New Orleans Noir. Joanna Wayne
an additional enticement for the curious or extrasensory believer. The crimson velvet drape behind the ball blocked the view of the studio’s dimly lit interior, making it even more mysterious.
Unlike Alyssa, her grandmother Brigitte had the gift in spades. At least she had until she claimed old age weakened her powers. Before moving into an assisted living center in Covington, Brigitte had frequently told Alyssa how lucky she was not to be constantly haunted by other people’s nightmares.
Alyssa walked to the window, notched back the heavy drape and peeked out. Things were getting livelier on the street. A few more drinks and hopefully someone would knock on her door, enter her chambers and cross her palms with cash.
The only person she recognized was Andy, the scruffy young man at the curb playing his sax for tips. A nice guy, but bad luck found him at every turn. Good tippers didn’t.
Just as she started to let go of the curtain’s edge, she spotted another familiar figure. Hunter Bergeron. Tall, ruggedly handsome, with dark brown hair that always looked mussed. Alyssa suspected there were plenty of young women who’d love to run their hands through it and straighten it for him.
Had she been a decade or so younger, she might have been one of those women.
Hunter was low-key for a hard-nosed homicide detective. He could push when he had to, though. He’d proved that when questioning half the people in the French Quarter after Elizabeth Grayson’s murder.
She walked over, opened her door and tried to get his attention, just to say hello and perhaps pick his brain for a minute about the serial killer investigation. He didn’t look up, his attention focused on a stunning young woman in a bright yellow sundress, who didn’t appear to see him watching.
The young woman leaned over and dropped a bill into the musician’s open sax case. When she straightened, she turned Alyssa’s way.
Oh my God. That is Mia Cosworth’s granddaughter. She had no idea Helena was back in town.
Alyssa stepped outside, waving frantically until she got Helena’s attention. Helena smiled and began to maneuver her way around a cluster of tourists.
Seconds later, Helena stepped through the open door and threw her arms around Alyssa in the same enthusiastic way she had when Helena had been a kid and her grandmother would bring her to visit.
Good memories until...
Alyssa trembled. She pulled away from Helena and reached for the back of one of the waiting room chairs for balance.
“What’s wrong?” Helena asked.
“It’s this dreaded headache,” Alyssa lied. “I’ve been fighting it all day. I just need to sit down.”
Helena helped her into the chair. “Can I get you something for it?”
“If you don’t mind. There’s a bottle of aspirin on the table in the small kitchen and a pitcher of cold water in the fridge.” This was far more than a headache, but she needed time alone to regain her equilibrium.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. It didn’t help. Instead weird images popped into her head as if she were hallucinating. She’d experienced this before but not in years and not often.
The harder she tried to force the images from her mind, the more vivid they became. It was Helena being chased by a man who was too blurry to identify. And blood. Lots of blood, covering Helena’s clothes and her hair and part of her face.
This isn’t real. I’m not an authentic medium. This is some nightmarish trick my mind is playing on me.
But why now?
The images faded as fast as they’d come. Alyssa shuddered, determined to ignore the cold horror that rode her spine, and pulled herself together. She could not plant her groundless, horrifying hallucinations into Helena’s mind.
Helena shook two aspirin from the bottle into Alyssa’s palm and then handed her a glass of cold water. Alyssa was no longer shaking the way she had been, but she didn’t look well.
“Should I call 911?” Helena asked. “Just in case you’re coming down with something.” Or was having a stroke—or worse.
“No. No doctors. No ambulance. I was dizzy for a minute, but I’m fine now.”
“You don’t look fine. You look as if you saw a ghost.”
“No chance of that. I couldn’t conjure one up if I tried. Believe me, I know.”
Her attempt at humor fell flat. “You should at least get checked out at the emergency clinic,” Helena said. “I’ll be glad to go with you.”
“That’s totally not necessary, but thanks. What I could really use is some conversation with someone who doesn’t expect me to read their mind.”
To emphasize her point, Alyssa stood, walked to the door and flipped the rectangular plaque from Open to Closed.
“Have a seat,” Alyssa insisted, “and fill me in on all you’ve been doing since I saw you last. You cut out so soon after your grandmother’s memorial service that I didn’t get a chance to properly say goodbye.”
“I was in a state of shock,” Helena admitted. “Her death was so sudden, so unexpected. I’m not sure what I said to anyone.”
“I understand that,” Alyssa said. “Her death was a shock to all of us. She was a dynamo those last few months, as driven as I’d ever seen her.”
“I know she was busy trying to raise money to offer an award to anyone who helped identify Elizabeth’s killer.”
“She raised over a hundred thousand dollars. Everyone was amazed.”
“Mia could always do anything she set her mind to.” Helena settled in the nearest chair. “I didn’t realize she raised that much, though.”
Alyssa dropped into the facing chair and kicked out of her beaded sandals. She pulled her bare feet into the chair with her, tucking them beneath her long, flowing skirt.
There was no overhead lighting in the reception area, but red silk squares were draped over the shades of a pair of brass, dragon-shaped lamps. Flames flickered from a cluster of fragrant candles that dominated a round table in the center of the space, bathing the room in a warm, sensual glow.
As a small child, Helena had thought Alyssa’s home was as magical as the Greek and Roman gods in Mia’s colorfully illustrated books.
By the time she understood what powers a psychic supposedly possessed, she’d outgrown her belief in magic.
“What’s going on in the neighborhood?” Helena asked. “Any gossip I should know about?”
“I’ll start with the bad and get it out of the way. Fancy died.”
“Fancy, the portrait painter?”
“That’s the one. She’d set up her paints and easel in that same spot outside Jackson Square every day for as long as I’ve lived here—and that’s more years than I care to admit.”
“I credit much of my interest in art to her,” Helena said. “When I was five all I wanted for Christmas was an easel and some paints so I could make pictures like Miss Fancy.”
“She would have loved that story,” Alyssa said.
“I wish I had shared it with her.”
“The locals threw her a real New Orleans funeral with a jazz parade and lots of dancing in the streets, similar to what we all did for Mia, except less organization and fewer musicians.”
“You guys definitely sent Mia off in style,” Helena agreed. They’d