Midnight Bayou

in it vanished. “He’s a caution. Jack, he’s a cousin of my sister’s husband’s brother’s wife. He’ll do good work for you, and if he doesn’t give you a fair price, you tell him Miss Odette’s gonna want to know why.”
    “I appreciate that. You wouldn’t happen to know a plasterer? Somebody who can handle fancy work?”
    “I’ll get you a name. It’ll cost you a pretty bag of pennies to put that place back to what it was and keep it that way.”
    “I’ve got a lot of pennies. I hope you’ll come by sometime so I can show you around. I can’t make corn bread, but I can manage the tea.”
    “You got a nice manner, cher. Your mama, she raised you right.”
    “Would you mind writing that down, signing it? I can mail it to her.”
    “I’m going to like having you around,” she declared. “You come back to visit anytime.”
    “Thank you, Miss Odette.” Reading his cue, he got to his feet. “I’m going to like having you around, too.”
    The sun beamed across her face as she looked up at him. The angle of it, the amusement in her dark eyes, the teasing curve of lips, shot him back to the dim bar in the Quarter. “She looks so much like you.”
    “She does. You got your eye on my Lena already?”
    He was a little flustered to realize he’d spoken outloud, so he tried a grin. “Well, we established I like girls, right?”
    She gave the table a little slap to punctuate the laugh as she rose. “I like you just fine, Declan.”
    H e liked her, too. Enough that he decided to buy a couple of chairs after all, so she’d have somewhere to sit when she came by. He’d find something on Saturday, he thought as he went back to prepping the kitchen walls. He could hunt some down in the afternoon, before he was due to have dinner with Remy and Effie.
    Then, he’d cap off the evening with a drink at Et Trois.
    And if Lena wasn’t working that night, he’d just walk back out and throw himself in front of a speeding car.
    H e worked until well after dark, then treated himself to a beer along with his Hungry-Man chicken dinner. He ate sitting on a sawhorse and admiring the progress of the kitchen.
    The walls were stripped, repaired and prepped for paint. His pencil marks on them indicated the measurements of the cabinets he would start to build the next day. He’d even tried his hand at pointing up the bricks in the hearth, and didn’t think he’d done a half-bad job of it. The old pine flooring was exposed and protected now with drop cloths. He’d finally settled on the traffic pattern, and had earmarked the spots for the range and the refrigerator.
    If he couldn’t find the right china cabinet for the long wall, he’d damn well build that, too. He was on a roll.
    He carried a bottle of water upstairs, took his now-traditional nine-minute shower, then stretched out on the bed with his notes, drawings and books. Halfway through adjusting his plans for the front parlor, he conked out.
    And woke, shivering with cold, in full dark. The baby had wakened him. The thin cries were still in his ears as he sat straight up with his heart banging like a hammer against his ribs.
    He didn’t know where he was, only that he was on the floor instead of in bed. And it was cold enough that he could see the white mist of his own breath pluming into the inky dark.
    He rolled over, gained his feet. Reaching out like a blind man, he felt at the air as he took a cautious step forward.
    Lilies. His body shuddered as he registered the scent. He knew where he was now—in the room down the hall from his own. The room, like the one on the third floor, he’d so carefully avoided over the last several days.
    He was in it now, he thought as he took another shuffling step. And though it was insane, he knew he wasn’t alone.
    “You can scare me. But you won’t scare me away.”
    His fingers brushed something solid. He yelped, snatched them back an instant before he realized it was a wall. Taking several steadying breaths, he felt his way along it, bumped over trim, tapped over glass. Fumbling, he found the knob for the gallery doors and flung them open.
    The January air felt warm and heavy against his chilled skin. He stumbled forward, gripped the rail. The night was like the inside of a cave. The old adage was true, he decided. There was no dark like country dark.
    When his eyes adjusted to it, he turned back, pulled the door to the room firmly closed.
    “This is my house now.” He said it quietly, then walked down