by JoAnn Ross
"Yeah."
"Oh." For some reason that was disappointing. "What happened?"
"It didn't work out."
Once again he was proving a master at withholding information. "I figured that much out for myself."
"You asking as a client? Or as a lovely woman I happen to be sharing a romantic river cruise with?"
"I said it was nice. I wouldn't exactly call it romantic."
"That's because it's daylight. Maybe once we get this case wrapped up, we'll come back at night." He casually slipped a companionable arm around her shoulder, as if it had every right to be there. Oddly, it felt as it if did. "The city lights are real pretty from the water. And stealing a kiss beneath a magnolia moon is a time-honored tradition among New Orleans lovers."
"Sounds as if those lovers are doing something wrong if they have to steal the kiss." Her tone was a great deal drier than the weather. "However, you're overlooking one thing."
"What's that?"
"We're not lovers."
"That can be remedied easily enough."
Having always believed that the best defense was a ttrong offense, Kate turned toward him to assure him that was not going to happen, then realized she'd made h tactical mistake when his hand slid down her arm and lettled at her waist.
She was now toe to toe, chest to chest with him.
"Look, there's something you need to get straight."
"What's that?"
"I'm not going to sleep with you."
He had the audacity to flash her a roguish, bold pirate's grin. "Well, now, Detective Chère, if you want the unvarnished truth, sleeping wasn't exactly what I had in mind."
She choked back a laugh. He really was impossible.
Impossibly sexy. Impossibly appealing.
"Do you have a pen?"
He reached into a pocket of his black leather bomber Jacket and pulled out a blue ballpoint advertising Ship Shape Boat Repair.
"Fine. Then write this down. We are not going to have sex. It's not professional. And while I realize the Idea is undoubtedly difficult for you to wrap your male mind around, I'm not interested."
"Okay."
It was really difficult to keep her mind on the subject when his hand was creating such heat at her waist and he was playing with her hair—which was springing loose from the clip at the nape of her neck again—idly twining it around a long, dark finger.
"Okay?" She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "That's it?"
"Change your mind already?"
"No," she said through gritted teeth. "I haven't changed my mind. I'm just wondering why you're being so agreeable all of a sudden."
"I thought I'd been agreeable all along."
"Obviously we have a different definition of the word," she said over the loud blast of the ferry's horn, signaling their arrival in Algiers.
"Come to bed with me and I'll show you exactly how agreeable I can be."
The slow, deep drawl lapped against the ramparts of her defenses like a river threatening the levee. Heaven help her, the idea of sex with Nick was far too appealing. And as much as she hated to admit it, she wanted him.
So what? She'd always prided herself on being able to distinguish want from need; otherwise she'd be eating chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and ice cream as an in-between-meals snack. A wise woman, one who knew the meaning of self-control, could refrain from giving in to her every craving.
She shifted away. Just a little, breaking the contactI between them. "I have a question."
He stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. "Shoot."
"Don't tempt me." She let out a huff of breath and kept her eyes on his. "You already told me I'm not your ltpe." And didn't that still irk her? "So why would you want me in your bed?"
"Actually, if you want to get technical, it doesn't have to be a bed. In fact, watching you eat that beignet this morning, I had this idea—"
"Now, see, that just goes to my point," she snapped. "I've always been good at reading people. I've had to be, because sometimes a cop's life depends on it . . . But here's the thing ... I don't understand you."
"There's not that much to understand. I'm just a normal guy, chère. With normal urges. When I see a sexy, good-looking woman, I want her. Simple as that."
"And you always get everything you want?"
"Not always." He began playing with her silky hair again.
"But most of the time."
"You make that sound like a bad thing."
"Hey, your life is your business." She shrugged. "But I'm a bit more selective."
"I guess that means you don't want to hear the dream I had last night about you and me in the shower on The Hoo-yah—"
"That's it." She put up a hand like a traffic cop. "And because I don't want to have to go to the trouble of walking my fingers through the Yellow Pages to find a new PI, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
She turned and marched away.
