A Father's Duty. Joanna Wayne

Georgette Delacroix was not his problem and he hoped he’d never have to see her again.

      GEORGETTE SAT at her desk staring at Tanner Harrison’s card and wishing she’d never met the man or even touched that card. It had been three days since the night she’d encountered Tanner in the hallway at Charity Hospital. Three days since she’d first seen the images of the young woman and felt her fear and desperation.

      The images had hit several times since then, appearing at the most inconvenient of times—in a meeting with the D.A., while she was taking a deposition, and in chambers with Judge Colbert this morning. Fortunately they hadn’t been as intense as they’d been at the hospital, but they had been powerful enough to make her lose her train of thought and appear less than totally competent.

      Tanner Harrison was somehow connected to the woman in the images. Georgette was certain of that, though she was sure of nothing else. For all she knew, the woman with her hands and feet tied and the woman who’d died in examining room 12 could be one and the same.

      Or the woman in the visions could still be fighting for her life. The next victim. The possibility stewed in Georgette’s mind, taking over her concentration until it was useless even to think of writing the brief she’d started a half dozen times over the last few days.

      Tanner Harrison, innocent employee of Crescent City Transports? Or, Tanner Harrison, lynch man for the mob? Murderer of young women who crossed the lines Gaspard drew in invisible ink?

      She picked up the card and felt a cold, frightening shudder slither along her spine. To play this safe and according to protocol, she should take her fears to the police.

      But what would she tell them? That she saw visions? That some unnamed woman was calling to her for help? Let that get back to her boss and District Attorney Sebastion Primeaux would fire her before she could open her mouth to deny it.

      But neither could Georgette go on like this. So, it was field-trip time. She’d pay a surprise call on Tanner Harrison, but this time she’d stay in full control while she questioned him. A junior prosecutor on her way up should never have her equilibrium shaken in public.

      Georgette planned to make it to the very top of the heap.

      Chapter Two

      Tanner hung up the phone; he’d been talking to the New Orleans Chief of Police as his newly assigned partner stopped at the door to his office.

      “Guess you heard—another tourist died last night from a drug overdose,” Mason Bartley said, leaning his long, lanky body against the door frame.

      “Yeah, I just got off the phone with Henri Courville.”

      “What did the police chief have to say?”

      “That the victim was a sixty-five-year-old retired guy from Champagne, Illinois, in town for a model railroaders convention.”

      “Evidently got off on the wrong side of the tracks,” Mason said, “and ended up facedown in a back alley in the Quarter.”

      Tanner nodded. “Which is exactly how I’d like to leave Maurice Gaspard some night.”

      “Watch it, Harrison. You’re starting to sound like me.”

      He sure as hell hoped he wasn’t. Mason had been a two-bit crook up until a few months ago, when he was recruited to join the top secret New Orleans Confidential agency. And while the boss might think he was rehabilitated, Tanner had serious doubts. He’d griped for two days when Conrad Burke had made them partners in this high-stakes case. A lot of good it had done. Burke hadn’t budged an inch.

      “We’ve closed the coffeehouses the mob’s used as distribution points, shut down the refining operations for their illegal sex drug, and locked the doors to the plush gentleman’s club where they were drugging the johns and robbing them blind through theft or blackmail. And still we have guys ending up in the hospitals and the morgue from heart attacks brought on by an overdose of Category Five.”

      “Ain’t no stopping them,” Mason said.

      “We’ll stop them—one way or another.” And that’s what he liked about being an agent for New Orleans Confidential. They played by different rules than agencies like the FBI or CIA. The Confidential agents answered only to Conrad Burke and to their own conscience.

      “We’ve slowed them down,” Mason admitted, “which means their supply of Category Five has to be running low. But the head pimp Maurice Gaspard is out on bail and still running his underage girlie show with the help of his heavies.” Mason walked over and dropped the file he was holding on top of Tanner’s desk. “Burke said to give this to you. It’s the autopsy report on that prostitute you found the other night with her skull crushed.”

      “Courville said they got a positive ID on her last night,” Tanner said. “Samantha Lincoln, runaway from some town in Iowa. Age sixteen.”

      “Sixteen. Those slimeballs. Got no conscience at all.” Mason turned and stared at the framed picture of Lily sitting on the top of Tanner’s file cabinet. “Don’t guess you’ve got any leads on the whereabouts of your daughter yet?”

      “No. Hard to get anyone to talk when the price of squealing is death.”

      “If she’s out there, you’ll find her.”

      The empty consolation did nothing to dissolve the acid pooling in the pit of Tanner’s stomach. It had been two months since Lily had disappeared, and he’d gotten nowhere in his search. He couldn’t go on like this, trying to do his job for New Orleans Confidential when all he could think about was the fact that Lily was out there somewhere, maybe hiding out in some stinking crack house, just trying to stay alive.

      He’d thought when they got Tony Arsenault off the street that the mob would loosen its hold. But Jerome Senegal apparently had no shortage of thugs to do his bidding. Tony the Knife and his infamous machete were in custody, but whether a person was sliced by Tony or beaten by another mob enforcer didn’t matter a whole lot. Dead was still dead.

      Tanner let the report slip from his fingers, walked over to the file cabinet and picked up the photograph of Lily. It had been taken last Christmas—yet another holiday he’d missed sharing with her….

      The intercom on his phone buzzed. He replaced the picture and lifted the receiver. “What’s up?”

      “You have a visitor in the main building.”

      “Who?”

      “Georgette Delacroix.”

      Not the best of news. “Did you tell her I was in?”

      “No. Thought I’d check with you first, but if it sways your decision, Susie said she’s a knockout.”

      Yeah, and an attorney. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d gone freaky on him the other night, practically passed out in the hospital. Avoiding her was tempting, but on the other hand, if he played this just right, he might pick up some info from her.

      It was always advantageous to get a little inside scoop on happenings in the D.A.’s office, especially now that they suspected the corrupt prosecutor was in Senegal’s back pocket. They’d get Sebastion Primeaux when the time came. It wasn’t here yet.

      “I’ll walk over,” Tanner said. “Is there an office available?”

      “The usual. I’ll tell them you’re on your way.”

      Crescent City Transports was a legitimate trucking business that served as a front for the Confidential operation. Confidential’s offices were in the back and security-controlled, supposedly because they handled some hazardous materials as well as a few routine transports.

      As far as any of the regular employees knew, the Confidential agents were garden-variety employees like themselves, and while they were aware they drove specially outfitted vehicles, they had no idea that the equipment consisted of the best surveillance technology money