Deliver Me from Temptation

by Tes Hilaire

She stood beside him, hands on hips, a handful of errant curls billowing around her face as her eyes narrowed on his retreating friends.

  He folded his arms across his chest, half to suppress the urge he had to caress the scowl off her face and half to put a cap on his own frustration. The entire situation was impossible. The coincidence that this woman, whose memories he’d had to wipe, was the lead detective on Roland’s case seemed totally improbable. Someone upstairs had a warped sense of humor. Either that or there was something sinister going on. But figuring out which with her standing right beside him, her scent calling to him in a way that was brain numbing and adrenaline pumping? Yeah, not gonna happen.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath before opening them again. Steel back in place. “What do you want?”

  “You. Walk with me.” She jerked her head back down the street, heading out at a clipped pace.

  Logan turned and fell into step beside her, scanning the pedestrians around them, checking to see what might be hiding in their midst. Demons, merkers…at least there would be no vampires during the day.

  “I’m not sure this is the best time,” or place, he silently added, “to talk.”

  “Oh? And when would be a good time?”

  Um, never, but he didn’t think that answer would appease her. If there was one thing he’d figured out about this woman, it was that she was passionate about her job, and unpredictable. Which was probably why he couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

  He jerked his head as they passed by the station house. “You’re not at all worried about what your buddies might say about you taking a walk with me?”

  “Nope.”

  He swore silently. She wasn’t going to be satisfied without some answers. But beyond reiterating what she expected, which was a whole lot of ‘my best friend didn’t do it,’ there wasn’t much he could tell her.

  “So, Mr. Calhoun.”

  “Cal or Logan. Mr. Calhoun is my father.”

  She nodded, but didn’t use either as she addressed him. “Where were you on the night in question?”

  He slowed, staring at her with an acerbic lift to his brow. “Wow, that was direct. Should I be calling my lawyer?”

  “Do you need him?”

  “No. And neither does my brother. Given that he didn’t kill Thomas Rhodes.”

  Her gaze landed on him, her eyes sharp. “Roland Moreau doesn’t have any brothers. So unless he isn’t who he says he is…”

  “Brother-in-law. His ma—wife, Karissa, is my half-sister.”

  “Ah,” she drawled. As the silence stretched for another half block, he began to wonder what her strategy was. She slowed her pace until more people passed them than the other way around, her body no longer stiff, hands planted in the back pocket of her jeans. Like they were two friends out for a stroll. Unlikely. Yet, it worked. Logan found himself relaxing too, his worries over being seen or even why they were having the conversation faded as he let himself enjoy being near her. Perhaps the simple brush of her shoulder against his arm as they walked should’ve made him tense more, not less, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Human or not he liked being around her. And since the opportunity for these little interactions was going to end sooner rather than later—either by simple fate or because he was going to have to make it so—Logan decided to do a selfish thing: enjoy this time with her.

  Too bad she had to ruin it by talking.

  “Off the record?”

  “Is there really such a thing around you?”

  The corner of her lip twitched up. “Probably not. But as a woman, I can both understand and appreciate why your friend did what he did.”

  “You mean save a woman from being raped?” He purposefully used the word—a test to see if anything would unravel Jessica Water’s single-minded focus—and yet he was surprised when her steps seemed to falter slightly.

  “You can tell him that I commend him for that.” She rolled her neck back and forth on her shoulders. “I just can’t condone what he did after.”

  “Roland didn’t kill Thomas Rhodes.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him, a silent fuck-you and don’t-be-fucking-with-me all rolled into one. For some reason her look had him feeling the urge to explain. It was almost an unbearable urge. If he could make her understand then maybe she’d let this go, start looking for another suspect and leave Roland alone. He didn’t want to have to take her memories. Not again. Doing so had always made him feel a bit dirty, but with her…

  He ran his hand through his hair, tipping his head toward the sky as if somehow He might give him a clue of what to do. Something simple like a parting of clouds or better yet, a chorus of angels.

  Yeah, and uh, nothing. Well, other than that stupid ache in his chest.

  Logan stopped and turned to face her. She stopped too, her gaze expectant as she folded her arms and stared back at him. “Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I can’t tell you everything that happened that night, but I can tell you one thing. Thomas Rhodes was alive when Roland left him. End of story.”

  “Alive and well?”

  He shrugged, pausing long enough for the next pack of pedestrians to split around them and keep going. “I think that would depend on your personal definition of well. Any man willing to prey on a woman who’d…indulged…too much isn’t exactly well, is he?”

  “Let me rephrase. Alive and physically unharmed?”

  “And now I think we’re getting into lawyer territory again, don’t you?”

  She pursed her lips, a scowl forming along her brow. “I could bring you in, obstruction of justice.”

  “You could try. But I’d have to ask on what grounds? I wasn’t there that night. And I’ll swear under any oath that Roland didn’t kill Rhodes, even if he did deserve it.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t there?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know Roland as well as I know myself. And before you ask, no, I don’t think there is a place on this earth for miserable assholes like Thomas Rhodes, but I wouldn’t have killed him either.”