As he followed her very fine ass down the stairs to where he'd parked the rental car on the deck, Nick tried to figure out what it was about the woman that had him responding like a horny sixteen-year-old kid hoping to get laid for the first time.
She was undeniably stunning, with her mass of fiery I hair, flashing cat eyes, long, slender body, and legs he couldn't stop imagining wrapped around his waist as he pressed her against the tiled wall of his shower for some blazing-hot, wet, and slippery full-penetration sex.
But he'd known other women just as beautiful. Some even more so, and hell, hadn't Desiree looked just like her? Or at least Kate was what Desiree must've looked like before that plastic surgery.
She was smart as a whip, too. Brains and beauty were a major turn-on in any woman; toss in a mystery and some danger, and he'd be forced to worry about his masculinity if he didn't want to do her.
But it went deeper than that, dammit. He liked her. Liked her spunk and admired the way she'd overcome the mess her family must've been. And he could empathize with how difficult it must have been for her to do it on her own. Sure, she might've gotten lucky when that cop and his wife took her in, but she'd done all the heavy lifting on her own.
He was also impressed by her integrity, testifying against those crooked cops, even though she'd been surprisingly naive not to realize how much trouble it was going to get her into. As he thought about the death threats she'd received back home in Chicago, and remembered all too vividly how his blood had gone cold when he'd seen that unmistakable red laser spot on her breast, he experienced an overwhelming urge to protect her.
And to do that, to get enough evidence to put LeBlanc and his goons behind bars, he had to keep a clear head. If he kept allowing himself to get distracted by the sexy, sweet-smelling cop, they could both end up dead.
25
AS DETERMINED AS SHE WAS TO FIND HER sister's murderer, Kate was still charmed as they drove off the ferry.
"That's the courthouse," Nick said when she shared her appreciation of a Moorish-looking building with twin crenellated turrets. "It's the third-oldest continually serving courthouse in the state, going back to 1896. There was another one that stood here in the same place, but it burned down in the big fire of 1895 that pretty much devastated the Point, which is why most of the older houses are double shotguns constructed during the rebuilding.
"The place itself goes back to the original land grant that gave New Orleans to Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. Slave auctions were held here, the French built a huge slaughterhouse, and then, in the eighteen hundreds, most of the people worked in the dry docks, which are still going, the lumber mills, or the iron foundries.
"Later jazz became a huge draw to get people coming across 'da river,' as they called it; and, of course, along with the musicians came the clubs, and a red-light district sprung up to service the sailors and the men who'd come across the river to listen to music, do some drinking and a bit of gambling, and top the evening off with a roll in the hay."
"Wine, women, and song."
"Always a popular combination," he agreed.
"Even these days, if what you said about Tara's true."
"Oh, it's true enough," he said as they passed a large, Gothic-style church just as the bells in the tall square lower chimed the hour.
"It really is lovely," she said as they drove through the neighborhoods of pastel-painted homes. Every so often they'd pass a Victorian with lacy gingerbread detail, or a stately Greek Revival with white pillars, homes that had apparently survived the fire.
"Algiers is one of the best-kept secrets in New Orleans," he said. "And I suspect the folks who live here want to keep it that way. Though, given that so much of the city's unlivable, and Algiers was the only part that didn't flood, they may find themselves growin' faster than they'd like.
"Another problem they've got is that it's not just good guys moving in. Like a lot of parts of the city, it's got some iffy, more and more lawless areas."
"And one of those iffy areas is where we're headed?"
"Stands to reason a guy dabbling in black magic wouldn't exactly live next door to the church."
Although the forecast had called for the rain to let up in the afternoon, to Kate it seemed to be coming down harder. A companionable silence, not unlike the earlier one on the ferry, settled over them, the falling rain and rising fog making the situation seem more than a little intimate.
