Contact

by Evelyn Vaughn

  “No! I knew something shady was going on. I knew you were a test-tube baby. But genetically engineered? How could I guess that? Those awful people didn’t tell us anything.”

  “So you knew there were others?” Sisters. She had sisters!

  “When I went in for my pregnancy test, I saw another woman leaving. An African-American. She was older than me, tall and very beautiful, and the way she looked at me…It’s hard to explain, but we had a moment of connection. I had to wonder…”

  But Tamara didn’t tell Faith what she had to wonder. She just lowered her gaze to her hands and looked miserable. She’d been looking miserable since Faith had arrived with her accusations.

  But she hadn’t once looked shocked.

  Faith scrubbed a hand through her hair—and wondered if she’d inherited her hair from her dead mother or her nameless father. She needed to understand this. When in doubt, gather evidence. “How did you fake the pregnancy test?”

  “I paid a woman for her urine,” Tamara confessed. “I put it in a test tube, like a tampon, so that it would stay warm until I substituted it for my sample. That was the early 80s. Labs weren’t as suspicious then as they are now. I told them I’d gotten my period, that I was sure I wasn’t pregnant. They told me to stay in town anyway, just in case, but I knew our only hope was to run. So I ran.”

  “And left behind fifty-thousand dollars?”

  “I hadn’t done it for the money! Baby, you have to believe that. I’d been alone for so long. I wanted a baby so badly.”

  “Then why not do it the old-fashioned way?” A brief image of Roy Chopin flashed across Faith’s conflicted thoughts—Roy, and what they’d done together. She could tell that for him sex was definitely about recreation, not procreation. But surely it wouldn’t be that hard to trick a man, even someone as sharp as him. Provide her own condoms. Poke a few holes in them….

  “I was so confused,” moaned Tamara. “There were no men in my life, and I doubted finding one would make things any easier. I’ll admit, when I first answered the ad, I wasn’t sure what I would decide. But as soon as I began to feel my body changing, as soon as I knew you were alive, inside me…”

  Faith’s step slowed. She wanted to believe the yearning she heard in her mother’s voice. Her mother. At least Faith hadn’t been raised as some kind of killing machine in a laboratory, like Dawn had. At least she hadn’t been used by some master criminal under the guise of her supposed protector, like Lynn.

  You’re the only one of us who got to have that, Lynn had said.

  But how could that make up for all the secrets her so-called mother had kept from her?

  The ache threatened to overwhelm her. She started pacing again.

  “I suspected those doctors were up to no good,” said Tamara. “I was afraid they were dangerous. But the alternative would have been to let them have you, to let them have my baby.”

  “Not your baby. Lorraine Miller’s baby. Some man’s…” Her sisters hadn’t mentioned if they knew whose sperm had been stolen to create them. “Someone else’s egg, someone else’s sperm.”

  “My blood. My breath. My body to protect you. You became my baby even before your heart began to beat, and I decided right then, I wouldn’t let them have you.” Tamara’s chin came up. “And I don’t care who they send to turn you against me. I still won’t let them.”

  “It’s not your choice anymore,” Faith reminded her.

  “But it is still my business. You’re my business. You’re my daughter. It doesn’t matter what you inherited from those strangers. I raised you. I taught you.”

  “To lie,” Faith challenged. And look where that handy habit had gotten her…her and Madame Cassandra. “To lie, and to hide. Thanks a lot.”

  “It kept you safe.” Tamara was squeezing her hands, her eyes brimming with desperation.

  Faith turned toward the door, unable to take more of this. Not yet. Not now. “It kept me leashed.”

  Tamara took a deep breath. “You know where to find me, baby.”

  But Faith, her throat tightening with emotion, pushed back out into the humid Louisiana night.

  He didn’t like where she lived.

  He let Himself back into the shadowy courtyard—He could do that, after all. He could come and go like a ghost. He could do things that no one knew about. He was so powerful now, He even crept up the stone steps to the front door, to look in.

