Wildest Dreams

by Blake, Toni

  What are you running from, Stephanie?

  JAKE HEADED SOUTH on 56 through the heart of Terrebonne Parish behind the wheel of the old pickup his father had driven when Jake was a boy. Amazing the beat-up Ford still ran, but despite all its clunks and rattles, it got him where he was going. After Becky was gone, he’d traded in the new Camry they’d bought together, leaving the old truck—which had been parked behind his mother’s little shotgun house—for him to get around in. It was enough—other than heading to the bayou, he didn’t go anyplace that required a vehicle.

  He flipped on the radio to hear a static-filled version of Matchbox Twenty’s “Bright Lights” asking him who would save him from all he was up against in this world. Unlike the girl in the song, though, Becky couldn’t come home. The sad strains added to his general melancholy, which had grown worse over the last couple of hours.

  He could still smell Stephanie Grant’s soft floral perfume, still feel the softness of her breast in his hand. The memory made his fingers itch and he curled them tighter around the steering wheel. He’d wanted her—badly. And he still wasn’t sure why she’d said no. Of bigger concern to him, though, was why it had bothered him so much, actually leaving him with hurt feelings and a sense of rejection he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  So he’d walked home, changed clothes, and started toward the old house. He needed to get away, even if just for the night. He’d planned to spend his days off there like he did every week, but if he didn’t come back tomorrow, Stephanie would surely get herself into trouble and he couldn’t risk that.

  There you go again, trying to save somebody, even when the song on the radio just reminded you—you need saving as bad as anyone. He hated himself for giving a shit about the woman or what happened to her, but maybe that just showed how truly weak he was. Can’t even quit caring about women you don’t even know.

  Yet there was something about this woman, he thought as he turned onto a gravel side road. She was so different from him—so prim, and yet so haphazard when it came to finding her sister. And something about her kept calling him back for more.

  Although she could wait a day while he unwound a little and got his bearings back. That’s what the bayou house gave him.

  It was the only place where he felt truly safe, from everything, and when he thought he couldn’t survive one more day, he came here, and listened to the sounds, and let the moss-covered trees close around him—and he survived. Just enough to make himself go back to the city and survive a little longer there, too.

  The end of the winding road appeared, the dark bayou waters ahead glinting in the moonlight. He parked the truck and walked toward the lean-to where he and a few other locals kept pirogues. Slipping a key in a lock so flimsy that anyone with a notion could break through, he dragged his boat down to the water’s edge, overhung with ancient willows.

  Pushing off into the water, he let the soothing qualities of the bayou fill him. Becky had always thought the bayou was “creepy,” and as he drifted along the dark surface, he supposed he could understand what she’d meant. But since she’d been gone, it had become exactly what he needed—a place to close himself off from everything.

  By the time he’d traveled a quarter of a mile downstream and paddled the pirogue into an even narrower tributary, he already felt a little better, a little . . . emptier. For Jake, empty was good. Empty meant emotions were held at bay. Empty meant feeling as close to nothing as possible. The dark water calmed him, made him feel almost as if he were easing down into it, letting it swallow him in its blackness.

  A few minutes later, the old house came into view on the bank, flanked by clusters of enormous cypress on both sides. The back porch served as a dock, where he tied off the boat.

  Stepping inside, he didn’t bother turning on any lights. Didn’t want to disturb the sweet, consuming darkness that made it feel like he was in a dream. Well, he amended with a wry chuckle, not the kind of dreams he’d been having lately, all fiery heat and sizzling sex—but the vague dreams that came with good sleep.

  “You’re beginning to heal, Jake,” Tony had said when Jake had told him the dreams were better—no more nightmares—and the sleep was getting more restful.

  Yet Jake had only laughed. If this was healing, it was a hell of a weak remedy. Better than nightmares and nagging, gnawing despair—but he hardly felt like his old self. He could barely remember that person, in fact—could only see him in shades and shadows of memory, in old photos it hurt to look at. He didn’t think he’d ever heal. The way he saw it, he was just doing his time for another thirty, forty years, until they buried him, too.

