by JoAnn Ross
"Of course." Her tone suggested she couldn't imagine taking any other view. "I'm a cop."
She was also a woman. A very appealing woman.
Unfortunately, at the moment she was also his employer. And while he might not be nearly as rigid about propriety as Kate Delaney, one rule he'd always lived by was to never mix work and sex. Which was, of course, a helluva lot easier to stick to when you worked with a team of Navy SEALs.
"Leon runs most of the rackets in the Louisiana Gulf area. The license is technically in his son's name. Since the old man's got so much on his plate, he leaves the day-to-day operation of the casino to his kid, Stephen."
"But you work for him?"
"Probably seventy-five, maybe even eighty percent ofl cops moonlight," he said. "Back in my dad's day, there were even cops who acted as employment brokers, who'd arrange for the jobs, then take a cut of the pay. I've done some security work at the casino." He wasn't yet prepared to share the entire truth with her. "Found a couple of the employees skimming."
"It doesn't bother you?" Her bright brows dove down toward that cute little crooked nose. "To be working for a criminal?"
"Alleged."
It was difficult to keep his tone light when it actually bothered the hell out of him. Even more so since LeBIanc had had him dragged out into the bayou and roughed up. Reminding himself that sometimes the end justified the means, Nick held to the cover story he'd come up with when he'd arranged to get kicked off the force, which would hopefully give him credibility in LeBlanc's eyes.
"He's never been convicted of anything," he said. "And last time I looked, people were still innocent until proven guilty in this country."
"There's a huge difference between innocent and not guilty."
"Granted."
She was looking at him like he was something that she might scrape off the sole of her shoe, making him want to go ahead and admit to his own recent problems with the law. Get it over with now.
Telling himself that she'd already had a lot dumped on her the past twenty-four hours, Nick decided to wait. After all, a bit more time wasn't going to make that much of a difference in the whole scheme of things.
He was also thinking that, as her employee, he had an obligation to tell her about what Tara had been up to. But since Kate Delaney's case, if it even was a valid one, was all tangled up with his, and he wasn't yet sure he could trust her not to go running off and sharing it with the cops—which could, if she told the wrong person, get them both killed—for now he was keeping it to himself.
Besides, if Tara had been murdered, and he wasn't willing to categorically rule that idea out, LeBIanc was the obvious suspect. Until you factored in that it didn't make any sense to hire Nick to find Tara, then have one of his own goons kill her.
Of course, his own guys had been looking for her. Maybe they'd coincidentally found her right after LeBIanc had hired him.
Nick had never liked coincidence. Never trusted it. But he also knew, on occasion, it did happen.
So, once he managed to worm his way deep enough into the organization to nail the mobster for Big Antoine's death, he c6uld start peeling the onion to see what other crimes the mob boss was mixed up in.
"So," he said, after Charmaine had taken away their empty plates and brought them each a mug of café au lait and an order of the house specialty dessert, white chocolate bread pudding, "how did a pretty southern belle from Mississippi end up a murder cop in Yankeeland?"
"It's a long story."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Yes, you are." She glanced down at her watch. "You're going with me to check out those Voodoo shops."
"And we will. But you've gotta admit the contrast is intriguing. Here you've got identical twin sisters. One ends up selling her body to high rollers on a floating bordello while the other becomes a homicide cop in Chicago. What do you figure the odds of that happening are?"
"I've no idea. Not being a gambler myself, I'm not that up on oddsmaking. Having spent so much time in a floating casino, you'd undoubtedly know more about it than I would."
Kate glanced around the restaurant, obviously frustrated. "I know we're in the damn South, but how long does it take to get a check around here?"
She was obviously still on rush-rush big-city time. "Like Charmaine said, a lot of restaurants are still havin' trouble with staffing. Lots of workers haven't been able to make it back to the city. Because their homes blew away. Or got filled to the rafters with toxic, disease-carrying sewage water."
