Madam Temptress

by Meghan March

  “Either he didn’t call it at all, or he called it from another phone,” Trey says.

  “Like a disposable?”

  Moses’s handsome head bobs. “Yeah. There are certain things you don’t want attached to your account, and that could be one of them.”

  “Our boy Ricky didn’t have too many friends,” Trey says, seeming unimpressed. “He’s got a dozen numbers saved. Only five text conversations. No one named Tony.”

  “Any names catch your eye?”

  “Fuck no. Homeboy didn’t like to use real names—or he didn’t know them. We’ve got Popeyes Ho, Bar Bitch, Landlord, Pizza Face, and White Christmas.”

  “Search the landlord’s number,” Moses says, frustration written all over his face. “Figure out where he lives. We could find more there.”

  “On it.”

  Hearing Trey didn’t find a Tony seems like another dead end, and it’s weighing on me. If nothing comes of this whole thing tonight, I haven’t the slightest idea of what to do next.

  Moses comes back to me, wraps an arm around my shoulders, and pulls me against his side. “We’ll find him. We’re just getting started on this stuff. It’ll be okay, mama. I won’t stop until it’s done.”

  I sigh, feeling some comfort, but I’m frustrated as hell. I want all this shit over so I can figure out what the fuck is going to happen with my life now that Moses is back in it. But as long as this guy is out there, I’m living in limbo, and I don’t like it one bit.

  Instead of stewing on it, I dig into the pile of garbage on the table, helping Jules sort more of the Popeye’s receipts by location and tossing the losing scratch-off lottery tickets aside.

  I grab the vehicle registration slip and check the address. I don’t know where it is, and I usually pride myself on knowing New Orleans pretty well. Picking up my phone, I type the address in to see if I can determine where it is. The map on my phone brings up an industrial area.

  “This address can’t be right. It looks like a factory or something over there.”

  Moses glances up from the phone in Trey’s hand. “Address must be bogus, just like on his license. Too bad the DMV doesn’t check shit like that.”

  I slump forward, defeated again. “How are we going to find out where he lives then?”

  “I’ve got his phone. One second,” Trey says, tapping the screen a few times. “Which means I have his GPS location history. I’ll see if he used his home address to get directions to anywhere . . .”

  A few minutes later, Trey grins. “And . . . bingo. The most-used starting address in his GPS history is an apartment complex about five miles away.”

  Finally something. Excitement floods me. “We going?”

  Moses shakes his head. “Not tonight. It’s way easier and safer to break into a place during the day when most everyone’s at work.”

  I stretch my neck and knead the knot forming there. “You sound like you know plenty about it.”

  He shoots me a sideways smile. “This ain’t our first rodeo. Sometimes . . . shit gets crazy in our line of work, but we gotta do what we gotta do.”

  “All right, there is nothing on a Tony or Anthony in this phone. He could be one of these nicknames, though. I just have no clue which fucking one.”

  “Is there a Ghost?” I ask, partly joking and partly not, because that’s what this new fucking asshole really feels like now.

  “Not one of those either. Sorry, Mags. I’ll find something, though. Just give me more time to work my magic.”

  An hour later, all we know for sure is where Ricky lived, that he watched a fuck-ton of porn on his phone, and he really fucking liked knives. His eBay purchase history was full of antique ones and crazy blades. What we didn’t find is any evidence of family who might be out for revenge, and I have to admit that I’m disappointed as hell.

  To distract myself, I check my cell, hoping to find a text from Desiree. She promised she’d check in when she refused to leave with the girls who were all thrilled to be getting paid to head to Gulf Shores and lie on the beach, but I haven’t gotten anything from her yet tonight.

  I shoot her a message, reminding her to let me know when she gets it so I can stop worrying about her. When the telltale bubble with the dots doesn’t pop up immediately, I set the phone aside and lay my head across my arms on the table.

  Moses notices immediately. “All right, mama. I’m taking you to bed. Time for you to crash.”

