Murray hums. “You be careful, then. Pretty thing like you shouldn’t have too much trouble findin’ somethin’.”
I give him a nod, then walk out before either of us can say anything else.Paid my bill!It had to have been Shiloh.
And that’s just obnoxious, because it makes me feel like he’s saying thank you for services rendered.
Fuck that.
By the time I’m back on the road, I’m running on caffeine, spite, and the kind of hope that gets people killed.
The highway stretches out like a promise. Retribution. Retaliation. Control.
I shift in the seat and reach for my coffee again, bitter and bland, both at once. The air conditioner belches lukewarm air, the sun shining in through the openwindow hot and relentless. My skin stretches too tight over nerves already at a tipping point.
“Steady,” I tell myself out loud.
My wrist is banded in red lines from snapping rubber. I flex my fingers on the wheel until the ache settles.
When New Orleans traffic comes into view—barely an hour down the road—the world changes as though somebody flipped a switch.
The highway fattens and snarls, lanes braiding together with no warning. Brake lights bloom red in the heat shimmer. A beat-up sedan cuts in front of me, and a horn blares from somewhere I can’t see. I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and ease off the gas, letting Lucille crawl with the flow, my knuckles whitening around the wheel.
This isn’t Chicago chaos. Chicago is sharp edges and rules you can predict if you’re paying attention.
This is…alive. In a different sort of way.
The air turns heavier the closer I get, wet with a storm that I just managed to miss. The city smells different—hot asphalt, river funk, fried something, and jasmine growing wild in the cracks.
I follow the signs into the Quarter, and if the interstate was a snarl, the FrenchQuarter is a maze.
Narrow streets. One-ways designed to confuse. Buildings pressed shoulder to shoulder like they’re whispering secrets. Iron balconies draped in ferns and beads and wind chimes that clink soft as laughter. People everywhere—tourists with plastic cups, locals with that purposeful stride, artists smoking in doorways.
The whole place breathes, slow and shameless, just waiting for you to slip and fall from grace.
I guess I did that last night, so I’m good.
My mind flickers to the bathroom. The missing pieces. The dark. The lock. I try to string memory together with fury, because I want—I need—to find the motherfucker. Do him bodily harm.
But fuck. If I never even saw the man’s face, how am I supposed to do that?
The thought turns colder before it has time to become fear. He’s not the priority. Deacon is. He’s the target. The point. The whole damn reason I’m here.
Once he’s handled?—
It’s called prioritizing. I don’t have to like it. I just have to do it.
I turn down Toulouse Street. The buildings here are older, darker, prettier in a way that’s muted. The street’s packed—cars wedged into impossible spaces, delivery truckshalf blocking lanes, pedestrians stepping out with a death wish and full faith you’ll stop.
I’m moving at a crawl anyway, eyes scanning storefronts, signs, doorways.
A group of women power-walks past me on the sidewalk—no strollers, no suburban softness. These are Quarter women: leggings and tank tops, hair pulled high, sunglasses even though the sun’s starting to slide behind clouds in the sky. One of them has a lanyard and a key ring clipped to her waistband. Service industry.
Their heads are bent together, their lips moving with rapid-fire gossip.
Not trusting my GPS—it has betrayed me before—I pull to the curb and throw my hazards on.
“Sorry—excuse me,” I call out, bright and chipper, “I’m lookin’ for Noir?”
They slow just enough to side-eye me. I plaster on my best I’m-not-a-criminal and definitelynota Yankee smile, the one that only works half the time unless you know me.
