The Chef Read online

  I take a few deep breaths and scan the sleepy block.

  There’s nobody out on the sidewalk this late, let alone a stream of folks coming or going from one specific house. I don’t see any obvious clusters of parked cars, either. Or any vehicles I recognize, like that maroon Jeep from earlier.

  Nearing Dauphine Street now, I do spot two darkened, derelict homes right on the corner. Either one of them could be the place.

  One is pretty small, with peeling paint the color of lemon meringue and an overgrown front yard. But in the driveway is a freestanding basketball hoop…with a fresh white net hanging from its rusty rim. That’s all the proof I need that someone calls that place home.

  The second house is a little bigger, with boarded up windows and a section of roof sagging like a collapsed soufflé. It has a detached garage in back, too, just like the safe house in St. Roch did. This one looks big enough for two tractors.

  I make a left onto Dauphine to get a look at the vacant building from the side.

  Seeping through cracks in one of the boarded-up windows, I glimpse a faint purple glow coming from inside.

  A cold tremor runs through my body, head to toe.

  Someone’s in there.

  Chapter 67

  I PULL over down the block and cut the engine.

  Keeping my palm on the grip of my pistol, tucked into my jeans, I crouch low and creep back toward the vacant house.

  Here we go.

  I tiptoe across the crackly dried brown lawn and up to the window with the light inside. I lean in and try to squint through the cracks.

  But I can’t see shit.

  So I put my ear up to it.

  And hear some muffled voices.

  My pulse practically doubles as I slowly back away from the window and move around the rear of the house now.

  I’m looking for the best way to make a stealth entry, but I don’t see any side doors. Guess I only have one option.

  When I reach the front porch, I hurry up its rickety wooden steps and lean my back against the wall next to the door—which I see is slightly ajar.

  I draw my pistol. Keep it pointed at the ground. And try to steady my nerves.

  I’ve made tactical entries like this a million times before. But always as part of a team. Usually wearing a Kevlar vest. And never with stakes this high.

  I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to silence those noisy thoughts. Before they can return, I nudge the door open a few more inches and steal a peek inside.

  The entryway looks clear. No suspects. No trip wires or cameras, either.

  Just a hint of that indigo light emanating from somewhere farther inside.

  Raising my gun, I push the door open all the way and “slice the pie”—a police technique for spinning while entering a hostile space to maximize cover and visibility.

  The moment I step inside, a harsh stench burns my nostrils.

  It’s not mold or drugs or a rotting body, the stuff you’d expect to find inside a vacant home. It’s some kind of industrial-strength chemicals. God only knows what for.

  Keeping my sidearm aimed high and my senses sharp, I pad down the dark, claustrophobically narrow hallway. With every step, the wood floor creaks and groans.

  I pass by what was once the living room. Empty.

  The dining room. Empty.

  I round a corner and reach the master bedroom. Empty.

  But I can see where the purple light is coming from: the kitchen.

  I can hear those garbled voices, too. Sounds like they’re speaking…Spanish?

  I edge closer. Closer. Closer. Until I’m standing right by the kitchen doorway.

  I brace myself. I slice the pie again.

  “Police!” I yell. “Don’t move!”

  I’m gut-struck by what I see.

  Nothing and nobody.

  Huh?

  The whole kitchen has a ghostly violet hue—thanks to a portable camping lantern with a tinted bulb resting on one of the counters.

  And those Spanish-speakers, it turns out, are just voices from a radio call-in show, wafting from a cheap plastic boom box nearby.

  I moan with rage and despair. Deep and guttural.

  This place was the safe house! Something was going on in here!

  But what?

  I glance around the bizarre scene, scanning for any clues.

  I realize my fingernails and the threads in my clothes are glowing white, which tells me the tinted bulb is probably a UV black light.

  But why? I thought these bastards were building a bomb, not a nightclub.

  And how come they just left all this shit in here? Did they rush out in a hurry and forget it? Or was it intentional, some kind of calling card, a cryptic message for whoever found it?

  None of it makes any sense.

  Any goddamn sense at all.

  In a fit of fury, I sweep the radio off the counter and stomp on it. It shatters into pieces, making the voices sound garbled and distorted. I hit it again with my foot and the voices stop.

  My head starts to throb. My knees begin to wobble.

  I sink to the filthy linoleum floor. Drowning in helplessness and desperation.

  My investigation just hit another dead end.

  The trail has run bone-dry.

  I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t even stand.

  I’ve got nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  And Mardi Gras is just hours away.

  Chapter 68

  “SORRY, SIR, we’re closed.”

  The valet is waving his hands at me as I step out of my car.

  I’m parked in front of Petite Amie, the Garden District saloon-turned-bistro owned by Billy Needham, David’s cousin. He’s the guy who comped me that incredible meal a week ago.

  He’s also the one who told me about all the strife and discord tearing his family apart. About David’s paranoia. His threats of violence.

  Billy’s the reason I tumbled down this rabbit hole in the first place. Coming here tonight is a Hail Mary, but maybe he can help me claw my way out.

  “That’s okay,” I say to the valet. “I’m not here to eat.”

