by Nancy Gideon
“I wanted to make sure you could handle yourself.” A prideful smile. “Guess you answered my question.”
“Motivated by fatherly love, I presume.”
He laughed at Max’s dry delivery. “You’re a smart one, boy. No, there’s no goodness in this black heart. Just self-interest. I was curious, though. I wanted to get a look at you. I wanted to see what you’d made of yourself. And I like what I see.”
“Your approval, coming so late in my life, is so very important to me.”
Another chuckle with just a touch of regret. “I came back for Cummings—I won’t lie to you. I had to wait until Jimmy was gone to get him, but I did.” A slow, fierce smile. “Yes, I did. But there were also things I needed to tell you. I didn’t know about Marie, or I would have come a long time ago. I would have found a way to get around Jimmy. I came here for you, too, Max.”
Sixteen
THEY LEFT THE Square and began to walk in the cool drizzle that blew across the river.
“Why are they so interested in me? I don’t even know who they are,” Max said.
“Think of it like horse breeding: the best stock with the best stock to improve the breed. Your mama—my, oh, my—she was a pure thoroughbred all the way. Beautiful, tough, refined, skilled, and smart enough not to let them see all that she could do. Me—my family can boast of a line just as long, but a bit darker and rougher around the edges. Over the centuries, there were fewer and fewer houses that could make that claim. And the school of thought was, the longer and purer the line, the greater the skills and the power. Power and position: that’s what it’s all about.” He laughed at Max’s baffled expression. “You’re thinking small, Max. You’re thinking local muscle, like Legere. This is big. Bigger than you can imagine. International. Global.”
Max made a disparaging noise. “Why? Who cares? I don’t understand.”
“We’re commodities, bought, sold, and traded because of what we do better than anything else. We’re killers. That’s what we are. What’s inside us. We’re raised and trained and controlled to serve, to kill, to fight. But Marie ran with you and slipped you past the system. You’ve never been processed or registered. You don’t realize how amazing you are. How rare. How dangerous. How . . .”
“Valuable,” Max supplied, frowning. “I don’t like this. I don’t want any part of this.”
“You have no choice, boy. Someone else is making those choices, and making a lot of money off of them. Marie was worth a fortune to her family. But she was disgusted by the idea of being sold to some stranger for breeding purposes, to improve her family’s status. Think royalty, Max.”
“So I’m what—like a duke or a prince or something?”
“No.”
The way he said it made the hair bristle at Max’s nap. “What then?”
“You’re it, Max.”
“What?” He laughed. “Like a Shifter king?”
“Yes. Exactly like that.”
Suddenly there was no humor in the situation at all. Just a deadly absurdity. “Can’t I just tell them thanks but no thanks, I’m not interested?”
“It’s not like sitting on a board of directors, Max. These Chosen, these controllers, they don’t care about you. They care about what you pass on to the next generation. There are those who would pay a ransom for such an offspring.”
“Like a . . . stud fee?” Now he was truly disturbed. “No thank you.”
“They don’t need your participation for that, either. Or for you to be alive. A smart man would make a deal and take a hefty cut.”
“And if Charlotte got wind of that nonsense, that first cut would put an end to any progeny.”
Rollo shook his head. “The first thing they’ll do is kill her, Max. They can’t have you polluting the line. If you bond to her, your seed could become worthless.”
Max abruptly stopped. “That’s not going to happen. None of this is going to happen.”
“Again, your wishes won’t matter much.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised that you, being a smart fella, haven’t tried to sell me off to them.”
Rollo smiled wryly. “I’m not above admitting to the temptation. But one has to be alive in order to spend money, and they want me dead in a big way. Which is why I need to be out of here as soon as you can get to a bank.”
“You said they wanted to kill me. Why, if I’m so valuable?”
“Not everyone thinks so. If you’re dead, the next in line would have all the prestige and position.”
Max shook his head and started to walk again, his stride betraying his agitation. “This is insanity.”
“This is coming your way, and soon. So you’d better start preparing for it.”
“What do I do? How do I recognize them? What do they want from me?”
“It depends on who finds you first. If it’s my family, the Moytes, they’ll try to catch you and trade or sell you, to restore the family name. If it’s the Terriots, they will kill you like they did the rest of your family, for cheating them out of the contract your grandfather made selling them your mother. If it’s the Guedrys, they will kill you so their own son can take your place. If it’s trackers sent by the Chosen, they’ll want you brought to them. Then they’ll test you, break you, breed you, and kill you. If there are any of your mother’s people left, they will hold you up as the rightful leader of our clan.”
“Lovely. If they find me and kill me, I’m fucked. If I cooperate with them, then they’ll kill me and I’m fucked. If Charlotte hears about any of this, she’ll go fuckin’ nuts and I’ll be fucked.” His head was pounding. “How long before they get here?”
“Days, weeks, months maybe. As I said, you’re in the public eye now, and not exactly hard to find if they start looking.”
Now he knew why his mother, then Jimmy, had insisted nothing official be traced to him. But when he’d taken over for Jimmy, his attorney had established his identity in every possible data bank, making him available at the click of a mouse.
