“No makeup.”
“Claire” —her mother tipped her head— “you can’t go to the ball without makeup. It’s a special occasion.”
“I didn’t mean I won’t wear it,” Claire protested. “I just don’t want someone else to do it. I want to look like myself.” She glanced over at Toni. “No offense.”
Toni grinned. “None taken.”
Her mother sighed deeply. “I suppose you’re old enough to make your own decision about that, too.” She favored Toni with a meaningful glare.
Claire smiled at the hairdresser in silent thanks.
Now that she was finished, Claire was itching to get out of the salon. It would take Toni at least an hour to touch up her mother’s color. Add to that another forty-five minutes for the updo Claire knew her mom would want, and that left plenty of time for a walk and a few pictures. It took ten minutes of negotiating and a promise not to mess up her hair before her mother finally agreed.
Claire started up Jackson, her camera heavy in the bag hanging from her shoulder. She stopped at a neighborhood market for an apple and a candy bar, and hung a left on Coliseum Street.
She munched on the apple as she walked. The neighborhood had an ebb and flow, and she passed a few restored historical houses before crossing into a more run-down portion of the street.
Soon, the familiar white wall of the cemetery came into view. She walked alongside it, hanging a left on Washington. A couple of minutes later she came to the iron gates, LAFAYETTE CEMETERY emblazoned across the archway that marked its entrance.
Even as she stepped into the graveyard, she wasn’t entirely sure why she was there. It had never been one of her favorite places, even when she wanted to take pictures. With its elaborate tombs of the city’s most famous historical residents, it was too in-your-face, too obvious. The fact that a lot of the attention was due to its fame as the resting place for her great-great-grandmother just made it weirder.
Claire made her way through the aisles, marble tombs rising on either side. She could hear trumpets and trombones playing faintly in the distance. Other than that, it was unusually quiet.
She made her way past a tall white tomb, a red rosebush growing incongruously out of the tiny swath of grass in its shadow, and continued past the McClellan plot.
Eventually she came to the place she’d been heading for all along. For once, no one else was in front of the site, though there was the usual assortment of offerings left by strangers. Wilted flowers, half-burned candles, strings of beads, and a powdery residue whose composition Claire could only guess.
She lowered herself to the ground, leaning against the tomb, the marble cold against her back. She didn’t know why she’d come. She’d decided long ago that her great-great-grandmother, like most legends, hadn’t even resembled the portrait painted of her by history. At best, she was probably some half-baked, wannabe psychic.
At worst, a fake.
Claire thought absently of her camera and realized she had no desire to take pictures today. She took it out anyway and took a few shots of the tomb next to Marie’s. A cheap plastic Virgin Mary figurine had tipped over on its side, and a half-crushed energy drink can lay crumpled on the ground in front of the marker. The composition was interesting, but Claire’s heart wasn’t in it. She put her camera away and pulled out the candy bar. Tearing it open and taking a bite, she thought about everything that had happened.
She and Xander hadn’t talked about what to do next, but she knew he would want her to fork over the receipt with Eugenia’s address to the Guild. After that, they would take care of the woman and whatever plan she had for the panther blood, and Xander wouldn’t dream about her being in danger again.
So why did Claire feel like something still had to be done? Like all at once, there was a ticking time bomb under her life that she couldn’t ignore?
Polishing off the candy bar and stuffing the wrapper into her bag, she shook her head. She needed to get a grip, that’s all.
When she stood up and checked her phone, she was relieved to see that it had only been an hour since she’d left Myrtle’s. She was slipping it back into the pocket of her shorts when the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
Claire looked around. No one was there, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She resisted the urge to break into a run and started walking.
She tried to hurry without seeming like she was afraid. She reached the entrance to the cemetery and hurried along the sidewalks, past the grand old homes, wanting nothing more than to get back to Jackson Street.
Ten minutes later, she did. She continued on toward Myrtle’s, looking around one last time as she reached the door.
Her gaze was drawn to a man crossing the street. She knew who it was right away. It was more than his fitted slacks and the tight T-shirt, an almost-exact replica of what he’d been wearing yesterday when he’d left the house on Dauphine. It was the bend of his neck and the way she could tell, even behind the reflective lenses of his sunglasses, that he was watching her.
His head was turned in her direction, but he didn’t seem concerned that she had seen him. It was unnerving, and as she pulled open the door to Myrtle’s, she wondered if this was the first time she’d been followed.
SEVEN
The lights from the Toussaint house were visible even from the road. The ball itself wasn’t a secret, but the purpose of the association that sponsored it—the Guild—was. Claire had once asked her mother about the neighbors. Didn’t they wonder what was going on the one night a year when the Toussaints’ was suddenly flooded with expensive cars, men in tuxedos, and women in gowns and feathered headpieces?
“New Orleans is overrun with historical societies and organizations, Claire,” her mother had said, waving away the question. “No one cares about their purpose. People today don’t want to know about the past.”
It had surprised Claire, the idea that the Guild—as much a part of her everyday life as New Orleans itself—was something some people didn’t even know or care about. That she was part of something so old that it was irrelevant, not only to her, but to everyone else, too.
Claire straightened the skirt of her dress. Guild events always made her nervous, and she’d spent the whole drive taking deep breaths, talking herself down.
They got out of the car, and her dad handed the keys to one of the jacketed men the Toussaints had hired to park cars. Claire’s mother put on her headpiece. An elaborate creation of black feathers and faux amethyst with a silver band, it matched her deep blue gown perfectly. It had been too tall to fit on her head inside the car. Now she adjusted it while Claire’s dad, dapper in his tuxedo, waited patiently and Claire held her bag.
Her mother turned to her, raising her eyebrows in question. “Good?”
Claire nodded. “Perfect.”
“Is it even?”
Claire laughed. “It’s even, it’s even. Now let’s go.”
Her mother took her husband’s arm and the threesome started up the walkway to the house.
The Toussaints had hired an older man to work the door, and he took their coats, handing them off to a woman standing at his elbow. Betsy was probably in the kitchen, watching the caterers with her infamous eagle eyes.
Claire trailed behind her mother and father, trying to fix a smile on her face as they headed down the hall, her emerald-green gown brushing against her bare legs.
A familiar blend of music grew louder as they approached the back of the house. Claire recognized the undercurrent of percussion—a distinctive beat that went hand in hand with many old-school voodoo rituals—coming from the soundproof walls of the ballroom while the strains of traditional New Orleans jazz came from the open doors leading to the back terrace. Estelle always had the music set up this way. As big as the Toussaint property was, the neighbors could probably still hear the music being played outside.