  But even though He was powerful, this was an apartment full of magic users themselves. So this time, after He peeked through the old-fashioned keyhole and didn’t see the one He was after, He crept back down again. Just in case.

  The Master had found Madame Cassandra. The Master wanted Him to take care of this one, before she destroyed him. And He wanted to do it, too. He thought He was powerful enough to take her, now.

  But that didn’t mean He must do it on her terms. Hers, or the Master’s.

  He would do it in His own time. In His own way.

  And once He’d stolen the life out of the greatest psychic in all the French Quarter—then not even the Master would be able to control Him.

  After that, anything He did for the Master would be a favor.

  Faith awoke and sat up in bed before she even understood why. For a moment, she felt only confusion. A few magazines, which she’d checked out from the library on her way home, slid off her sheets and onto the floor. They reminded her of what she’d learned, how much she still had to learn.

  Lorraine Miller Carrington. Scandal at Athena Academy.

  Had she really managed to sleep? She guessed the kind of day she’d had took its toll on a person’s strength. Even a genetically engineered superbeing.

  And it’s not as if she’d slept well. Waking dreams had tormented her, dreams of gang ambushes and secret laboratories and serial killers with red cords and distinctive heartbeats.

  But what had woken her now?

  Her bare feet hit the marble floor as soon as she recognized the footsteps climbing the stone stairway outside. She was down the hallway and across the dark den even before she heard the knock, uncharacteristically soft, on the front door.

  He only had to knock once before she had the door unlocked and open.

  Detective Roy Chopin’s eyes widened at her quick response. Other than that, he looked wholly contained. Competent. Ready.

  She could feel his exhaustion and his frustration with however his night had gone. She could also feel, as his gaze took in her boxers and camisole—and the legs and arms left bare—how quickly his exhaustion made way for a different kind of energy. He didn’t bother asking if she really meant her invitation to come by after shift. He didn’t explain how far after shift this was. He didn’t seem worried that he might appear too eager. He was just…here.

  For her. One way or another.

  One thing on their minds, she thought, relief making her giddy. Thank God.

  “So,” he said, lowering his voice for the sake of her roommates as he came in, closed the door and locked all three locks behind him. “The night’s crap. A domestic call that went bad. A mugging that went worse. No more frigging leads on who did Butch than we had yesterday, and every twenty-four hours they get colder. You know your gate was unlocked?”

  “No it wasn’t.” She grabbed his tie and tugged him in the direction of her bedroom. She walked backward. She wanted to watch him. He looked amused as he followed.

  “What, I’m not standing here? Start locking the damned gate.”

  “So what else was crap about the night?” It wasn’t that she wanted him to have had a bad night. But the sheer normalcy of it, contrasted against her last twenty-four hours, made for a welcome distraction.

  Almost as welcome as the heat of him, the presence of him, the scent of him trailing her across the den.

  “I’ve got a new partner, transferred in from Baton Rouge. Name’s Max. He doesn’t suck, but he’s not Butch, you know? What are you, Lucy Ricardo?” Now he was looking at the two twin beds while she shut her be
droom door behind them. “The innocence thing is refreshing, but damn.”

  Then she turned back, wrapped her arms up over his shoulders and stretched up on her toes in hopes of a kiss. “Want to shock the censors and push them together?”

  “That might be helpful, yeah.” Catching her against him, he covered her mouth with his. Along with his blunt scent and coffee taste and sexual energy, images flowed across her, more like a homecoming than an invasion. Domestic call. Mugging-turned-homicide. New partner—she loved that he was that straightforward. Exhaustion, rapidly fading to arousal. Concern for her. Suspicions about…

  Then she’d made it past the flash of impressions and into the zone. The intensity of his breath scorched her. The wet demand of his lips engulfed her. His grip on her—weaving into her hair, sliding up her spine under her camisole—electrified almost every nerve ending in her. She pressed, hard, against his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing and the solidity of his body. She wanted him surrounding her, touching her, outside of her, inside of her, everywhere.