  Despite the lack of light, he could make out the underconstruction state of the kitchen—the counters currently torn out, the new one leaning against the back wall. Beneath him, the new subfloor he’d started putting in a couple of weeks ago. Maybe he’d devote a couple of hours to it before heading back to the city tomorrow. Stephanie could wait that long.

  Stephanie. Writhing against him. Pushing that softest spot of her against his hardest.

  Quit thinking about her.

  It was easier out here, in his private world. He succeeded in forcing thoughts of her away, even if he remained half stiff behind his zipper.

  He looked around the room, wondering for the hundredth time why he was bothering to rebuild the place. To save this one safe haven from his childhood? Or just because pounding nails into boards took his head away from real life, gave him something simple and solid to concentrate on?

  “You build somethin’ wid your hands, boy,” his father had once told him, “and you got somethin’ to hold on to, somethin’ that lasts. You can look at it, say, ‘I made dat. Widout me, dat wouldn’t be here.’ ”

  On that particularly steamy summer day, it had been the back porch, built out over the water on thick pilings to keep it from sinking into the soft, volatile earth beneath the bayou. Back when this, his grandmother’s house, had just been a place to visit on the weekend; back before he’d come to live here. But even on the weekends, it had felt like home. A place you didn’t knock on the door, you just walked in, said, “Mamère, I’m here,” and she’d come scuttling from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, smelling like herbs and bayou water and all things warm. She’d laugh and say, “You done growed a foot since I saw you, Boo,” even if she’d seen him just a few days before. “Come on, den, and look what I made,” she’d say, dragging him in the kitchen to show him something dark, ground up in a glass bottle or jar. “Dis wild bark take away de toothache,” or “Dis some grigery for Mr. Dulac’s sore hands.”

  Jake found himself wondering, had she still been living after what happened with Becky, if his grandmother could have mixed him up something to make him feel better, feel alive again. Yet he smiled sardonically, since he could almost hear her answering, “Ah, now, you need to see de voodoo lady for dat, Boo—I can’t fix no heart.”

  Nobody could.

  Sighing, he grabbed a beer from the antique refrigerator and walked out on the back porch he’d rebuilt a time or two since his father had first constructed it, settled in the old glider, and looked out into the darkness, trying to quiet his thoughts. Just drink your beer. And feel home.

  When he felt himself drifting off into blessed sleep a few minutes later, he didn’t bother getting up and heading for bed. A little trick he’d learned: sometimes moving killed it, that sweet, feel-nothing drift into sleep, so he’d taught himself to just stay put where he was and let it steal him away. Setting his beer on the wood below him, he leaned back his head and closed his eyes.

  Interlude

  THE RED ROOM feels even more red, more lush, than usual, like someone has put red bulbs in the lamps. But the one thing you see clearly is her. She stands naked, her back to you, her body a collection of pale curves that beckon in silent temptation.

  You entered quietly, yet you know she feels you there, wanting he
r. Without acknowledging your presence, she drops to her knees and bends across a red velvet chair, her liquid movements a blunt invitation.

  Drawing closer, a moth to a flame, you study the arch of her back, the roundness of her ass, adorned with a tiny tattoo of a simple flower, yellow center, five red petals.

  “Come to me, lover,” she says, her voice a husky whisper.

  You’re just as impatient, but as you kneel behind her, you can’t help running your hands over her satin skin. Starting at her shoulders, you smooth your palms downward, molding them to her slender waist, then over her rear and down her outer thighs. You bend to deliver a soft kiss to her tattoo, which makes her sigh.

  “Now,” she says, so you grab firm to her hips and sink inside her, fast, easy. She is a soft, warm glove hugging you; you close your eyes at the profound pleasure. “Yes,” she purrs, “yes,” as you begin to move in her. Sweet. Slick.

