Death of a Beauty Queen Read online

She sat there for fifteen minutes, timed on her phone, and didn’t see a thing. No creeping shadows, no glowing cigarette. Not even Dixon’s flashlight.

  When his shadow darkened the door, she jumped. He rapped on the glass. She was up and undoing the dead bolt before he finished the unique knock he’d promised to use.

  He came in and closed the door. “Get your stuff. You’re going with me.”

  Rose shook her head. “I told you, no. I’m not going to let some vagrant or—or doped-up kid run me out of my home.” She gestured toward the empty house. “I didn’t see a thing. Did you go inside?”

  He nodded. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said, glancing behind him. He started up without waiting for her to answer.

  She followed him into the kitchen. “You think he’s still out there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t want to take the chance, though.”

  “What did you do? I never saw your flashlight.”

  “That’s because the windows of that building are boarded up, tightly. All of them.”

  “Boarded?” She remembered then that the windows did have plywood over them. “But—I saw that light. That match.”

  “Whoever it was must have been standing on the street in front of the building.”

  “But I didn’t see anything except the upper part of his face. His eyes. It was like a grotesque mask, floating in the…” She stopped when his sharp eyes snapped to hers. She folded her arms and gave a tiny shrug.

  He held out his hand. He was holding a matchbook by its edges between his fingers. “This matchbook was on the sidewalk in front of the building.”

  She looked at it. The front said Doll’s Diner, Angola, Louisiana. “He dropped it?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe he left it on purpose.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Dixon took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped the matchbook in it, then pocketed it. “Angola is where the state penitentiary is.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Maybe nothing. It’s just a hunch. I’m going to have the matchbook checked for prints, but I’m pretty sure there won’t be any. The important thing is that you weren’t imagining things. There was definitely somebody out there.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “He did it on purpose.”

  “Did what?”

  “Lit that match and held it up to his face. He was trying to scare me.”

  Dixon’s left brow went up. “You saw his eyes. Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” She heard the hesitation in her voice. She hadn’t recognized him. But should she have?

  Suddenly, fed by that question, floodgates opened in her mind and all the questions she had never asked herself—never dared to—came gushing forward to the front of her consciousness.

  Should she have recognized the man who’d stood there in the dark and stared at her over the red-gold light of a match? Had he been the man who had attacked her with a knife, scarred her and left her for dead?

  Dixon watched Rose’s expression morph from thoughtful to worried to terrified. He wanted to ask her if she’d remembered something, but somehow, he knew that would be a mistake. So he settled for touching her arm and asking, “Rose? What is it?”

  She gave a little start. “Oh, nothing.” She smoothed the tiny wrinkles between her brows with her fingertips. “I was just wondering if I should have recognized him.” Her gaze flitted toward the empty building across the street, then back to Dixon. “But I didn’t.”

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about him anymore because you’re going with me,” he said firmly. “Now pack a bag.”

  Her chin lifted and her eyes turned cold as amber. “How many times do I have to tell you I am not leaving this house. It’s my home. The only home I’ve ever—ever known.” Her gaze took the temperature from cold to freezing. “Besides, I have obligations. Piano students who depend on my being here.”

  He almost retorted that she could be putting her students in danger by continuing her lessons, but he bit his lip. Was that going too far? Would whoever was following her stoop to frightening or harming children? Because Dixon wasn’t acting in an official capacity, working on an NOPD open case, he couldn’t force her to go with him.

  So there was only one way to make sure she and her students were safe.

  He shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. “Then I’ll stay here.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Stay here? No! That’s impossible. You can’t.” Rose stammered.

  Dixon held up the gym bag he’d fetched from his car. “I figured you wouldn’t leave. So I planned ahead. I packed a toothbrush and everything,” he said congenially. “Now, where can I sleep?”

  Rose opened her mouth, then closed it again. She gazed at him narrowly. For a moment he thought she might tell him to leave, or at the very least to sleep on the floor by the front door.

  But then she turned on her heel and walked through the kitchen door into the hall. Instead of continuing straight across into the living room, she turned to the right and walked down a narrow hallway.

  “This is where I sleep,” she said, indicating the first door on the left. “You can sleep in there.” She nodded at a second door. “This first door on the right is the bathroom. That last door is a storage closet.”

  Rose opened the door she’d indicated as his and flipped on the light. Then she gasped.

  Dixon went on full alert, his hand going for his weapon before he saw what she’d seen. On the four-poster bed, draped over the white quilted spread, was a pile of what looked to him like terry cloth. It was stained. Dark streaks and spatters covered it.

  He stepped past Rose and walked over to the bed and picked it up. It was a bathrobe. His fists clenched around the material.

  It was the robe that had been missing from Rosemary Delancey’s apartment. The robe that matched the sash tied to the bedposts on the blood-covered bed.

  He turned to find her staring at it. She looked as though she were looking at a ghost. Had someone been in her house? Had someone sneaked in and left this?

  “Rose, did you know this was here?” he asked, searching her face.