  She wanted him to make her forget.

  His tongue, filling her mouth, was a good start. She shuddered at the eager, demanding promise of him. Then she almost whimpered when he drew back, a smug gleam in his eyes.

  “You’re not big on wasting time, are you?” he asked, and he scooped her up and dropped her onto her bed. While she caught her balance on the bounce, he easily lifted the bed table out from between the two twins and stuck it in a corner. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the chair. Then, with one shove, he pushed Moonsong’s old bed across the floor to bump into Faith’s.

  From down the hall, Absinthe yelled, “Shut the hell up!”

  “Sorry,” Faith called back. But even if furniture moving was a bit much at this hour, she wasn’t really sorry at all.

  “We’re gonna be real popular,” promised Roy, laughter in his voice. He removed his belt holster and lay his weapon over the jacket.

  “So,” she prompted as he tugged his tie loose. She’d never realized watching a man undress could be this…riveting. “Crappy night.”

  “So Max and me are called to the old Charity hospital to talk to some gangbangers. We get there and the beat cop—first officer to respond—tells us, ‘they aren’t talking, but before everyone shut up, one guy let slip that some blond chick beat him up.’”

  Oh. Faith’s discomfort suddenly had less to do with wanting Roy to finish undressing and more to do with wanting to know how much he’d learned about today’s ambush. She didn’t want him to connect her to it. The ambush, and her sisters’ involvement, had too much to do with the rest of her day’s revelations.

  The ones she was trying to forget.

  She drew her knees up toward her chest, almost like a shield.

  “It’s déjà vu to the other day,” Roy continued, tossing the tie and starting on his shirt buttons. “Sure enough, the E.R.’s holding these three shining examples of America’s youth until we can talk to them. Turns out some woman called in a report about them being unconscious in an alley. But she did it anonymously.”

  Lynn, thought Faith. Or maybe Dawn. One of them must have called while she’d been busy at the vet’s. Despite her discomfort with how Roy was looking at her at the moment—a lot more like a cop than like a lover—she felt glad. She liked that her sisters had the presence of mind to make sure the guys in that alley got medical attention.

  “Dispatch sent a squad car to check it out,” Roy continued, shrugging out of his shirt now. He wore an undershirt, but she could see his chest hair over the top. She didn’t realize guys wore undershirts anymore. “Sure enough, someone beat down on these boys. But this time a weapon was used. That’s aggravated assault, which is why they called us. Max and me, we take over where the patrolmen stopped questioning them. Who’d they fight with? Do we maybe have some kind of gang war heating up? Like that. But they’re toughs. Now they aren’t talking, not even the guy who first said he’d been smacked down by a blonde.”

  Then Roy paused, belt unbuckled but pants still zipped, his gaze dark and direct. “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you, Bernie?”

  “I didn’t assault anybody, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “That’s heartfelt. Do you know something?”

  She didn’t want to lie to him. She was such a hypocrite, considering how she’d blamed her mom for secrets. Even one more, to Roy, would be several too many.

  She needed him. Tonight, at least. Now. If he left…

  But he had the right to leave. So she compromised and said, “Maybe?”

  He groaned, heartfelt—and sat on the expanded bed beside her.

  Still wearing his damned undershirt and pants.

  “This is serious, Faith,” he said. And it must be. It was the first time she’d heard him use her first name. “If they’re messing with you, you’ve got to file a complaint and get the bastards off the street. If you’re messing with them, I might end up having to arrest you, which would be damned embarrassing for everyone involved, meaning me.”

  Desperate now, Faith considered her options.

  She crossed her arms, caught the hem of her camisole and stripped it up over her head.

  Roy stared at her topless form for a long, silent moment. Then, with a wordless noise of defeat, he bent over her and caught her mouth with his. Lecture forgotten, his hands went to the distraction she’d offered, and she arched into his warm, callused touch.

  Yes.

