Eat, shower, and come to my office. Ian will show you the way. We need to talk.
~Rett”
Rett
The icon on the monitor on my desk signaled that people were entering the outer offices. A quick hit of a few keys on my keyboard and the image of them appeared. While there were two, it was only one of the occupants who had my attention. The one who I’d left asleep earlier this morning after a night fit for the record books. If this was what it was like to be married, I should have done it a long time ago.
I turned to Leon, sitting across the desk from me. “Do you believe everything you just said?”
He nodded. “I decided you should know. I can’t explain it, the pull she had. I thought I’d broken free. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in nearly ten years.” He stood. “I know I’m not the only one. She never promised exclusivity. Hell, legends like Jezebel aren’t contrived by one man.”
Leon took a deep breath as he leaned forward, holding the arms of the chair. “I’m a lot of things, boss. I’m not a man who cheats on his wife, not readily.”
His dark expression showed more pain than I’d ever seen in him. This was a man who had helped me take over New Orleans. He carried out executions and stopped for a Po’ boy twenty minutes later. What Leon had been describing over the last hour had tortured his soul in a way the life we chose never would.
“And even after all this time,” he said, “talking about Jezebel yesterday, I can’t shake the thoughts of her, the memories...the desire to find her.”
In the pop-up in the corner of my computer monitor, I saw that Ian and Emma were waiting. Before they entered, I needed a few more answers from Leon.
“We do need to find her,” I said, “if she’s out there.”
He nodded. “She is. I know it in my bones.”
“You never had a physical relationship?” I exhaled and stood, stretching my legs. “Fuck, Leon. That’s none of my damn business. I’m hardly in a place to exert moral superiority. I’m just trying to understand how one shunned woman is as powerful as people say.”
“Once, I slipped. Tara knows. She forgave me. Maybe one day I can forgive myself. Thing is...I ain’t proud of it. That night was a symptom of my disease, not a cure to it.”
“Disease?”
“Obsession. Hell, Jezebel was a drug more addicting than cocaine. The high came in her presence. Sex was the pinnacle, but it wasn’t enough.” He shook his head as he stood. “I’m being honest, boss. Thoughts of Jezebel began slipping back into my mind when you brought Miss North here. I reasoned that she looks similar, but she ain’t Jezebel. Then like I said, after talking about Jezebel yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even a decade later, she has a power that I’ve never known in any other woman.” He looked toward the bookcase and back. “Do you want to know the God’s truth?”
“Yes.”
“He hurt her, Boudreau. He thought he could stop her, bring her down and shame her.” A smile split Leon’s face in half. “Not her. Fuck no. Jezebel would have walked down Bourbon Street stark naked without blinking an eye. She didn’t give a fuck about what people thought they knew because she made it a point to know more. She set her mind to one thing, revenge. In that pursuit, she did her best to learn secrets.
“You see, it isn’t the wealthiest who hold the power; it’s the people with the most knowledge. Like that old saying—knowledge is power. Jezebel knew how to bring any man to his knees. She shared those secrets with her girls. From what I heard, they were good but not as good as the mistress herself.
“You know who has knowledge, boss?”
“You’re going to tell me.”
“Sometimes it’s the powerful, like Boudreau and your daddy, but it’s the others, their employees, butlers, groundskeepers, maintenance. They see what is happening every day inside the big houses. They know secrets from behind closed doors that others can’t imagine.
“I said yesterday, a man about ready to come can’t lie. There’d be few families around these parts whose secrets she didn’t know, things the fancy ladies don’t discuss, Jezebel had it all. And then, before you took control, she disappeared.
“But her power ain’t gone. If my granny were here, she’d call Jezebel a sorceress. Whatever power Jezebel had, she knew how to use it. Still does, I’d imagine.”
“We need to find her,” I said. “Hell, if she’s in New Orleans, she’s been living like a hermit.”
“No, I’d say if she’s still in these parts, which is a possibility, Miss Jezebel North is living exactly how she wants to live.” He tilted his chin toward the bookcase. “I know you need to talk to Mrs. Ramses about Underwood. If she has half the bewitching power of her mother, be careful.”
A grin came to my lips. “You’re the second person to warn me that Emma is possibly dangerous.”
“You can laugh it off,” Leon said, “but it’s the way a woman like her momma could get under your skin. Those secrets she learned? She didn’t need to push. Men offered them like sacrifices for a moment in her presence.” He stood taller, straightening his shoulders. “I think I’m going to follow up on a few things on the street. I’ll send in a report, but tonight, I’m going home and gonna take my wife out for an expensive dinner. Remind us both that even though she married a fool, he knows good when he’s got it. Tara is good, boss.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan, man.”
I hit the button to move the bookcase. Leon nodded to Ian as they passed one another. Ian stopped, allowing Emma to enter. My gaze met Ian’s as I stood. “I’ll text you when Mrs. Ramses is ready to be escorted back upstairs.”