"I'm sorry." She frowned. "I'm really not as self-absorbed and hard-assed as I'm sounding."
"Well, you know, sugar, I wasn't going to mention it, but now that you bring it up, I'll admit that I couldn't help noticing, when we climbed the stairs up to your sister's apartment, that you just happen to have one very line ass."
She shook her head. "You can't help it, can you?"
"Help what, chère?"
"Hitting on anything female."
"Now, that's harsh." He lifted a hand to his chest. "Have you seen me so much as spare a glance toward any other woman in this restaurant?"
"Well, they've certainly all been looking at you. If you were that bread pudding, which was absolutely sinful, by the way, you'd have been a goner five minutes after we'd walked in the door."
"Can't help what others do."
But he was enjoying that little spike of what damn well looked—and sounded—like jealousy. A jealous female was not an indifferent one. Maybe once he wrapped up this case, he'd take the sweet-smelling detective sailing. Go riding the waves. And each other.
"But at the moment, I'm not interested in anyone else but you."
Her lashes were like red-gold spikes against her cheeks as she lowered her eyes and began fiddling with her cutlery. Liking the fact that he could make her nervous, Nick decided to up the stakes. Just a bit. Reaching across the white tablecloth, he skimmed a fingertip down the back of her hand.
"You were telling me about how you ended up in the big city."
She blew out a breath that ruffled her curly bangs and jerked her hand away. "So, you knew Tara and my mother are—were—grifters."
"Like I said, she'd mentioned your maman playing a little fast and loose with the law from time to time," he said noncommittally.
"More than a little fast and loose. Grifting was, while I was growing up, pretty much a family business. I was rifling purses by five. Picking pockets by eight."
"Everyone has their talent. Sounds like you were a prodigy."
Which didn't surprise him in the least. He had a feeling that Kate Delaney never did anything by half measures.
She shrugged. "I don't know about that. But Tara's talent definitely was charming people." A smile tugged at the corners of her lush lips, momentarily brightened her eyes. "Mama always said that there wasn't a bird safe in any tree when Tara was around."
"She did have a way about her," Nick allowed.
"Did." She repeated the past tense in a fiat tone. The light in her meadow-green eyes was extinguished, like a candle being snuffed out by an icy gust of wind. "God, I can't believe she's gone."
She leaned her elbows on the table and began rubbing at her temples with her fingertips.
"So, tell me some more about you and your sister's childhood."
"Childhood." Her voice was edged with both scorn and sadness. "What's that? I was a sophomore in high school when Mama got arrested for a sweetheart scheme. That's where—"
"A beautiful and usually younger woman or hunky guy takes advantage of a lonely person, usually of the opposite sex, but not always."
"That's pretty much it. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of choosing a pigeon who neglected to mention that his nephew was a Chicago vice cop. When his uncle told him about it, the cop, Dennis Delaney, flew down and raised holy hell, and Mama ended up spending four years in jail. And this is where it got weird."
Like lifting purses at five and havin' a mama who went to jail for grifting wasn't?
<
br /> "Dennis and his wife had always wanted kids. But she couldn't get pregnant, so they'd taken in a whole string of foster kids from screwed-up families. He offered to take both Tara and me back to Chicago with him. Child Protective Services was understaffed, so they were hot for the idea. Then, at the last minute, Tara decided there was no way she was going to live with a cop, so she refused to leave."
"But you wanted to?"
"I can't begin to tell you how much. I was fifteen years old, and exhausted from living on the edge, never knowing when the cop on the corner was going to slap a pair of handcuffs on me and drag me off to jail.
"Tara was like Mama; she liked the rush of risk. Plus, she always saifl there was a feeling of control when she could con people into doing exactly what she wanted them to do. Like getting someone to hand over all their money for a psychic reading at a carnival, or shortchanging a clerk, or pulling a badger game on some unsuspecting mark."
