Page 28 of Girl Between

Dana surprised herself by answering truthfully. “Whether I can trust my instincts.”

“Shepard feels differently.”

“He said that?”

George nodded. “He trusts you with his life, and that’s a stamp of approval I don’t take lightly.”

The words had been meant as a compliment, but they cut Dana deep, tearing open wounds that had yet to heal.

“So, what do you say?” George pressed.

“I’ll take a look at the mask, but I’m here at the behest of NOSA. I’ll have to clear it with them first since I’ll need to use their equipment to authenticate it.”

“That won’t be a problem,” George said confidently. “Dr. Broussard is an old friend.”

“Of course he is,” Dana muttered to herself as she took a bite of her now cold truffle fries.

“So, what’s the deal with this death mask you’re studying?” George asked, making himself more comfortable on Dana’s couch.

“It’s a ceremonial death mask used in Venetian funerals dating back to the thirteenth century.”

“And it’s related to vampires?”

“What makes you say that?”

George sat up and fished his phone from his pocket. He pulled a photo up on the screen and handed it to Dana. “Because the vic we found wearing the mask was drained of blood.”

Dana stared at the photo of the startlingly pale corpse. Thewoman’s white dress was in the colonial French fashion of the 18th century. “She looks like a Casquette Girl.”

“Youdoknow your stuff,” George admired.

“What I don’t know could fill a book,” she quipped.

“Tell me more.”

Dana looked closer at the photograph, the legend of thefilles a la cassette, or Casquette Girls, surfacing in her mind. “It all started in 1704, when King Louis IV, ordered the shipment of virtuous young women from convents and orphanages in France to be contracted to marry the Christian men of the growing French colonies in the New World.

“The first Casquette Girls sent to New Orleans arrived in 1727, making them the original mothers of the Crescent City. But first they had to survive the harrowing journey across the Atlantic.

“Yellow fever, famine, and disease claimed many of their lives during the long voyage. Those who endured the grueling months at sea were said to look like ghosts when they disembarked.

“As the women waited for their belongings to be unloaded from the ship, their unnaturally pale skin blistered in the sunlight within moments. That and the casket-sized trunks, orcassettes, they traveled with, birthed the legend that the women were vampires.

“It didn’t help that the mysterious Casquette Girls were housed and educated by the Ursuline nuns until they were married off, sparking even more rumors about the pale women who resided inside the convent with their coffins.”

Dana had been hoping to visit the famed Ursuline Convent while she was in town, but had yet to find the time.

“So, you believe all the legends?” George asked.

“I believe most legends are based in fact. It’s my job to discern fact from fiction.”

“What have you discerned about vampires?”

“There’s plenty of historical evidence to support the legends, such as Vlad the Impaler, Mayan blood rituals, the bleeding gums of plague victims, tuberculosis, and so on. To the uneducated, each of these could’ve easily been misinterpreted and led to mass hysteria.”

George scratched his chin, nodding. “What’s your stance on Voodoo?”

“That Marie Laveau was a highly gifted herbalist with a flair for theatrics, which has regrettably led to the common misconception that Voodoo is evil.”