  In only a moment, he’d lost the undershirt. He was lying on top of her and she was wrapping her legs around his waist, wrapping her arms around his incredible bare torso, doing everything she could to encourage his nonverbal attentions. She felt like she hadn’t touched him, much less kissed him, in weeks instead of hours. She felt like she’d been stretched to the breaking point from waiting. And now…

  Oh, now.

  Her whole life had changed. The normalcy of him, of this—despite the fact that this, too, was a new development in her life—meant a hell of a lot more than whatever some top-secret laboratory might have done to her before she was born.

  At least in the short-term.

  And for now, tonight, short-term was all that mattered.

  The next morning, when she reluctantly left her bed—and the nice, solid man in it—to take her shower, everything was great. Surprisingly great, considering how awful the previous day had been. Morning sex and lingering kisses, she guessed, could do that.

  She thought she heard Roy’s cell phone ring while she was in the shower, but she tried not to listen in. She might have genetically altered superhearing, but that didn’t mean people didn’t deserve their privacy. And it wasn’t like Roy said much.

  Then, when she got back to her room, clean and ready for the promised breakfast and ride to work, she was surprised to find him not only dressed but standing there, waiting.

  Staring at her.

  Something dark and hurtful sharpened his gaze. His mouth had definitely returned to threatening mode. And a sense of betrayal roiled off of his taut posture. Faith hesitated, confused. Why…?

  Then she saw the small pile of clothes lying on her bed. Gauzy, gypsy clothes. With a black wig.

  Roy shook his head only once before stepping forward and coldly snapping a pair of handcuffs on her. She supposed she could have made a run for it, could have fought him. Physically, she could have.

  Emotionally, all she could do was stand there in shock.

  “Faith Corbett, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Detective Sergeant Butch Jefferson.”

  He jerked the cuffs, to make sure they were secure. Hard. Angry. “Or should I maybe call you Madame Cassandra?”

  Chapter 16

  Five hours later, they were still questioning her. They included Roy’s new partner, Max, who’d dragged himself in almost eight hours before his shift would actually start. Chief of Detectives Captain Frank Crawford was there. And there w
ere a pair of dayshift plainclothesmen whom Faith had come to think of as Slick and Bubba. Slick was a thirtysomething black man, impeccably groomed right down to the gel in his hair and the pin in his tie. Bubba was, well…a bubba. With a gun.

  None of them was the person she wanted.

  “I’ll only talk to Roy,” she warned them, for maybe the dozenth time. Slick and Bubba, who were holding up the far wall, rolled their eyes at each other, patronizing. Idiots. Had she phrased that as a request?

  “Ms. Corbett, as I’ve been telling you, Detective Chopin has been removed from this case for obvious reasons.” Captain Crawford stopped pacing long enough to rub a tired hand down his skinny face, radiating stress. Considering what bits of background noise dribbled into the supposedly soundproof room, Faith wasn’t surprised. The capture of even a suspected cop killer had lit a fire under this station. “He’s in no position to help you—”

  Faith laughed. “I’m not asking for his help, Captain. I doubt he’d give it.”

  She faintly heard Roy’s bitter voice, behind the one-way mirror. “She’s got that right.”

  Of course, nobody else in the room heard it. “I’m offering him something, not the other way around. Information, you morons,” she added, for Slick and Bubba’s edification.

  Captain Crawford said, “Well, if you’ll tell us, we’ll be happy to pass your information on to the detective who brought you in. A little cooperation will go a long way.”

  But she’d recently learned the secret to surviving police stations. She had her sense of self firmly in place. “Yes, it will, Captain. So cooperate. I talk to Roy.”

  “We put a lab rush on the clothing found in your room, Ms. Corbett, and even waiting for DNA results it doesn’t look good for you. Traces of blood. Gunpowder residue. Goodbye, job. Goodbye, clean record. Goodbye freedom—you’re facing serious time, or worse.”

  Faith wondered if Greg Boulanger had run the tests, or if he, too, had been removed from the case. “No, I’m not.”