  I hate being the weakest link, but the past few days have worn me down. Arguing, I murmur, “You’re not done.”

  “I know, but you are. No need to stay awake and fuck with this shit. You need sleep. You don’t get enough as it is. Come on.”

  He holds out a large, inviting hand. I take it, letting him help me rise from the table.

  “I can stay awake for days at a time, Moby. I’m no wilting flower here.” I would have sounded a lot more convincing if I didn’t yawn mid-sentence.

  Moses’s eyes go soft. “I bet you can, mama. You’re as tough as gator jerky, but even badasses need to get sleep when they can.”

  “Fine. Only because I want to and not because you’re telling me to.” I lumber a few steps, my feet heavy. “Night, guys,” I call to Trey and Jules as I walk toward the hallway.

  “Night, Mags,” Trey replies.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” Jules says with a chin lift. “I’ll have coffee on around six.”

  “That’s too fucking early,” I say with a shudder.

  Jules’s laughter follows us down the hall.

  When we reach the bedroom, Moses pushes the door open and then shuts us inside.

  I turn around and let my head rest on his chest. “Please tell me we’re going to find this guy.”

  He smooths my hair away from my face and curls his palm around the back of my neck. “We’re gonna find him. This’ll all be over soon.”

  I raise my head to gaze up into those green-gold eyes. “And then what happens?”

  “You mean with us?”

  I’m too tired to nod, but my brows lift to answer.

  “You decide what kind of life you want, and I’ll figure out how to give it to you.”

  I blink twice. “It can’t be that easy.”

  He holds my chin up with his thumb and index finger. “It can be as easy as you want it to be. I wasn’t telling tales when I said I came back to put a ring on your finger, mama. You and me, this is permanent. I’m not letting you go again or walking away. I want you in my life and by my side every day.”

  “What if I want to stay here in NOLA? Will Mount let you?”

  Moses’s jaw tightens. “You leave him to me. But know this—no one is standing in the way of us being together. Not now and not ever fucking again. Not even Mount.”

  More than anything, I want to believe what he’s saying. But even if Moses is wrong about Mount, I’ve got a trump card. “If he gives us trouble, I’ll get Keira involved. If she knows this is what I need to be happy, then she won’t let him fuck with it, because I haven’t had a lot of that in my life.”

  Moses stares at me thoughtfully. “I’m gonna make it my life’s mission to give you as much happy as you can handle, mama. Mark my words, that’s what I aim to do.”

  I slide my arms around his waist and squeeze. “You’re already off to a good start. Now . . . if we could just get rid of the cop who wants to pin the murder on me and the guy who wants me dead, we’d be doing even better.”

  Moses presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m working on it. Now, you get some sleep. I’ll be back in later.”

  As I crawl into bed by myself, I can’t help but think about everything that’s gone crazy in my life since Moses showed up.

  My business is totally on hold, what’s left of my savings is taking a beating just to pay the bills, the house I worked so fucking hard to make my hidden sanctuary is already on the cops’ radar, the house I’m selling Desiree is being watched by the Feds, one guy has tried to kill me, and another is trying to
finish the job.

  Despite all that, I’m going to bed with a smile on my face.

  There’s gotta be something fucking wrong with me, I think as I pull the blankets up around my shoulders. And then I remember the reading Celeste did for me.

  Everything’s changing, and I just gotta get through to the good shit. Because that’s coming too.

  Twelve

  Moses

  “I’m coming with you,” Magnolia says with her hands on her hips and a mulish expression on her face.

  “Mama, I know you want to help, but this is something you need to stay clear of.”

  “Goddamn it, Moses. If I hadn’t been there at the impound lot, shit could’ve gone sideways. I can handle myself. I’m not some PTA mom who thinks she can get into robbing houses with no problem.”

