” She looked between them. “Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Ava wanted to smile at their chastened expressions, and took a bite of sandwich instead. It was pastrami, and turkey, and mustard, and lots of vinegar and totally ruined chain sandwich shops for her.

Alex caught her eye. “What’d you guys learn?”

Ava set her sandwich down and wiped her hands on a napkin. She had not, nor had she ever been a coy person. She wasn’t all that gentle, either, though she had always tried to treat Mercy gently when it came to revealing the news that he had brothers. But there was no gentle way to say this, and Alex wasn’t Mercy, so.

“Mercy has a half-sister.”

As expected, Alex braced his hands on the table edge and reared back in shock. “Jesus! Who – when did – is she – who did Remy–”

She waved him silent. “Calm down. She’s not your half-sister. She’s not Remy’s.”

He blinked, and then let out a breath that blew half the napkins off the table.

Tenny pinned the rest with a slap and a disgusted sigh.

“The mother’s?” Alex asked.

“Yeah. Dee. According to Barbara – if she was telling the truth – Dee had a preferred client a couple years after she left Remy. She was still kind of young and stupid – stupider,” Ava allowed, with an eye roll. “She got pregnant, and she waffled back and forth on whether or not she wanted the baby. Some days she was excited, some days she said she was going to have it taken care of. She procrastinated long enough that the baby came, and she gave it away. It wasn’t,” she said, before Alex could ask, “a sanctioned, on-the-record adoption. To a friend. A woman who claimed to be the daughter came looking for Barbara a few years ago to get information about Dee. Her name’s Regina Carroll, and Barbara said she looks like Dee, and she’s the right age. Here’s the kicker: she’s a madam, too. She runs a place in the Garden District called Sun House. Under the radar, of course.”

“Of course,” Alex echoed, dumbstruck. “Jesus Christ.”

“If what Ava thinks is true,” Maggie said, “and it’s likely – that Boyle used to stalk, and is still stalking Mercy – then he probably knows who Mercy’s mom was, and dug into her past.”

Alex said, “So you think he’s been by to see this Regina.”

“I think she’s helping him,” Ava said, and didn’t just think, she knew it , deep in her bones. The moment Barbara said Dee’s daughter , all of Ava’s frenetic, wild wondering sharpened to a deadly point. Of course it was Dee’s daughter. The worst hurts of Mercy’s life, his meanest griefs, had all been delivered at Dee’s hand. It made terrible sense that she would find a way to take his child from beyond the grave.

Alex tipped his head side-to-side. “There’s a chance–”

“No, you don’t understand. Mercy hated Dee, because she hated him, and Remy. There’s no way Dee had a daughter who wouldn’t leap at the chance to do something awful to the son Dee wished she’d never had.”

Alex gave her a skeptical look.

“Just trust me.”

Tenny balled up his sandwich wrapper, chucked it over his shoulder without looking, and it landed in the trashcan.

“Fuck,” Colin muttered.

Tenny smirked. “Right, then. We find this Sun House, and we get the bitch to tell us where the kid is. Hell, he might be there .”

Ava nodded.

“No, hold on,” Colin said. “You have to understand how these sorts of places work. It’s not like the old days when they put red curtains in the windows and there was a girl waving her bare legs off the balcony. You have to jump through some hoops, go through the right channels, and get an appointment – at least for the first visit.”

They all turned to him.

“You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience,” Maggie said.

His cheeks colored in the exact same way that Mercy’s did when he blushed. He swiped a hand through the air. “That’s not the point: I’m telling you, nobody can go up the front steps and ring the doorbell. We have to figure out who to talk to.”

“I could check with Dandridge,” Alex offered.

“Because a cop’s going to tell us how to get into a brothel?” Ava asked.

“Cops pay for hookers all the time,” he argued.

“We’ll call Bob,” Maggie said. “The Dogs will know every illegal thing going on here.”

“Bob doesn’t know you guys are in New Orleans,” Reese pointed out.

“Colin will call him,” Maggie said. “Mercy won’t care that he’s in town.”

Colin sighed. “That feels good to know. But yeah. I’ll call him.”

~*~

“I can’t get ahold of him,” Bob said twenty minutes later, on speakerphone, back in Ava and Maggie’s hotel room. “He’s out deep in the swamp and there’s no cell coverage there. The boat’s got a radio, but no one’s picking up.”

Ava had expected as much, but Bob, upon learning that Colin was in town and looking for intel, had insisted on giving Mercy a heads up. He hadn’t reached Mercy, but just hearing about him, knowing for a fact that Bob had seen him, and hugged him, and given him a reliable, well-equipped boat, left Ava’s eyes burning with gratitude.

“That’s alright,” Colin said. The rest of them hovered around him, silent; the story was that Colin had come alone. “But listen, Bob, I’ve got a lead I want to check out – alone, if I can, so it’s not suspicious – but I need your help.”

Tenny had made cue cards with a Sharpie and hotel stationary, but Colin waved him off and gave Bob the quick rundown without notes.

Bob whistled when he was done. “Shit.”

“Yeah. I need to get into Sun House. Can you tell me who to contact.”

“I can, yeah. But don’t you want backup?”

“No,” Colin said, too fast, then backtracked. “Not to start with, at least. I’ll let you know. I don’t want to spook her.”

“Yeah, that’s a good call. I’ll text you the number. Ask for Lawrence. Tell him you want to place an order for flowers: pink peonies.”

Tenny grinned, and Ava wrinkled her nose.

Colin thanked him, promised to call if he needed assistance, and asked Bob to let him be the one to break the news of Regina’s existence to Mercy. Bob agreed, wished him luck, and hung up.

“I’ll make the call,” Tenny said.

Colin lifted his brows and opened his mouth to argue.

“That’s a good idea,” Ava said.

“But–”

“He’s used to doing undercover work. Not to mention he can do accents, and no one in this city knows him. Also, he’s not the spitting image of Remy Lécuyer.” She pointed at Colin, who finally shut his mouth, and nodded.

Then she turned to Tenny. “I wanna go with you.”

His lips pressed together into a thin, frustrated line. “How did I know you’d say that. But here’s the thing: no.”

She folded her arms. “Dee never had a photo of me. Regina won’t recognize me. And besides: couples go to working girls together all the time.”

“Yeah, sometimes, which is why if you want to send a couple, you can send us.” He gestured to Reese. “Or I can go by myself.”

She stared at him.

He stared back.

“I’m assuming, since you met Dee before, that you’ll know what to look for?”

He stared some more.

“Hm?”

He sighed.

“Call and order the peonies. I’ll go fix my hair.”