by Jessie Cooke
“I’m hungry. You want to hug this shit out and get something to eat or what?”
David rolled his eyes at him and laughed. He did love his brother, asshole or not.
David and Kyle just finished having what was a surprisingly nice meal together when David’s phone rang. He looked at the face of it and then at his brother. “I’m going to take this really quick,” he said. Kyle looked curious, but he nodded. David walked a few paces away and then put the phone to his ear and said:
“Hello, Detective.”
“Mr. Brady, hello. I’m sorry to disturb you—I know your friend and her father are having surgery today. How are they?”
“So far, so good. Kat just went in a while ago.”
“Well, I wish them both the best,” he said. “I have some news. I finally tracked down the true identity of the woman in the photographs. Her name was Marta DuBois.”
“Was?”
“Yes. She died two years ago in a car accident in Lafayette. I found a niece and daughter, however, and got quite a story. I’m not sure if you have time to hear it now?”
David looked over his shoulder at Kyle. He wasn’t sure he wanted his brother to know about any of this. Kyle would get pushy and try to take the whole thing over, or he’d tell David he was stupid and wasting his time. David didn’t want to put up with either. “I don’t, really, I’m sorry. But can I give you a call back in an hour or so?”
“Of course.”
David thanked him and ended the call. When he turned around again, Kyle was standing behind him. “Who was that?”
“Damn, you’re nosy. None of your business.”
Kyle grinned. “You know, if I wanted to find out badly enough I could just make a few calls and have that one traced and…”
“And when are you going to realize I’m not fucking twelve years old? Why don’t you get your own life and stop trying to choreograph everyone else’s?” David felt bad as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Kyle thought he had a life when he fell in love with Hannah. As it turned out, Hannah wanted to be Harley, and Cody Miller was the man she wanted to have babies and spend the rest of her life with. Kyle had been broken since that happened although he’d deny it to the death. “I’m sorry,” David said, before Kyle responded.
“No, you’re right,” Kyle said, surprising David. “Being a cop for so long and now an investigator has made me bad at minding my own business. Especially since I don’t have much business of my own to mind.”
David sighed and said, “I wouldn’t mind bouncing something off you, but I need your word that you won’t try to talk me out of it and you won’t try to take it over and be the boss.”
Kyle chuckled. “Can I give you my word that I’ll try on both counts?” David rolled his eyes, picked up the check, and went to the counter to pay it. When he’d finished paying the bill, he found Kyle waiting out front for him. “I’m sorry,” his brother said again. Two apologies in one day was a record, David wished he’d recorded it for posterity. “If you need to talk to me, I promise to only offer you whatever help you’re looking for and I won’t try to talk you out of whatever it is, okay?”
“Okay, thanks. It’s about Kat’s mother.”
Kyle cocked an eyebrow. He knew that David had been looking into her mother’s murder when they were together years before, and at that time he had tried to talk David out of it. They’d argued about it then and eventually both had just stopped talking about it. “Did you find something new?”
“I’m not sure.” David told Kyle about the other woman and the detective and the tattoo. He finished with, “That was him on the phone. He says the Haitian woman is dead, but he was able to contact some of her relatives. He wants to talk to me about that.”
“Let’s go to your place before we go back to the hospital and hear what he has to say,” Kyle told him. David was still hesitant to trust that his brother wouldn’t interfere and make things worse…but he was more curious to hear what Detective Munroe had to say.
They drove over to David’s apartment, both lost in their own thoughts. Once they were there, David dialed the detective and put the phone on speaker. He told him Kyle was in the room and they both listened as the detective began to talk.
“Marta DuBois was fifty-six years old when she died. She was thirty-eight when Victoria Brown died. My first question to her family was why she used an alias at both jobs. The niece’s response was automatic: ‘Because she didn’t want people to know who she really was.’ It seems that Marta was the daughter of Geraldine and Francis DuBois.”
David looked at Kyle who shrugged. “I’m sorry, Detective, I don’t know who that is.”
“In 1976 when Marta was fifteen years old, her father Francis murdered his wife, Geraldine. It was a newsworthy case for a lot of reasons. First, Francis had murdered his wife in front of both of his children. Marta had a brother named Lewis who committed suicide a few years after the incident. Marta, however, was on her father’s side and even testified for him in court. It seems that her father believed her mother was possessed by a ‘dark spirit.’ Marta claimed she’d seen it in her mother’s eyes. Her father was sentenced to life in a psychiatric facility, and Marta was remanded to child services and they required her to have intensive therapy until she was eighteen. Her cousin said that as soon as she got out of the facility, she opened a business at the family home. She called herself ‘Madam DuBois’ and she did Tarot card readings and palm readings…and she taught people about the religion of Voodoo, which apparently she and her father had begun studying together when she was still a pre-adolescent. She claimed to her neighbors and her clients that she could ‘see’ dark spirits and evil souls.”
