Chapter 12 Thiago
Chapter twelve
Thiago
“Your flight landed early,” I said.
“It did,” Eamon replied. “You sound delighted.”
I was standing in Luca’s doorway with my phone against my ear and one hand trying to coax my shirt into something that resembled order. The buttons were not cooperating.
“How early?” I asked.
“Early enough that you should already be in the car.”
I glanced at the clock on Luca’s nightstand. “Give me twenty-five minutes.”
“Make it twenty.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone and glanced back at Luca.
He was still in the bed behind me, propped on one elbow. “Let me guess,” he said. “The cavalry.”
“Eamon.”
“And he’s early.”
“Yes.”
“Is that a personality trait?”
“It is.”
Luca pushed the sheet aside and sat up. Morning light from the tall window caught his shoulder and the long line of his back as he reached for his shirt from the floor.
I had been in New Orleans for less than two full weeks. I had not expected to become familiar with Luca Moreau’s bedroom.
“Is he the intimidating type?” Luca asked, pulling on his jeans.
“Only to people who deserve it.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
He stood, rolled up his cuffs, and crossed the room to the door, passing close enough that the back of his hand brushed my wrist. It was casual enough that anyone else might have missed it.
I didn’t. I followed him downstairs.
The kitchen still held the quiet aftermath of the previous evening. Two Burgundy glasses waited beside the sink, and Celeste’s dessert plate sat abandoned near the cutting board.
Luca moved directly to the coffeepot.
“Airport pickup,” he said over his shoulder. “You have time for coffee.”
“I have time to smell the coffee brewing.”
“That’s pessimistic.”
“That’s experience.”
Luca started a full pot anyway. As he leaned back against the counter, his shirt was still only half-buttoned.
“You look like a man who slept well,” he said.
“I slept.”
“For what it’s worth, you’re not the first person in this house to violate their own rules.”
“I haven’t violated anything.”
“You’re picking up your boss twenty minutes after leaving my bed.”
“That is a scheduling conflict.”
“So that’s what we’re calling it.”
He poured two mugs of coffee and slid one toward me. I blew on it and sipped. “I should go.”
“Of course you should.”
He watched me pick up my keys. “Dominic is upstairs,” I said.
“I know.”
“Lock the gate behind me.”
“I live here. I know how to—“
“Both you and Dominic are learning.”
Luca tilted his head slightly. “You’re very charming in the morning.”
“I try to be consistent.”
“That’s one word for it.”
At the door, I stopped long enough to look back at Luca. He held his coffee mug in one hand and smiled. “Drive carefully,” he said.
“I always do.”
“Thiago.”
I paused.
“You buttoned your shirt wrong.”
I looked down. He was right. I hastily fixed it.
“I’ll be here when you come back.”
I wanted to kiss him again, but that wasn’t an option. I was already late.
As I stepped outside, I was already calculating the route to the airport and the conversation with Eamon waiting for me.
He wouldn’t fly to New Orleans for a social call. If he landed early, it meant something in his plans had changed
***
Eamon had a carry-on and no patience. He slid into the passenger seat of the SUV, shut the door, and looked at me.
“You’re tired.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He settled the bag at his feet. Standing just over six feet, Eamon had ginger hair cropped military-short. He didn’t fidget, and he had a habit of touching his close-cropped beard with three fingertips when sliding deep into thought.
“How’s the client?” he asked.
“Opinionated. Controlled. Refuses visible security.”
“That part I knew.”
I pulled out of the airport lane. Eamon waited for an extended briefing.
“It’s a layered threat pattern,” I said.
“Single shot through the French doors on day one. High placement. Meant to send a message, not kill. It came with a minor-key arrangement of ‘Saints’ placed inside the house before the shot. Later, they replaced his baton and stopped his watch at the timestamp of the Jackson Square video. We have likely internal access, possibly more than one vector.”
Eamon nodded once. “And the characters involved?”
