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“Yeah, but I’m not gonna hang around at the grocery. You have to be on time.”
Mitch touched her shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up.
“I will.”
“Just come by yourself.” The connection went dead. She cradled the phone receiver. “Sorry, I messed up. I didn’t mean to mention you.”
“At least I qualify as a friend.”
“You could qualify for a lot of positions.”
“Which one would you like to try next?” The corners of his mouth lifted.
Cath crossed her legs and fanned herself with the notepad. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“At some point.”
She smiled to herself. Maybe she had heard him say “my girl.” Because he didn’t sound as if he were backing off from any relationship now. She listened to the remaining messages on Bea’s phone, and the gallery crowd had thinned by the time they locked up. With the sun gone, shadows cloaked the streets and she hunched her shoulders against the dipping temperatures.
Mitch took a call on his cell, and she plodded along next to him. All of a sudden, a different kind of chill rippled through her. Exactly like the one she’d experienced on the way to meet her ghost tour last week. She looked over her shoulder at the throng surging through the street and clutched Mitch’s arm.
He yanked her into the alcove of a restaurant bar.
She gripped his arm tighter. “You feel it, too?”
“Roger.”
The Bourbon Street crowd oscillated like a great drunken beast. A hand shot up to wave at her over the heads of other revelers. She saw a face and collapsed against Mitch like a tepee of pick-up sticks. “It’s one of Les’s classmates.”
The dark-haired college kid stopped in front of her, beer sloshing in his go-cup. “Did you ever find your brother?”
* * *
Aunt Edith glanced up from her kitchen table the minute Mitch opened the back door. “You played hooky again last night.”
“We did.” Mitch dropped a kiss on her wrinkled cheek. “But I’m grateful to be home.”
Cath had given him a scare with that college kid. He would never again doubt her survival instinct, but he claimed getting her home safely as a major victory.
“Thank you for feeding Tiger.” Cath scooped up her kitten and buried her nose in orange fur. “I didn’t mean to disappear.”
“We didn’t mind.” Mitch’s aunt laid her pen down on the newspaper puzzle page. “She’s very friendly.”
“Even to me.” Jack settled at the table with a bowl of steaming gumbo.
Cath raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were allergic.”
“I guess I’m not.”
Mitch slung his jacket over the back of a chair, his gut begging for food. At the stove, he looked from the pot to his oldest brother, speaking as clearly as possible the way Cath had suggested. “Got any left over?”
“I’m serving you both some.” Kurt added a spoonful of rice to a bowl on the counter. “Unless you complain.”
Mitch waited for Kurt to look his way again. “You’re not going to get an argument out of me.”
Cath set the cat on the floor and touched Kurt’s arm. “It smells wonderful.” She disappeared into the hall, and footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“What did the feebies… I mean, the drug enforcement people…” Mitch clarified at his brother’s frown and turned off the faucet to eliminate as much noise as possible. “What did you find out?”