  I can’t hold back my laugh at her example. “I know you can handle yourself. But it’s barely a two-man job, and there’s no need to put you at risk or chance giving Cavender more to investigate. You know I’m right.”

  Magnolia bares her teeth, and it takes everything I have not to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder, and take her back to bed for a repeat of the morning wake-up call I gave her.

  I lean down to nip at her lip. “I’d think you’d be less surly considering the orgasms you had this morning.”

  Her glare could cut me to ribbons. “I’ll be damned if you think dicking me down first thing in the morning will make it so you get your way for the rest of the day.”

  My laughter comes out in a booming burst. “Goddamn, woman. You’re so fucking perfect for me, I can’t even begin to tell you.” I school my expression into a sober one. “But you’re not going. My job, my rules. You stay with Trey and give him a hand. Jules and I have this.”

  Magnolia is pissed, but I can tell she’s finally going to concede when she rolls her eyes.

  “God save me from overbearing men who think they know best.”

  “God ain’t saving you from me, mama. You’re stuck with me.”

  I grab her hips and yank them toward me. She crosses her arms over her chest right before she collides with my body and I give her a deep kiss.

  “Be pissed at me if you want. I’m keeping you safe, and that’s not negotiable.”

  “Fine. But you gotta go by my old house and somehow not be seen by the Feds because Desiree still hasn’t checked in with me. I’m fucking concerned about her too.”

  “You got it. We’ll go in through the alley. I’ll tell her not to worry you like that again.”

  “I appreciate it,” Magnolia says, but she looks like she’s got a mouth full of sour grapes.

  I kiss her again anyway. “We’ll be back in a few hours.” Leaving her always feels like going against the grain, but this time it’s for the best.

  “You’d better let me know if you run into any trouble.”

  I throw a hand over my heart. “I promise.”

  With that, she finally kisses me back, and instead of it being hard and fast, she throws herself into it like it’s the last time she’ll ever kiss me. When she pulls away, I read the apprehension in her eyes.

  “Nothing’s gonna happen, mama. It’ll be quick. In and out. We’ll get answers, and be one step closer to putting this bastard in the ground so you never have to worry about him again. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

  Famous. Last. Words.

  “Someone’s already been here,” I tell Jules as we step into the living room of the apartment.

  “How do you know?” he asks, looking around for signs of life, but not finding any.

  I have absolutely no concrete reason to sense what I believe to be the truth, but I feel it in my gut. “Call it a hunch.”

  We walk through the apartment, which stinks like rotting garbage, and the first thing I notice is what’s not there. No photos. No knickknacks other than knives. Nothing personal. This was either a crash pad, or Ricardo just didn’t give a fuck.

  “This guy just ate and drank and collected knives, it looks like,” Jules says from the kitchen. Knowing how focused my right-hand man is on health and fitness, it’s no surprise how much he despises what we see around us.

  “I’ll take the bedroom. You dig through the shit in the living room. Maybe he’s got something there we’re missing.”

  We split off, and I start searching through the bedroom closet. I don’t give a fuck about the man’s clothes and shoes. I need something from his past. Anything we can use to track down who might have given enough of a fuck about him to be trying to find who killed him. Either someone loved him, or someone needed him for money. So, family or a partner.

  I flip the lids off his shoe boxes and only find shoes. At least, until I get to one on the very bottom of the stack in the far back corner.

  “Fuck yeah,” I mumble as I find a scattering of pictures on top of a few more knives.

  I rummage through the keepsakes until I find a photo with two boys in it. One is a foot taller than the other, but they look enough alike for me to guess they’re related. There’s nothing written on the back, so I can’t be sure, but I’m willing to stake some serious cash on the fact that Ricardo has a brother or a cousin.

  I tuck the entire box under my arm and back out of the pigsty of a closet. Quickly, I check the bathroom before returning to Jules. “Any leads?”

  He doesn’t seem too excited about anything and waves his hands around. “Got a couple books of matches, partially used, from the same bar. It’s a long shot, but maybe something.”