  I approach the restaurant’s glass façade, cup my hands around my eyes and peer inside. The ornate chandeliers and the house lights are on. The wait staff, typically prim and proper in front of diners, are chatting casually with one another as they sweep the floors and strip the tables.

  I give the locked door a few knocks to get the attention of a busboy stacking chairs nearby. He glances at me, then ignores me. I knock again. Harder.

  “Hey!” I call through the glass. “You. Yeah, you. Listen, I gotta talk to your boss. Tell Billy Caleb Rooney’s outside. It’s urgent. As in, life or death urgent.”

  The busboy’s indifference morphs into concern. He stops stacking chairs, hesitates, then steps away and walks through the dining room toward the kitchen.

  Seconds turn to minutes. As I wait, I think. About the winding path that brought me to this desperate moment. And about what exactly I’m going to say to Billy.

  How the hell do you tell a man you barely know that, thanks to him, you’ve come to believe his cousin is a terrorist?

  Here he comes, emerging from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. As Billy unlocks the door and lets me in, his face is a mask of worry.

  “Caleb,” he says. “Hi. Is everything all right?”

  “Hey, Billy. Why don’t we have a drink. Because it’s not. Not by a mile.”

  From the foyer showing the celebrity grip-and-grin pictures and his personal flying photographs, he ushers me over to his restaurant’s shiny mahogany bar. As I take a seat, he steps around behind it.

  “I already cut my bartender for the night,” he says. “What can I get you? I’m not much of a mixologist, but I can make a mean Ramos gin fizz if you’re in the mood for—”

  “Just the house bourbon. A double. You’ll probably want one for yourself, too.”

  He pours our booze and slides onto a
stool beside me. He holds up his glass to clink, but I keep mine on the bar. I swirl it, searching for words in the amber liquid.

  “When’s the last time you talked to David?” I ask.

  He scrunches his brow.

  “My cousin?” he asks. “I don’t know. A couple weeks ago, I guess. Why?”

  I say, “I don’t get the sense you two are very close. How well do you really know him? And do you have any idea what he’s really capable of?”

  “I’m not sure I’m following,” he says, looking puzzled.

  I take my first bracing sip of bourbon, the liquid sharp and hot on my tongue.

  “After you and I spoke the other day, I started doing some digging,” I say. “Into your family and its troubles. I spoke to Emily up at her horse farm. I pored over your company’s finances. It kept leading me back to David. All of it.”

  “What kept leading back to David?” he asks.

  “I was working off a good tip. That a terrorist cell was looking to strike on Mardi Gras.”

  Now I’ve got his attention, 100 percent. “Oh, my God…”

  “I wanted to find out who was behind it,” I ask. “What they were planning. Where their money was coming from. Turns out…”

  I swallow another gulp of bourbon.

  “It’s a complex web that I still don’t fully understand,” I say. “They’ve got multiple shell companies to hide their cash. Islamic extremists working with white supremacists. I don’t get it. I’ve barely scratched the surface…”

  I take the crumpled photograph of David and Farzat out of my pocket and set it down on the wooden bar top.

  “…but your cousin keeps popping up at the center of it, again and again.”

  He blanches. He picks up the photo like it might bite him and looks at it closely.

  “This is one of the bad guys?” he asks.

  “Was. A radicalized Islamist who was recently tortured and killed. David was secretly funneling money to him through a crooked nonprofit.”

  He’s gently shaking his head in disbelief.

  “This…this is…insane!” he says. “Have you confronted David about all this?”

  “Plenty of times,” I say. “But he’s a slippery son of a bitch. And that team of Israeli bodyguards he’s got doesn’t make him an easy person to get to.”

  “Tell me about it,” he says. “Those guys are nuts. I took David hunting about a year ago on some land I own up in Bossier Parish? A few of them tagged along. They make the Secret Service look like a troop of Girl Scouts. They were on high alert, always suspicious, scanning the area, like they couldn’t stand having anyone armed next to their client.”

  I nod. “I’m worried they’re part of the plot, too. I just don’t know. And the police, the FBI—I’ve told ’em everything, but no one’s doing shit.”

  Now it’s Billy’s turn to sip his drink, though a desperate gulp would probably be more accurate.

  “I…I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Caleb,” he says. “But I do believe you. David always seemed a little eccentric. Paranoid. Intense. I had no idea he was…a monster.”

  He rests a shaky hand on my shoulder.

  “If there’s anything I can do, anything at all…”

  I say, “At this point, I don’t know what any of us can do. Except listen. If you do talk to him…if he says anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary…I need you to let me know. Okay? Let the cops and feds know, too.”

  “Of course,” he says. “Absolutely.”

  He reaches into his apron’s pocket and takes out a business card and pen. He scribbles something on the back and hands it to me.

  “And let me know, too,” he says. “If you learn or need anything more. That’s my number. Call anytime, day or night. Jesus…you know, hearing that, it tempts me just to close up shop tomorrow and take up my Cessna, get away from it all. It’s amazing how clean and safe everything looks when you’re ten thousand feet up. But now…”

  He wipes at his mahogany bar with his fingers, like he was trying to always remember the touch of this polished and safe wood.