“Henri Fontenot is our strongest historical grievance, but Bridget Marchand has one too. There are other possibilities.”
“Mm.”
That was shorthand for “Continue.”
“Luca Moreau, Dominic’s personal assistant, is essential,” I said. “He sees patterns I don’t.”
Eamon looked out the window. “Does that conclude the official briefing?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He said nothing else for the rest of the drive while I shared more details, including the podium shift, the woman outside the café, and Celeste’s dinner visit.
When we reached the house, the gas lanterns were still burning. Luca opened the door before we reached it, which meant he’d been watching for us. He stepped back to let us in.
Eamon held out his hand. “I’ve heard good things.”
“Have you?” Luca glanced at me. I looked up at the ceiling fan.
Dominic was in the kitchen, finishing a plate of eggs and boudin. He looked at Eamon as if he had arrived for a board interview.
“Mr. Price,” Dominic said.
“Mr. St. Clair.”
Dominic gestured toward a chair. “Sit. Luca, bring the man an iced tea. Sweet or unsweet?”
“Unsweet.”
Dominic continued, “I could offer you Armagnac, but it’s early, and I assume you don’t indulge on duty.”
“I don’t.”
“Sensible,” Dominic said. “The Armagnac is for sentiment, not sobriety.”
Luca set a glass in front of Eamon. I watched Dominic watching him, and then Eamon did something I didn’t expect. He didn’t study the windows or the doors. He studied Dominic.
Luca remained standing at the sink with one hand on the counter. Dominic sat at the table with all the composure in the world and asked Eamon whether the sun ever shone in Seattle.
The conversation appeared social, but it wasn’t. They were each sizing up the latest seismic shifts in Dominic’s household.
After another few minutes, Dominic rose. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I trust you’ll continue being industrious while I continue being old.”
“You aren’t—“ Luca didn’t complete the thought.
Dominic ignored him and went upstairs.
Eamon waited until his footsteps faded. “He knows more about the threat than he’s told you,” he said quietly.
I leaned one shoulder against the pantry door. “I believe. he’s been fully forthcoming.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“He told you about Henri and 2006.” Eamon sipped his tea. “He has not told you what he thinks about what Henri actually wants and what he will settle for.”
“He doesn’t know that,” I said.
Eamon’s expression remained calm. “Ask him specifically.”
Across the room, Luca was drying last night’s Burgundy glasses with a dish towel. He was trying not to watch us and doing a poor job of it.
I said, “You made that assessment in ten minutes.”
Eamon sipped his tea again. “No. In about four.”
He remained in the kitchen for another half hour and then took a quiet walk through the ground floor with me. At the front door, he paused and looked back toward the kitchen.
“The kitchen matters,” he said. “Pay attention to what happens in there.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I let that go. Next, he looked me up and down.
“Are all your shirts like that?”
“I packed for a long weekend.”
“But the assignment changed. It would be good for you to plausibly pass for a local.”
Twenty minutes later, Luca was ready to head out the front door with me, perhaps a little too eager for a shopping excursion on Magazine Street. Eamon would stay behind at the house with Dominic.
Dominic reappeared on his way to the salon before we left. “Luca will prevent you from buying something bleak.”
I elected to drive the SUV and avoid some of the oppressive heat. Luca sat in the passenger seat with sunglasses in place and one forearm braced casually against the window.
The shop he chose was narrow, cool, and curated without fuss. Jackets lined one wall. Shirts another. The proprietor took one look at me and produced my approximate size before I said a word. Subtle competence was the perfect way to get my attention.
“This way,” he said.
I tried on a pale blue dress shirt in front of a three-paneled mirror. It sat correctly across the shoulders. Excellent line. Clean waist. No unnecessary structure.
I was still evaluating the fit when Luca stepped in front of me and adjusted the collar with both hands. His fingers were quick and sure. The proprietor saw the gesture and found something urgent to do in the back room.
Luca stepped away and considered me. “Better. You have an unfair advantage,” he said.
