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shuffling his papers together. “You can go, but don’t leave the city.”

Chapter Three
    As a PI, Rafe had known a lot of good cops—and others like Cumberland, who liked to make it clear that their position gave them power over ordinary people. Too bad he’d been listening to the 911 calls. After hauling everyone to the station house, he’d probably he had gone through a mental process of deciding who would be the most uncomfortable sitting around in the police station waiting to be interviewed. Since he’d figured Rafe would stand up to the waiting the best, he’d taken him first. It was a short interview, focused on the same questions he’d answered earlier at the restaurant—plus some probing into his past.
    “You had some problems with Villars when you were a teenager.”
    “As you discovered, I did nothing wrong.”
    “You left town not long after that.”
    “Not long? It was more than three years. I waited until I graduated from high school and joined the army.”
    “Why did you leave?”
    “I didn’t see a future for myself here.”
    “Yeah, I thought you’d end up on probation. Like your old man.”
    Rafe tensed, then ordered himself not to react. He heard himself saying, “He had a streak of bad luck. He straightened himself out.”
    Cumberland made a tsking noise. “Robbing a hardware store is bad luck?”
    Rafe pressed his lips together. He wasn’t going to explain that at the time his father hadn’t worked in a couple of weeks, there was nothing to eat at home, and the contents of the cash drawer had simply been too tempting.
    When he didn’t take the bait, the detective asked, “So why are you back now?”
    “I was trained as an investigator by the army. Decorah Security recruited me a couple of years ago, and they assigned me to this case.”
    “This case?”
    “The muggings.”
    “You’re saying the New Orleans PD can’t handle it?”
    Rafe knew the question was the equivalent of ‘have you stopped beating your wife.’ Anything he said was going to be wrong.
    He shrugged. “I do my job.”
    Cumberland had continued to try to get him to make a wrong move. He’d hung tight and finally made it back to the waiting area.
    He asked if Eugenia had been interviewed yet, and when he found out she was still cooling her heels waiting for Cumberland, he’d retrieved his Sig from the front desk and taken a cab back to her restaurant where he picked up his rental car. Now he sat in it across from the entrance to the station, waiting for her to come out.
    He saw Calista leave, walking with her head bent. Probably Cumberland had given her a nasty grilling.
    And probably the civilians had all gotten off easy. Although, if someone had really poisoned Villars, and he hadn’t died of natural causes, anyone could have done it.
    Hanging around gave Rafe plenty of time to think. Cumberland had brought up his run-in with Villars—and his leaving the city. He’d said he saw no future for himself, which was certainly true. What was he going to do, work his way up to Popeyes manager? He’d done well in the army. When he’d gotten out, he could have joined a local police force anywhere he’d wanted to live.
    Instead, he’d bumped into Frank Decorah at a law enforcement conference. Decorah had struck up a conversation after a session on investigators using their intuition. He’d liked the guy, and when Frank had offered him a job when his tour was up, he’d decided it was good idea.
    Intuition? Had Frank suspected Rafe had something beyond what most detectives could rely on?
    His mind went back to the first time he’d left his own body.
    He’d been thirteen and starting to mature, and probably the hormones triggered a change in his brain.
    He’d been walking down an alley when he saw something interesting put out with a load of trash—a bike with a slightly bent front fender. Someone was throwing it out, and maybe he could take it home and fix it. When he closed his fingers around the