The Voice Behind the Mask

Melinda St. James had been called many things by the people of New Orleans—The Voice, The Queen of Crescent City Airwaves, even "Miss Mardi Gras" once during a late-night segment soaked in bourbon and second-line brass. Her voice danced through car stereos and café radios, smooth and knowing, like someone whispering secrets through velvet. But this year, as the floats began to roll and the colors of Carnival swept through the city like a fever, Melinda felt none of the thrill she usually did.

She felt watched.

Not the good kind of attention either—the glittering stares from parade-goers or devoted listeners who waved when they recognized her silhouette behind the glass booth. No, this was different. This was a presence, quiet and cloying, always two steps behind.

It had started with the roses. First, one bouquet outside the studio door. Then another at her apartment—deep red, velvet petals, no card. Then came the phone calls—always from an unknown number, always just before midnight. No words. Just a muffled sound. Once, it had been brass music, distant and warbled, like it came from inside a memory.

Now, Melinda walked the streets of the Quarter behind a feathered mask, her signature red lipstick hidden beneath gloss-black sequins. People thought she was embracing the season—but inside, she was unraveling.

As Carnival approached its fever pitch, she realized she couldn't handle this alone. She needed someone who knew how to move through shadows without becoming one—someone she could trust.

She picked up her phone, stared at the contact name for a long moment, and pressed the call button.

Reece DuBois.

Reece DuBois hadn't expected to hear her voice again—not the radio version that smoothed across static and streetcars, but her voice, raw with something she didn't want to name. When she called, he heard the tremble behind the honey. He didn't ask questions. He just said he was on his way.

It had been years since he'd walked into Melinda St. James' life. Longer still since he'd convinced himself he was over that teenage crush. But when she opened the door to her apartment on Chartres Street and pulled him into the sweet-and-sandalwood scent of her foyer, every illusion vanished.

"I didn't know who else to call," she said.

"You called right," he answered, stepping in fully and locking the door behind him.

Melinda's place looked the same as always—meticulously curated, equal parts vintage charm and modern sheen. But there were new additions: a crumpled bouquet in the trash, a mask left on the table, phone messages scribbled with question marks and timestamps.

Reece bent over one of the notes.

"This all from the same number?"

Melinda nodded, pacing. "Always around midnight. No voice. Just... music. A horn, maybe. Sometimes humming."

"And the flowers?"

"Roses. No card. Always red. Started showing up a week after I ran a tribute show about—" Her voice caught. "About Camille and the kids."

Reece straightened slowly, eyes narrowing. "Jacob?"

"I think so. But I don't know, Reece. And I can't prove anything."

He watched her, the way her fingers pulled at the edge of her sleeve, the way her gaze didn't quite meet his. Fear looked different on Melinda—it was tucked behind performance and pride. But it was there.

"I'll stay," he said. "Through Fat Tuesday if that's what it takes."

Melinda finally looked at him. "Even if it's him?"

Reece's jaw tightened.

"Especially if it's him."

The number she had for Jacob no longer worked. That much Melinda expected. It had been years, and Jacob had vanished after the funeral—swallowed whole by grief, they'd said. But the moment her segment aired on WNOLA, reminiscing about Camille and the twin boys lost to the bridge wreck on I-10, something shifted.

The next day, the roses started arriving.

Melinda had called in every favor she could: local record studios, old bandmates, even that stubborn agent of his who used to float between Baton Rouge and Austin. No one had seen Jacob in almost two years.

But Reece didn't stop with the polite calls. He went looking.

He started with an address Jacob once listed for royalty checks—an abandoned shotgun house on Dauphine Street, its shutters nailed shut. Then he stopped by a bar where Jacob used to play. The bartender, a woman with silver braids and a sharp memory, said she thought she saw him one night last fall. He had asked if WNOLA still took song dedications.

"He looked... hollow," she said. "Didn't drink, just sat at the piano and stared at the keys. Played nothing."

Reece made note of it. The man he was hunting had become a ghost—but ghosts leave patterns if you look long enough.

Back in her apartment, Melinda shuffled through her fan mail—something she usually adored. But among the letters was a smooth black envelope with no return address. Her name is on the front. Inside, just one sentence handwritten in slanted ink:

"If I can't have you, no one will."

