Let the Dead Sleep - Heather Graham

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to figure out how she hadn’t grasped a memory of his name when she’d first seen him in the shop. She’d been gone for four years of college, and she’d spent two years in New York City after that, apprenticing at an advertising company and then creating ads for clients. During summer breaks, she’d traveled with her father. She’d left the agency two years ago to come home and start working on her own projects; she’d done well, she could honestly say that. First, she’d sold watercolors on Jackson Square. Then she’d had work accepted by Colors of the World, a gallery down the street.

      Her father had insisted they use the shop as a venue for her. She’d fought the idea at first, not wanting to fall back on family. Besides, it was a curio and antiques shop. And she really wanted to make it on her own. But then her dad had asked her to improve the look of the place—and she’d realized some of her oil paintings and watercolors could help in doing just that.

      Michael Quinn was five or six years older than she was. So it seemed he’d come back from the service, joined the force and quit while she’d been gone. Not that she’d ever known him; she’d grown up in the Quarter while he’d been an uptown boy.

      She clicked back to the picture of the man standing with her father.

      And she thought about Gladys Simon.

      It was late by then, but she threw on a robe and left her room, following the low-level emergency lights down to the shop and then to the basement level.

      She paused for a minute. She’d never been afraid in the shop, her apartment or even the basement in the old house before. She’d always been surrounded by Egyptian artifacts, sarcophagi, coffins, death masks, antique weapons, ghastly movie props and more. She was as accustomed to these strange things as most children were to sofas, family photos on the wall and wide-screen televisions.

      But that night, she was hesitant. The corners of the room appeared darker. A mannequin might have moved; a gorilla from a 1920s movie seemed to be staring at her from out of the shadows. A death mask of an Egyptian queen might have blinked.

      “Ridiculous!” she said aloud. This was her home, her playground as a girl. She knew to be careful with these artifacts, but they’d never frightened her.

      She turned on the overhead light, dispersing the shadows and the secrets they held.

      She reminded herself again that she’d never been afraid of this room. She’d known and appreciated everything in it all her life.

      And then there was the book. The Book of Truth.

      She started looking through it again.

      Chapter Four

      NEVER TRUST ANYONE.

      That was Leroy Jenkins’s motto; he’d gone by it all his life, and it had never failed him.

      Now was not the time to begin trusting people.

      He kept driving, wondering what he should do.

      As he drove, he went back by the house in the Garden District. To his amazement, there seemed to be cop cars everywhere.

      Sure, it was where big money lived. Sure, the cops cared about big money. But he was stunned. He hadn’t figured—in a house with two old ladies—that anyone would even know there’d been a break-in.

      He drove quickly by, worried about what was going on.

      “You’ve been betrayed.”

      Hearing the voice, Leroy nearly went off the road and into the yard of a pretty antebellum house. He straightened the wheel just in time. This was not a good moment to draw the attention of the police.

      “They will kill you, Leroy. The cops will kill you. No one is honest. Try to negotiate a deal, and you’ll be killed. Leroy, you’re not lucky in life. If you come from the gutter, people want to put you back in the gutter!”

      Where was the voice coming from?

      There was no one in the car with him.

      No one...

      He looked down. The bust he’d taken, the bust he’d planned to get with no muss, no fuss, the bust he could make big bucks on....

      It was in a canvas bag, shoved at the foot of the passenger seat.

      He dragged it carelessly onto the seat. Hell, the thing had been around for hundreds of years, if what he’d heard was right. It had survived. He wrenched back the canvas so it lay with its cheek on the worn and dirty upholstery. But the eyes were open. It was grinning at him.

      “Got your gun, Leroy? Are you ready? They’re all out to get you. They want me—because I have the power. You’ve got to take care, Leroy. You want me to work for you? You want me to get riches for you?”

      Leroy sat there in terror. He was ice-cold, paralyzed with fear. A rational part of his brain kicked in.

      He’d done too many drugs. Hell, he might just have burned out too many brain cells through alcohol poisoning. He knew the cheap rotgut stuff was giving him headaches these days.

      But the damned thing was alive, talking to him.

      As he gaped at it, the bust seemed to grow, to become a man. It sat next to him, still grinning.

      “It can be yours, Leroy. Money, power, women—everything your heart has ever desired.”

      Leroy tried to form words. He heard sirens behind him, all around him.

      He didn’t know if he was more terrified of the bust that had become a man and sat beside him—talking to him!—or the police.

      “Everything you ever desired, Leroy,” the thing repeated. “And all it will take is a little...spilled blood.”

      Leroy looked straight ahead; he hit the gas and cautiously moved back into traffic.

      He’d be damned before he let the police get him.

      But he heard a voice, somewhere in the back of his head, trying to shout above the thunder that had sounded in his ears when the bust spoke.

      You are falling into damnation this minute....

      He couldn’t heed the voice.

      He kept driving.

      * * *

      Quinn headed to Digger Duffy’s bar in Central City.

      The area was gradually becoming safer; it had been slowly improving from its lowest point in the thirties—and then Katrina had hit. After that, crime had seemed to rise like a swell from the storm. Now, once again, the respectable citizens of the neighborhood were trying to gain control, but Central City still wasn’t filled with streets the casual tourist should wander.

      Quinn knew it well enough. He’d been assigned these streets as a cop. He’d had informants in the area and was acquainted with a few junkies who’d happily sell their own mothers for the money to get just one more hit.

      Digger Duffy’s was a strange establishment. Digger himself was a businessman who had happened to inherit the bar. He didn’t do drugs; he didn’t even sip on a beer. Two years in prison for knocking over an elderly lady and stealing her watch had given him religion.

      He was a good guy. He didn’t try to reform folks and he didn’t turn them away. If they wanted to talk, he talked. If they wanted redemption, he tried to point them in the right direction. If they wanted a beer or a whiskey, he served it.

      Drug dealers kept their business out of the bar, but everyone knew what was going down on the streets. They might be conducting business outside or nearby, but they didn’t do it in Digger’s.

      Digger eyed Quinn as he walked inside, passing tables where men huddled in conversation and where the occasional loner sat gazing morosely into his beer.

      Quinn sat at the bar in front of Digger. Digger kept cleaning glasses, raising a brow. “You here for the margarita special?” he asked doubtfully.

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