Then my brother-in-law murdered my sister and my nephew.
Then a killer started leaving bodies at my doorstep.
The world is full of monsters, not make-believe ones, but flesh and blood men who target women. The two men are not connected. They aren’t connected to other men like them either. I’m well aware that there is no great conspiracy. It’s not that complicated.
Some men simply like the power they can have over others.
At the end of the day, that’s why Darren writes to me from his cell. It’s why the Creeper sent a letter. And it’s why I’m not going to allow fear to reign over me. My fear—any woman or child’s fear—gives men like that power. I won’t do it.
4
Michael
Despite my inquiries about Tess, I hadn’t been prepared for the woman herself. Nothing had prepared me for her brashness. Above all, the stories I’d collected hadn’t prepared me for the way she seemed to study me.
Tess judged me. Not just that, she saw me in a way I wasn’t sure I liked. I’ve never felt as replaceable as I felt when she disrobed and looked back at me like I’d missed a cue along the way. Sex with Tess felt vaguely like a doctor’s exam. I’m not sure it was an exam I passed.
She was satisfied. Her orgasms weren’t faked. Yet I was dismissed like hired help. There were no invitations for future dinners or desserts, not even a vague suggestion that we ought to “get together some time.” She simply sent me on my way with a little wave and a kiss on the cheek.
I don’t know if she plans to see me again, but I will see her. Whether she wants to or not, Tess will save my career.
“Think of it as a storyteller’s journey.” That was the excuse my agent, Elizabeth, offered when she told me to “take some time” before writing my next contracted book.
I’ve never failed at anything, not until the release of The Ruins of a Carriage House. To say failure was unexpected is such a mild explanation. To say I’m desperate to restore my reputation is even less accurate. The pressure to deliver the next promised manuscript has become a nonstop murmur in the back of my mind as I wander cities. It’s become the proverbial devil on my shoulder.
I could buy out my contract, pay out the signing advance and end the whole thing. Sometimes I think about it. I don’t need the money, but quitting is a level of failure I’m unwilling to accept. It means the end of a writing career the New York Times once heralded. I won’t quit.
I just need to find the right story, the right character, and then everything will be golden again.
A Solitary Grave was the start of what critics agreed would be a remarkable career. The prose was nuanced. The story was both heart-breaking and terrifying. The protagonist was the sort of broken man who overcame his own foibles and the world’s weight. It was, in sum, well-received and exceptionally lucrative—even more so after the film.
My sophomore effort, on the other hand, was soundly dismissed. “Maudlin and disjointed,” pronounced one the industry reviews. The critical reception from every outlet was either scathing or, at best, vaguely kind. The consensus, however, was that perhaps my first book was the anomaly.
The next book will be the deciding factor. It will tip the scales in one direction or the other.
I’m on a “post-modern experiment in storytelling.” I need a compelling character. I’ve considered a few: a red-nosed man who talked about working in a steel town, an angry vagrant in the Pacific Northwest, a bankrupt tobacco farmer in the American South. They were all interesting in that way of strangers in transit, but theirs weren’t stories that I wanted to continue to spin out. That was my goal—find the germ of a story as I had with Jorge, and then run with it until it became more. With Jorge, I took far more of his tale than anyone knew, but Jorge died not long before A Solitary Grave came out, and his daughter was content to sign a non-disclosure agreement with a generous check attached.
New Orleans is the first city where I think I might have found the start of a story. I’m not sure I’ll even need to offer a check for this one. In a city of broken souls, artists, and madmen, it takes a truly spectacular person to stand out.
Tess stands out.
“Back again?” Molly, the bartender, asks when I walk into May Bailey’s. The bar, on Dauphine Street in a little boutique hotel, is tucked away. It feels like so many things in this city: hidden in plain sight.
“Nowhere else is quite as irresistible.”
It’s not a lie. There’s a lot of loud bars in the city. Bourbon Street is a mass of tourists, cheap drinks, and nearly naked women. There are other bars, catering to a different sort of tourist. New Orleans is a city founded on sin and illusions. The very land was stolen from the swamp—there is nothing substantial supporting it.
I like that, the idea that this is a city resting on something far from solid. It feels right that this city is where I'll find what I need. It stretches along a tempestuous river, giving life and taking it in equal measure over the years. It is, in sum, everything a writer could want. If I were capable of love, I'd fall in love with New Orleans.
And even within such a place, there are pockets that are odder than what passes for normal here. May Bailey’s Place is unlike every other place I’ve tried. From the faded elegance of the bar to the jaded history of the location, it is remarkable.
Molly, however, smiles in the way hundreds of other bartenders across the country as she pours me a drink. The seating area is mostly deserted, and I wonder—not for the first time—how it stays in business.
It has a very intentional charm, calling back to its history as a brothel. Photographs and assorted memorabilia hang on the wall, and every so often a tour group or a lone tourist clutching a book will wander in and stare at the vestiges of the past on display here. A few take pictures; others buy a drink or two. The bar seems to lack regulars, which is part of its appeal. A changing clientele means an endless buffet of stories. Maybe it’s only because of the tours or the hotel that the doors remain open.
Molly’s mention of a former bartender, of Tess, was ultimately what caught me. I spent days asking questions before finally approaching Tess. I asked the fortune teller about her. I saw her in Jackson Square.
I wasn’t stalking her; I was researching.
It’s different.
Molly had described Tess as a fragile creature, prone to flights and fights in equal measure. I knew I’d found my new Jorge when Molly had added that Tess was running from something so awful that she rarely spoke of it even when she was so far gone on pills and liquor that she would wander into cemeteries, parks, and alcoves to sleep.
“I met Tess.”
Molly scans the room. “Everyone does if they stay around long enough.”
“She seemed pretty together. I expected her to be a little more disorganized.” I swirl the cubes in my glass, not looking at Molly in case she can see the hope in my eyes. Sometimes I think bartenders, the good ones at least, have a preternatural gift at reading people. I don’t want to be read.
“Tess has good spells and bad spells.” Molly shrugs. “When she’s having a good one, I always hope it’ll stick, but sooner or later, it ends. Poor thing never gets too far away from what’s been chasing her all this time.”