  “But I won’t run, and I won’t fly away,” he says firmly. “But on the other hand, before you came in, I didn’t think I’d be getting much sleep tonight anyway. Now I know I won’t.”

  I take his card with one hand. With the other, I toss back the rest of my bourbon.

  “Billy,” I say, “that makes two of us.”

  Chapter 69

  I STEP out of the restaurant and into the warm, peaceful night. All around me, a gentle breeze is whispering through the trees, many of them draped with colorful streamers and beads.

  But inside of me, a storm is raging.

  I did everything I could—and damnit, it still wasn’t enough. To stop David. To disrupt his plot. To convince the FBI. To protect my city.

  And now it might be too late.

  I’m practically shaking with rage as I walk back to my car. A slideshow of gruesome images starts flashing through my head. Smoke. Blood. Crying. Screaming. The unknown horrors that tomorrow’s attack could bring.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the images to go away. No luck.

  The rest of my body is aching from exhaustion and stress. It’s craving sleep more than oxygen. I should go home. Go to bed. Before I go crazy.

  But I can’t. Not yet.

  I might not be able to save everybody. I’m starting to accept that fact.

  But I can still warn them.

  Especially the people who mean the most to me.

  I pull onto the street heading north, then turn right onto St. Charles Avenue. Cars are flowing smoothly tonight, but tomorrow, the only traffic allowed on this road will be floats and the tractors pulling them. Driving along this section of the parade route feels creepy. Ominous. I’m visiting the scene of a crime—before it happens.

  I don’t stay on St. Charles for long. After a few blocks, I’ve entered the Lower Garden District. I turn right and wend my way through the neighborhood’s narrow, leafy streets. I stop in front of a terraced town house, beige with lavender shutters.

  It belongs to Vanessa and Lucas.

  I cut the engine. My dashboard clock blinks from 11:46 to 11:47.

  Which gives me pause.

  Am I really going to show up on her doorstep like this, this late at night, when her buffoon of a husband is probably there, too? Is this really the smartest move?

  I exhale. I drum my fingers on my steering wheel. I shut my eyes again.

  Before I can change my mind, I get out of my car and walk up the path.

  I ring the doorbell, wait, ring it again. A third time.

  The house looks dark inside. Maybe they’re not home?

  Then a second-floor light flips on. The bedroom, as I fondly recall.

  I hear footsteps creaking down the stairs. Locks and bolts being turned.

  The door swings open.

  Lucas is standing there, wearing nothing but a pair of gray boxer shorts and a bleary-eyed, indignant look.

  “Rooney…?” he asks. “What the hell do you think—”

  “Is Vanessa here?” I ask without hesitation. “I gotta talk to her.”

  He tries to puff up his chest to look intimidating, but he only looks pathetic.

  “Now? It’s practically midnight! She’s asleep. My wife is asleep. So unless you—”

  “It’s urgent,” I say. “Sorry.”

  I take a step forward into the house and give him a firm shove out of my way. He nearly topples sideways into a blue-and-white vase on the small entry table near the door.

  “Hey! Don’t you dare come inside my—”

  “Vanessa!” I call. “Vanessa? Wake up!”

  “Caleb?”

  I follow her wispy voice to the top of the stairs. She’s wearing a knee-length plain white T-shirt, her hair in a messy bun. She scurries down to me, frightened.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, worried. “Is everything all right?”

  “No!” he in
terrupts. “Everything is definitely not all—”

  “Would you shut the hell up for one second?” I demand.

  Then I turn back to her, softening my tone.

  “Listen to me,” I say, the words tumbling out. “I have to tell you something. And I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t important—and if I…if I didn’t care about you.”

  I grip her shoulders. Partly to calm her, partly to steady myself.

  “You need to leave the city,” I say. “As soon as you can. Promise me, okay?”

  “What?” she asks, wiping at her sleepy eyes. “Why?”

  “Something’s going to happen tomorrow. And, and…”

  “And what?” she says, now coming more fully awake. “What kind of thing—”

  “I’ve been working a case. Terrorism. Someone’s plotting an attack on Mardi Gras.”

  In shock, she covers her face with her hands.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispers. “What kind of attack?”

  “Maybe a bombing,” I say. “Or a nerve agent. There might be snipers on rooftops. Or some kind of rampage. Damnit, I don’t know! I don’t know when, either. Or where. So what I’m saying is, you have to leave. You can’t be anywhere near this thing when—”

  “Lucas!” she yells. “No!”

  Chapter 70

  OUT OF the corner of my eye I see Lucas coming up behind me.

  Actually, I see his reflection—in the rectangular, floor-level mirror built into the wall of the entryway.

  It’s not an uncommon feature in this kind of old, fancy New Orleans home. High-society ladies once used it to make sure their ankles and hoop skirts weren’t showing before they stepped out on the town.

  Tonight, this mirror designed for fashion is now being used both tactically and defensively.

  I glimpse him, his face twisted with anger, holding the blue-and-white porcelain vase that was resting on the entry table. In what feels like slow motion, I watch him get closer. Raise the vase. Lunge at me.