by Nancy Gideon
With card between thumb and index finger, she started toward the bedroom. Standing at the window keeping a watchful eye, LaRoche cast a huge shadow across the floor. A handy guy. Smiling slightly, she stepped into the bedroom, stopping short when she recognized the smell.
The room was a gory splatterhouse, courtesy of the black-haired girl tied spread-eagle upon the bed. The evidence of deliberate and lengthy torture stunned Cee Cee into an almost fatal moment of hesitation.
She never heard anything. Intuition prickled along her neck, urged her gaze to lift away from the gruesome distraction on the bed.
She had just called out Jacques’s name in warning and started to reach for her gun when they moved on her. Two of them, dressed in dark suits that had miraculously escaped most of the arterial spray. She didn’t know who they were, but she knew what they were as they came at her lightning fast, striking twice before she could draw her weapon. She only had time to close her hand around the card to protect it from discovery.
Pain shattered through her face, and the force threw her all the way to the kitchen, making her crash against the old refrigerator. She rolled onto hands and knees, her vision fogging as she swayed to her feet. In the living room, Jacques LaRoche sailed weightlessly through the front of the console television. He pushed out of the smashed frame with a roar, plowing into the closest adversary, who neatly caught him by the shoulders and flung him through the café table.
The other creature stood motionless, with the same stillness as Max’s that froze time, as he focused on the gun in her hand: her ankle piece loaded with silver slugs. But she had questions, and he couldn’t answer them if he were dead.
“Don’t you move,” she ordered through the numbing ache in her cheek.
He didn’t. But the other one hit her low, like a defensive lineman, driving the wind from her with the force of a Gray Line bus. She fell hard, pistol spinning away as she wedged her palm up under his chin to keep the sudden sharpness of his teeth together, then used her feet to toss him over her head.
Before she could get her knees under her and search for her pistol, the statue lunged with jaws wide and eyes flaming. He would have torn out her throat but for Jacques’s to-the-moon swing of Tito’s trumpet. The rim of the metal bell connected with nose cartilage with a sharp crack, followed by a howl and a hot fountain of blood. Then Jacques had her by the arm, hauling her out of reach of the rapidly appearing fangs and claws.
There was no way they were getting out of the room alive.
They were silent killers. No snarling, no posturing, no mercy as they crouched to attack shoulder-to-shoulder, their features impassive, eyes glowing with that unnatural fire. Cold, deadly animals determined to rip their futures from them.
And Max would be left to sort through their pieces.
“No way, you sons of bitches,” she vowed beneath her breath as she went for her service piece and fired. Each took a round to the center of the chest. The impact staggered them, but Cee Cee knew it wouldn’t stop them. What would, she wondered furiously, as she knocked off two more shots apiece. They went down this time, but their eyes never blinked as they struggled to stand.
LaRoche’s huge arm cinched about her waist, powering her off her feet. In three long strides he was across the room, and with a jump was through the window in a spray of glass. They plunged two stories with LaRoche landing on his feet on top of his Caddy. The roof buckled but held. He bent to shove her through the open passenger window heels first, then swung in under the wheel.
Through the cracked windshield, Cee Cee could see the two creatures at the window above, and without hesitation, they jumped as well. The Caddy’s tires smoked in reverse as one landed on all fours in the alley in front of the car, and the other on the dented roof. LaRoche shifted into drive, his foot mashing to the floor. Their rider rolled off the back as the huge grill hit the other head on. The car shuddered to a stop and Jacques threw the shift lever again. Cee Cee braced, staring out the back glass as the second creature leapt up over the trunk onto the roof as the vehicle barreled out onto the street.
Cee Cee whipped around as head and shoulders appeared in her open window, and sharp teeth snapped for her neck. She jammed her gun into the gaping maw and pulled the trigger. He flew back from the window into a trio of garbage cans. As the big vehicle sped down the street, Cee Cee hugged the back of the seat rest, sweeping the pavement behind them for pursuit. After they’d gone four blocks without sign of any, she dropped onto the worn leather to let her breath out in a rush.
