My cell buzzed and I rolled over in bed to grab up the phone. It was a text from Soul, saying she was clearing her calendar. It was about time. I closed my heavy cell, staring up at the ceiling as the overhead fan twirled lazily above me.

I heard footsteps in the foyer and a soft tap on my door. “Hold on,” I said. I flipped the covers away and looked for my black robe, which was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled on the wrinkled clothes I’d dropped to the floor. When I opened the door, Eli stood there, his dark skin appearing even darker in the shadowed foyer. He was wearing his business face, which meant even less emotional expression than usual.

“Someone’s watching the house,” he said.

The gnawing worry ramped up. “Again?”

“You’re popular in the whacked-out fangy crowd.”

“Thanks, I’m sure. But it’s daylight. Not a vamp.”

“Okay. But my money’s on the vamps anyway. Maybe a vamp’s blood-meal, but still a vamp.”

“No argument.” I slipped my bedroom shoes back on my feet and left my room, following Eli. “Where?”

“Not the usual place.” The usual place was the house cater-cornered, across the street. It had a small nook at the door and low, wide porch walls supporting the posts holding up the porch roof, making it perfect for pots of plants or for a watcher to sit and observe. I’d found more than one spy there. “This one is actually in a house. Directly across the street.” He stopped to the side of the kitchen window, which was small and obscure, but looked out over the front street. I leaned over to get a better view.

“See the window to the left of the door, second story?” he asked. “That curtain’s never been open before. It’s just a crack, but there’s a small round object, like the end of a scope, in the opening.” Eli handed me a pair of binoculars and I reshaped them to my face.

I found the window and the corner of the drapery that had been folded back. Sure enough, there was a round thing in it, pointed directly at my house. “Who owns the property?”

“Alex is checking now.”

With very few exceptions, like me, few people lived in the houses in the French Quarter. The property values were so high and the tourist attention was so acute, that the buildings and houses were often rented out as artist’s studios, small shops, bars, and restaurants rather than used as homes. I handed Eli the eyes and went back to my room, saying, “I need a shower and a few minutes to think.”

Behind closed doors, I stripped, dropping the clothes again as I made my way to the shower. I wasn’t dirty, but I was sleepy, my brain was sluggish, and all I could think to do about the spy was to go over there and slap him silly. Physical force might be my specialty, but it wasn’t always the most effective means of problem solving.

Ten minutes later I turned off the cold water and stepped out of the bathroom. Five minutes after that, I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a jean jacket over it all to hide my weapons. I yanked on an old pair of scuffed and worn Lucchese Western boots and left my room. To Alex, who was sitting at his small desk, surrounded by electronic tablets, I asked, “Who owns the house?”

“A woman named Margery Thibodaux. According to records, she’s lived there for sixty years. Recluse, drives a 1972 Ford Galaxie, has a net worth of two million, some of it in conservative stocks and bonds. Her husband and she bought into Walmart the same year they bought the Ford, and that’s where most of the money came from. She has a daughter in Dallas and a son in Connecticut. I found contact numbers and neither adult child has seen or heard from her in forty-eight hours. Both have, by now, called the police.”

I dropped on the couch and let a tired grin on my face. “The police. Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

From the kitchen window, Eli said, “A marked car just pulled up. Female officer, going to the door.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “I coulda stayed in bed.”

The sound of automatic gunfire shot me to my feet. I made the side door and was outside before Eli finished his turn. Beast butted in close, sharing her speed and strength. Behind me, I heard the Kid shouting into his cell phone, “Officer down, Officer down! Automatic gunfire! Request backup and medic!” He started shouting the address as I rounded the house.

I didn’t bother with the wrought-iron gate. There wasn’t time. I leaped, grabbed the horizontal bar to the side of the fleur-de-lis at the gate top, and vaulted over, landing in a crouch. Behind me, Eli cursed and rattled the gate lock. Another burst of gunfire erupted from across the street.

I leaned into the side of the house and looked around the corner. The officer was lying in the street, bloody, but crawling for the protection of her unit. She had her service weapon in one hand and from her body came the sound of a steady beep—the “officer in trouble” alarm and GPS that cops pressed when they were in danger. Already I could hear sirens from all around.

I looked up at the window where we had spotted the surveillance and saw the glass was busted out. The barrel of a weapon was trained down, directly at the cop. With no thought at all, I raced across the street, seeing the barrel rise toward me. And realized that was exactly what the shooter had been trying for—me in the line of fire.

Time did that weird slow-down thing that happened often when I was in danger of getting dead. I jerked my body left, then right, the barrel in the window following. Behind me I heard the distinctive sound of a nine-mil as Eli laid down cover fire. Puny shots in the aftermath of the automatic weapon fire.

The shooter fired again, rounds hitting the street just behind me. I dove for the cop, grabbed her as I landed, and rolled her behind the car. I lay atop her as the cop car was riddled with bullets. What hearing I had was lost to the concussive battering.

NOPD units started to arrive, sirens and lights flashing. A car swerved up to me and screeched to a halt. Suddenly I was surrounded by three cops, all with their weapons pointed at me. “Not me!” I screamed and pointed, deafened. “The window!”

Two cops fell, hit by the shooter before they could take cover. One was dead before he hit the street, the back of his head gone. The unwounded cop pulled him and the other officer out of the line of fire. He started doing CPR on the dead guy. I rolled off the female officer and applied pressure to the bloody place in her left shoulder. The blood was pouring, not spurting, but no telling what was happening inside her.