They don’t include the drunken women in their sharp heeled shoes or the pervasive stench of vomit and piss that steams and rises in the morning sun every day. That’s the heart of this city, though: filth and the consequences of bad decisions. I don’t know why I bothered with any other city. New Orleans is beautiful and dark, simmering with jewels that look enticing in the flickering gas lights that are still used in the French Quarter, but her feet are mired in things we try to wash away every morning.
They come back. All the dark things come back.
Tess’ secrets will come back, too.
8
Tess
There is nothing wrong with sex. There is nothing wrong with Michael. He's a perfectly serviceable lover. If I thought sex would ease my stress though, I'd still be selling my ass on Bourbon Street. Every buttoned-up-too-tight man wants a woman they wouldn't ever bring home. They fuck us, and then they return to their tedious lives, safe and oblivious, and for years, I have benefitted from their need to take a stroll in a world they can't even truly imagine.
Sex is a thin bandage on a seeping wound, for me. It doesn't make me forget my problems. Talking doesn’t fix them. Drinking doesn’t. Sex doesn’t.
Running hasn’t really fixed my problems, either.
But I’m alive. That is something.
And it’s something I won’t let anyone take away from me—which means I must deal with the reality that Lucas knows things he ought not.
I should die for my mistakes. I remember red, remember gurgling sounds. Tessie is the person I try not to be. She's a woman who loved a man who turned out to be a monster.
I fist my hand and discover a knife there.
Sometime between fucking Michael and now, I must have stopped at my home. The minutes get blurry when Tessie starts stretching under my skin. She's me, or I'm her. We were once both Teresa.
Hunting feels far too familiar. It's almost like Reid is with me. I can hear him whispering, memories of the things he said or maybe just a part of him that he left behind in my skin. He left his mark so deeply inside me that I can still hear him. I look at the people I pass, see the traits that mark them as lambs waiting to be culled.
"Tessie?" Lucas is on his stoop. He pats the floor beside him when he sees me.
I close my eyes. I want there to be another way, but this city is my home. "Don't shit where you eat" is what my mother used to say. Admittedly, she said it with a clipped accent and in reference to fucking the help, but the point is the same.
"Walk with me?" I ask softly, letting Tessie's voice free. Tessie is softer, weaker, unwell. Tessie seems vulnerable—but she is the one who survived Reid.
"You okay?" Lucas is stumbling, drunk on the money I gave him.
“I need company.”
He ambles into the dark with me.
We walk toward Crescent Park, and we talk about . . . things as we walk. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all I say. I tell him things. I ramble, no more or less incoherently than drunks and madmen. It's late, and the city is ours at this hour. Over in the quarter, in between neon lights and harsh music, there are tourists. In the Marigny, floating on sultry jazz and friendly locals, there are my people. Further into the city, there are families in their homes.
And here at the edge of the Mississippi, there are no faces either familiar or strange. Crescent Park is deserted.
Lucas is not the first man I've walked to the park. There are things we all do to survive. I don't want to be found unless I choose it. I don’t want anyone to tell my story.
I don't want to die.
"I don't tell no tales, Tessie. What you did, you did."
He's right. There are truths that a person can't understand until they've lived them. Lucas had a family once. I think he might have even had a job. Things change. People change.
"If I hadn't, he'd have killed me," I explain. I slip off my coat and toss it on the ground. Then I walk toward the bank of the river and stop.
Lucas follows, too. The river is spilled out in front of us. There's something about that rolling water that seems to purify me.
Reid kept the girls in water sometimes.
"Sometimes, he'd fill the tub," I explain.
I don't look over at Lucas. If he understood, maybe he would live. That was what Reid told the women. If they could only understand . . .
The knife is at my side now. My right arm is steady, and the shadows are thick.
Lucas stands on my left. He's tall.
"He just wanted them to be good, to be clean. I always tried to be good, too. After the first year, I tried so hard. I’d tell them what he liked so he wouldn’t hurt them as much."
"I ain't never told no one, Tessie. No one knows you're the missing woman what was on that news all the time."
"But you know. You know, and you drink, and one of these days you'll slip. I slipped. I told you. I'm sorry for that."
He steps away then. If he were sober, maybe he'd run. He's not.
"I'm so sorry." I truly am, but sorry doesn't change anything.
Then the knife slides into his belly. He stumbles. Falls. I'm on top of him. He struggles as the knife goes in again. It's not easy to die.
We resist it. Sometimes we resist enough to buy a little time. I bought time.
In the end, though, when it's time to die, we die. Lucas knows things, and knowing is power.
It’s why Reid wouldn’t let me leave. I knew things.
I know things.
"I gave you money to leave," I remind him, but he’s already dead. "I tried not to do this."
Afterwards, I strip down, pile up my clothes, and light them.
Then, I purify myself in the river. I get the soap from my coat pocket and wash myself. The water takes away the blood. It takes Lucas away. The blood, the dirt, the body, the water fixes it.
Then I put my coat on to hide my wet body and walk home, as pure as if I'd been baptized. This city is good for me. I won't lose it. Not the river, not the music, not the peace I have here.
Lucas should have taken the money and ran. It's what I did. It's why I'm still alive.
9
Juliana
I’m walking alone down West Peabody Street, knowing full well that I need to be cautious, far too aware that a killer knows my name and face. I realize I need to think about safety. If Henry knew I was walking around, I’m guessing the lecture I’d get would be loud. He’d be angrier than he’s ever been with me. We both know he thinks I need police protection—and we both know I’ll refuse. I did ever other time.
He’s a good friend, and I know he means well. He's also the only man whose come close to being a lot more than a friend, and I know that he can see the fears I'm trying to outrun right now.
I just . . . feel like I’m losing something if I let anyone control me. I’ve seen the bruises and wounds on the women the Creeper has killed. They are restrained. They are injured over a period of weeks or days. I don’t know if it’s breaking them that makes him kill them finally or what. I am not an investigator. The dead are my priority, not the pursuit of the living. But I can tell he wants control.