by Nancy Gideon
LaRoche chuckled at her gruff tone and gritty logic. “Does he know you’re here?”
“I don’t run my investigation through him.”
A bigger laugh. “You’re not stupid, cher—you’re dangerous. And I like that about you.” Then he sobered. “If one of our kind is killing yours, it’s our problem as much as yours, detective. If we find out before you do, we’ll take care of it our way. Now go back to your world and forget about ours, lest you become the next statistic.”
“MR. SAVOIE, CAN I be of some help to you?”
Max smiled up at the man standing on the opposite side of the rail. He was a big man, built like a boxer. His nose bore the breaks of it, angling in several different directions before mashing flat upon his face. His hands were huge, calloused, and scarred like those of a heavy laborer. Only the quiet confidence of his voice told of his current calling. That and the collar he wore.
“Father Furness. Just stopped in to see how the repairs are going. And to ask after Sister Catherine.”
“They’re going very well, and we have you to thank for much of that. Your donation of immediate funds and manpower while we were waiting for the insurance to come through were a tremendous help. As for the sister”—his voice lowered regretfully—“no change.”
Max looked away, awkward with the praise, unhappy with the news. “I owe Sister Catherine a great deal.” He paused, then added, “She was my friend.”
“She was a selfless crusader for the church and for the community. She is missed.”
“Yes.”
“How is Charlotte? I haven’t seen her since Benjamin’s funeral. It meant a lot to her to have you there.”
“Did it?”
“Of course. Charlotte isn’t one for forming close bonds with people, even as a child. The fact that she would reach out to you says a lot for you, Mr. Savoie.”
“She misses Mary Kate. She worries about her. She dreams about the past. She won’t let me help her get over that pain. I don’t know what to do, and I’m afraid for her.” He hadn’t meant to say that, to say anything. Maybe it was the memory of the talks he’d had with Charlotte’s best friend. Maybe it was the sense of peace he’d always found within this place. Or the kindness he saw in Father Furness’s eyes.
“Charlotte doesn’t think she needs any help to deal with anything. She’s amazingly strong, but don’t let her convince you that she’s self-sufficient. It’s that same strength that makes her so alone. If you stay close, she’ll let you share that burden when she’s ready. Have patience.”
Max smiled. “I’ve been waiting for her for a long time. I can wait a while longer.”
“Good. And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Who do you share your burdens with, now that Sister Catherine is gone? I’d be happy to take some of that load, if you’d let me.”
Max laughed softly. “Father, mine isn’t a burden I’d willingly wish upon another. But thank you for asking.”
“Anytime, Max. I’m on call twenty-four/seven.”
“You work Charlotte’s hours.”
“The gladly shouldered burden of those who serve. The door’s always open.”
“I’ll remember that. Thank you, Father.”
As he started down the aisle, the priest called out his name. He looked back.
“You’re not beyond redemption, Max.”
Max stared at him for a long moment, then smiled again, slowly, sadly. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what my burdens were.”
“Maybe I understand more than you think. I have connections, you know. Come talk to me sometime.”
“Perhaps I will.”
Max stepped out into the hazy late afternoon and was in the middle of a big cleansing breath when awareness hit him like a knee to the groin. He gasped and grabbed the opening bar of the church’s big door. Wave after wave of intense sensation hit him—not as a nudge, the way he’d experience at the club or on the street, but with the full force of a 12-gauge blasting through his psyche. He put up an instinctive defense against that invasive probing of self.
Then it was gone.
When he lowered his head to shake off the dizzying sickness, he was surprised to see bright spots of crimson dotting his shirtfront. His nose was bleeding? Pinching off the sudden flow, he looked about the street, gathering his inner control to throw out his own inquiry with the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. He staggered when it hit, following the direction to a figure standing between two parked cars on the other side of the road. The man’s smile goaded him.
Max came down the stairs with a fiercely controlled step. All his preternatural senses were shaking—not from danger, not from fear. From something bigger. Something huge.
The man waited for him to cross the street, that smug grin never changing until they were eye-to-eye.
“Hello, Max. I thought it was time I introduced myself.”
“Who are you?” What are you?
“My name is Rollo. You can call me Daddy.”
Five
THE SHOCK OF it blanked his mind. “Liar.”
“Max—”
He took a rigid step back. “I have no father. Who are you, and why would you say such a thing to me?”
“You remind me of her. The same eyes. Those big green eyes, so full of life and mystery.”
Max said nothing as he studied the other man. Rollo. The pureblood who’d walked behind Jimmy Legere’s father. Whose reputation for viciousness far exceeded his own. He was tall, still lean and hard at fifty-some. Hair and brows thick and black, like his own. Face built of strong sharp angles, like his own. Smile slick, wide and white, like his own. While his mind rebelled against what he saw, his heart started beating faster.
“How is she? How is Marie?” Rollo asked.
“She’s dead. Don’t bother with condolences. They’re almost thirty years late.”
The stranger took a shallow breath and let out a regretful sigh. “So long ago, yet I can still remember the scent of lilac on her skin.”