“Who are they, Jacques?”
“Trackers. Mostly they leave us alone, but once in a while they’ll come down here on a blood hunt and we just stay the hell out of their way.”
“Who sends them? What do they want? What do they have to do with Tito?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know! Dammit, those were the monsters who killed him!”
“I know that. But that’s all I know.” His gaze met hers, filled with anguish and frustration. “They let us go, detective—but they don’t let us remember.”
IN THE COOL serenity of Jacques’s office at the club, Cee Cee accepted an ice pack for her rapidly swelling face. She winced as she pressed it to her cheek, her attention on Jacques LaRoche as he paced with powerful agitation.
“We’re a disposable workforce, detective. We fill a need. Men like Vantour make a request and our kind arrives to meet it. We have no pasts, no history, no families, nothing to run back to. We exist to do what we’re told. Mindless beasts of burden.”
“Slaves,” she concluded quietly.
“Not even that. None of us know where we came from. We live in shadows. We hide from rumors and superstitious nonsense. And we dream of something better, of someone who’ll break our chains of helplessness.”
“And you think Max is your answer?”
“Maybe. He’s the closest we’ve come to it so far. The things he can do, Charlotte—he has no idea, does he?”
“I don’t think so. Not completely. And because he doesn’t, he’ll let you use him. Be careful of him, Jacques. He’s not invulnerable, no matter what you might think.”
And both of them were thinking the same thing. Could Max take on those two from Tito’s room and be victorious? Or would they destroy him?
“I need to make a call,” she said.
“Why?” The sudden suspicion was back in his eyes.
“I need to report that poor girl’s death.” She shook her head regretfully. “Why kill her?”
“She was one of your kind, detective. They couldn’t let her go after what she must have seen. But there’s no reason for you to go back there now.”
“It’s a crime scene!”
“Charlotte,” he said gently, “there will be nothing left to even prove that girl existed. If there’s one thing they know how to do well, it’s how to cover their tracks. She’s gone and will soon be forgotten. And in a while, no one will remember Tito Tibideaux, either. We’re just shadows, detective, scattered by a breeze and the sweep of a light. There’s nothing more you can do. It’s over. They’re gone.”
She stared at him, seeing the poignant signs of a life abandoned, the death of a girl left unresolved. Objection tasted bitter in the aftermath of their escape. “I’m not going to give this up, Jacques. They’re not going to get away with what they’ve done.”
“They already have, detective. They don’t care about you or your laws. No good can come of what you have in mind.”
“You don’t want to see them punished for what they did?”
His features twisted in an agony of fury and fear, and his voice was raw with it. “I want them to go back where they came from, and they won’t if you provoke them. This is not your world, Charlotte. It’s not your fight. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“Then tell me. Tell me so I can help you.”
She saw in the tightening of his jaw that he wouldn’t tell her anything. It wasn’t b
ecause she wasn’t like them; it was dark, soul-deep terror that kept him silent.
What had they done to him? What could be so terrible that he’d willingly turn a blind eye to the murder of his best friend’s brother?
“You saw what they are and what they can do,” he told her with quiet ferocity. “If you go after them, they’ll kill you. And if they kill you, who will have Max’s back?”
That was the one argument he knew would give her pause. For a long moment they regarded one another with wary respect, until she finally asked, “How are we going to keep him safe, Jacques, if they’ve come here for him?”
“I don’t know, detective.” He glanced over her shoulder. “But you might want to start thinking now about what you’re going to tell him.”
She swiveled to stare through the one-way glass into the dim club. Max was standing at his table, his hand on the back of his chair, his eyes fixed upon the mirrored surface that concealed her.
He knew she was there.
She cursed softly as he came striding toward the office. He opened the door without a knock but didn’t step inside. His stare went between the two of them.
