A Christmas Kiss (14 page)

He caught a glimpse of her dark chestnut hair as she bobbed around a corner. She wasn't jogging, but it was a gait a lot faster than a regular walk. Joey unfolded his legs a bit more and started after her in earnest. He had to keep an eye on her. And she wasn't going to like that one little bit.

For the first twenty minutes, he thought there was a pattern to her path, but he finally realized she was wandering. Aimlessly crossing and recrossing streets. Walking by places where she would stop and loiter at a storefront. When he realized what she was doing, he felt as if the marrow of his bones had chilled. She was using herself as bait. She was waiting for Kit, or someone else, to come to her. Too many people knew she was in town.

As he darted into the doorway of a small jewelry store, he saw another man and knew instantly that he, too, was following Cori. Joey's subconscious registered the man's patterned jacket—a jaunty combination of red, yellow and black. He walked with his hands in the pockets of the jacket, not an unusual sight on a brisk day, but he was definitely following Cori. He'd been on another corner, had angled across the street and now was behind her again.

Joey started forward, no longer caring if Cori knew he was behind her or not. As the man drew closer to Cori where she stood at a traffic light, Joey broke into a run. His heart pumped, blocking out the sounds of the city. His vision was locked on the man, the way the wind ruffled his thin hair. He was intent on Cori, and there could be no good reason for that interest.

The light changed and Cori started across the street, one woman amid a group of men and women, all moving at the same speed. Except the brightly jacketed man was moving faster—too fast for Joey to catch up. He was ten yards from Cori, and Joey felt more than saw him maneuver the gun in his pocket.

It was going to be a hit. A murder right on the streets of New Orleans. In the confusion the gunman would get away while everyone looked down at Cori and saw the horror of deadly violence, helpless to stop what had already happened.

"Cori!" Joey called her name.

She halted and looked around, finally seeing him. There was a flare of something in her eyes, and then smoldering anger as she turned abruptly and started to walk faster. The man was working through the crowds, closer to her now, as Joey ran as fast as he could. Looking back, Cori saw that Joey was gaining on her, and she began to run, too.

Joey broke into the street, dodging a taxi and a blue Volvo as he gained the opposite curb and pushed past several nuns and a gathering of schoolchildren on a walking tour. He had his weapon, but the streets were too crowded. He could never get a shot off at the hit man without risking killing half a dozen other people.

"Cori!" He was gaining on the man, but not fast enough. The gunman would get to Cori before Joey could stop him.

Surprisingly, Cori stopped and turned. Instead of running away, she started back toward him, her face etched with anger.

He waved his hands. "No! No!" he called to her.

Puzzlement touched her clear green eyes, and he felt as if they had opened a line of pure communication that had nothing to do with voice or gesture. She looked from Joey directly to the jacketed man, and suddenly she read his intent as clearly as if he were holding a sign.

Still running, only a few yards away, Joey saw her hold her hands up to ward off the blow that her slender fingers could not catch or stop.

The sound of the gunshot came, as he knew it would. It was too loud, and yet not real. It echoed off the brick buildings and streets. He hurtled to Cori's side, too late, and pulled her down on the pavement and covered her body with his.
Too late, too late, too late.
His heart pumped the words, and he must have muttered them under his breath.

Above him a woman screamed again and again, a loud, pitching wail like a siren. Rolling off Cori, Joey surveyed her body, wondering where the bullet had entered and if he might possibly be able to apply pressure long enough for an ambulance.

The red sweater hid any sign of blood, and he grasped it, pushing it up, only to find pale skin, perfect, unmarred, and full breasts held by a satiny red bra. Beneath his hands, Cori began to struggle.

"Where are you hit?" he asked, looking into green eyes that were... furious.

"I'm not," she answered clearly. "Are you okay?"

Joey was up, his hand going to the gun under his jacket. He looked around, but the killer had disappeared. The woman still screamed, and Joey held a hand to indicate to Cori to stay down while he went to check.

