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  “Please quit using that word.”

  The corners of his eyes wrinkled into a puzzled squint. “What word?”

  “Suicide.”

  “Calling it as I see it. If you can’t even admit what you just did, then you really need help.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You need a support system, and that starts with talking to someone and telling them what just happened.”

  “I have the best support system money can buy. My support network—of friends, relatives, doctors, therapists, counselors, and prescription meds—is so wonderful, it led me straight here, to the river.”

  The steady, concerned look in Pic’s blue eyes inspired a lightning bolt of clarity.

  What I need is a goddamn backbone.

  “You’re not going to call anyone,” Pic said, frowning, “are you?”

  “No,” she whispered, loud enough for Pic to hear it, and pulled the blanket closer around her.

  No one will ever know. Because they’ll never, ever stop pitying me if they know. They’ll never treat me like I’m normal. I’ve had enough pity for one lifetime.

  “But someone needs to know—”

  She sighed. “Someone does. You do. And I have a feeling that you’re enough.”

  Eyes intent, he gave her a small, thoughtful nod, as though he was considering the task, and decided he was up for it. The pure concern in his blue eyes reached into her soul, making her forget her own misery.

  Dear God, he’s a homeless teenager, and he’s trying to help me.

  “You have to promise me you’ll have hope,” Pic said. “That you’ll believe in tomorrow. That you won’t try to kill yourself again. Don’t end your story. Make it better. Promise?”

  The sincerity in his eyes matched the serious tone in his voice. The combined effect of both muted all of the smart-ass quips she could’ve made. Instead, in words that held almost no meaning to her, but because he seemed so damned sincere, she said, “I promise.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Oddly, the hope she saw in his eyes made seeds of it germinate deep within her.

  “Say you believe.”

  “You’re relentless, aren’t you?”

  “Sure am.” He nodded, with a slight smile. “Say you believe.”

  “In what?”

  “Hope for tomorrow,” Pic said.

  She almost laughed. “Now you’re pushing it.”

  “Come on.” He gave her a nod of encouragement. “Say it.”

  “I believe in hope for tomorrow.”

  His smile was broad, with warmth that filtered over to her. He continued, “I meant it just about as much the first time I said it. I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s say hi in Crescent Park. By the old wharf near the Piety Street footbridge. Around noon. Okay?”

  “I have…limitations, Pic, on where I can go. I’ve never been to Crescent Park, so I’m not sure—”

  “I can’t let you go unless I know where and when I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She sighed. “We’ll come up with something. But getting to that point means we have to talk a bit, and I’m freezing. You’ve got to be as well,” she said, standing. “Which is pretty stupid of me, because I left my purse over there.” She gestured with her chin to where she’d left it. “My keys are in it, and my car—with a perfectly fine heater—is parked beside the levee. Come on, Pic. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” He stood, facing her, arms folded. His face had paled. The fear she saw in his wide eyes made sense of his lying about his age, fake name, and sleeping in levee brush. She guessed he was scared someone would find him. Someone who’d send him back to wherever he ran from. From the fear in his eyes, it was a place as scary as the hell in which she lived.

  Fine. We’ll be afraid together.

  “Yes, Pic. You are. Because I’ll turn into an icicle if I sit out here any longer. I want to talk to you, but I want to do it over breakfast. This see-you-tomorrow thing is about trust, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Trust that we’ll both show up tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, let’s start small. I at least owe you a meal and while we’re eating, we’ll start building that trust. I trust you’ll keep my secret about this morning, and you can trust that I won’t push you to tell me anything you’re not ready to tell. Sound fair?”

  Hunching his shoulders, he dug his fists into the front pocket of his baggy jeans. She eyed his tattered sweater, banged-up guitar case, and overstuffed backpack. He was sleeping on the levee, and she’d bet made-to-order, hot meals had been nonexistent in his recent history. “I know a place we’ll get warm. We’ll get hot, fluffy pancakes. Eggs. Hash browns. Fat, juicy sausage links. Whatever you want. Sound good?”

  She knew she’d caught him at the mention of pancakes, and didn’t wait for a reply. With Pic’s dirty blanket around her shoulders, Andi turned and walked away, confident her new friend would follow.

  Chapter Two

  Andi

  Present Day

  Friday, February 12

  Head tilted, eyes narrowed, Andi imagined how she’d capture the perception of time’s passage that the 18th century Creole townhome inspired. With its balconies, blue-shuttered windows, wrought iron swirls, and red brick façade, the historic property evoked the contradiction of time standing still, yet racing by. Conveying that feeling on canvas would be a challenge. But the larger question was whether she could force herself to stand on the busy street for the hours it would take to do the painting justice.

  I can do this. If not today, one day. I’m almost well enough.

  Heart pounding a staccato beat, warning her of the fright that came for her before inevitable flight, Andi tried to block the jarring sounds of traffic on Esplanade Avenue. Rationally, she knew that the tree-lined street that bordered the French Quarter and the Faubourg Marigny, with two lanes of traffic separated by a tree-lined neutral ground, shouldn’t inspire fear. Lined with mansions, bars, and restaurants, this stretch of Esplanade was as benign as any street in New Orleans.