“What’s this?” he asked flatly.
“The detective took a fall trying to stop a purse snatcher,” Jacques explained easily. “Unfortunately, it’s probably as bad as it looks.”
“Let me see.”
Cee Cee lowered the ice pack to reveal a fresh bruise from cheekbone to jawline.
Max’s teeth clenched as if he could feel the blow, but he kept his distance and his tone carefully neutral. “It looks like someone hit you.”
“I took a knee on my way down. All part of the job. It’s a good thing Jacques scared them off.”
Max looked from one to the other. They were lying to him. The fact that neither betrayed even the slightest twitch of guilt wounded him worse than any truth could have.
He could smell blood and gunplay on them. Very smoothly he asked, “He or they? Which is it?”
“One on foot and one waiting in the car.” Cee Cee never blinked.
What could she be afraid to share with him? He couldn’t let it go.
“Did you get it back?”
“What?”
“The purse.”
She stared at him, then it clicked. “Oh. Yes. But they got away.”
“So whoever put that mark on your face goes unpunished. I don’t think I like that, detective.”
“I don’t like it either, but sometimes it happens. I’ve gotten bashed up before and I’ll probably get bashed up again. You’ll have to get used to it.”
“No,” he told her. “I don’t think I will.”
He crossed over to her, watching her stare darken with secrets, her expression firm into that tough-cop facade, which shut him out from whatever she was doing that she knew he wouldn’t like.
But there were other ways to get answers.
Her body stiffened slightly when he reached out to her, skimming his fingertips along her stubborn jaw. He let his curled knuckles brush up the soft curve of her cheek toward the worst of the damage. Fury toward whomever had hurt her boiled in his blood, but he was careful to keep that rage from venting outward.
As he bent down she tipped her face up to him, her lashes fluttering, her lips parting for his kiss. Instead of accepting that offer he passed it by, letting his mouth graze just below her ear, where he lingered to breathe in all the smells that clung to her. Jacques LaRoche’s musky scent, spicy ribs, death, a vague odor of Tito Tibideaux and two unfamiliar presences. He snuffled them up the way one of her team might dust for fingerprints, and the instant she knew what he was doing, her palms flattened against his shoulder to push him away.
“I’ve got paperwork to get to,” she said flatly.
He straightened, a tide of hot, fierce anger rising with him. The mean, dangerous mood scared him because it came from no place he recognized within himself, because it swamped his cool, controlled responses to shake through him in waves of violent demand. That he compel the truth from her by grabbing her up in rough hands. That he beat it from Jacques with a blind determination. Because he would never think to do such things ordinarily, he backed away from them, alarmed and appalled.
“I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll see you at the house.”
Cee Cee let him walk out the door filled with frustration and suspicion and hurt. Because she had that card in her pocket, the phone that she had to trace, and until she knew more about what they were facing, she’d rather he not know anything.
So she let him return to his table, to sit with his back straight and unyielding toward the glass. Sooner or later she’d have to figure out a way to deal with him, but not with so much already on the platter tonight.
“Shit,” she muttered. Then she was all business. “Jacques, I need to get back to my car.”
“I’ll have someone drive you. And I’ll watch over him.”
She found the strength to leave the club by holding on to one icy fear.
She’d felt the power of the Trackers sent after Max, their fierceness, their unstoppable determination. And she wasn’t sure Max could take them. So she got her car and returned to her work to run a trace of the number she’d found on Tito’s refrigerator.
And she found a dead end. A government block she couldn’t get around.
So she called the number.
One ring, and then it was answered by silence. A cold, calculating silence that pissed her off.
“I know who you are, and what you are,” she said, her tone hard as that fist she could still feel pounding in her face. “Back the fuck off.”
There was no response. Then just the dial tone.