He saw the jacket, a bright splash of color, in the gutter of the street. A wide circle of red had invaded the multicolored material, and Joey knew the man had been shot squarely in the heart. He was dead, but Joey checked his carotid to confirm there was no pulse. In the dead man's hand was a small, deadly blue steel automatic.

"Move back," Joey said, flipping his badge. "Move away from the body." He swept the crowd back.

"Can I help?" A shop owner had come out.

"Call the police and the emergency medical team."

The man nodded and ducked back into his bakery. Cori got up and went to Joey's side.

"He was coming after me," she said.

Joey ignored her as he tried to make sure no one touched the body. Squatting down, his gaze swept the street, shifting from window to window, from floor to floor. Whoever bad shot the gunman could be sitting just across the street with another round in the chamber.

"He was going to kill me, wasn't he?" Cori insisted. When Joey didn't answer, she grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. "Wasn't he? Until you shot him."

Joey's focus had been on the crowd, on the windows and doorways all around them. There were a million places a sniper could hide.

"How did you know?" she asked, shifting closer to the curb.

Joey swung around on her. He pushed her against the wall of the bakery. "Stay away from the street." He gritted the words. "I didn't shoot him, Cori. Someone else did. And I don't know who or where they are." The stunned look on her face made him back off. "Go inside the bakery. Wait there, and don't do anything stupid this time. This isn't a game. Someone is trying to hurt you, and now another man is dead."

Cori pulled open the bakery door and stepped inside. She moved out of the line of the windows, but she stood in the center of the floor and stared out at the man who lay in the gutter, and at the man who knelt over him, waiting for the police.

Jake Lewis was not disturbed by the dead man. Not in the least. In fact, he was downright jovial.

"Yeah, it's Benny Hovensky. We've been trying to pin a hit on him for the past three years. He always comes up with an airtight alibi, even though we know he's done five hits in the past eighteen months. Good riddance to bad rubbish is my attitude."

Joey was surprised to see Lewis still in uniform and working. Blake had apparently not been able to prove it was him who leaked Cori's identity to the newspaper... or else Blake had never intended to discipline the man.

"Have forensics been able to determine where the shot came from?" Joey was feeling more and more nervous about the strange death of the man Lewis had firmly tied with the DeCarlo family. Benny Hovensky was one of the "paid retainers" of old Antonio DeCarlo. He'd been on the family payroll as chauffeur, gardener, pilot and general gofer. But his actual job had been to take care of people who messed up the lives of the DeCarlo family. Cori could very easily be seen as one of those people.

Lewis pointed across the street. "Down that alley. The angle of the bullet is straight in, right in the heart. That was some shot across a crowded street. Surprised he didn't take out a few pedestrians."

"Any sign of who the sniper might be?" Joey knew it was a hopeless question, but he had to ask.

Even if Jake Lewis knew the answer, he wouldn't give him squat.

"Naw, nothing. No physical evidence at all."

"Since Antonio is dead and Ben's in prison, any idea who this guy might have been working for?"

Joey pressed the issue.

Lewis shrugged. "Ben's in prison, but he's still calling plenty of shots, and don't ever doubt it. What with his case coming up for retrial and the woman being a key witness, it wouldn't be a long stretch to see his handwriting on the hit. But the truth is, Benny was acting more like a free agent. Some of the hits we're pretty sure he made, they were freelance. Anyone could have hired him." Lewis straightened his hat and gave Joey a knowing look. "Are you certain he was after the witness?"

Joey dropped his gaze. "Not certain."

"But you were chasing him?"

"I thought I saw a gun. My intention was to tackle him and pat him down." Joey moved out of the way of the ambulance attendants who had come to remove the body.

"Good intentions." Jake Lewis smiled, and it was not a happy expression. "You know what they say,

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' You and that witness better take care of yourselves. It would be a shame for either of you to become one of the big bad statistics of this old city." He waved the doors of the ambulance shut and moved away.

Joey waited until the ambulance and patrol cars were gone before he went to retrieve Cori from the bakery. She was sitting quietly, her shoulders rounded and her hands in her lap.

"Ready?"