Max shut down tight behind the expressionless mask he wore so well. He refused to let this intrusive stranger twist his memories into painful knots.
“How did she die?”
“She was shot. Murdered.” He kept his answers quick and clean as surgical cuts.
“Was she alone? Was she afraid?”
“I was with her. What we were or weren’t is none of your concern. Just as it was none of your concern then.”
“You would have been . . . just a child. Who raised you?”
“If you cared so much about how we lived and she died, you wouldn’t have waited thirty years to ask. We have nothing to discuss. Stay away from me.”
Max turned and started walking. His head was pounding, his stomach roiling with thick waves of sickness. For his whole life he’d dreamed of this moment, of this meeting. And now all he wanted to do was run, to get away, as far and as fast as possible, from the crippling shock of discovery. Away from this creature with his own face who’d deserted them, who’d let his mother die and only now thought to ask about her.
“She didn’t tell me, Max.”
He paused, but didn’t turn. “Tell you what?”
“About you.”
His eyes squeezed shut. His breath constricted. And up through the burning sorrow and panicked surprise rose the anger that would get him through this. “How convenient for you.”
“If I had known, I would have never let her go.” Rollo’s voice lowered to a hard fierceness. “I would never have let her take you away.”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t.
“Max, talk to me. You must have questions. About your mother and me. About what you are.”
There was nothing he wanted to know about this rough, brutal stranger and his mother. But that last lingered, seductively taunting. About what you are.
“You have nothing I want,” he said curtly, and strode down the sidewalk.
“You know that’s not true, Max,
and so do I,” Rollo called after him. “When you’re ready, come find me. Max, you’re my only son.”
The glimmer Rollo cast was warm as an embrace, wrapping around him like an enveloping hug. Max mentally flung it off, hurling back a disembodied shove that made Rollo stumble. Then laugh with delight.
“Who taught you to be so strong? Think of what you could learn from me. Max, you are the best of both our lines. You have no idea what that means.” His voice lowered reflectively. “No idea what that means.”
No, he didn’t. And that scared him to death.
The setting sun drenched rows of white vaults in gossamer tints of pink and orange and crimson. Silence settled deep as the shadows between them as Max let his fingertips outline his mother’s name, chiseled into warm stone. It seemed like forever ago and yet like yesterday when he’d stood at Jimmy Legere’s side, shaking with internal sobs, as they sealed her inside for eternal rest. He remembered the weight of Jimmy’s hand on his shoulder, how the firm squeeze of it helped him push the panic and terror away. At least until the nightmares came.
I saw to my promise, Max. She’s safe now. And I’ll take care of you for her.
And he had. Jimmy was the only father he knew. He’d sat up long nights to keep a child’s night fears at bay. He’d seen to Max’s needs, because his wants were so few and never named. To not be hungry, to be warm and dry, to not wake in darkness with the stench of death in his nose. To not let the awful things that prowled in bayou fog reach him. And because Jimmy saw to those things, he claimed Max’s unwavering devotion. Though Jimmy had an appreciation for all the ways in which Max was different, he shared his mother’s insistence on secrecy.
Never let them see you for what you are. You’ll frighten them. They hunt and kill the things that frighten them.
The glimmer: he had a name for it now. As a child, he thought it was as natural as his mother’s voice, her scent, her touch. That light, tender caress he’d feel on the inside when she was a room away. A sense of reassurance when he was upset or afraid, knowing he could reach out to her and not be alone anymore. He tried connecting with others the same way, but it was like tossing coins down a bottomless well. Until one day, when a response came back with the startling force of a blow. And he’d come to their door, the man with red shoes. It was the only time his mother had ever taken a harsh hand to him. Usually punishment involved an isolation that he feared more than any threat of pain.
Never, never, never do that again. They will find us. They will kill me. They will take you and hurt you.
Had she been hiding from Rollo? But it wasn’t he, it was always they when she spoke of what scared her.
She couldn’t tell him now.
Perhaps Rollo did have the answers. If he could be believed. If he could be trusted.
Max could still feel the sting of her hand on his face. But it wasn’t those fierce slaps that left an enduring impression on his young mind; it was the terrible fright in her voice. And he had never done it again. Not until the night Charlotte Caissie took him to Cheveux du Chien.
Still, he hadn’t understood until just this moment. Marie Savoie hadn’t been afraid her son would alarm humans by his differences. She’d been terrified that he’d alert one of his own kind as to who and what he was.
Weary, head aching, looking forward to something unhealthy to eat and a few bouts of sweaty sex, Cee Cee climbed into her car and cranked over the big-block V-8. The locker room shower hadn’t perked her up. She’d lingered only long enough to stick a Band-Aid over the cut on her brow and comb some hair down to hide it. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about repairing her window and replacing her camera. As she reached for the gear shift, her system lurched in surprise. She wasn’t alone in the car.
“Geez, Max. I’m going to have to put plastic down to protect my seats,” she growled to cover up her fright. He sat on the passenger side, staring straight ahead. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look at her. Her instincts quivered. “Baby, are you all right?”