“Can I protect myself?”
“You can try. No one can beat you in a fair fight; you have skills none of us has ever even imagined. But they won’t play fair and they’ll come at you when you least expect it, through ways you won’t expect. Or you can run. Run far and fast and hide who you are, what you are.”
Max shook his head. “I’ve lived alone almost all my life, afraid of what I am. I won’t do that again. Everything that means anything to me is here, and I’m not in the mood to hide.”
“Then for God’s sake, don’t advertise so loudly! You give off energy like a nuclear reactor. Shut down. Stay silent. Disguise your true strength. Then, if they come, you’ll have the advantage of surprise because they won’t know what you’re capable of. Hit them without mercy, with everything you have.”
Max was silent, thinking of those red shoes.
“They’ll use silver so that they don’t have to get close. Build up your immunity. Surround yourself with those you trust, or at least those who can’t be bought. Keep yourself from being an easy target. Suspect everyone, even your friends. Especially your friends. They’ll use them to slip through your defenses.”
“You make it sound like I’m getting ready to defend against an army.”
“You’d be a fool to think of it as anything less than a war. These trackers they’ll send for you, they’re cold and clever, and they won’t stop until they have you or you have them. Don’t be afraid to discover what you are inside, what you can do. Sharpen your senses, boy. Practice reaching out without giving off a glimmer.”
“Can that be done?”
“You won’t know until you try.”
They’d come full circle, back to the Square. It was flooded with tourists, even in the miserable weather. Max stood in the center of them and cautiously sent out a whisper, feeling for the presence of one of his kind. He picked up some low-level signals a few blocks away.
“Good. I’m standing right next to you and hardly felt a flut
ter.” Rollo smiled hopefully. “You’re a smart boy. You’ll be all right.”
“You’re fucked” was what they both knew he was saying.
“I don’t understand this. Who controls this buying and selling of our kind? Why aren’t LaRoche and his people bothered by them?
Rollo laughed. “They’re nothing, Max. They’re crude, unskilled, and untrained. Discarded and forgotten. Beasts with no worth. You and I can adapt and learn and blend. We can hide what we are from the rest of them. And we carry a secret they’d rather we not share.”
“What secret? Who is this they you’re talking about? These Chosen—what are they? Are they the ones my mother feared?”
“They own us, Max. They rule us Shifters. They were us, and what they don’t want known is that some of us are still a part of them. You and I are a part of them.”
A truck close by backfired, startling Rollo. He gripped Max’s arm, pulling him away from the high visibility of the Square into deeper shadows.
“I can’t stay any longer, boy. I can’t tell you any more. There are those who help our kind. They might have answers for you. I’ll see if I can put them in touch with you.”
“I’ll be careful.” I’m fucked. “My bank’s down Chartres.”
“Be happy to accompany you there.”
The bank manager took care of the withdrawal personally, handing the money to Max without question or curiosity. Max put the bundles into a backpack Rollo purchased at the souvenir shop on the corner.
Rollo shouldered the heavy bag and, once they were out on the sidewalk, regarded Max with a faint smile. “It was good to finally meet you. Your mother would be very pleased with what you’ve become.”
An unexpected surge of emotion hit Max. “Where will you go?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a secret, now would it?”
Knowing it was unlikely that they’d meet again made for a bittersweet parting. “Take care of yourself,” Max said.
“That’s what I’m best at, boy. If you’re smart, you’ll send your Upright girlfriend as far away from you as possible. She’ll get torn apart in the crossfire.”
Though alarm leapt, Max smiled. “You don’t know Charlotte like I do. There’s no one I’d rather have at my back.”
“Well, good-bye, then.” Rollo unexpectedly took Max in a hard embrace, holding Max’s head to his shoulder for a long beat, then pushed him roughly away. “Don’t think too badly of me, son.”
And he was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
MAX SAT ALONE in the back of the club, waving off any who tried to approach. He stared at the door with an unblinking focus, his features expressionless until awareness washed over them like moonlight splitting clouds. He rose up and waited for her to come into sight, anticipation rising along with the corners of his mouth. When she paused on the opposite side of the dance floor, his eyes darkened as they caressed her, from the punky spikes of her hair and boldly accented features, along the camisole of bronze silk and lace under his leather jacket and the snug wrap of her short suede skirt, down the long plunge of her splendid legs to leopard-print open-toed shoes with pencil-thin four-inch heels. She struck an arrogant pose and waited for him, her bright lips pursing as his swaggering stride brought him through the crowd as if no one else existed.
He took her hand, touched it to his lips, then lifted it high to twirl her under the bridge their arms made. She ended up pressed against him. His arms slid under the loose jacket to tug her in tighter and hers went around his shoulders. As they burrowed their faces against each other’s necks, their bodies moved in sync to Norah Jones’s bluesy moaning about waiting for her man to come home and turn her on.
“How do you like the shoes?”
She felt his smile. “The entire package is almost too hot to handle. But the shoes make me want to do you right here, right now.”
“Then they were worth every penny I paid for them.” She nuzzled him, sucking at his earlobe until he shuddered. “Handle me, Savoie.”