  Even with closed eyes, all you see is that same red glow, electric and hypnotizing, drawing you deeper and deeper into her. And in your mind, you see her amid that glow, but her face remains hidden by the color—she is only shadow, a silhouette.

  Opening your eyes, you fall onto her, needing more. You press your upper body flat against her back, cocooning her; you rain kisses across her neck.

  Somehow, even as you’re having her, you still want—want to see her face, look into her eyes.

  You want her to love you.

  You want her to be the only thing in your world.

  You want her to shroud you, protect you, so that nothing can hurt you, or her, ever.

  And in this moment, you believe she can.

  Chapter Nine

  JAKE LAY STARING at a brown water stain on the ceiling, trying to focus on that and nothing else, as he lifted the barbell. He felt the welcome strain in his forearms, shoulders, chest, as he held the weight steady, despite the shakiness in his wrists.

  Lowering it back into place, he let out a breath, glad for the burn in his muscles, but still seeing . . . the woman in the dream. Her back, her delectable bottom. Over a full damn day ago, and still he felt it. He refocused on the water stain as if it were a cloud, or a Rorschach, something he could remold in his mind. He saw a flower in the stain.

  Like the little flower on the dream woman’s ass. He went hard. Damn it.

  Not quite ready to lift the barbell again, he did it anyway—to dull the memory and accompanying emotions. Why did these damn dreams make him feel so much? And he always awoke with such an overpowering sense of guilt. He wasn’t supposed to feel this much for anyone else—anyone besides Becky. Even if it was only a dream.

  He glanced toward the scarred, secondhand end table across the room and caught sight of the framed photo of her taken in Audubon Park one spring day. Mardi Gras beads they’d found hanging from a tree on the St. Charles parade route draped her neck. His chest sank and he nearly dropped the weight on himself before letting it fall into the Y-shaped brackets with a clatter. Merde.

  Maybe he should have just stayed out at the bayou house for his remaining days off—he was so much more at peace there. But he’d come back yesterday and spent the evening making phone calls to other old connections on the force, all looking to turn up some sign of Tina Grant. It had been emotionally taxing—having to make chitchat with old colleagues, hearing the requisite concern in their voices when they asked how he was doing—and it had led to nothing. It was as if the girl had vanished into thin air.

  As for Stephanie, he’d picked up the phone to call her twice last night. To make sure she wasn’t out doing something stupid. And . . . why else? Because he wanted to hear her voice? Because he was so tempted to try getting her to drop that barrier she’d put up when things had got too hot between them?

  Maybe getting with Stephanie would bring an end to these haunting dreams.

  Of course, he knew the woman in the dreams bore startling similarities to her—except he’d had the first dream before they’d even met, so . . .

  Ah hell, give it up, Broussard. Since when was he the type of guy to sit around analyzing dreams?

  He wasn’t, so he refocused on the water spot and thrust the barbell up over his head again.

  A hard knock sounded on his door. “Jesus,” he breathed, dropping the weight back in its rest. Pushing up from the weight bench, he strode to the door and yanked it open to find Tony on the other side.

  His old friend gave him a long once-over, his eyes critical. “You look like you just ran a marathon. Or tried to and failed.”

  Jake glanced down at himself—his white tank was damp with sweat, and he doubted he’d raked a comb through his hair today, so it was probably pointing in all directions. “Liftin’ weights,” he said, realizing the activity had left him breathless. He’d been lifting for probably an hour or more.

  “You’re supposed to have a spotter for that, you know.” Once upon a time, they’d traded the favor.

  He only shrugged. He figured if that was the most reckless move he made, he was doing pretty damn good.

  “You gonna invite me in or what?”

  Jake stepped back and Tony came inside, heading to the little kitchen, where Jake heard him help himself to something in the fridge. “So about this beautiful woman you were with the other night,” he called, “what’s the deal?”

