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What a day it had been. And it was only one o’clock.
The last thing BJ needed or wanted was another message from Jacob.
She read his email anyway. He wrote that he gets it, that she’s uneasy about meeting him in person. So he was confident he’d come up with a good plan when he suggested she put a picture of herself in an envelope, write his name on it, and leave it near the flyin’ horses in the park. But she didn’t say yay or nay in her reply.
The 1300-acre park in New Orleans was one of the most visited parks in the United States.
What the hell was he thinking?
Having a photograph of herself just lying around where someone other than Jacob might find it was unnerving as hell.
A sharp intake of breath.
The story idea she struggled with last Saturday, after the horn-honking boy and her husband both killed it, suddenly reappeared in her mind.
I needed an angle. This photo in the park business might just turn out to be the little something that’s missing from my new novel.
Standing on a step stool before her bookcase, she gripped the spine of a thin album, pulled it down off the top shelf. Removed a wallet-sized photo she wanted to use on the dust jacket of her debut novel, someday.
Uninterested in going out just to buy a box of envelopes, she settled for cutting off a corner of a white plastic trash bag. Used a black marker to write the letter J on both sides. Sealed the photo inside the makeshift bag with a red twist tie.
She was as frightened as she was excited.
“File it under Research.”
She sent Jacob an email.
He responded a little too fast to suit her. Said he’d be in her area later that afternoon. Ended the message with: I’ll be seeing you. Literally.
On the spur of the moment BJ chose to get in character. She lifted the lid on her cedar chest, picked up the straw-colored hairpiece she’d worn to Voodoo Fest. Standing in front of the dresser mirror she pinned up her long black curls, pulled on a tan nylon cap liner. Positioned the wig on her head.
Her dark eyes and pale golden skin looked strange under the lighter hair color.
She appeared... ghostly.
“An apt description of that thing in the cemetery one foggy Halloween night.”
BJ put on an oversized and dense pair of sunglasses. Applied ruby red lipstick, smacked her lips together. Struck a sexy pose.
“Hello, Suite Sue.”
She drove to the park. Found an empty slot on the outer edge of the lot.
No sooner had she arrived in the area adjacent to the merry-go-round, the flyin’ horses, than she stumbled upon a lawn care crew loading up their equipment, preparing to leave.
She waited five minutes. Pitched the bag in the garbage can he’d specified in his email.