  She blinked, then tore her gaze away from the bloodstained robe and looked at him. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I found it this afternoon and put it in here. I didn’t…think I’d see it again so…so soon.”

  “Where was it?”

  “In Maman’s closet.”

  Dixon’s pulse pounded. “Was there anything else? Anything that could identify you?”

  She shook her head. “Just…” She gestured toward the robe.

  “I need to take this. It’s evidence,” Dixon said. “When we find out who hurt you, this will help convict him.”

  Rose nodded again. “Please,” she said. “Just get it out of here.”

  He nodded. Looking around, he noticed the white box. He quickly folded the robe and stowed it in the box. “I’ll take it in with me in the morning. Tonight it can stay in here with me.”

  She didn’t say anything; she just looked at him.

  “Was this Maman Renée’s room?” he asked.

  Rose shook her head. “No, it was mine. I moved into Maman’s room after…” Her voice broke.

  Dixon squeezed her shoulder. Her head turned slightly toward him but she didn’t recoil from his touch.

  “I know it’s hard,” he said gently. “Five months isn’t a long time. You can’t believe it now, but it will get better.”

  “You sound like you know.” She peered up at him.

  He let go of her shoulder and leaned against the door facing. “I do. My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was fifteen and Dee was nine.”

  “Oh, Dixon, I’m so sorry,” Rose said. “Dee is your sister?”

  He nodded. “Delilah.”

  “And she was only nine? Were you put in foster care?”

  Dixon smiled wryly. “Nope. We lived in the Ninth Ward. It was a lot like
this neighborhood, actually. The people in the area took care of us.”

  “But what about your aunts? Or uncles?”

  He shook his head. “Just me. I dropped out of school and got a job.”

  “Oh, Dixon.”

  He shrugged. “We did okay,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that you won’t always feel like this.”

  Rose rubbed her temple. “I know that—I mean, I guess I do. But it’s not just that I miss her. I do. But I found out some things today.”

  “Things?”

  “Bing told me that Maman knew the whole time who I was. She hid me away on purpose.” She took in a shaky breath. “She’d had a daughter who’d died. I was just her daughter’s replacement.” Her voice rose in pitch.

  “Rose, I know how hard this must be—”

  “You know. You know!” she cried, clenching her fists at her side. “You think you know so much, but you don’t know anything. You barge into my life like a—a football tackle or something. You’ve got your eyes on the ball and so you just mow down everybody and everything in your way—” she took a sharp, stuttering breath “—because all that matters to you is results. You don’t care who you hurt.” She stopped suddenly and hiccuped.

  For an instant, Dixon thought she might burst into hysterical tears. Her eyes were wet and beginning to turn red. But she lifted her chin and glared at him.

  “Just like this,” she went on. “You show up at my door, not to see how I’m doing, not to ask what you can do for me. No. You show up here and bully your way inside because that’s what you think I need.” She thumped his chest with her index finger.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, as gently as before. She stiffened, but not for one second did her gaze waver. A single glistening tear spilled over from one eye and made its way slowly down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Rose. I hate that you feel that way about me.”

  “But not enough to change your mind. You’re still going to insist on staying here, aren’t you? Whether I want you to or not.”

  “Yes, I am.” He let go of her shoulders. He needed to step back, to put some space between them. “I can’t stand the idea that something might happen and I wouldn’t be here.”

  Acting on a stupid urge, he brushed his thumb across her chin. “Listen to me. No matter what you think, no matter what it looks like, I am here because you’re in danger. Real danger.”

  Then he really did have to put some distance between them. He walked over to the window that faced Prytania Street and parted the curtains just enough to peer out.

  “You were right the other day about being afraid I’d brought the danger to you.” He turned and looked at her. “But the truth is, the only reason I found you was because someone saw you and recognized you.”

  Rose folded her arms protectively at her waist. Dixon saw her shoulders stiffen and her face crumple.

  “Someone saw me? Recognized me? Who?”

  “Nobody. A two-bit thug. The important thing is I’m here.”

  Rose shook her head. “Maybe to you that’s what’s important.” She wrung her hands.

  “Oh, I don’t know if I can take this much longer. Everything Maman told me, everything she did to keep me safe was a lie.” She shook her head as if trying to dislodge her thoughts. Her eyes grew damp again.

  “For twelve years she hid me from the world and made sure the truth never made it past the front door.”

  “Rose, hey,” Dixon said, reaching for her. “I’m sure Maman did what she thought was best.”

  “Are you? You think she didn’t know what she was doing? Of course she did.”

  “I don’t deny that she was wrong to keep you hidden—”

  “Don’t you get it? My Maman, the one person in the world I trusted, looked me in the eye every day and lied to me. Every day. She read the papers, saw all the news stories about Rosemary Delancey. She knew who I was and never told me.” Rose put her hands over her mouth.