  Jake plopped on his drooping couch. “Nothin’ romantic goin’ on, pard.”

  Tony eased down in an overstuffed chair across from him, popping the top on a beer, one of the few things probably in Jake’s fridge. His friend’s eyes urged him to say more.

  “Just a woman I met at Sophia’s.”

  Tony flinched. “She’s a working girl?”

  Jake laughed softly. “No. She was just there lookin’ to find her sister, the girl in the pictures.”

  Tony nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Might be nothing, but might also be a lead. A guy named Rich, who tends bar over at the Crescent. I was there last night, so I asked about her, gave her name and a description. He said he’d seen a girl there a few times who could’ve been her, but she’d quit coming around.”

  The Crescent was an old hotel across Canal Street, beyond the Quarter, where more than a few prostitutes found business in the cocktail lounge. It had just never occurred to Jake to start snooping outside the “high-priced hooker zone” because Stephanie seemed so sure that was where her sister had set up shop.

  “He couldn’t say for sure her name was Tina, but he thought it was something like that.”

  “What else? Customers she hooked up with? Other girls she came in with?”

  Tony shook his head, his expression a familiar one from their days on the streets—it meant That’s all I got. “Guy pegged me as a cop and clammed up.” He sighed. “But it’s something anyway.”

  Jake nodded. It was something. The best and only lead of any kind he’d gotten. “Thanks, man. That’s a help.”

  “But back to the beautiful woman,” Tony said, a suspicious smile forming.

  Jake just gave his head a short shake. “There’s nothin’ there, man. Just tryin’ to help her out.”

  “Come on, dude,” Tony prodded, raising his eyebrows. “She’s pretty. You’re horny. That combination’s gotta go somewhere.”

  Jake lifted his gaze from his coffee table to Tony, smirking. “How do you know what I am?”

  “You gotta be, man.”

  Jake just gave a cynical laugh. “Don’t you know depression kills the sex drive?” It was a lie in his particular case, but Tony didn’t know about his dirty dreams, and he didn’t need to know what had happened between him and Stephanie, either.

  His friend eyed him for a minute, as if trying to decide whether or not he was holding back, then shifted his gaze to scan the apartment. “Well, something must be going better for you. You did some laundry and the place doesn’t look like quite as much of a pigsty as us
ual.”

  True enough, he’d had a little more energy lately. Enough to do the laundry and some dishes. But he wasn’t ready to attribute that to Stephanie Grant. “Ran outta clothes,” he said simply.

  Tony let out another sigh, his lips drawing into a slight frown. “Well, whatever the case, it was good to see you out the other night. Everybody at the Den was glad you came in, glad to see you with somebody new.” He chuckled. “Shorty spent the rest of the night wondering if you were getting lucky.”

  “Shorty’s got a big imagination.” He decided to change the subject. “What had you so strung out that night anyway?”

  Tony took a drink of his beer and got a faraway look in his eyes. “Still can’t get any closer to Typhoeus,” he said, and the name made Jake’s stomach clench. “We found a young Latino girl who we think was dealing for him. She’d overdosed and . . .” He shook his head lightly. “Just had me down, you know?”

  Jake nodded, but his back had already stiffened, his throat grown tight, as he struggled to remain emotionless at the mention of the local drug kingpin. He remembered the day he and Tony had sat combing the Internet for clues to what this guy was about. They’d learned that in Greek mythology, Typhoeus was a giant monster—part human, part serpent. The story went that he was defeated by Zeus and imprisoned beneath Mount Aetna, but so far, in real life, no other gods had shown up in New Orleans and Typhoeus was wreaking havoc on the city at will.

  “Don’t suppose you have anything new on that for me?” Tony asked.

  It was Typhoeus who Tony thought might be using escorts to filter drugs to wealthy clients on Sophia’s third floor. On his good days, Jake tried to keep his eyes open for anything shady—but so far they had nothing but suspicion, and a handful of obscenely rich guys who seemed likely to be involved.