"Have you been here before?" she asked as he pulled up in front of a building.
The sign read MAIT' CARREFOUR'S HOUSE OF MOJO; the stark red-and-black paint job was a contrast to the pretty pastels of so many of the other houses they'd driven past. "Nope." He cut the engine.
"How did you find it so easily?"
He shrugged. "I pretty much have books of maps in my head. Once I know where I need to be, I can see how to get there."
"That's quite a talent." She also suspected it came in handy when sailing. Especially if he was serious about sailing to Alaska and Mexico.
He shrugged. "I didn't really do anything to acquire ; it, it's just a quirky gift, though it did come in handy on missions. There were guys who'd accuse me of being a mole with a GPS."
"Not exactly flattering, but I get the idea. Though moles are underground."
"SEALs tend to work at night. So I guess they were going with the blind image."
"Got it." She nodded absently as she glanced around the neighborhood. "I'm used to mean streets, but Tara must have really been upset to come here at night."
"It's not every day a person goes looking for black-magic spells. Even here in New Orleans."
Kate's senses were overwhelmed the moment she stepped into the shop. Like all the others she and Nick had been in, it was cluttered to the point of distraction. Kate decided that was not only part of the ambience but some sort of Voodoo version of feng shui, the difference being that the latter was all about balance, and this, to her unpracticed eye, was all about chaos.
Oddly, although the colors were as jarringly bright as they'd been in the other shops, the mood wasn't anywhere near as cheerful. In fact, she thought as she took in a wall hanging featuring a malevolent-looking, hunchbacked figure with three horns sprouting from his head, it was downright depressing.
"That's Bossu," a tenor voice came from behind her.
Surprised, she spun around and saw a man coming out of the shadows across the room. She would have expected a dark magician, especially one who specialized in Haitian-based Voodoo, to be, well . . . dark. But if he'd had a long white beard instead of this goatee, he could Ve gotten a job standing in for Santa at the mall.
His hair was a wisp of snowy white, his cheeks brightly pink in a remarkably smooth face, his eyes a light, clear blue. Rather than a hooded robe, he was wearing a red and black tropical-print Hawaiian shirt, white cotton slacks, and ... Birkenstocks?
"Bossu serves Mait' Carrefour."
"Would that be you?" Kate asked.
His double chin jiggled when he laughed. "No, Mait' Carrefour is the god of the underworld, a magician who rules the night and to whom all requests for dark magic must be made. You might call him the godfather of the dark pantheon."
"Which would make Bossu a demon henchman," Nick suggested.
"That's certainly one way of putting it. Not entirely accurate, but colorful nevertheless. Bossu's often perceived as a three-horned bull, the horns standing foil strength, wildness, and violence."
"Sounds like an uplifting guy," Kate said. Was that actually a petrified cat looking down at them with unblinking, glassy yellow eyes from an overhead shelf?
"Violence often serves a purpose or makes a point. Didn't the Bible tell us that Jesus overturned the money changers' booths in the temple? Wasn't Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt? And let's not forget God; sending down that forty-day flood. Not to mention his more recent work."
"You believe Katrina was God's work?"
"No. I, and many others on both sides of the issue, can clearly see Bossu's fingerprints—"
"Or hoofprints," Nick interjected dryly.
"Or hoofprints," the man agreed with a disparate cheerfulness, "all over that catastrophe."
He held out a soft, pudgy hand that looked as if it had never done a day's physical work. "I'm Jean-Renee Bertrand, proprietor of Mait' Carrefour's House of Mojo. And you would be ... ?"
"Nick Broussard." Nick didn't exactly look thrilled by the prospect, but he shook the other man's extended hand. "And this is—"
"Desiree Doucett's twin, obviously," Bertrand said. Blue eyes twinkled as he took Kate's hand and lifted it lo his lips, "It's a pleasure, mademoiselle."