  “Oh...” she moaned, her voice muffled. “How could she do that? How could she have kept me here like—like Rapunzel, trapped in her tower? Do you know we never talked about that night? I was afraid to ask and she never—all she ever said was, You’re safe now. Maman will keep you safe. And all the time, she had that robe—that proof, locked away in the closet.”

  Then she broke down and cried.

  Without thinking it through, Dixon pulled Rose into his arms. She came easily, flattening her palms against his chest and burying her face in the curve between his shoulder and neck. Her tears wet his skin. He buried his nose in her hair and drew in the scent of honeysuckle that always surrounded her.

  He cupped the back of her head in his palm and felt her relax as he gently massaged her nape. Rocking slightly, he didn’t speak, just held her as her sobs slowly faded to an occasional sniffle.

  He had no idea how long he stood there like that, holding her, torturing himself. He grew hard, but he set his jaw and ignored it. This wasn’t about his needs.

  With a small sigh, she moved closer, melting against him. Too close. He stepped backward a half step, even though it was too late. He felt his face heat in embarrassment.

  Rose’s gaze met his. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed. Her lips were slightly parted. As he watched, her tongue flicked out to moisten them. He grew harder.

  “Rose?” he whispered, mesmerized by her dewy eyes.

  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t move, either.

  Knowing he was making a fatal mistake but unable to stop himself, he bent his head and touched her lips with his. The brief soft feel of skin against skin heated his blood.

  Rose gasped quietly. Gasped, but didn’t recoil. The air she drew in cooled his lower lip and stoked the flames of desire rising inside him.

  Then she lifted her head—lifted it without his urging—and pressed her mouth to his. Her eyes drifted shut as he pulled her to him and kissed her, still tentative, still waiting for her to back away or push at him or something.

  “Dixon?” she whispered.

  He froze. Was it a sigh or a question? He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She stared at him unblinkingly. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stepping backward. “I shouldn’t have—”

  She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “Shh. Don’t. I’ve read books, watched movies, but I’ve never—I don’t remember ever being held, being kissed.” Tears welled in her eyes. “How can I not remember anything?”

  “I don’t know.” His erection throbbed. The thought that he’d been the first man in her memory to touch her lips with his was so erotic and at the same time so humbling.

  He touched her shoulder and she stepped into his arms again. He nuzzled her silky, sweet-smelling hair. “The theory of amnesia is that you’re blocking out memories that are too painful or too awful to deal with. It’s called dissociative amnesia. It’s generally caused by a traumatic event.”

  Rose’s hand touched the scar at her hairline. “How do you know all that?” she asked.

  “I talked to the department shrink about it a little. He said that—”

  She went rigid and her head shot up. “You talked to a psychiatrist about me?”

  “Not about you specifically.”

  She uttered a short, sharp laugh and pulled away from him.

  If her glare were a laser, he’d be sliced neatly in half.

  “Not about me specifically,” she said archly. “What does that mean?”

  Dixon frowned. “I was very careful not to use any names or dates. All I did was ask him how someone could lose all memory of their life before a certain moment and he said that usually dissociative amnesia is caused by an injury or a traumatic event, like your attack.”

  “And what else did you tell him? I can’t believe he let your questions go without asking you who you were talking about.” She took another step backward, away from him.

  He nodded. “He did. He
asked me if I was working on an amnesia case, but I didn’t tell him anything. I just said I’d always thought people who claimed to have amnesia were faking.”

  “Faking,” Rose echoed.

  “I don’t anymore,” he said quickly. Somehow he suddenly felt as if he’d stepped into quicksand. He was sinking fast. “He explained that it’s a real condition.”

  Rose’s back was stiff, her chin was lifted and her eyes were still as hot and cutting as amber lasers. “Well, thank goodness he explained it to you. I’m so grateful that you no longer think I’m a liar.”

  “Come on, Rose, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her hand went to her temple. He wasn’t sure if she was touching the scar or massaging a headache. What he did know was that he’d hurt her and made her angry. He wasn’t exactly sure why. All he’d done was seek out an explanation for her inability to remember anything about her life before she’d been attacked.

  “Rose, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  But he could see that his apology was too little too late. “I promise you I’m going to find out who did this to you and I’m going to make sure he pays. In the meantime, I’m going to stay here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Rose didn’t respond. She swept past him like a queen. He turned to watch her as she walked regally to the door to her bedroom and went inside, slamming it behind her.

  * * *

  MONDAY MORNING DIXON was at his desk early. On his way in to work he had checked in with Ray, who told him, just as he had on Sunday morning, that he hadn’t seen anybody around the shop. Not Saturday night and not Sunday night.

  Dixon had thanked him and asked him to keep up the drive-bys for another couple of days.

  He sighed as he counted the stack of reports he needed to review. He wanted to get through them and get them off his desk before noon so he could head up to Angola to talk to T-Bo Pereau. That meant he had to complete one every half hour.

  But first, he reached into his file drawer and pulled out the file on the case the newspapers at the time had dubbed The Beauty Queen Murder. He knew everything in the file by heart, but he wanted to read over a couple of things, just to refresh his memory.