"I once asked your sister why, with her looks and smarts, she stayed hooking," Nick said. "She told me that she liked being a prostitute because she got high wielding power over rich and powerful men who were used to being in charge of everyone and everything. Said it was better than drugs."
"Obviously she hadn't changed all that much. I'm pretty much a control freak myself—"
"Now, there's a surprise."
Nick received a perverse and dangerous rush of pleasure for being able to make her lips curve. Even if it didn't last long.
"You should do that more often," he said.
"What?"
"Smile. You really are stunning."
He watched her square her shoulders. Stiffen her spine. The pleasant respite was short-lived. Dirty Harriet was back. In spades.
"I'll grin like a jack-o'-lantern when we find my sister's murderer. To make a long and shoddy story short, we had a huge fight. She told me I was being disloyal to Mama. I told her she was crazy.
"So, I escaped to Yankeeland, as you so quaintly referred to it, while Tara stayed in Mississippi in foster care. She turned eighteen the same week Mama got released and they moved to Memphis ...
"Meanwhile, I got to experience life with two good people—"
"Who believed in the solid, nineteen-fifties family values you—and apparently your sister, if her TiVo list is any indication—dreamed of living. And to show your gratitude, you dutifully followed your foster father into the police force."
Her pouty lips firmed. "It wasn't like that. I admired Dennis Delaney. Enough to go to court and legally take his name when I turned eighteen. He was a good man who stood up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves. I thought that was an admirable job and decided a person could do a helluva lot worse than be a cop."
"You're not going to get any argument with me on that one," Nick said mildly, even as he remembered a time when he'd felt the same way about his own father. Before he realized that not every policeman in America returned home from his shift with envelopes stuffed with cash. "So, I'd bet he's real proud."
Once again the light dimmed in her expressive eyes. "He's dead. He keeled over from a heart attack two days before I graduated from the police academy."
"I'm sorry."
"So was I." She glanced down at her practical, leather-banded watch again. "We'd better get going if we want to start questioning those Voodoo shops before they close."
"Hey, you may be from the city of big shoulders, buti this just happens to be the city that never sleeps."
"Last I heard that was New York."
"Obviously you've never been here during MardiGras."
He tossed some bills onto the table, leaving Kate to notice he'd left an overly generous tip. "Charmaine's a single mom with three kids at home," he said when the restaurant owner tossed him an air-kiss good-bye from across the room. "Her ex is currently in Angola for grand theft auto, breaking and entering, armed robbery, violation of parole, possession of a controlled substance, spousal abuse, and resisting arrest."
"That's quite an impressive yellow sheet. Were you the arresting cop?"
"As it happens, I was. Why?"
"Just wondering." Resisting arrest was a catch-all phrase that could mean a lot of different things.
"It was a righteous bust," he told her, as if knowing exactly the direction her mind had taken. "Was I glad the son of a bitch decided to swing at me after he'd put Charmaine in the hospital with a concussion and a broken jaw and cracked ribs? Mais, yeah. But it was his decision to swing first."
"I'm surprised you didn't throw in jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk."
"Spitting on the sidewalk's not even a misdemeanor in New Orleans. I would've given the other a shot, but I figured there was no point in overkill. Especially since any one of those by themselves would've given him his third strike."
Thus earning him a life sentence.
"Charmaine seems grateful."
Unfortunately, as Kate had learned in her patrol days, not all battered women were so pleased to have their husbands or boyfriends hauled off to jail.
He shrugged his wide shoulders. "I was just doin' my job. And although she's still struggling financially, at least the money she pulls in from this place isn't goin' up her no-good husband's nose anymore."
"Okay."
He glanced down at her. "Okay what?"
"You get points for that one."
He grinned. Put his arm around her shoulder. "That's a start. I think, chére, that this just might be the start of a beautiful friendship."
"Don't push your luck," she warned.
But she did not, Nick noticed with satisfaction as they left the restaurant, shrug off his touch.
