Heather Graham by Down in New Orleans Read Free Book Online Page B

maybe...
    Maybe he was just so damned tired he couldn’t think straight anymore.
    “Go home, my friend,” Lee persisted.
    “Yeah, I guess it’s time. You will tell me—”
    “I will tell you anything at all that I can.”
    “At any time. Call me. Right?”
    “Go home. If you’re questioning me, you really do need some sleep.” Lee Minh was smiling. He’d been at his grim work all of his adult life, but though he was forty, when he smiled, he had the look of a good-natured kid playing a prank. Lee was still blessed with a thick headful of sleek, dark hair. He was a compact, wiry man of medium height, and despite his calling, he was considered one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. He and Mark spent some of their rare free evenings together, both appreciating good lager on tap and jazz music.
    “Go,” Lee repeated.
    Mark nodded, threw his jacket over his shoulder, and started out.
    He got into his car, intending to go home.
    He didn’t know when he changed his mind. Maybe he was driving on autopilot. But before he knew it, he was turning the wrong corners in the French Quarter.
    Returning to the scene of the crime.
    Ann showered until the water ran cold.
    She was exhausted; she was wide awake. She would have stayed at the hospital, but the hospital staff wouldn’t let her in with him that night anyway.
    The night had been ungodly, all those hours spent being terrified that Jon was going to die.
    Now she faced the fear of what was going to happen to Jon if he lived.
    She was encouraged by Jon’s stable vital signs; she was horrified by the realization that a woman had died.
    A woman Jon had been painting.
    A woman he had been with.
    A woman he had...
    No!
    Where the hell was her faith? If nothing else, she knew the man better than anyone else on earth. He wasn’t a killer.
    She didn’t know the circumstances, she reminded herself.
    Jon wasn’t a killer; not under any circumstance. She knew that, and she did have faith in him. But Jon had gripped her hand. And she had thought that he’d been about to whisper her name. But he hadn’t done so. He had whispered...
    Annabella’s.
    Why hadn’t she told the cop what Jon had said? Because the cop had already pegged Jon, and she didn’t think that it would help?
    Because it might be all that she might have to help him with?
    She shivered.
    The cop had known she was lying. She would be seeing him again. And he would persist.
    “I don’t have to tell him anything!” she whispered aloud.
    Well, maybe she did. She didn’t know the law that well, except that she might be hindering an investigation. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to tell anyone anything. Not until she knew more about Jon’s condition. Not until he could fight for himself.
    And if he could never fight for himself?
    She was going to have to fight for him.
    That decided, she at last left the shower, shivering. She wrapped herself in an old, worn terry robe and made her way out to the living room. She hesitated, then turned off the light. It was morning. Early morning. Her balcony drapes were open; the French doors leading to the balcony were ajar. She could see the sun rising, gold and orange and beautiful, casting down delicate, soft rainbow reflections on wrought-iron filigree on the balconies across the way from her. Flowers spilled from planters, catching and playing with the light as well. She wondered how such a beautiful day could contain such pain. Such tragedy. But her husband’s near death didn’t change the glory of the sunrise. There was so much beauty here just in the changing colors of night and day.
    She walked into the kitchen, pausing by the front door. The police had finished with her home by the time she’d returned to it. She’d been allowed to clean up Jon’s blood and their fingerprint powder. She’d had a few arguments with the remaining police techs when she’d arrived. She didn’t understand why they wanted samples of Jon’s blood from her doorway when