She dropped the letter.

Somebody didn't sign it. It didn't have to be.

Outside, the parades roared on. The city danced and glittered, begging for joy. But Melinda stood frozen in her living room, the music outside warped and distant—as if she'd slipped behind glass.

Mardi Gras Day passed like a fever dream. Melinda wore her mask, smiled for the cameras during the live broadcast, and tried not to look over her shoulder. Reece had been nearby the whole time, close enough to make her feel tethered but never smothered. His presence steadied her.

But just as the final float passed and the street sweepers moved in behind the revelers, Melinda received another envelope—this one slipped into her coat pocket. She hadn't even felt it happen.

Inside, a note on heavy parchment:

"Meet me tomorrow morning, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Where the music died. Come alone. If I can't have you, no one will."

Ash Wednesday dawned gray and hushed.

The city still slept off its joy, but Melinda woke early. She didn't tell Reece. I didn't leave a note. Some irrational thread inside her insisted that this needed to end—to finally understand what had become of Jacob Martel and, maybe, to say goodbye to the part of herself that once loved him.

She stepped into the gates of St. Louis No. 1 just after sunrise. The cemetery was still and damp, the marble tombs slick with dew. She knew where his wife and sons rested. She moved toward it, each step echoing against a stone.

And there he was.

Jacob.

A carnival mask—gold and cracked—covered half his face. He stood beside the headstone, a bouquet of dead roses cradled in one arm, a pistol glinting in the other.

"You came," he said, voice hoarse but unmistakably his.

Melinda froze.

"I didn't want this," she whispered.

"But I did," Jacob murmured. "You were the last good thing… before the world swallowed me whole."

"Jacob, you're not well," she said carefully. "This isn't love. It is grief strangling you."

He raised the gun—not aiming it yet, but showing her it was real. "Say you love me. Say we were meant to be together."

Her throat tightened. "I loved you once. We were young. But we can't go back—"

"I have to go back," he hissed. "Or I end it. Both of us."

There is a noise behind the tomb.

Jacob turned—

Reece burst out from the shadows, tackling him in a blur of motion. The gun fired—once, high into the air. Melinda screamed. The bouquet shattered against the pavement. Reece wrestled Jacob to the ground as the mask cracked and fell away.

Jacob sobbed beneath him.

"It should've been me," he moaned. "Not them. Not Camille…"

By the time NOPD arrived, Melinda sat numbly on a stone bench, Reece beside her, one hand wrapped around hers. Morning bells tolled in the Quarter—mournful and clean.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going?" Reece asked gently.

"I thought I had to face him alone."

He looked at her. "You don't have to face anything alone anymore."

She let her head rest against his shoulder, finally allowing herself to believe it.

Outside the gates, the streets slowly came back to life. But inside the cemetery, Melinda felt the season shift. Mardi Gras was over. Ashes remained. And in those ashes, something new could quietly begin.

The city exhaled as Lent settled over New Orleans like a soft shroud. The confetti had been swept away, the horns silenced, the masks tucked into drawers. Melinda St. James walked without her usual heels, without the mask that had become her refuge. She wore sneakers now, a scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, and a stillness in her that hadn't existed a week ago.

The streets of the Quarter were different without the crowds—intimate in their hush. Ash still stained the thresholds of churches. The aroma of incense and weathered stone clung to the air. She stopped outside St. Louis Cathedral and looked up into the gray sky, where clouds moved slowly, like they, too, were catching their breath.

She had survived.

The police had taken Jacob into custody, and he was now in a facility where professionals could try to untangle the damage grief had done to his mind. The city barely noticed—it was already marching forward. But Melinda knew what it had cost to step out from behind the microphone and face the past head-on.

In her pocket was a small, folded note card. On it, a single line Reece had left for her before heading to the studio that morning:

"Your voice never needed the mask. You've always been enough."

She smiled, small and real.

There would be more broadcasts. There would be more parades. But for now, there was this stillness, the hum of the city at rest, and the quiet strength of a woman who'd found her footing again—not in the lights, not in the music, but in herself.

Melinda St. James didn't need to speak to be heard. She just needed to be herself, and that was someone she was happy with on all fronts.