Used to the babbling of the nervous, Sylvie pasted on a patient look and examined her visitor. She wasn’t a native, that was for sure. Her crisp tones said money and breeding. Sylvie would bet the Northeast or maybe California. The young woman had the bone structure of the well-heeled, haughty and perfect. A gold strand with a solitaire gleamed at her throat, and actual diamonds winked in her ears.

The suit she wore cost more than Sylvie made in a month. And she’d bet the blouse beneath it was silk. Same with her hair. As a woman, Sylvie recognized the care that produced the vibrant sheen and healthy strands, but with hair like that, a nice cut to shape her face wouldn’t have hurt.

The cop in Sylvie listened to her, and she wondered what put the anxiety in Dr. Abbott’s cool voice. The woman obviously came from money, but she had brought trouble with her. “What brings you to the Eighth District on your lunch hour?” Sylvie asked quietly.

Erin took a deep breath. “I received a note. And five obituaries.” She rummaged in her case and handed the envelope to the detective. She’d cut off the first line, the one that called her Analise.

Shifting forward to take it, Sylvie pinned Erin with a stern look. “You think these deaths were homicides?”

“Perhaps. I mean, yes. I did all the research I could, and they seem to fit a pattern.”

Sylvie riffled through the columns and read the note. Running her thumb along the top edge of the note, she murmured, “Five murders?”

“Those are the ones he sent me. D or possibly E and F are missing, but,” Erin blurted out, “I think you may have a serial killer operating here in New Orleans.”

Chapter 5

Sylvie leaned forward. Why did she always get the crazy ones? “You want to run that past me again?”

Easily reading the detective’s expression, Erin resisted the urge to bolt. What she had seen in the obituaries was an idea so preposterous, she hardly believed it herself. Mouth thinned, she opened the pages of the album. “I’m not insane, Detective. Someone wanted me to see something in these obituaries, and I think I do. I see a killer who wants an audience. He picked me.”

“Why you?” Sylvie lifted the album. “Out of the thousands of people in the city, why’d he come to you?”

“Because he knew I’d see the pattern.” Because Erin had seen darker passions, had come close to evil before. An evil that may have found her. Her stomach tightened, fear churning like acid. “Will you listen?”