  It’s better than nothing. “Good enough. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Jules looks at the box under my arm. “You find something useful?”

  “I sure as fuck hope so.”

  At that moment, someone knocks on the door, and Jules and I lock eyes on each other. I point to the slider that leads out to a small ground-floor patio. Jules doesn’t hesitate, knowing the drill, and we move silently, slipping out of the apartment.

  As soon as we’re in the SUV, which was parked a block and a half away on a side street, I set the box on the floorboard. “Drive past the front of the apartment. I want to check out who the hell was knocking on the door.”

  “You got it, boss.” Jules turns the wheel and takes us past the building.

  We wordlessly look at each other when we see a patrol car parked across the street.

  “You think someone called the cops on us?”

  I shake my head. “Not sure, but I don’t fucking like it. Let’s get the hell out of here, swing by Mags’s old place, and then back to the house. Something about today just doesn’t feel right.”

  Thirteen

  Magnolia

  Moses and Jules don’t return to the house until about an hour after I expected them back. I’ve been helping Trey connect the dots, mapping out what we know of Ricardo’s life. So far, all we’ve got is he had a few fuck buddies, liked to party, ate like shit, and wasn’t a very good criminal.

  We found this last bit out by googling all the addresses he’d used his GPS to find.

  “So that house reported a foiled break-in, that one reported an attempted robbery, and this guy shot at someone in the dark who got away? Ortiz was the most piss-poor crook I’ve ever heard of.”

  “But he did manage to get lucky with this one,” Trey says, reading an article on his screen. “Husband found stabbed to death. Wife was arrested but later released when evidence didn’t support the cops’ theory that she was a suspect.”

  “Fucking Ricardo,” I say, checking the time again. I didn’t need to bother because the rumble of the SUV comes through the open slider door a moment later.

  Trey and I glance expectantly at each other. “They’re back,” we say in unison.

  I jump out of my seat, relieved Moses is finally home, because I’ve felt all sorts of unsettled since the minute he walked out the door. But when he walks in, my stomach twists into a knot at the expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He closes
his eyes for a beat before finally meeting my gaze. “Got some bad news, mama. You’re gonna want to sit down for it.”

  My entire body stiffens. “Why? What happened? Just tell me. You’re freaking me out right now.”

  Moses comes toward me and pulls me against him. “We went by your old place. The house.”

  “What? Is Desiree okay?” My heart thunders in my chest, and I hold my breath. When he just shakes his head, my heart catches in my throat. “Fuck. Fuck. Just tell me, Moses. My brain is going all over the place right now. Whatever you’ve got to say, it can’t be worse than what I’m imagining.”

  He dips his head forward, touching his forehead to mine. “It was bad, mama. We got in and out. Called the cops on an anonymous tip line.”

  A shudder works through his body, and fear floods my veins.

  “Jesus Christ. What happened to her?”

  Moses lifts his head away from mine, and then slowly shakes it back and forth. “You don’t want to know. But . . . she’s gone. It was him . . . and she’s fucking gone.”

  For the first time since this whole fucking thing started, tears stream down my face. “No!” I clench my hands into fists and pound them against Moses’s chest as agony rips through me. “No! This isn’t fucking fair! She didn’t do anything to anyone! What the fuck?”

  Moses holds me while I rage and cry and scream until my throat goes hoarse. When I tire myself out, he cups the back of my head and brings it against his chest.

  For several long moments, I stand there depleted, scared, and fucking livid.

  I suck in a snuffling breath. “What the fuck are we going to do? This has to end. We have to fucking end this. Desiree didn’t do anything. This shouldn’t have touched her. He’s gotta fucking die. I’m gonna fucking kill him myself.”

  My phone vibrates on the table, and Moses glances over at it. “Keira. You want to talk to her?”

  My body vibrates with aching wrath, and the last thing I want to do is dump it all on Keira. “I don’t know.”