  A normal person wouldn’t be afraid. A normal person would be able to paint for the long hours it would take to do the scene justice. But it had been two and a half years since Victor Morrissey had ended her normal life. It was a full two years after her failed suicide attempt, a life-altering move that no one but she and Pic would ever know about. And it was one year and eleven months after she’d moved into her family’s Royal Street townhome, which had been sitting empty since the death of her mother’s brother.

  Pic had become an instant friend. He’d inspired her to become an artist who worked at creating paintings, as opposed to the kind of artist she’d once been—the kind who talked about painting at cocktail parties. Once she’d mustered the courage to move into the French Quarter townhome, it only took three nights alone in the old house for her to realize she might never be able to live alone again. She had also figured out that trying to practice en plein air painting, which required her to be outside, was too much of an undertaking for someone with her brand of post-traumatic stress induced agoraphobia.

  So, she’d come up with a workaround for both problems: an around-the-clock protective detail by Black Raven Private Security Contractors. The company was affiliated with her best friend’s husband, Brandon Morrissey. Brandon was the brother of Victor, the crazed madman who had forever altered her life. The oddness of getting help from and trusting a man who was related to the man who left her needing such help wasn’t lost upon her. But Brandon had nothing to do with what his brother did, and he was driven to somehow, someway, make amends for all she’d suffered. Black Raven specialized in customized security details, and God knew she needed a detail that was customized.

  It had been one year, ten months, and three and a half weeks since she’d hired Black Raven. Knowing her security team was there enabled her to breathe. Most of the time. Sometimes though, the anxiety won the battle that s
he fought every hour of every day. And though she knew she needed the agents, the reality of her situation was far less than ideal. She suspected the agents liked her job as little as she liked having them around her.

  Focus on the positive: it’s a damn good thing I can afford an around-the-clock security detail.

  A car horn sounded a sudden, insistent blast. She flinched, then forced in a deep, calming breath as a red SUV edged around a blue truck, while the driver of the truck tried to parallel park.

  A Black Raven agent stood on the neutral ground, five feet away on her left, facing the mansion she was studying. Dark-haired, wearing black slacks, a black leather jacket, his sunglasses concealing the direction of his gaze. Although she paid as little attention to the agents as possible, she took comfort in their solid presence. She didn’t bother with their names. Agents rotated in and out of her job as quickly as she could click the ‘buy now’ button at Amazon for a middle of the night purchase.

  Agent Two, a broad-shouldered clone of Agent One, stood on her right, four feet away. Her cart, with her easel, canvasses, and pochade box filled with paints, brushes, and palette, rested at his feet. He faced the opposite side of the street, the French Quarter side of Esplanade.

  Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. You’re not being taken today. You’re never being taken again. It’s a perfectly ordinary Friday.

  She drew a deep breath and tried to block the rumbling of a delivery van and the beeps of a nearby garbage truck. A cluster of tourists stopped in front of the house she was studying. Three women, four men. One woman stripped off her jacket and posed against the wrought iron fence that bordered the property. She arched her back, showing off her chest through her tight t-shirt, while a man wearing black leather from head to toe snapped photos.

  Andi retrained her gaze on the mansion as the tourists meandered down the sidewalk. A bird chirped. She tried to concentrate on the sound of nature rather than street noise as she studied the composite colors of the old brick’s reddish brown tones. Pigment would be tricky. Indian Red? Terra Rosa? Brown Ochre? Yes. All of those.

  While her left hand craved the weight of a paintbrush, sunlight shifted as more clouds raced across the sky. Limbs of an oak tree in the side yard provided an overhead canopy that filtered the afternoon light. Shadows created by tree branches stretched and reached across the façade.

  Screeching tires snapped her out of her reverie. A wide trunk of a gnarled old oak tree stood about five yards away, blocking her view. Hair on the back of her neck prickled. She stepped forward to look around the tree as a cold, heavy sense of dread tightened in her stomach. About a block and a half away, a black van containing a driver and passenger, both male, edged forward into the parking lane along the curb.

  Ignore them. He’s trying to park. Focus on the house.

  Andi tried to return her attention to the house across the street, but her gaze drifted down the street. Sunlight caught chrome, drawing her attention to the van and the passenger-side door as it swung open.

  See? It’s nothing. He’s just dropping someone off.

  Yet the passenger didn’t move away. The van didn’t drive away. A girl, further away from Andi and a bit past the van, was on the sidewalk, approaching the van.

  The tourists who had been in front of the mansion were now crossing the street, standing in the neutral ground, within a foot of Agent Two as they waited for traffic to clear. One of the women said something, then the whole group laughed. Andi heard Agent Two give a low chuckle.

  Gaze riveted away from the tourists, Andi watched the van’s passenger lift his arm, moving towards the girl. Two things got in Andi’s way of actually seeing what was happening. One, the van was at least a block and a half away. Two, the girl had been approaching the van from the opposite direction of where Andi stood. Now, her smaller figure was partially blocked by the larger man, who seemed to move towards the girl and the van in a fast, simultaneous action.

  Whatever happened took only a second or two. Lightning-fast fear seized Andi, as her mind fabricated a complete picture from the fragmented pieces of the story her vision provided.