“She sounds a little unstable,” David said, “But from what I’ve seen of the police reports, unless this was a very large woman, she couldn’t have been the killer. The person that strangled Victoria…and forgive me, your wife…had to have big hands and be very strong.”
“I agree,” the detective said, “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have help. The ladies both had the same tattoo, and they both got that tattoo from the same artist, a man named Olden Tanis. Olden and Marta were good friends, and neighbors growing up. Marta DuBois was the connection between him and both of the women.”
“So we need to find this tattoo artist.”
“Yep.”
“Did that artist own either of the parlors he worked at?” Kyle asked.
A shuffle of papers and the detective said, “Yes, he owned the first parlor. It was called, appropriately, Voodoo City Tattoo.”
“So he was registered with the state and county.”
“Yes, I have copies of all that. But once he closed that place down and moved on, he wasn’t required to register because he wasn’t the owner.”
“Right,” Kyle said. “But wouldn’t that mean his fingerprints are on file?”
“I’ll be damned, I didn’t think about that. I’ll call the hall of records as soon as we hang up; they didn’t send those over.”
“I think you have to request those through D.O.J.,” Kyle said. “And…doesn’t Louisiana require First Aid, CPR, and blood-borne pathogen courses for artists?”
“I’ve already requested a list of those from all the parishes in Louisiana. It’s going to take a while to go through them all.”
“Email them to me when you get them,” David said. “I can put them through a program I have in the lab that will recognize a match within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, depending.”
“Fantastic. I should have that list by tomorrow and I’ll send it right over.” David thanked the detective and ended the call. “Thanks,” he said to Kyle after the detective had hung up. “I appreciate your input.”
“No problem,” Kyle said. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
David wasn’t sure where his brother’s sudden desire to help had come from, but it was nice. He hated arguing with his siblings, even Kyle. He was excited about the new break
s in the case too. He’d love to be able to hand Kat some closure, even though nothing could ever bring her mother back. If the detective was right and this tattoo artist and Marta were killing women because of some religious notion Marta had in her head, then it would also mean Victoria hadn’t gone to the hotel that night to meet a lover. David was sure Dillon would be happy to hear that. Even eighteen years later, David could still see how much Dillon loved her when he talked about her. He knew if he were Kat, he’d want to know for sure.
36
Angel was standing underneath the warm spray of the shower, letting it wash the stress from her muscles. Dax had told her not to worry about what was going on between the Skulls and Chaos, but she couldn’t help it. David had given Dax a printout of the stolen vehicles. There were twenty-six in the past several months that hadn’t been taken by the Skulls. Angel didn’t ask how many were on that list. Ignorance was bliss about some things.
For the past week, Dax and a small group of brothers had been leaving as the sun went down every night and not returning until morning. Dax told her that they were just “checking out” the addresses of the registrants of each one of those cars. Angel had been a cop and married to the president of an MC long enough to know that didn’t mean simply driving by the houses. She hadn’t been able to sleep and her already frayed nerves were practically raw. She turned so that her back was toward the spray, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes. The sound of the shower door being slid open nearly caused her heart to jump out of her chest. She snapped open her eyes and they landed on her naked and very hot old man.
“Jesus, baby, you scared me.”
He put his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. Kissing her on top of her head he said, “I’m sorry. Mm…you feel good.”
Angel smiled into his chest. “So do you. How was your night?”
“Huh-uh, I don’t want to talk about work.”
She tipped her head back to look up at him. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. That line between his eyes he got when he worried was becoming a permanent part of his face. Luckily, it only added to how gorgeous he was, at least in Angel’s opinion. “You didn’t get naked and in the shower with me to talk about stolen cars, photographs, or Trayvon?”
He chuckled. “Nope. I was thinking we could talk about politics or basketball…”
Angel put her head back against the taut muscles of his chest. She could feel his heart beating against her cheek and his erection rising against the top of her thigh. “So who do you favor in the city council race?” she said with a smile. Dax put his lips on the side of her head and bent down, letting them slide down her cheek. She turned her face in time for their lips to meet and before he kissed her he said:
“I just remembered that when I’m naked with you, I don’t give a fuck about anything else.” He covered her mouth with his and she parted her lips so that his tongue could slide in. God, she loved kissing him—it was so erotic that she could almost come just from having his hot tongue in her mouth. When he pulled out of the kiss he grinned down at her and said, “You still want to talk?” Angel smiled.
“Nope. But I do want to do this…” Next to kissing him, touching him was best. She picked up the soap and rubbed it between her hands until she’d worked up a full lather. “Turn around.” Dax turned his back to her. The muscles in his shoulders twitched and rippled as she ran her hands across them. He groaned when she massaged his neck with her fingers and then let them travel down his back. At his lower back, she massaged again and then she ran her palms over the hard cheeks of his perfect ass before lowering herself down to one knee and washing from the tops of each thigh to his feet, just skimming her fingers lightly across his balls and making him moan. When she finished with his back, she said, “Okay, turn back around.”
