As he lay in the dark with her body wrapped around him, he feared for her safety. He knew there was a witness seeking out Wolf’s protection against dark forces she didn’t even understand; but he sure as hell did. The depth of evil at work in recent events filled him with trepidation for the woman he loved. Even though he didn’t believe she was on the killer’s radar at this point, it was a natural inclination to pull her into his arms and do whatever was necessary to protect her.
“I don’t want you running alone anymore.”
This caused her to look up at him. “You know I’m a trained fighter. What’s going on? It isn’t like you to worry about me running alone.”
“I’ve been in touch with Wolf. There was a witness to the killing in the alley that night–two, actually. She’s scared, as well she should be.”
“She saw the killer?”
“She saw him in the seconds after he did it. She also had a john with her but nobody knows who the guy is. You know how it is on the streets, nobody uses their real name.”
“Is Wolf offering her protection?”
“You know he is. He lets it eat away at him if he doesn’t do everything he can to close a case. I’ve always warned him that he wears his heart on his damn sleeve.”
“Well, that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” she chuckled.
“No, for you I offer the bloody, beating, center of my being on a silver platter. Only you have earned the right to know my true feelings about matters of the heart.”
“And still I can’t read you sometimes.”
“Ah, mi princessa, even I don’t understand the war within my soul at times. All I do know is that to lose you is to die. So no going anywhere alone. If you disobey me your ass will burn red with the mark of my palm.”
“You’re threatening me with something I enjoy? Are you trying to tempt me? Because it’s working.” Though she was teasing him, when she looked into his piercing black gaze there was no humor to be found.
“You will do as I say in this, Rain. You have your family to think about too, Rain.” It was a promise not a threat. She wouldn’t be the only one suffering if she dared to disregard his demand. Her safety was everything. He would use anything at his disposal to control her, even the threat of hurting her family. Nothing was off limits.
“All right. Nowhere alone. I still don’t understand why you’re so concerned about this. You don’t think we’re on the murderer’s radar, do you?”
“There are supernatural forces at work here, Rain. Dark forces beyond anything you’ve encountered so far. Anything’s possible. Think back on what you saw in your vision of that basement. You said there was an overwhelming presence of evil. From what you described, I think you saw evil in its purest form.”
“Oh?” She gazed up at him, giving him her undivided attention.
“You haven’t forgotten Randy, the man who was killed in the alley, have you? Whatever force enlisted him to acquire those women not only empowered him to pull it off, but saw fit to discard him after the job was done. From what you’ve seen in your visions, Randy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“True,” she agreed.
“That means someone or something had to be empowering him to succeed in such a monumental task. You got sick because the sense of evil was so overwhelming. That was a truly malevolent force in the basement that night, and I have to keep it away from you at all costs. The same way you saw it in the vision, I can promise you that it saw you. Like I said, anything’s possible when dealing with the realm of the supernatural.”
Rain shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold. Even with Blaze backing her up, she wondered if it would be enough.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Candy couldn’t shake the feeling that she owed the john a heads-up that his life could be in danger. Great, I had to be the hooker with a heart. Yay, me.
It was true that the asshole had left her to fend for herself in a dark alley containing a freshly murdered body, so one could make the case that she didn’t owe the coward a thing. But she hadn’t helped Wolf and Reese find him themselves because she believed in Working Girl Rule #1: never expose a john’s identity. Call it a privacy clause or whatever, but she gave respect because she expected respect.
In the world’s oldest profession, being in control was a constant battle–and an absolute necessity if one were to survive. There had to be something she could maintain control over. This…saving a life…was something she could do. She’d never be able to look in the mirror again if the man was killed and she hadn’t at least warned him.
“You need more coffee, hon?”
Candy nodded and smiled at the waitress standing there with a carafe of hot coffee. A moment later, the unsmiling john slipped into the booth and turned his cup over onto the saucer to signal her to fill his up too.
“Ya’ll need a menu?”
“No, we won’t be here that long,” he said tersely, cutting his eyes at Candy. She waited to speak until the waitress had walked away. Getting word to him through their mutual contacts on the street hadn’t been easy and she didn’t want to spend any more time with him than was absolutely necessary.
“Look, buddy. I’m sorry if you feel inconvenienced about meeting me here, but it’s for your own damn good.” She’d decided to meet him at the same diner where she’d met Wolf and Reese the previous day. Right now she needed to feel safe. The fact that she was still alive meant the killer hadn’t caught up with her–yet–which likely meant he didn’t know she’d met with the police.
“The name is Bob. Robert if you want the formal version.”
Candy leaned back and crossed her arms over her ample chest, not missing how the movement drew his hot gaze to her tits like a heat-seeking missile. “Yeah, because fucking hookers in back alleys is so classy and all. I know exactly who you are. You do realize the killer saw you too, right? It isn’t just my life in danger now. Robert.” Sarcasm and more than a little venom dripped from her words. Now she had his attention and it had nothing to do with her sarcastic use of his name, if that was even his real name. “I know you probably have some important job that has you thinking you’re better than me, but right now your high and mighty ass is right down here in the gutter with me. You’re no better than I am.” Her teeth were bared and her face was twisted in an angry scowl.