  “What would you have done?” she asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

  “Me? I would have turned him in so that justice could help show him the error of his ways. If he chose to repent before his day of judgment then I’d have had the satisfaction of saving one soul. And if not? Well then I think we both know where he was headed.”

  “I’m not sure I quite follow.”

  “What’s not to follow? I think we both know that as it stood, Thomas Rhodes’s soul was destined for Hell.”

  She rocked back on her heels, her blue eyes dimming. “That’s some awfully strong faith you seem to have there. Repentant souls, divine judgment, Hell.”

  “Don’t you believe in anything, detective?”

  “Yeah, my badge.”

  He stared at her. Searching for something more. Searching for…what, exactly? He wasn’t sure. He just knew her conviction in her badge, and that alone, made him overwhelmingly sad. Exhaustion settled heavy on his shoulders.

  The world was full of nonbelievers and it had never bothered him before. His job as a Paladin warrior was to protect God’s children from the sort of evil that they had no ability to fight, like the type that came with claws and hooves, or seductive voices that tempted those who wouldn’t normally stray into the darkness of true evil. The Paladin had always upheld that as long as the human scumbags of the world didn’t become tangled in their fight, then they should leave the human squabbles of right versus wrong to the religious leaders and the peacekeepers. Now Logan began to wonder whether that policy was a bit naïve.

  He looked down the street, his eyes locking on the distant station house. It was more than just a place for the work of law to get done. It was the line between human goodness and evil deeds, a sanctuary to Justice’s warriors. But
without faith in…something? Could that line really be held? Could Justice survive?

  “Mr. Calhoun?” A hand touched his arm.

  He drew his thoughts and attention back to Jessica, realizing she’d probably said his name at least once before. She was staring at him with a mixture of suspicion and concern in her expressive blue eyes. Not that he could tell her any of his thoughts or what, exactly, his worries were.

  And why did that about break his heart?

  “Anything else, detective?” he asked, his voice sounding hollow to even his own ears.

  She shook her head, dropping her hand. “No. Just stay—”

  “—available.” He finished for her, sighing. “Doesn’t that ever get old?”

  “No.” She turned around so she too faced back toward the station, her voice barely more than a whisper as she spoke next. “But the death does.”

  And wasn’t that God’s honest truth?

  Chapter 6

  Jessica swerved the car to the left, front bumper barely missing an intimate moment with the banged-up yellow Ford in front of her. She yanked the wheel back to the right, popping them into a somewhat-short-of-Smart-Car slot. Brakes squealed, middle fingers extended, and the gap grew just in time to save the little amount of paint remaining on her Impala’s bumper.

  “Jesus Christ!” Mike shouted beside her, knees lifting, hands grabbing for a nonexistent oh-shit handle.

  “Sorry,” she replied automatically, even as she began to measure the next opening gap in the jostle-and-go Manhattan traffic.

  “Goddamn.” He craned his head to glance back at the irate cabby, then blew out a breath and faced forward again. “Ever hear of a little something called road rage?”

  “I’m not angry.” Annoyed, frustrated, edgy, but not angry per se.

  “No? Well you’re doing a fine job of pissing everyone else off!”

  She chuckled, easing her foot a hair off the accelerator. Just a hair though—they had places to be, people to see…holes to shoot in her theories.

  Damn Logan Calhoun. His conviction in his friend had made her doubt her own. And sure, uncertainty was often part of the job, but the distinct feeling of unease she had, this want to twist her head like there was something big, scary, and unexplainable just over her shoulder, was not a sensation she was used to.

  Crap. She didn’t even know why she’d chased after him, other than as she’d followed her suspect out of the station, something in the depths of her brain screamed at her to go after him, not to let him get away.

  Whatever. She’d gotten both a lot more and a lot less than she wanted out of that little interaction. While she was all but convinced Logan Calhoun didn’t have anything to do with what had happened to Thomas Rhodes, her instincts screamed that he knew a hell of a lot more than he was telling her. Problem was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was. She had a gut-sinking suspicion that his answers, if she could convince him to give them up, might have a real ass-over-teakettle effect on her well-ordered case.

  And her world.

  The light turned yellow. “Come on. Come on!” she grumbled at the slow van in front of her. It slowed down, sped up, slowed down, then burst through the light…right as it turned red.

  “Dammit!” Jessica slammed on her brakes, the nose of her Chevy well into the crosswalk. Not that the pedestrians cared; they just weaved around.

  She stared at the light, foot itching on the brake.

  “What’s up with the wrist?” Mike asked.

  She blinked down at the steering wheel and saw she was rotating her wrist back and forth back and forth. It still ached, and in the light of day she could just make out a fine line of discoloration, a rough, three-inch oval area of darker skin that suggested a deep bruise finally making an appearance.

  “Nothing. Bumped it on my bed frame.” I think.

  She frowned at the mark that wrapped most of the way across the bones and to the soft underside below. Didn’t exactly look like she whacked it. More like she’d been grabbed or gotten it caught in something.