  Pointing, she yelled, “They’re kidnapping her.”

  Ignoring the admonishments of the agents to remain where she was, Andi ran across the street as the van pulled away. Agents One and Two fell in step on either side of her. “The van turned on Decatur. Hurry,” she said. “We’ll catch it. Move!”

  “Ms. Hutchenson.” Agent One kept pace with her. “Nothing happened.”

  “A woman was taken. Hurry! They’re getting away.”

  “Nothing happened,” Agent Two said, echoing Agent One’s statement.

  “Call the police.” Andi slowed as she reached Decatur Street, where there was no black van in sight. “She didn’t go willingly! They took her.”

  The agents gave each other a long glance that carried an easily readable message. ‘Here she goes again.’

  Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time she thought she’d seen a kidnapping. The recurrent daymare, the term she used for her wide-awake nightmares, was a symptom of her post-traumatic stress. But today was different because she really had seen a van and a girl. No one was going to tell her that had been her imagination.

  Besides, she’d been better for a long time. It had been months since this had last happened.

  “You saw the black van?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.

  “But neither of you saw the blonde they grabbed in broad daylight?"

  Silence was their answer.

  “What the hell were you looking at, Agents? The woman with the big boobs crossing the street? Or was the guy with the leather pants more to your liking? Because I know what I saw. Both of you were right beside me. Why the hell didn’t you look where I was pointing?”

  She saw the answer in their eyes, right beneath their ever-present glances of pity. They hadn’t really been paying attention to her because they were bored to death with babysitting a crazy woman whose wild-ass imagination made her see things that didn’t exist. “I’m calling the cops.”

  “We aren’t going to call the police on this, and I don’t advise you do it, either. Perhaps we should go home now?” Agent One said. “Maybe you’ve had enough for one—”

  Andi glared him into silence, then spun on her heels, and shot a questioning glance in Agent Two’s direction. “Do you agree?”

  “I didn’t see anything suspicious,” Agent Two articulated slowly. Carefully.

  “And neither of you plan on backing me up when I call the police, do you?”

  Agent Two cleared his throat. “Ms. Hutchenson, we didn’t see anything. And we’re not going to fabricate an incident.”

  The words, ‘to appease you’ were left unsaid. She heard them anyway.

  As her adrenaline surge faded, a wave of fright-induced nausea twisted her gut. Next came a fear-filled jolt, where her mind flashed to the time she’d been locked in Victor Morrissey’s pitch-black trunk. Naked, terrified, and cold.

  Before she had to use all her present-day energy on combating her memories, she glanced at the two agents. Careful to keep her voice firm, and not reveal her inner turmoil to these two patronizing assholes, she said, “You both should’ve been paying more attention. To me. Because when I pointed, it was so you could witness a criminal act and take action. We could’ve prevented a kidnapping in broad damn daylight. You’re both fired. As a matter of fact, effective the minute I’m safely home, this entire Black Raven job is terminated.”

  Chapter Three

  Gabe

  Outside of Atlanta, Georgia

  Friday, February 12

  “Heads up, Gabe. Just you and me on this call, but that’ll change in a few minutes. Ready?”

  Detecting urgency in his older brother Zeus’s clipped words, Michael Gabriel Hernandez glanced apologetically at his contractor, architect, and designer. They stood on the slab of what would eventually be his living room. With a hand gesture and a nod, he
signaled for them to continue as he edged away. “Talk to me.”

  “High priority client in New Orleans is extremely dissatisfied.” Glancing out towards the stand of pines, magnolia, and dogwood that stood to the east, Gabe detected an edge in his brother’s tone. “Client’s name is Andi Hutchenson. She hired us for a personal security detail. Her own. Job started almost two years ago. In general, the client is difficult. To say that she’s dissatisfied is an understatement. A couple of agents pissed her off this afternoon. She fired them and is attempting to terminate our employment. Firing Black Raven is something we cannot let happen. She’s too important a client, for reasons that will become apparent in this call. We need you there, ASAP.”

  “I’m teaching for the next couple of weeks at Last Resort, starting tomorrow.” Schedules at Last Resort, Black Raven’s advanced training facility in Georgia, were planned months in advance.

  “I’ve rearranged your course schedule.”

  “Whoa. Without consulting me? Why is this job so important?”

  “That’s the reason for this heads up. Figured you’d be annoyed with your schedule change, and I don’t blame you. Your courses can be taught in the final weeks of the current training session, which gives you two weeks on the Hutchenson job. Time enough for you to change the course of it. Consider your gracious acceptance of this assignment a personal favor to more than one Black Raven partner.”

  At least Zeus was giving a nod to Gabe’s position of respect within the ranks of Black Raven agents. Gabe had his own client base of repeat customers who asked for him by name. Normally, he had his pick of assignments on the high stakes, international jobs that he, and other elite agents, favored.

  “Who needs the favor?”

  “Sebastian and Brandon. They want to talk to you.”

  Sebastian Connelly—founding Black Raven partner. Brandon Morrissey—general legal counsel for the company, and good friends of both Zeus and Sebastian.