If Candy had been aware of the unseen protective presence hovering over the booth’s vinyl partition, she would have seen that Fey was angered by the pompous ass, too.
“You think he saw me? There’s no way he could find me, is there?”
“What about me, you asshat!?” She was tempted to tell him that she had obtained police protection, just to get him worried. God forbid someone find out who he was.
“Okay, us. Does that make you feel better?”
“I. Have. No. Fucking. Idea. I suggest you watch your back from here on out.”
“You stay away from me. Don’t ever contact me again. You’ve been nothing but trouble. I don’t need your type around me.”
“My type?” Candy hissed indignantly, slamming the palms of her hands down on the Formica tabletop. “You sure liked my type when you needed your tiny dick sucked!” She rested an elbow on the table and made a show of smiling serenely as she made the peace sign while wiggling the two fingers in ‘V’ formation. “And you sure liked my type well enough to pay extra for the pleasure of having these fingers up your ass doing the Hokey Pokey!”
His face was ashen as he glanced furtively over his shoulder. “You filthy whore–”
That was all it took for Fey to make her move. She slid her hand over and flicked the asshole’s coffee cup, sending scalding hot coffee into his lap.
Candy decided there was nothing better than seeing Robert clutching his junk while he squealed like a little bitch. In fact, it sounded eerily similar to the creepy way he’d shrieked every time she’d made him cum in that alley. Gross.
That was all it took to send him scurrying from the rest
aurant in a juvenile huff, even as he threatened to make Candy pay his dry-cleaning bill. Candy laughed so hard she cried as the bell jingled above the slamming door. Seeing that man’s junk get burnt with hot coffee was well worth paying the bill and leaving a ginormous tip.
“That’s what I get for trying to save a useless life. Last good deed I’ll ever do,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Yeah, ‘no good deed’ and all that,” Fey concurred wholeheartedly from her perch high above the proceedings. This was going to be more fun than she had initially thought. Fey trotted behind the woman for whom she had newfound respect. Candy had some backbone to her and Fey found herself wistfully wishing they could have been friends. She sighed in frustration. Sometimes the afterlife was a real drag.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Reese sat twirling the pen between his fingers and daydreaming about Fey. Despite what Wolf had told him about her situation last week, she still hadn’t revealed herself to him. He was beginning to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing. Maybe all the signs of a paranormal presence in his apartment had just been a series of coincidences. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Come on, partner. I just got a phone call. We’re heading out.” Wolf goodnaturedly smacked his partner on the side of his head to get his attention. Reese seemed to be daydreaming an awful lot lately.
“Damn it, stop smacking me,” he groused, running a hand over his blond hair.
“I had to do something to pull you out of your own head, asshole. You can tell me all about it on the ride over to Saints and Sinners, unless you were about to start a wet dream about my not-so-late sister. In which case, I’ll fucking kill you. How ‘bout that?”
“Fuck you, Wolf,” Reese growled irritably as he pushed off from the chair.
“Thanks for the offer, man, but I don’t need ya. Haven’t you heard? I’ve got a boss with benefits.” Wolf waggled his eyebrows wickedly and laughed at his partner’s grimace as they headed toward the door.
They took Wolf’s black Dodge Charger. The thing could outrun anything on the streets and was Wolf’s pride and joy. “Ah, just listen to that kitten purr,” Wolf said as he took a moment to enjoy the manly-man vroom coming from the car he’d dubbed Black Beauty.
Reese laughed and shook his head. There was no convincing Wolf that Black Beauty wasn’t real with emotions that had to be catered to like any other woman.
“Now,” Wolf said, his voice indulgent as if he were talking to a small child, “tell your best buddy what’s been wrong with you the last couple of days. Not like I don’t already know.”
Even though Wolf was being a dick by teasing him about it, Reese found himself opening up to his best friend and partner. After all, there really wasn’t anyone else who would understand. Wolf did have his back, even if he was an instigating prick sometimes. When you worked with a partner, you had to trust them with your life. Do that long enough and you forged a bond on a deeper level than any other kind of relationship.
Reese leaned back and rubbed his closed eyes with the heels of his hands, then sighed and stared out the window at the passing scenery. “It’s Fey, man. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since I saw that picture in your office way back when. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her before, you know.”
“She was something else.”
“I have no doubt. Trust me, I know how crazy this sounds, but, more than ever, I think I’m in love with a dead woman. And that is seriously fucked up.”
“But she’s not dead; not really. It’s like I told you before, that troublemaking sister of mine is very much alive in every way that counts.” Wolf took his eyes off the road long enough to study his partner. The guy looked terrible. “Shit. You’ve got it really bad, dude.”
“Like I said, I’m in love with a ghost.”
“You’re in love with an angel who thinks she’s a ghost, or who wants to be one, anyway.”
“You said you can see her sometimes, that she reveals herself to you. Why not me?”