"For what?" she asked. "Bedlam? Bellevue? What's the psychiatric hospital called here in New Orleans?" She stood up, her body tightly compressed. "A man was killed not five feet from me, and you and I believe he was trying to kill me. What am I supposed to do now? You think leaving New Orleans is the answer to all of my problems, but my husband is still out there somewhere, and I
can't
leave until I find him."

Joey looked out the plate glass window. Most of the witnesses had given a sketchy statement to the police and were gone—back to their errands and chores. The murder had been a tragic thing, a horrible event to witness, but it did not involve them. They were free of it and back in the swim of their lives. Cori, though, was trapped.

"Let's take a walk," he said.

"To where? Where can I go that I won't be a target, or where the people I care about won't die?"

Cori pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I've been sitting here wondering what is left of my life, and I've come to a terrible conclusion.

There's not a single thing left of what I used to be. Or who I used to be." She pushed her hair back again. "And I don't know what to do now."

"Let's go outside." Joey wanted to get her moving. He thought for a second she was going to fight, but instead she pushed open the bakery door and stepped into the late afternoon light. Joey waved a thank-you to the baker and took Cori's elbow. "Across the street," he directed.

Cori held her arms stiff, but she didn't shake off his hand on her elbow as they crossed the street, darting easily between the cars, and stopped at the alley. "The sniper was here," he said. He looked down the narrow opening and saw only garbage cans. "Let's take a look."

Cori was surprised that he'd included her, but she stepped behind him as he entered the dark alley.

"The officers who worked the case said there weren't any footprints. No spent shell casings. No cigarette butts. The weapon was a .38, a common gun that's easy enough to buy. The guy was a good shot, right through the traffic and crowd." Joey spoke as if he were tape-recording his observations and thoughts for some future reference.

Together they crept down the alley. They were almost halfway down when they came to a wooden gate. Joey gave it a rattle and the sound of a big chain and padlock on the other side told him he would need equipment and a court order to open it.

He went past, then returned to the gate.

"What is it?" Cori asked.

"Just curious." Joey signaled her forward. "If I lift you up, can you grab the top and look over?"

"What am I looking for?" Cori looked up at the top of the ten-foot privacy fence.

"Whatever is there."

"Sure." She moved up to the wooden fence.

Joey made a cup of his hands. "Step here, and I'll boost you. Grab the top, and I'll push you up the rest of the way."

"Okay." She braced against the fence and stepped into his laced fingers. With a mighty thrust from Joey, she rose in the air until her fingers found the top of the fence. Using her arms to hang on, she felt Joey shift so that he could press her bottom with both hands and lift her over his shoulders.

She found herself looking down into a garden on the other side. "It's someone's private patio."

"What building does it belong to?" Joey asked.

Cori looked to see if there was a clearly marked entrance. "I think it's the green building, about three over."

“Anything unusual?''

"Whoever owns it has a green thumb or owns a florist shop. The place is beautiful. Fountain, ferns, palmettos, thousands of flowers, and the thing is big. Really big. There are walkways, like a formal garden. It's truly beautiful."

"Coming down." Joey lowered her.

Though the alley was dark, she caught the look in his eye. "What is it?" she asked.

"I think we should find out who owns that garden."

"Why?"

"Because I think our shooter may have come from there."

"But it's walled. That doesn't make sense."

"Unless he knew what was going to happen and was waiting here. What if, somehow, he understood that someone was going to try to kill you?"

Cori felt dread tickle down her neck. "How could he know that?"

"Jake Lewis indicated that Benny whatever-his-name-was was a hired gun. A hit man. The sniper would know if he was the one who hired him." Joey took Cori's hand. "Let's get out of here." He led the way out and into the busy street. The thing that troubled him, and that he hadn't said, was how would the sniper have known Cori would walk
the way she'd chosen?

CORI sipped the hot tea, watching as Joey used the chopsticks to eat the spicy snow peas. They were across the river, far away from the Quarter and any part of the city that Cori knew.

"I went to see Danny Dupray this morning." She hadn't intended on telling Joey, but now it seemed like the right thing.