by JoAnn Ross
"The idea of karma, so espoused by white magicians, is, if you'll excuse my profanity, bullshit. It's an opiate for the powerless, how they trick themselves into believing that those who have harmed them will somehow get their due."
He looked up at Nick. "You were in the military, were you not?" On a roll, he did not wait for a response. "Imagine where our world would be if our government had just sat back during World War Two, and said, 'Oh, dear, that evil man Hitler is gassing millions of innocent people, but attacking him back will create more imbalance in the world, so the best way to handle it is to sit back and wait, and hopefully, he'll receive his just rewards in the afterlife.'
"Or if we'd just said, 'Naughty Japan for bombing all our ships and attacking our sailors. You pissed us off with that one, but we're feeling very balanced because karma's going to take care of you, by golly.' "
"That's overstating the point, but I get where you're coming from," Nick said.
Kate could tell Nick was uncomfortable agreeing with anything Bertrand was saying. And wasn't that just like a sociopath to find the one inarguable fact to build his entire position upon? She'd seen Antoinette do exactly the same thing time and time again.
"But," Nick continued, "there's no way you're going to get me to condone revenge killings or vigilantism."
"We need to stand up for ourselves. And protect what we hold dear," Bertrand claimed. "Because the truth is, no one needs to give the devil his due. He just takes it."
He turned back toward Kate. "That's why I gave your I win the herbs and charms necessary to wage war against i hose who had already declared it on her. It was no different from giving her a gun or sending her to self-defense I raining to learn how to physically protect herself."
"You mean you sold her the charms."
"You don't need to make it sound as if I were pushing drugs or dealing in white slavery," he said, clearly affronted. "I sold nothing illegal. Unlike other members of the clergy, we ougans don't draw salaries. Yet, like l hose others, we have often trained all our lives for the priesthood and it's our full-time job. Just as the relationship between the people and the lwa is one of give and take, so is that between devotee and priest. Followers of our religion understand that."
Even if you're too stupid to get it. He didn't say the words, but Kate heard him loud and clear.
"May I give you a little personal advice?" he said.
"Sure."
Kate wasn't interested in anything this man might have to say that wasn't germane to her investigation, but she'd learned that sometimes, if you just let a person talk, some valuable bit of information would slip out.
"You must make sure that you honor your twin more properly in her death than you did during her life. She is, after all, a marasa now and it's quite possible that she's angry at you for not protecting her."
If he was looking to prick her conscience, he'd just hit a bull's-eye. Of course, he wasn't telling Kate anything she hadn't been telling herself since Detective Landreaux's call.
"That would've been a little difficult to do. Since I didn't even know she was living in New Orleans." Kate's tone sounded defensive to her own ears. "Or that she was in trouble."
"Some might suggest you should have known. Given that you were twins." His smile had chilled considerably, lacking even an iota of warmth. "Two sides of the same soul. Light." He lifted his right hand, palm up. "And, of course, Desiree would have been the dark." The left. "Together you make up the balance all those damn white-magic practitioners are always seeking."
When he took off on another lengthy diatribe about how his way was the true way, Kate didn't need a crystal ball to see that the only thing he was willing to talk about was the so-called superiority of his crazy woo-woo Voodoo religion.
She might have stayed to press him further, but she had the very strong impression that the unpleasant man really only knew what he was telling her: that someone had threatened Tara and she'd been desperate for help.
"What a fun guy," Kate muttered twenty minutes liter as she and Nick stood again at the window of the ferry that was making its return trip across the river. "Santa Claus meets Alice Cooper. With a bit of Rosemary's Baby thrown in."
"New Orleans has always been known for its originals," Nick said. "Though the guy's admittedly a piece of work. But I didn't get the impression that he knew any more about what Tara was afraid of than he told us."
Just as he had on the first trip, he slipped an arm .iround her shoulders. Kate knew she was giving him mixed signals, but it felt too good to shake off.
"I had the same feeling," she said. Outside, the fog was rising off the river, so thick and so white it was like looking out the window into a cloud bank. "Though, if he did know who was after her, he might not tell us, because then, if she was hurt, and the attacker wasn't smote by the black spell, it'd show what a fraud Voodoo hotshot Jean-Renee Bertrand really is."
"I take it you don't believe in Bertrand's black magic?"
"I don't believe in any magic, black or white."
Kate had had a great many of her bedrock beliefs turned upside down recently, but about this she was on firm ground.
"So, I guess I wasted my money on that bottle of Love Potion Number Nine."
"I guess you did." A smile tugged at her mouth. Tired of fighting it, fighting him, she let it go free.
"Oh, Jesus." He splayed a hand against his chest, over his heart, and staggered against the window. "I think maybe we oughta stop by the ER on the way back to the house."
"What's wrong?"
"I feel a fever comin' on."
She lifted the back of her hand to his forehead when she realized it was just an act. "Real cute, Broussard."
He caught her hand on the way back down, laced their fingers together, and drew her closer with just that light touch. "You ever see a lightning bolt?"
"Of course."
"Come out of a clear blue sky?"
"Not that I recall."