“I don’t know. I thought she would have by now. You have to invite her. Sounds like you already did that night at your apartment, though, so maybe she’s just picking her moment. You gotta step up your game, my man. Tell her how you feel. She eats that shit up. You better make sure you know what you’re getting into though.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You saw what she did to that Marma chick. That’s child’s play compared to what she’s capable of. Given half a chance, Fey will wreak more havoc on you than you could ever imagine. Trust me, she’s got it bad for you, too.”
“But why even tell me that? It could never work–a relationship between a human and an angel? There’s no such thing–and I sound like a damn lunatic.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. It would be…unconventional, but it’s definitely possible. Angels aren’t really ghosts. Not exactly. So anything’s possible.”
Reese smiled as he watched the sights and sounds of Louisville rolling by. Wolf just shook his head and sighed. Yeah, he’s got it bad, alright. He pulled into the Saints and Sinners parking lot, found a parking space toward the back and cut the engine. “Listen, Reese, you need to know something else. Seriously, there will be no turning back if you do this. My sister is nuts about you and crazy doesn’t even begin to describe how she’ll act if you lead her on and don’t follow through–or worse yet, if you have anything to do with a human woman.”
“I don’t think I could have anything to do with another woman. I can’t shake this obsession. Your sister has put a hex on me or something.”
“That sounds like something she’d do. I don’t envy you, man.”
“I don’t envy me either. I think I love her.”
“Well, there’s nobody I’d rather have seen her with, but I hope you don’t live to regret those words.”
“What I’ll regret is not acting on how I feel about her.”
“You may get your chance sooner than you think. Anyway, back to the business at hand. Candy called and said she has some important info for us. That’s why we’re here.”
“I figured as much.”
“Listen, I meant what I said just now. Don’t be looking at all the tits and ass in this joint too hard. Remember, Fey’s here watching over Candy. Candy just doesn’t know it.”
“I can’t wait until I can see her all the time like you do.”
“You may live to regret those words. She’s clingy. You’ll never be able to get rid of her.”
“Well,” Reese said as he opened the door and stepped inside, “there’s nobody I’d rather have stuck to me like glue.”
They heard the music thumping off the walls of the club as soon as they got out of the car. The parking lot was full and inside the evening crowd was in full swing. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting, but once they did it was apparent that this classy enterprise would be a much safer place for Candy to work. No doubt she would make more money too, and with bouncers looking out for all the girls there was less chance of her getting hurt.
The men walked into the main part of the club where a long bar extended down an entire wall. Three stages, complete with stripper poles, were positioned throughout the gentlemen’s club, with different scantily clad women bumping and grinding on each one. Tables filled the rest of the space. An expansive dressing room was in the back. Luxuriously appointed restrooms were at either end of the bar.
Saints and Sinners was one of the classiest strip clubs around. The hiring manager didn’t fuck around, either; the girls had to have a reference to even apply for a job. Luckily, Wolf knew the owner and had vouched for her.
Candy spotted the two men as she stepped out of the dressing room. As she crossed the floor, her hips swaying seductively, she waved off the hostess and showed them to a corner booth. As he followed behind her, Wolf whistled under his breath at her new look.
She looked like a different woman with bold red highlights in her hair and a fres
h new bobbed hairstyle that accented her delicate features. Without long hair to block his view, he could see that she was all curves. This was a far cry from the scraggly mousy brown-haired woman they had talked to just days before. Her makeup looked like it had been professionally done. She was wearing a glittery gold halter top and mini-skirt that didn’t hide much. Clearly, she had found her place in the world, and the streets and all the bad memories that went with it were a thing of the past. Every now and then, Wolf was reminded of why he’d decided to be a cop; this was one of those times.
“You look stunning,” Wolf said. He kept a respectful distance even as he allowed himself to admire all the sexy. Hell, she’d put enough effort into it; it’d be a shame to waste it. And his dick knew exactly who it belonged to.
“Thanks. I’m happy here.”
A waitress wasted no time coming over and Wolf kept their order simple. “Just bring her a bottle of champagne. We’re going to visit for a while.” It would cost him a pretty penny but it would be worth it. They needed to talk to her and wanted to take their time. The waitress hustled over to the bar with a smile on her face; she knew a big tipper when she saw one.
“Okay, baby. What’s going on?”
Candy had the grace to look shame-faced. “I know you guys aren’t going to be happy about this.”
“You met with the john,” both men guessed at once.
“She sure did,” Fey spouted out, appearing out of nowhere at Reese’s side. She rested her chin in her palm and ogled the object of her affection. This time Reese heard her voice and saw her form, but it was slightly blurry, more like an apparition or hologram rather than seeing her as a solid form like her brother could.
When she put her finger to her lips and whispered to him, “Shh, baby,” it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. His cock sprang to attention as if wanting to know what all the fuss was about. When she bit her lip and winked, he worried that he’d cum in his pants like a fucking fourteen-year-old. What was this woman doing to him? Whatever it was, he would never be the same. She was lovely.
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