“Just drive.”
She popped the car into gear and spun out of the police lot. After several blocks, she asked, “Where to?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your place is fine.”
She negotiated the early-evening traffic while keeping a cautious eye on him. Something wasn’t right. But unless Max chose to tell her, she couldn’t guess at it. She wouldn’t ask him again. A new unwritten law: don’t pester him for his secrets. Sometimes it was better not to know, for both their sakes. If it was something she needed to know, he’d tell her. If it was something she could help him with, he’d ask. Otherwise it was hands off. She didn’t like it, but that was the way it had to be.
She reached out to touch his hand. The fingers twining between hers were cold and clutched tight. She locked her jaw against the urge to ask again, to demand to know what had him so anxious that he was strung tight and trembling. He didn’t release her hand, not even when she had to downshift. The tension was contagious.
It wasn’t until they reached her home and she turned the light on in her living room that she got a good look at him.
“Oh, my God. Are you hurt?”
He followed her alarmed gaze to his stained shirtfront, staring at the blood in a moment of perplexity. Then he shook his head.
“It’s nothing. I had a nosebleed.”
Her palm pressed to his cheek. “Are you okay?” She examined him for bruises before she realized she wouldn’t find any evidence of injury on him. “Were you in a fight?”
“Just an unexpected go-around. I’m fine. Just a headache. I need to close my eyes for a bit.”
“Stretch out on the couch while I make something to eat.” Did she have any food in the place? She could run out for some takeout while he rested. “What are you hungry for?”
His head bent. His mouth fit softly against hers. Her lips parted on a sigh, inviting a deeper intimacy as her hand shifted to cup the back of his head.
Finally, after a slow, leisurely sampling, she whispered, “I think I’ll have what you’re having.”
He stood motionless as she started to unbutton his ruined shirt. She could feel something building in his silence, and unfortunately she didn’t think it was lust.
“How did you and your father get on?” he asked.
That was the last topic she expected.
“Good. There was no one I admired more.” She eased his shirttails free of his trouser band. “Why do you ask?”
“I met him a couple of times. Not socially, of course. Usually our conversations were limited to ‘You have the right to remain silent.’”
“Yeah, he was great at small talk.”
“A quality I believe you inherited, detective.”
“Where are you going with this, Savoie?” She parted his shirt, pushing it and his jacket off his shoulders.
“To the couch. I need to sit down.”
She settled beside him on the cushions, her head on his shoulder, her fingers threading through the crisp mat on his chest. Waiting for him to get where he was going.
“I’m probably not the first pick he’d make for your boyfriend.”
She chuckled. “Not even the last, I’m afraid. He thought you were an extremely dangerous, extremely well-trained attack dog for Jimmy Legere. I’m sure he would rather I had followed Mary Kate into the nunnery.”
He winced at that. “He was a good judge of character.”
Sorry she had hurt him, she kissed the warm pulse of his throat. “Not always. He missed the mark by a mile with my mom.”
“Why didn’t she take you with her when she left?”
Cee Cee squirmed but answered honestly. “I think she knew he wouldn’t let her take me. It was easier just to let me go.”
How could that be? he wondered. How could anyone who loved her just walk away? “Do you miss her?”
“I can’t even remember her without a drink in her hand and a mean word coming out of her mouth. No, I don’t miss that. My dad and St. Bart’s wer
e my family.”
“I remember your father as stern and inflexible, always playing by the rules. Was that how he treated you?”
“He wasn’t usually putting handcuffs on me while quoting the Miranda. Of course, there were times when he’d catch me and Mary Kate sneaking in late. Boy, did he know how to interrogate.” She smiled, affection filling her heart with a bittersweet ache. “I loved my dad. He was everything good that I wanted to be.”
“And what if you found out that your father wasn’t what you thought he was, that he wasn’t a good man? Would you still love him?”
She moved away, bristling like a threatened cat. “What are you saying? Are you saying my dad was a bad cop?”
He caught the back of her head, compelling her back to his shoulder, his fingers massaging firmly. “No. That’s not what I’m saying at all. Hypothetically.”
“I don’t know how to answer that, Max.” She frowned as she settled back beneath his chin. “If you’re wondering if I think of you as a father figure, the answer is no. It would be way too creepy, considering how I’m thinking about you right now.”
Her hand trailed down to a rock-hard middle that had never needed a gym membership to attain its contours. She was about to go to work on his belt when he captured her hand. He lifted it to kiss her knuckles, then pressed her palm to his heart. It wasn’t passion kicking up its tempo. What, then?
“Is this about Jimmy?” she asked quietly. “Is that what has you so sad and far away?” A sliver of guilt twisted. “I never told you how sorry I was that you lost someone so close to you. He thought the world of you, and I will always be grateful to him for that.”
“It’s not Jimmy. Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s about secrets. It’s about all the things Jimmy and my mother kept from me. Things I need to know, but I have no way to find the answers.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Things like what my mother was so afraid of, who my father was, and what’s so damned special about me that I’d be worth killing and dying for.”
“You are.”