Dax turned and the way he looked down at her almost made her abandon the washing and climb up him like a telephone pole. But she wanted to make things last, so she soaped up her hands once again and rubbed her palms against his hard chest and down along his tattooed, muscular, and so fucking sexy arms. When she got to his hands he tried to grab hers, but she pulled away and soaped up once more. Going back down on her knees, she started with a foot, and slowly worked her hands up in circles until she reached his inner thigh. His body jerked as she lightly caressed his balls that time before washing down the other side. His cock was at full mast by then and he gasped when it brushed against her cheek on her way down the second time. When she was finished with his legs, she moved aside so the warm water could rinse the soap off his hot body and once he was rinsed clean, Angel didn’t waste any time sliding her mouth over the tip of his cock and sucking it into her mouth.
“Fuck, baby,” he breathed out, putting his hands in her wet hair and brushing it back from her face. “Look at me.” He held back her hair while she looked up at him. Their eyes met, and she saw the lust raging in his as she bobbed up and down on his rock-hard erection, taking it in as deeply as she could each time. Dax rocked his hips, and Angel slid her hands up to press her palms into his hard cheeks and encourage him to go faster. He groaned and closed his eyes as he began to move his hips faster, grinding into her face each time before pulling back and sliding almost all the way out of her lips. His hands had gone from petting her hair softly to fisting it between his fingers. He held her mouth where he wanted it and fucked it wildly until Angel knew he was right on the edge before pulling back with a grunt and lifting her to her feet. Breathlessly he said, “My turn.”
Dax lathered his hands, and pressing her back under the warm water he began to run them all over the front of her body. He washed each one of her breasts, one at a time with two hands, massaging, caressing, and mashing them between his palms. He washed down each one of her thighs and then caused her to gasp as he parted her pussy lips with the fingers of one hand and ran the fingers of the other from top to bottom. He played with her for a few seconds before moving his hands back up to her shoulders and spinning her around to face the water. He held her up against his chest while he rinsed the soap off every part of her body. She wasn’t sure if the water was hot any longer or not, but her body was on fire.
Dax pushed her forward gently and began to soap up her back. He slid his big, strong hands down to her ass and washed each cheek in firm, circular motions, and then he let one of his hands run along the crack and all the way down to her pussy, where once again he touched her swollen clit. She cried out…loudly…glad that Susie had already gone to school because in that instant, she needed to be loud. She was so turned on. He was so fucking sexy.
Angel pressed forward, leaning her cheek into the cold tile and opening her legs a little wider, hoping that Dax would continue to explore. He put his mouth down next to her ear and said, “You’re so fucking sexy, baby…I’m going to make you come with my fingers…I want to hear you. I want you to be loud…tell me how much my sweet, dirty girl likes it.”
Angel nodded and gasped for breath and then she whimpered as Dax slipped a finger inside of her. “Like that, baby girl?”
“Fuck,” she breathed out. “Yes…” He pulled back with that finger, and the second time he entered her it was with two fingers and enough force to slam into her G-spot. The whimper turned into a loud moan.
“Mm, she likes that, huh?” Angel panted as she nodded. Dax moved his fingers around inside of her, in circles before he began to thrust then in and out while he whispered in her ear how much he wanted to hear her come. Angel pushed back with her hips, grinding into his hand each time and then sliding forward so that he would slam his fingers back into her again. She was on the edge and moaning even louder when Dax pushed his thumb into her aching clit and caused her to scream out in ecstasy as she came. She said his name repeatedly as she rocked into his hand while he coaxed the rest of the orgasm out of her. Once she was finished and trying to get her breathing back under control, Dax moved her forward, pushed her lower back with his hand to get her to bend forward, and then he slammed
his raging hard cock up inside of her. They were both too far gone for slow, easy sex. Angel’s face rubbed against the smooth, cold tile of the shower with each one of his thrusts. Dax held onto her hips with his hands and drilled into her over and over. He was slamming into her so hard that the line between pleasure and pain got lost. Angel was screaming by the time she felt him dig his fingers into her skin and hold her in place while he came. With Dax, even the act of his having his orgasm was sexy. He groaned and cursed and said her name in that deep, masculine, sexy voice of his before finally giving it one last, long thrust. Then he slid his hands up to her belly and straightened her body up so that his cock slid out, but her body was pressed into his.
Dax’s lips dropped to her neck and he kissed her there, hard. He let them slide across her shoulder and back again before taking hold of her face with one hand and turning her slightly so that he could touch part of his lips to hers. He held them there and said, “I need to sleep now for a little while…after you come to bed with me and ride me like a stallion.” Angel laughed, all the way to the bedroom. By the time Dax finished with her and fell asleep, her stress was gone and replaced with a deep, warm contentment that penetrated all the way to her bones and would get her through another day.