Five
TITO TIBIDEAUX WAS laid to rest on a cool, clear evening before a gathering of family and friends. Cee Cee stood at Max’s side. She hadn’t known Tito, but she deeply understood the grief and sense of loss swelling about her. She clung to the warmth of Max’s hand as sorrow wailed through her: for the father she still mourned, for the best friend she missed like the loss of herself, for the mother she’d never had the chance to love. As words of comfort were spoken over a stranger, she tried to take them into her broken heart but failed.
Max found her tucked into shadows on the side steps, hugging her knees to her chest, weeping into the lonely comfort of her arms. Never in his life had he felt so inadequate as when faced with her private pain. She was such a strong, fierce woman who fought displays of weakness, even when they were tearing her apart. Perhaps she wouldn’t want him witnessing this slip in her control—they hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Awkward and uncertain, he hung back while the sound of her misery ate at the hardened edges of his own heart. And then he remembered her whisper to him on the night she’d returned. I wish I’d asked you to go with me.
He knelt down and placed his hands lightly on her arms. Without even looking up she rocked forward, burrowing instinctively into the protective circle of his embrace. Then he simply held her, remaining silent while her weeping wound down into soft sniffles. Her arms finally stopped trying to contain her sadness and opened to include him.
He smiled slightly as he felt her gathering her formidable strength about her, grateful she’d allowed him to tend to her sorrows. And of course, her first words weren’t about her own needs.
“You should be with your guests.”
“I’m where I want to be.” Where you need me to be, whether you’d admit it or not.
“I didn’t mean to pull you away.”
“There’s free food and drink. What do they need me for?”
A soft chuckle. Her hands rubbed up his back to his shoulders beneath his black coat. Her head lifted from his chest to nestle under his chin. And she sighed.
“I got a little caught up in things for a minute. It kind of blindsided me. I didn’t expect you to—” She floundered for a moment, then murmured, “Thank you, Max.”
“I’m just in it for the hope of gratitude sex.”
Sh
e pushed away, laughing raggedly. Her fingertips grazed his cheek and her smile grew tender. “I think you can safely plan on plenty of that. But I should get back to things. I’m supposed to be your hostess, and here I am blubbering when I should be—”
His kiss silenced her, a tender slide of his mouth over hers that melted the need for apologies. She eased back, smiling as she promised, “Lots and lots of sex.”
His gaze smoldered. “We could start now. They won’t miss us.”
There was a quiet throat clearing as Helen announced herself. “Mr. Savoie, should we open up the house for your friends?”
Max looked at her over his shoulder. “There’s a fine moon out tonight. We can howl under it.”
“Ms. Charlotte, I could use your help.”
With a task at hand, Cee Cee was quick to pull herself together. “I’ll be right there, Helen.” She wiped her cheeks, muttering, “I must look a mess.”
Max wet his fingers to rub the smudges from beneath her eyes, careful not to disturb the artful makeup over her bruise. “There,” he proclaimed. “Beautiful. Define lots, detective.”
“More than you can imagine, Savoie.”
She stood, his hands skimming down her body until they curved around the back of her calves. He kissed her knees beneath the hem of her sedate black dress and looked up at her, murmuring with a lusty rumble, “Oh, I doubt that very much.”
She chuckled and patted him on the head. “Go play nice with your friends.”
He leaned his elbows back on the top step to watch her move down the porch. For the somber occasion, she’d chosen an unadorned sleeveless dress of supple knit. The high collar and long, sleek line gave her an air of elegance right down to her shiny black patent-leather sling-back heels. She made a powerful impression with her strong stride, with the way the artificial lighting delineated the muscle tone under bronze skin down bare arms and long legs, the way she carried her head at an arrogant angle and her shoulders with that invisible chip on them. His smile played out slow and smug, thinking how lucky he was that she scared the hell out of most men, leaving the field wide open for him to claim her. Not an easy challenge, but one he found infinitely rewarding. Desire couldn’t come anywhere close to describing what filled his heart when she paused to blow a kiss at him, then went inside.