"Well, that's pretty much how I felt when you flashed that smile at me. I swear, sugar, it was enough to bring any man with blood still flowing in his veins to his knees."
The compliment shouldn't have given her so much pleasure.
It shouldn't have.
But, dammit, it did.
"It was just a stupid smile."
She tried to remember the last time a man had looked at her the way Nick was looking at her. With both hot lust and easy humor in his eyes.
"And the Mona Lisa is just a painting. And the Hope diamond is just a chunk of coal. And the ..."
His voice dropped off as he glanced past her, over her shoulder. "Hell."
He muttered a French phrase that Kate couldn't understand. At the same time, he cupped her chin in his fingers and treated her to a warm, melting, lover's gaze.
"What's wrong now? I swear, Broussard, if this is another of your seduction ploys—"
"We've got company." His eyes were warm as they roamed her face. His voice was low, but edged with warning.
"Oh?" She'd been a cop long enough not to turn around. But every nerve ending in her body went on red ..lert. "Who?"
"Remember when you said something about my bruises and I told you that you should see the other guy?"
His thumb stroked her lip. To anyone watching, they'd appear to be merely two lovers caught up in each other, oblivious to the world around them.
"You first lied and said something about running into a door."
Wanting to do her part, she played along by lifting her hand to his shoulder. And tried not to notice that even as serious as things had suddenly become, that feathery caressing touch was still leaving sparks.
"But yeah, sure, I remember," she said.
It had, after all, only been yesterday. Which was actually amazing, since she felt as if she'd been here in New Orleans for much, much longer.
"Well," Nick said, "you're about to get the opportunity."
26
"OKAY," HE SAID, CONTINUING TO LOOK DOWN at her as
if wishing he could drag her off to the nearest bed, "here's what we're going to do."
He nuzzled her neck, his mouth next to her ear. "We're going to make our way over to the stairs."
"I can do that."
"Then after a few steps, I'm going to kiss you. Like that's the reason we left. To find some privacy."
"Okay." Her blood was pumping hot and fast in her veins. Partly from adrenaline, but also, she had to admit, from the prospect of kissing him again.
"Then you're just going to hold on to my hand and stay close. Unless bullets start flying. If that happens, I want you to take cover and do whatever the hell you need to do to stay safe."
"While you're fighting off the bad guys like Davy Crockett at the Alamo?" She turned her head, pressed her lips against his jaw. "So, Kemo Sabe, what ever happened to teamwork?"
"Every team needs a leader."
She touched his face. He truly had a beautiful face, even with those bruises, which were beginning to yellow. "Which would be you?"
"The logical leader in this situation"—he braceleted her wrist with his fingers, turned her hand, and planted a kiss in the center of her palm, creating a spark she felt nil the way to her toes—"is the person who's actually had combat experience."
And that was what they were talking about, Kate realized. Combat didn't necessarily take place only in the jungles or Middle East deserts. It could happen right here in American cities, with the collateral damage being civilians.
Such as her sister.
"Which would be you," she repeated, leaving off the question mark this time.
"Which would be me," he agreed.
Lacing their fingers together, he began leading her across the floor.
"Want to tell me what this guy looks like?" she murmured.
"Remember the TV show The Incredible Hulk?"
"Sure. Where poor Bill Bixby's Dr. David Banner would turn into Lou Ferrigno whenever he got mad."
"That's him. Think the Hulk. If he weren't green. But uglier."
"Well. At least he should be easy enough to spot." And hit, if the worst-case scenario occurred and they needed to shoot him.
"Do we have a plan?" she asked. "Or are you winging it, almighty leader?"
"There's always a plan. Since the odds of him just happening to be on this ferry at the same time as us are slim to none, I have to assume that he followed us.; Which means, despite my clever rent-a-Ford sleight of hand, he knows which car is ours."
"Makes sense."
"So, we're leaving it behind."
"We're walking off?"
Maybe Julia Roberts could escape that way in The Pelican Brief, but that movie had been fiction.
"Hell no. That kind of stuff only works in the movies."
Later, when she wasn't about to put her life on the line yet again, Kate was going to have to think about how, although just yesterday she wouldn't have believed it possible, she and Nick were often thinking the same thing.
"I know you've got this macho Superman image thing going. But in case you haven't noticed, neither one of us can really fly."
"It'll be okay," he assured her. Then he leaned down again, brushing a kiss against her temple. "Trust me."
As lovely as his lips felt on her forehead, Kate pulled her head back so she could look him straight in the eye. "I do."
And wasn't that a surprise.
They'd made it halfway down to the deck when Nick stopped.
"Wait a minute," he said, loudly enough for anyone following them to hear. "There's something I need to get out of my system."
With that, he yanked her against him and went in for the kill. So to speak.
Without wasting time with seductive preliminaries, he caught her chin in his hand and slammed his mouth over hers.
Even knowing it was coming, that it was merely an let, Kate wasn't prepared for the breath-stealing, teeth-grinding kiss that shot through them both like rocket fire.
Going up on her toes, straining against him, she opened her lips to the hard thrust of his tongue.
"Well," she said when they'd finally come up for air. "That almost makes running for our lives worthwhile."
