Page 7 of Girl Between

Jake set his empty coffee cup down. “I came to France in search of my father, Adam Miller. He was a pilot in the United States Air Force. But I haven’t seen him in over twenty years.”

“What made you seek him out now?” Luca asked.

“My mother,” Jake admitted, surprising himself with his candor.

Luca nodded with an understanding. If Jake had to guess, the man was only two years younger than him at most, but his demeanor spoke of wisdom beyond his years. It made Jake want to pry, but his own proclivities prevented him.

“Pardon my bluntness,” Luca said, “but am I to assume the men we speak of as fathers are one and the same?”

Here it was. Spelled out so simply. Yet everything inside Jake fought against the answer. He didn’t know why. It’s the reason he’d come to France, after all. But faced with it head on, so black and white, he felt like the same helpless child his father had always reduced him to. It made Jake despise the man even more. Swallowing his agitation, Jake asked, “Do you have a photograph?”

“Yes.” Luca stood to retrieve a silver frame from the mantel. He strode back to the sofa and took a seat before handing the black and white still to Jake. Military training was the only thing that kept Jake’s face neutral as he stared at the man in the photograph. He ignored the fact that it was a wedding photo and focused only on the man grinning back at him. The taunting smile seemed to say,I’ll never be finished tormenting you.

“Your parents?” Jake asked, his voice level enough to hide his emotion.

“Oui,” Luca answered.

“Do you have any siblings, or is it just you?”

“Just me, I’m afraid,” Luca admitted. “My father died shortly after they married,” he said, nodding to the photo. “I never met him.”

Jake refrained from telling him he was lucky. Instead, he offered, “My condolences.” But Luca didn’t seem to want them.

“I’ll ask you again, Monsieur Shepard, do we speak of the same man when we say, father?”

Unable to avoid the truth any further, Jake nodded.

Luca swallowed, visibly shaken. “So that makes us, half-brothers?”

Jake tried to fight the foreign notion of kinship that instantly filled his veins, but it wouldn’t change the facts. The familiar face staring back at him was his flesh and blood. So, Jake did the only thing he could. Extending his hand he said, “I’m afraid so.”

Luca took Jake’s hand, his blue eyes boring into him. “I think we need something stronger than coffee.”

8

Beneath a dark purple sky,Dana followed George across Jackson Square, ever cognizant of the mighty Mississippi to her right. It lay slumbering just beyond the levee, moonlight glittering across its deceptively calm surface. Its fathomless depths buried the tumultuous history of the Crescent City, but the resilient people here did their best to keep it alive.

If a place could have a mother, the Mississippi was her for New Orleans. Each ripple, a caress, still shaping the infamous Louisiana stronghold. Many hailed New Orleans as the accidental city. Born where the river meets the sea. French, Spanish, Italian, African—the Mississippi brought each one of them here, creating the eclectic melting pot of food, music, art, and religion the vibrant city was known for.

With each step Dana took on the uneven cobbled streets, she knew she was walking upon history, a fact that filled her with constant wonder. Particularly on nights like tonight. The spring air hung low, kissing her skin with humid warmth, as the cool water sent fog to settle over the below sea-level city like a blanket, lulling it to sleep.

It added an eeriness befitting the legends and ghost stories thatbrought supernatural-seeking tourists to New Orleans in droves. Essentially, it had been those very legends that delivered Dana here. Her studies in vampiric origins had revealed just how closely the tales intertwined with witchcraft, Voodoo, and even werewolves. There was no other place where all manner of occult practices seemed to coexist. And New Orleanians embraced their city’s supernatural vortex. Celebrating it out in the open.

Dana couldn’t quiet her curiosity as she and George walked past a fortune teller setting up on the corner near Jackson Square. The scene was almost comical. On one side of Decatur, Café du Monde bustled with life, slinging beignets and filling the air with the aroma of fried dough and powdered sugar. On the other side, a coven of women sat in silence, each at their individual table, aglow with candlelight and protected by a ring of salt, ready to call upon the dead. Two entirely different worlds, coexisting in harmony.

“Ever had your fortune read?” George asked.

Dana nodded, fighting the chill that suddenly crept up her spine at the memory. “Have you?”

“Of course.”

She pointedly assessed him, and he laughed under her scrutiny. “What? Don’t I seem the type?”

“Actually, no. You don’t.”

His easy smile fixed his dimples in place as he shrugged. “It’s pretty much a rite of passage growing up in Nawlins. Of course, you gotta know who to go to. Witchcraft is powerful stuff in these parts. I don’t trust my fate to just anyone.”

Dana stopped walking. “You believe in witchcraft?”