  She blew out a breath, turning her attention back to the light. An unexplainable bruise was not the only indication that she needed to screw her head back on. Besides the inability to remember driving home, she still had the damn headache she’d woken up with, only now it was accompanied by a tickling sensation that rode up the back of her skull. The tickling had started the moment she ran into Mr. Calhoun at the vending machines. There was something about him, a moment where she was convinced she’d met him before. Though for the life of her she couldn’t remember where or when. She’d passed the moment off, blamed it on attraction—the hum in her lower body certainly gave credence to the theory—but when she spoke to him on the sidewalk, the sense of déjà vu grew, as if her mind was encased in a great fog, and that tickling sensation was her body’s way of trying to break through it.

  Weird? Definitely. A mystery? No. Jess shook her head. Over-exhaustion explained her gaps in memory. She obviously zoned out after a long night, found her way home on autopilot, then collapsed into bed the moment she wrangled off her boots. The sense that she’d met Mr. Calhoun before? Well, there was that sexual attraction thing again. Not that she’d act on it, given his involvement in the case. Still there was no denying that, unwanted or not, the man packed a powerful punch to her lagging libido.

  And why couldn’t she have that with Damon?

  “Because you’re messed in the head,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, just thinking aloud.”

  Mike grunted, but his long look told her that he was as worried about her head as she was. Luckily she didn’t have to expound. The light changed and, after waiting for a straggling pedestrian, Jess punched the gas, speeding ahead of the clog of cabs around her and bolting up on the backside of the slower-than-molasses traffic that had just made the light they’d been stuck at.

  After a swallowed curse, Mike cleared his throat. “You want to tell me where we’re going in such a hurry?”

  “On a wild goose chase.”

  “I got that part. What are we looking for?”

  “Thomas Rhodes’s car. It never turned up.”

  “Sooo…”

  “So, where is it?”

  Mike’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Chop shop. Bottom of some upstate lake. Who knows?”

  Right. They’d been going on the assumption the killer used Tom’s car to ditch the body and then disposed of the vehicle. Tracking stolen vehicles—especially those without GPS systems—wasn’t as easy as people thought. And the moment a car left the city, their job became next to impossible. So it wasn’t a shock they never found it.

  “I want to know where the car was before Tom took it out that night.”

  “Before?” Mike’s brow furrowed. “Why? Besides, we canvassed the garages within walking distance, and found nothing. No receipts in his personal effects either.”

  “All the commercial garages,” she pointed out, as she swerved around an Escalade.

  Mike didn’t even swear; his focus was too intent on their conversation. “Well, we know he wasn’t using any of the micro-sized spaces in his own building. And it’s next to impossible to get a spot somewhere you don’t live. You really think it’s going to get us somewhere?”

  “Now that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

  ***

  Logan eased his car into the micro-sized spot, cursing as he had to back up and realign, twice. He normally loved the city. Loved the bustle, the vibrant throb of humanity, the reminder of what he fought for day in and day out. But not when he was in such a hurry.

  Probably already lost her, he thought, pushing open the door.

  Why was she out last night? Was it simply coincidence she’d stumbled upon those vampires? That the succ
ubus he and his brothers hunted led them there? And how crazy was it that Jessica was also tied up in Roland’s troubles? Troubles that centered on Thomas Rhodes and whoever, or whatever, had dispatched him to Hell.

  It was the last thought that had a shiver running down Logan’s spine. A vampire had trashed Roland’s penthouse over the summer. Not just any vampire either, but the former head vampire, Christos himself. Roland had moved out—anything to keep Karissa safe. But that break-in occurred the same night Roland’s latest blood-donor redemption project—aka Thomas Rhodes—disappeared. Logan didn’t know all that much about blood ties, but Roland said he could always find someone he drank from through that tie. What if it could be utilized both ways? What if that was how Christos found Roland’s apartment that night? It would certainly explain a lot of unanswered questions, and also made Logan reevaluate the set of coincidences that led to him running into Detective Jessica Waters twice now in less than two days.

  What were the chances Jessica was in that area of town last night for something to do with her Rhodes case? What if those vampires weren’t there as a part of a trap for Logan and his brothers but because they were sent to keep a certain nosy detective from getting too close to any real answers?

  Logan didn’t buy into coincidences. At least not that many. The thought of Jessica being firmly lined up in the vampires’ sights made him uneasy. Which was why he was taking a chunk of his skin off now, trying to squeeze himself through the six-inch gap between his car and the next in a pitiful attempt to catch up to her.

  After mulling on those questions all day, he’d arrived back at the station just in time to see her head out after her shift. But she hadn’t gone home. After a nightmarish cat-and-mouse chase across town to Harlem, he’d followed her to one of the rarely found self-park garages, hanging back until she’d made it past the gate. Then he pulled in after her, taking a spot a level away from her own.

  Now, afraid he might miss her again, he bolted across the cement and hit the nearby stairwell. The numbers were flashing on the elevator, so he went ahead and took the stairs. Easing out into the darkening evening, he caught sight of her all but running down the sidewalk, the streetlights picking up the highlights in her brunette curls as they bounced across her shoulder blades.