“That’s the best I can do right now. I need you to let Eli go. I need him to help me track Santana.”

“I need a raise and a better-fitting pair of shoes.”

I chuckled softly. “I’ll take you shopping if you’ll set Eli loose.”

“Bribing me, Yellowrock?” she asked, but her tone finally settled into grudging friendship instead of cop–to–possible suspect. “There’s laws against that. Do I need to haul you in too?”

Which meant that Eli was at NOPD, possibly under arrest, and that I’d been wrong. Jodi was no longer at the scene of the shooting. “Bribing is more along the lines of what Leo might do, not me. I don’t have bottomless pockets.”

“Which doesn’t say whether this is a bribe.”

“It’s not a bribe,” I said, getting grouchy in reaction to her tone. “You need shoes. I need a girls’ day out. You need rest. I need Eli to help me track Santana. When Santana is dead, we’ll do the spa thing and shop, which you know I hate. We’ll ask Adelaide Mooney to come with us. All this is a statement of fact. I’m not offering to buy you a pair of shoes.”

“Too bad. There’s this sexy pair of lipstick red heels at Macy’s in Metairie that I’ve been lusting after.”

I beat my forehead with a fist. Women were so confusing. “I’ll buy the dang shoes if you’ll wear them on a date with Wrassler. That can be a bribe. The rest of this is business.”

There was a hesitation before Jodi said, “That the guy who lost a leg in the fight at vamp central?”

“Yeah. And he’s down and depressed because of the injury and he always had the hots for you. He could use a night on the town.”

“Really?” From Jodi’s tone I had a feeling the shoes were superfluous to any agreement to a date with the big guy. She said, much softer, “You got his number?”

“I do. We got a deal? I need Eli.”

“Sure. Text me his number. You can pick up Eli at NOPD at the Eighth on Royal Street in ten.” The call ended, and by the ease of me getting what I wanted, I guessed that Eli hadn’t been under arrest after all. Cops were sneaky. Not that I minded anything I had just agreed to. I texted Wrassler’s number to Jodi and hopped in the cab that pulled up. “Take me to the Eighth District NOPD. Wait for me there and there’ll be another destination and a nice tip.”

“How nice you gonna be, my sister?” he said.

I looked at the cabbie in the rearview, seeing dark skin and pretty eyes. The left one had a teardrop tattooed at the outer corner. A prison tat. Great. “Twenty. And I’m not in the mood to dicker.”

“Done.” We pulled away from the curb and into the night’s traffic. “You know you’re barefoot, right?”

I snorted. “I noticed. You know you’re an ex-con heading toward NOPD, right?”

“I noticed. But I got nothing to worry about. I found the Lord when I got outta the joint and made my life right. I go to the Baptist church roun’ the block from the Eighth. I know the cops there. You should join us come Sunday. Nothing so good as bein’ right with Jesus, my sister.”

I was being evangelized by an ex-con. How weird was that? Then I remembered the dirty water in the baptismal pool at The Church and I sighed silently. “I might be looking for a new church. I’ll keep it in mind.”

We pulled up in front of the Eighth District Police Department and I got out, unhappy at the sight of broken glass on the sidewalk. “Here,” the cabbie said, handing me a pair of neon green flops. “Client left them in here last week. She paid cash so I couldn’t find her. I washed them shoes good. Was going to give them to the clothes closet at church, but you look like you could use them.”

I might hate the idea of putting on someone else’s shoes, but it was way better than being barefoot on broken glass. I pulled on the flops and checked the cabbie’s name on the license. “Thanks, Zareb.”

“Welcome, my sister. Zareb is African for ‘protector.’ I’m your protector tonight.”

For reasons I couldn’t name, that simple statement brought tears to my eyes. “Thanks,” I said through a tight throat.

“I’ll be waitin’ for you right here unless the cops send me off. Then I’ll be parked beside the church round the block. I won’t leave you. And if you need a doctor for that belly pain, I got one who work at the free clinic. She’ll see you.”

I dropped my hand from where it had been pressed against my stomach and closed the cab door, thinking about the old saying of people being helped by angels in disguise, and I figured I had just met one, even if only in a small way. Feeling better for reasons that had little to do with logic, I thanked Zareb with a lifted hand and entered the main doors of the Eighth.

The exterior of the French Quarter precinct looked like a fancy hotel, two-storied, pale pinkish stone landscaped with palms and old, flowering magnolia trees. Inside were, arguably, the most friendly cops on the face of the planet. The woman behind the desk greeted me as “Honey,” and told me my boyfriend would be out in a minute. When I said he wasn’t my boyfriend, she offered to take him off my hands and laughed. And directed me to the vending machines with NOPD T-shirts. Seriously. Police T-shirts, hats, and police kitsch. In a vending machine. Even as tired as I was, I loved this town. But I bought a Coke instead and sucked it down for the calories. I had partially shifted and hadn’t eaten. Not smart. The cramping in my belly eased with the Coke, and I bought another, drinking it just as fast.

Twenty minutes later I had Eli in the cab and we were heading back to the house, silent, not wanting to talk in front of the cabbie. Back home, I paid my bill plus tip, accepted an evangelical tract from Zareb, and Eli and I entered the house. We had a lot of catching up to do and not a lot of time left in the night.

* * *

There were a lot of things we needed. An update on any sightings of Santana or unexplained deaths that might be related to him. New wheels—the SUV had been impounded as part of a crime scene. Better garb. New boots. A bottle of antacids, which Eli had and which helped the pain in my gut considerably. A plan to catch Santana, which we didn’t have. A nap that none of us were going to get. And I had to update the Youngers on Molly and the witches, which should take the shortest amount of time. Witches weren’t out to kill or maim us or the community, so that was just info, or so I thought.