Free Bad Moon Rising by Katherine Sutcliffe Page B

know about her missing friend. She might have found out
who the john was with the slasher fantasy, if it was a fantasy.
    Now she had the time to consider the situation and
suspected whoever had come jumping out of the door draped in black and wielding
a knife was someone the police department would want to keep anonymous, which
would explain why they dismissed her case.
    When Melissa had called Branson, she was terrified.
The murders had started again. There was mammoth fear among all the New Orleans prostitutes. Angel Gonzalez had not been the serial killer who butchered his
way through the girls over a period of months.
    Knowing Holly would be arriving, why did Melissa
disappear? It didn’t make sense. They had been like sisters . .. closer than most sisters, Holly thought.
They had known one another since they were thirteen and placed with the same
foster family.
    Family. What a lie. Ruth and Conrad Jacobson abused
both Holly and Melissa. Conrad enjoyed sex with little girls, and Ruth got off
on physical abuse. The two girls made a pact to stick with one another no
matter what nightmare besieged them.
    Just one phone call and her questions and mounting
worry over Melissa would be assuaged, but she couldn’t take the risk. If word
leaked on the streets that Holly was back in town, she’d be dead before
sunrise.
    Feeling the muscles in the back of her neck tense,
Holly opened the fridge. It was devoid of staples, stocked only with bottles of
beer, a chunk of moldy cheese on a plastic plate, half-eaten cold pizza in a
box, and a bag of chicory coffee with the logo of the Cafe du Monde.
    Holly reached for a beer, unscrewed the top, and
turned back to the living area. She didn’t care for beer, but she needed
something to relax her nerves. Otherwise, Damascus would return to find her
hanging from the ceiling by her fingernails.
    What had happened to Damascus in these last years?
Before her exit from New Orleans, the prominent A.D.A. had lived in a
renovated, plantation-style home in the Garden District. He’d looked and
dressed like a model for Gentleman’s Quarterly. The papers had lauded him and
Jerry Costos as future political candidates who would clean up crime and
corruption and bring respect to the state.
    Something had happened to turn Damascus inside out.
Divorce? Maybe. This was certainly no home sweet home. But she doubted that
even the ugliest of divorces could bring this sort of destruction to a man’s
career. Still ...
    Pictures of children were scattered around the living
room, on walls behind his unmade bed, in stand-up frames on the thrift-store
coffee table, and plastered to the fridge by Mardi Gras magnets. Freeze-frame
images of a boy and girl, smiling, beaming, some including J.D. in his better
days. None, she noted, including his wife.
    The phone rang. The message machine picked up.
    “John? It’s Beverly.” Pause. “I trust you’re okay. You’ve really got to get a handle on your
temper, you know.” Pause. “Or your jealousy. I sensed your mind wasn’t exactly
on our conversation, what with that woman being there ...” Pause. “It’s simply not like you to be so . .. distracted when it comes to Patrick. I’m
really disappointed in you. Call me.” Girlfriend?
    Holly watched the red light of the machine flicker.
    Maybe. She had watched them from the bar—before the
drunk had intruded with his bourbon-scented breath and his fresh hands. Watched
the woman’s face as she looked for any sign in Damascus’s body language that
indicated Holly was more than an acquaintance. For a second, her pretty eyes
had locked with Holly’s. There had been a nervousness in her gaze. A flash of
anger, perhaps. Certainly annoyance. The look had said, “Back off.”
    Holly was well acquainted with those types of looks,
anytime she came within flirting distance of a woman’s husband. Damascus’s reaching across the table and holding her hand had helped.
    Recalling the image, Holly felt a twinge of envy