“Handling you has always been my fondest wish and greatest frustration, Charlotte.”
Her arms clinched tighter about his neck, hugging his head as she whispered almost apologetically, “I love you, baby.”
His posture stiffened. “What have you done, detective?”
“Enjoy the moment, Max. Business can wait a few minutes.”
Though he still held her close enough for her to feel the teeth of his zipper pressed into her hip, tension began to wedge between them. When they ended the dance that unfinished business followed them to the table, though they linked hands to try to prevent that separation.
The buxom Amber was waiting to take their order.
“Buy you a drink, detective?” Max asked as he seated her.
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
“I’m having water.”
Cee Cee looked up at Amber with a killer smile. “I’ll have that, too, with some Jack Daniels to keep it company.”
The two women locked stares until Amber smiled thinly. Cee Cee watched her assess the situation, not missing the significance of Max’s jacket on her shoulders. Or the fact that Max’s gaze never lifted to acknowledge her. When her gaze returned to Cee Cee’s, it held resigned understanding. Her chance with Max Savoie was gone. She slipped silently from the table.
“Tell me,” Max insisted the second they were alone.
“Can it wait until I get my drink? It’s been a long day.”
“You’re stalling, detective. Why?”
She met his stare with a sniperscope directness. “Noreen Cummings ID’d Rollo.” A pause. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I’m not.”
“Where is he, Max?”
“Gone.”
“What?” She cursed and reached for her phone. Max stopped the move with his hand around hers. “Let go. I have to get something out on the wire before he’s halfway across the country. Dammit, Max!”
“He’s gone, detective.” Something in his tone was so very final. She allowed him to take her phone and return it to her pocket. “Gone as in never existed. Like I used to: no past, no records, no identity. You’ll never find him. You wouldn’t know where to start looking. And before you ask, I don’t know, either.”
“Why didn’t you try to stop him?” she accused, furious and frustrated.
“It wasn’t my job. All I promised I’d do was help you find a killer. And I think I did my part there.”
She sat back in her chair, her expression grim. “How could you have let him go?”
He regarded her unapologetically. “Are you very, very angry with me?” Cool caution edged his tone.
“Yes. You know I am. He killed two women. He’s not the kind you let walk.”
“I can’t bring them back. I wish I could.”
“He’s going to do it again, someplace else, and it will be my fault for trusting you.” She muttered a curse, then took a long swallow of the drink Amber placed on the table.
“No, detective. It’s case closed. He got what he was after. There’ll be no more souls upon your conscience.”
“And that’s supposed to make what he’s already done okay? How could you think so?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry.” When she didn’t respond to the stroke of his hand over hers, he leaned forward and kissed her.
She tried to pull back, but his tongue slid silkily between her lips and she forgot why she was struggling. He was too good a kisser to allow her mind to wander anywhere, except maybe to a horizontal plane with a lot less clothing between them.
Sensing her reluctant surrender, he sat back, a slight, chastened smile on his damp mouth.
“You’re not off the hook,” she grumbled, but her fingertips were charting the prominent angles of his face in adoration.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, his quiet sincerity almost making his treachery forgivable.
“You’re not sorry, Max. You had no intention of letting me take him in.”
&nb
sp; “So where does that leave us?” he asked casually, but there was anxiousness in the way he kneaded her leg. This was no small thing with her, and he knew it. He’d known it when he’d watched Rollo walk away. She might understand his motives, but could she forgive him for his actions?
As if in answer, she slapped his hand aside. “I’m rethinking wanting you to handle me tonight.”
When he appeared suitably repentant, she sighed and leaned back in her seat. She studied him for a moment, working up her own courage for confession time.
“I found the link between Rollo and Cummings. I was digging around in Jimmy’s computer,” she admitted.
Max blinked. “Who gave you the password?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t reveal my sources.” She tried to sound flippant, but she watched his expression closely. Not much to go on.
“Helen gave it to you? Why would she do that?”
“Because you told them all to give me whatever I asked for.”
A pause. “I’m glad it was helpful.”
Now it was her turn to blink. “You’re not angry?”
“What good would it do? I can’t expect you not to be a policewoman.” He brought her hand up for a kiss. “We can’t change our spots, detective. We are what we are.”
He kept her hand in his, very visibly displayed on the tabletop. His thumb charted the ridge of her knuckles in back-and-forth sweeps, the movement restless. Something more was wrong than just a little residual guilt.
“Did you find out what you needed to know from Rollo?”
He glanced at her, momentarily blank and uncertain. “What? Oh. As much as I could.” He looked away. “I gave him money, Charlotte.”
“To make it easier for him to hide from me?” She couldn’t keep the anger from that question.
“It’s not what I’d planned.”
“You just had a sudden gush of sentimentality, is that it?”
He met her snapping glare with one steeped in murky emotional waters. “Yes. I guess I did. To protect what matters to me.”
Suspicion nudged at the edges of her temper, making her frown. “Max, what—”
He kissed her softly, the barest brush of his mouth over hers. Enough to make her heart jump and silence her objections.