14
THE FOG HAD ROLLED IN FROM THE RIVER, thick white clouds of moisture that gave the Quarter a mysterious, spooky feeling. It caused sounds to echo: Kate could hear the cheery calliope of a paddlewheeler out on the river, the shriek of a woman's laughter, a sweet, strangely lonely song from a tenor sax.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he moved his arm from around her shoulder to her waist.
"These cobblestones are tricky anytime. Worse in the dark. Worse yet, when the fog's in," he said. "Wouldn't want you tripping and messin' up that pretty face."
Although she was more than capable of taking care of herself, the night and the fog and the strange city had her feeling too much like one of those brainless heroines on the covers of those Gothic romances her mother had once devoured like chocolate truffles. The idiots who always seemed to go down into the basement to check out strange sounds with only a candle. Or who'd walk in the fog on the moors when a killer was on the loose. So she let his hand stay where it was.
More laughter floated by on the soft, moist air. Somewhere a dog barked.
"So," she said, "how far to the first shop?"
When he didn't immediately respond, Kate stopped walking.
"Broussard? How far away is it to the first Voodoo shop?"
He sighed heavily. Turned toward her. "Look, we need to talk about this."
She splayed her hands on her hips. "If by talking you mean where you tell me you're going to play the lone-wolf PI while I do my damsel-in-distress act and sit by a hotel phone waiting for you to call in with your report, there's no point in discussing it."
"It's Mardi Gras. Which means the shops in the Quarter will be filled with drunk tourists looking for some kin da forbidden thrill- Most of the ones in the Lower Ninth haven't reopened, and while there's probably some business going on out of selective homes here and there, they'd be hard for two white outsiders to find. We can tackle them in the morning. A few hours isn't going to make a difference."
"You were a cop long enough to know the forty-eight-hour rule," she argued. If a murder wasn't solved in the first forty-eight hours, chances were it never would be.
"Which we're already tipping over," he pointed out. "And you're not going to help anyone if you're too beat to think straight. How long has it been since you've had a decent night's sleep?"
Too long. Long enough she couldn't remember how it felt.
"I'll sleep once my sister's murderer is behind bars."
As she looked up into his frustrated gaze, she heard the clang of a streetcar, the distant whine of a motorcycle.
"Aw, shit!"
It happened so fast, even Kate, who'd worked for five years on the street before making detective, didn't have time to respond.
At the same time, everything slowed down, taking on a slow-motion, life-flashing-before-your-eyes, about-to-die feel.
A helmeted driver on a black motorcycle pulled up beside them. The muzzle of the pistol he was holding in his left hand flashed. There was the pop, pop, pop of gunfire, Nick dragged her to the ground and threw his body on top of hers.
"Don't move," he gritted, amazingly calm for someone who'd just been shot at. "Not a muscle." Twisting, he pulled out a cell phone and punched in 911.
"This is an emergency," he said when the dispatcher answered. "Shots fired." He was giving the cross streets and a description of the shooter when yet another bullet clanged off a stone wall just above them.
"And whatever you do, don't lift your head," he told Kate.
Lying on top of her, Nick's body was solid and warm and. . .aroused?
It couldn't be.
But it was.
And even worse, he wasn't the only one. She'd nearly been killed. Probably would have been if he hadn't somehow foreseen what was about to happen and pushed her to the ground. She should be thanking her lucky stars she was alive.
That's what she should be doing.
Unfortunately, while her mind was scrambling to figure out what the hell had just happened, her body, imprisoned between Nick and the damp cobblestones, was betraying her by thinking how solid—and oh, wow, how unbelievably good—his erection felt pressing against her.
"We've got a drive-by shooting," Nick told the dispatcher with a calm that, if she hadn't been a cop herself, Kate would have found amazing.
Thankfully, he seemed unaware of his body's reaction. And better yet, he also appeared oblivious of her unbidden response.
"Send a car now."
Too late. The motorcycle took off, disappearing into the night with an earsplitting whine that reminded her of the Jet Skis that raced around Lake Michigan every summer.