"Stick with me, chère," Nick said as he put his arm around her, holding her close, shielding her from the Hulk, "and I bet we can do a whole lot better once we get back to the boat."
Tired of insisting they weren't going to have sex when they both knew it'd be a lie, Kate didn't say anything.
Outside, on the deck, the fog was thick and white and wet. If being at the window upstairs had been like looking into a cloud bank, this was like walking into one. It was wet and cold, and if Nick hadn't been holding her hand tight, Kate wasn't certain she'd even be able to see him.
Meanwhile, the rain continued, hammering on the deck and the roof of the cars, which in a way was a good thing, since it meant that the Hulk wouldn't be able to hear them. Of course, they wouldn't be able to hear him, either.
Nick led her through the double rows of cars to the front of the line.
"Since when did everyone on the planet decide to get a freakin' SUV?" he muttered.
"Interesting observation from a man who happens to drive the most humongous SUV on the planet," Kate murmured.
"I told you, it's all about image."
"Right."
"Don' worry, sugar," he assured her as they went around to the other side of the boat to try the cars over there. Kate still wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he definitely seemed to have something in mind. "You'll see soon enough I don't need to compensate for anything in that area."
He was openly displeased with the car parked at the front of that line.
"Damn. A minivan?"
"It's not an SUV."
"Just as friggin' useless," he muttered, moving down the line.
"How about this?" She pointed toward a tomato-red Toyota Corolla.
"It'll do, if push comes to shove, but . . . Hooyah, baby."
He stopped beside a large white BMW four-door sedan with a gold package, pulled out his handy-dandy lock-pick set, and within seconds had the trunk open.
"Milady, your carriage awaits."
"We're going to get in the trunk?"
"Well, I was thinking about just settling down in the bock and enjoying the comfy soft-as-a-baby's-bottom leather seats and spacious legroom. But then I decided that there was an outside chance that just maybe the driver might notice us."
"But what's going to keep us from suffocating?" she nsked as she climbed in, grateful he'd managed to find one with a relatively roomy interior.
"This model's only a year old. It'll have a safety release," he assured her as he joined her in the trunk. "I've been here, done this, in Azerbaijan."
He pulled the trunk lid closed, plunging them into darkness.
"Azerbaijan?" German technology seemed all it was cracked up to be; the seal was so tight, the only light came from the illuminated yellow release handle. "I don't want to know, do I?"
"No." Nick took out his key chain, attached it to the handle, and pressed on a small flashlight, which brightened things up a bit. "You don't."
Obviously there were several variations of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. And she'd just bumped into a SEAL one, having already figured out that even if she did ask, Nick wouldn't tell.
The BMW's trunk might have been far more roomy than the red Toyota's, but those engineers definitely hadn't designed it to hold two adults. They were pressed together like the proverbial sardines in a can, not that Nick was complaining.
Christ, she smelled good! Robert Duvall might lovej the smell of napalm in the morning, but Nick would take the fresh, clean scent of Kate Delaney's hair any morning. Or afternoon. Or night. Especially night.
"The Hulk's going to be furious when he finds out he's lost us," she said. He could hear how pleased she was about that.
"Not as furious as LeBlanc's gonna be."
"You're sure he's the one who sent the Hulk?"
"Believe me, c
hère. I'm sure." And didn't he have thel bruises to prove it?
"Is that your phone in your pocket," Kate drawled in a damn fine version of Mae West's comment to Cary Grant, I as Nick's phone vibrated, "or are you just happy to see me?"
"A little of the first, a whole lot of the second."
He rolled a bit to his side, managed to squeeze his hand between them—which allowed him to cop an accidental but not unpleasant feel that had his gut tangling in a knot of sexual awareness—pulled his vibrating cell phone off his belt, and checked out the illuminated display.
"Hey, Remy." Not wanting to alert the Hulk, in case the thug was walking between the cars, searching for them, Nick kept his voice low, as close to a whisper as he could without giving his former partner cause to wonder what the hell was going on.
"Hey, Nick," the familiar voice said. "I've got soma news for your client. Is she there?"
"Damn. We've got really bad reception here. Is it urgent? Or can I call you back when I get in better tower range?"
"Sure, it'll wait, but—"
"Thanks, cher. Talk to you in five."
Nick closed the phone.
"What is it?"
When that sexy breath in his ear had him wondering ibout the chances of a trunk quickie, Nick decided he was now not only in quicksand, he was on the verge of sinking in over his head.
"I don't know." He turned his head, putting them nose to nose. Tilting his head ever so slightly, he made it lips to lips. "He said he had news."
"Good or bad?"
God. Her breath was sweet from the sugary beignets she'd eaten. And warm. The thought of those sweet, silky lips on his body, moving down his chest, over his stomach, which was knotting even tighter at the fantasy, then lower still, taking him deep, nearly undid him.
"Didn't say."
He might be a SEAL. But he was also a man. A flesh-and-blood horny man who couldn't resist plucking at those amazing lips.
"Remy's always been one to hold his cards close to his chest, he."
Not wanting to accidentally, leave the phone behind when they bailed, Nick managed to clip it back onto his belt. Which, speaking of chests, involved getting his hand between their bodies again.