“In shirts?”
“In shoulders.”
I looked at my reflection, then at him. “And you’re sure about the blue?”
“Shirts are public statements in August.”
“That I own sleeves?”
“That you understand where you are and when. Light colors reflect the sun. Avoiding neutrals makes you look like you’re at least occasionally a fun person.”
He selected three shirts, all in colors I wouldn’t have chosen and likely more useful than the ones I had.
Then he held up a pair of olive linen trousers. He said they were the color of summer leaves after rain.
“That’s not a conservative choice,” I said.
“No,” Luca replied. “You don’t need to be conservative. You need to be present.”
I bought the trousers.
I shoved the garment bag into the back of the SUV, and we walked to a coffee shop half a block ahead. Outdoor tables sat close to the sidewalk. We took one in partial shade. Luca ordered iced coffee, and I elected for the sweet tea I was finding essential.
For the first five minutes, we talked about practical things: Eamon’s arrival and Dominic’s assessment. Then Luca asked, “Where did Thiago come from?”
“You know I’m from New York.”
“I mean the name.”
It had been a long time since anyone had asked.
“Santiago Rafael Reyes,” I said. “My father wanted Rafael. My mother wanted Santiago. A kid in kindergarten shortened it to Tiago. Somewhere along the way, I altered the spelling.”
“And you kept it.”
I sipped the tea. “It kept me.”
Luca accepted that without trying to pry it open further.
The conversation after that was easy. No strategy or lists.
No discussion of the threat matrix. He told me about a preservation fight over a Marigny cottage that had nearly become a blood feud conducted through zoning language.
I told him my friend, Mattheo, Teo for short, once convinced me to attend a Yankees game just to prove there were forms of suffering unrelated to work. Luca laughed into his coffee.
It was the first hour since taking the job protecting Dominic that didn’t feel like I was on duty. Maybe that was the primary reason for Eamon’s arrival. Giving me a break.
On the walk back to the car, my phone vibrated. It was Michael.
I read the text once, then stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.
Luca took two more steps before turning. “What.”
I showed him the screen.
Michael: Calvin Devereaux purchased a theatrical flash device from a Baton Rouge supply house in May. Invoice confirmed.
Calvin Devereaux had been peripheral in Michael’s earlier notes. He was a theater technician. An occasional contractor called in when older venues needed someone who could work around patched systems without blowing the whole rig. He had done temporary work at the Orpheum off and on for years.
More importantly, he had helped with technical coordination for a cluster of civic arts events after Katrina, including one tied to the anniversary period in 2006.
He had legitimate access to the Orpheum with no one questioning why he was there.
Luca read the text. “I can’t think of any current shows that would use that. If it were strong enough, a flash device could blind half the house for two or three seconds, but it would be visible sitting onstage.”
“If it were on the stage.”
Luca looked at me. “The balcony?”
“It would make everyone look up and cause a distraction,” I said.
“While the real action happens elsewhere.”
Calvin Devereaux likely had enough knowledge of lighting placement to know exactly where a flash device would do the most damage.
Luca continued to stare at the phone. “So Calvin matters because he has the skills to stage a spectacle.”
“Yes.”
“But not necessarily a shot.”
“No.”
He handed the phone back. “Maybe the sniper line is the wrong line.”
I slipped the phone into my pocket. “Not wrong. Loud.”
He looked at me. “And you’ve been following the louder line.”
His words were true. I had spent days studying the sightline that would allow a clean shot from above. A flash device altered the picture.
If you created a sudden spectacle in the balcony, every eye in the house would lift. Security would move toward the disturbance.
At ground level, on the stage, someone would have a real opening.
I started walking again. Luca fell in beside me.
“Eamon needs this immediately,” I said.
“And Dominic.”
“Yes.”
Luca was quiet for half a block. Then, “I don’t like Calvin as the center.”
“He isn’t the center.”
“That’s right. He’s a tradesman. Useful, but he’s not the mastermind type.”