"I'm Kate Delaney," Kate introduced herself. It took restraint not to shiver as those moist pink lips touched her skin. "So you knew my sister?"
"Of course." If he was at all offended by the speed with which she snatched back her hand, his benign smile didn't show it. "Voodoo tends to be an insular community. Plus, New Orleans is very much a small town."
"So everyone keeps telling me. Look, Mr. Bertrand—"
"Oh, please call me Jean-Renee, dear," he said. "We're very informal here."
"Okay. So, Jean-Renee, Mr. Broussard and I are here to ask you some questions about my sister."
"A tragedy," he said. "What happened to her."
"So you've heard she's dead?"
"As I said, we're all very connected, both the light and the dark." He shrugged his well-padded shoulders. "News gets out."
Kate exchanged another glance with Nick and knew they were on the same wavelength. Only last night, Téo, if she could be believed, hadn't known of Tara's death. Apparently, the woman who'd seemed so shaken by the tragic news hadn't waited to share it.
"I suppose so," she said. "It was suggested that you might have been one of the last people to see her alive."
"Was it?"
Okay. So he wasn't going to be as cheerfully cooperative as he'd first appeared. "Yes, it was also suggested that she may have come here looking for ingredients to perform black magic."
"Diab oil and St. Expedit root," Nick elaborated.
"Yes, she was here last Sunday evening. And she did purchase those things. Along with some others."
"Did she say what she wanted them for?"
"Of course. As an oungan, or priest, part of my responsibility, along with acting as a spiritual intermediary between the lwa and my people, is to serve as a psychological advisor and all-around advisor.
"I could not have properly advised Desiree had I not known what problem was bedeviling her."
Bedeviling being the definitive word.
"What was her problem?"
"Someone was trying to kill her."
His mild, matter-of-fact tone while discussing potential murder was every bit as chilling as that mail-carrier-eating serial killer's had been. Kate had to resist rubbing her arms as her blood went cold.
"Do you happen to know who that someone might be?"
"No. She chose not to share that information."
/> "Did you believe her claim?" Nick asked.
Bertrand shrugged again. "It was enough that she believed it."
"I guess the spell didn't work all that well," Kate said. She hated this guy who was as much a charlatan as her own mother. "Given that she's dead."
"The lwa often act in mysterious ways."
"Yeah, I've heard that, too," Kate said, unable to tell if he was being ironic or serious. "Did it occur to you that perhaps you ought to advise her to get additional help?"
"From whom?" he asked. "The police?" Left unstated but hovering heavily in the incense-scented air was the question: In this city? "Even if she had been able to get someone to listen to her, the police department has more important things to do than act as bodyguards for any single citizen."
"Granted, but it seems that as her spiritual advisor"—Kate heaped an extra helping of scorn on that description—"you could have done something more positive than increase my sister's paranoia and depression by suggesting her answer lay in black magic."
He sighed. Heavily. The benevolent Kris Kringle face pevealed annoyance.
"Black magic does not necessarily cause negative emotions. On the contrary, I've seen more discord coming from those who loudly proclaim to anyone who'll listen that they're white magicians.
"It's the white magicians, after all, who are out to save the world, to force their ideas of harmony, love, and balance on the universe."
"Gotta hate love and harmony," Nick said.
"I have nothing against those who attempt to become harmonious and loving within. It's not my way, but I also believe everyone must have the right to follow his or her own spiritual path. So long as they do not try to impede others from doing the same thing.
"It's the white-light meddlers who wage war against everything and everyone they don't like who cause the problems.
"It's naive to worship, as they do, balance in all things. This, by definition, gives equal power to those dark forces, such as death. Black magic advances life over death, seeing death as something that must be defeated for the sake of the living.
"The left-hand way, which I follow, involves looking around our world with clear eyes, with intelligence and wisdom, and seeing what is right and what is wrong. Black magicians take responsibility for each and every action and, equally as important, each and every inaction we take.
