by Bonnie Dee
“Well, this is...” Angela took the photo from me and stared at it. “Unbelievable. I can’t imagine Brian having anything to do with something like this. He couldn’t possibly know who he’s dealing with.”
“Probably not.”
“No one would suspect something so bizarre.”
“There’s nothing more I can tell you right now. I’ll find out what I can about Mr. DuShayne and this group and call you again. Meanwhile, be careful.”
“I will.” Angela gathered the photos and handed them back to me. “Somehow I have to warn Brian away from this man without letting him know I had him followed.” She shook her head. “I should have trusted my husband.”
“But then you wouldn’t know you might be in danger.”
Angela reached out and touched my hand. “Thank you. I don’t want you to put yourself in danger either. You should stop this investigation. I never should have started it.”
I had no intention of doing that. I cleared my throat. Now was the time to discuss payment. I really sucked at this part, but Amy’s voice in my head berated me. “My, uh, office administrator pointed out that I forgot to take a down payment from you. We usually require a base fee up front then bill hourly after that.” I quoted her our prices.
“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a wallet from which she extracted crisp twenties and fifties.
I felt like a whore accepting cash right there in the café, but the money might soften Amy’s mood when I faced her.
“Thanks.” I pocketed the bills, walked Angela to her car and then headed to my own car. It was almost noon. I’d put off confronting Amy long enough. I drove to the office to take my medicine.
Chapter Six
Amy
Sitting at my desk with a spreadsheet open on my monitor, I watched the screen saver kick in and blot out the work I was supposed to be doing which meant I’d been staring blankly at the screen for five minutes. A 3-D picture of a serene lake ringed by trees and mountains filled the screen. Haunting flute music ushered me into the virtual journey, drifting around the lake, watching deer drinking at the edge of the water and floating past a Shinto shrine. It was meant to be a relaxing boat ride. Today it annoyed me. I hit the mouse to make the soothing journey end.
I did realize that my habitual irritation wasn’t healthy. Although I’d never gotten counseling after Jesse, I was smart enough to understand I was carrying around a lot of anger. I’d thought I was slowly getting better, but the encounter with Rick last night had destroyed my fragile peace of mind. My unobtainable crush had suddenly been kissing me ... mauling me in fact, and I didn’t know how to feel about it. My emotions and my hormones were in turmoil.
I reminded myself that last night hadn’t meant anything. Rick was drunk. The state he was in, he would’ve humped a wooden post if I hadn’t been handy. He was a player, who used and dumped women all the time. I’d been through one experience with a guy like that. Was I doomed to a self-destructive pattern?
But the way it had felt. Oh, God. My eyes drifted closed and I relived the feeling of his mouth, insistent and hungry on mine, his hand stroking my back, the other curved around my nape. I’d felt the strength of his erection pushing against me and the hard muscles of his body molded to mine. That kiss had stolen my breath away with its intensity. All I could do was clutch the front of his shirt and hold on as a wild surge of desire overwhelmed me. My nipples hardened and my sex clenched from rubbing against the ridge in his jeans.
Rick’s hot mouth had skated down the slope of my neck to my collarbone, licking and pressing little nibbling kisses. A low rumble came from him, the growl liquefying my bones. Then a sharp pain pierced my neck near my shoulder as Rick bit down. For one lust-drenched moment, my eyes had fallen closed and I thought I’d come from the sudden searing pain. My pussy gushed in response to his claiming bite, pain and pleasure mingling. But then the moment had passed and the bite simply hurt. Really hurt! I pulled away from his strong grip.
Rick had stumbled back and for a moment his eyes shone golden. He looked as if he might leap on me and bear me down to the floor. Then his eyes reverted to their regular gray-green, the pupils wide, shocked, and human as he apologized.
I practically ran past him to escape the room. The powerful sensations he’d awakened in me were too much to process, and I absolutely didn’t want to hear him say he hadn’t meant to do it. Sick as it sounded, I wanted Rick to have meant to bite me and no one else but me. I didn’t understand it and didn’t like feeling such uncontrolled passion. I refused to get dragged into a hurricane of emotions like I’d experienced with Jesse. Maybe it was time I quit this job and removed myself from daily temptation.
Sitting in the quiet office, I slipped my hand under the high collar of my blouse to touch the bite. Examining it in the mirror earlier that morning, I’d seen the impressions of teeth in the mottled purple and red bruise. It looked ugly yet there was something so intimate about the mark it sent a frisson of excitement shooting through me. How could I be so turned on by the drunken fumbling of my boss and the wildness lust brought out in him? Why did it feel so natural to want to surrender to that primitive claiming bite?
The damn peaceful lake infiltrated my computer screen again. A gong resonated as my boat drifted toward the temple. Fuck that! I clicked the mouse and my spreadsheet showed again. I concentrated on the numbers, keeping my hands on the keyboard and not allowing them to wander to my neck again.
I paid more bills that absolutely couldn’t be put off any longer then finished a background check on a potential employee for one of our regular clients. I’d also promised Rick the details on Brian Addington’s history. For my own investigation, I needed to check out Angela Addington, formerly Angela Stover. Minimizing the accounts log, I put my research first and hacked into Angela’s private information. I never thought when I entered the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane that my career path would lead me to a clerical job in which I’d become an experienced computer hacker.
Angela had placed occasional calls to a number that increased in frequency over the past few weeks. I printed out the phone record then typed ‘Angela Stover’ into the search engine and found her on the Net. As she had told Rick, she was a former Vegas dancer and a member of the National Realtors’ Association.
I found an ad for a chorus line revue and recognized Angela in it under glam makeup and a feathered headdress. In contrast, her more recent realtor headshot was conservative and professional. It appeared she’d only had her license for a few months before meeting Addington and being swept off her feet and carried back to New Orleans like a good trophy wife. There was little else to learn about Angela Stover. She appeared to be exactly as she had represented herself to Rick.
It was almost noon when Rick finally rolled into the office. Instead of his habitual rumpled suit, he wore a pair of jeans and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. It looked a lot better on him than his worn jackets. I tried not to notice how good. I dropped my gaze back to the computer screen.
“You had calls.” I extended my hand with a stack of notes.
Rick took them from me. “Thanks.” He lingered by my desk.
“Something else you need?” I was impressed with how cool I sounded considering my heart in my throat was about to choke me.
“Uh, no. Guess not.” He was halfway to his office when he stopped. “Yes. I want to apologize again for last night. I didn’t mean to get wasted and act like an animal. It was...”
“Don’t worry about it.” I picked up a file at random from my desk and opened it.
Rick walked over to me. “No. It matters.” He stood there without speaking until I had to look up at him. His eyes were more gray than green today. He swallowed and his Adams’ apple bobbed. “I want you to know I will never do anything like that again. It was terrible and wrong in every way.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. ‘Never’ wasn’t what I’d
wanted to hear. I wanted his hands all over me right then. The bite on my neck throbbed and I touched it through my blouse.
“Oh, God, does it hurt? Let me see.” Rick reached down to pull my collar away from the bite. I froze at the brush of his fingers against my skin. He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “You should have a doctor look at this.”
“Don’t be dramatic. It’s all right. I’ve had hickeys worse than this.”
“I don’t know what I... I’m sorry. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
I pulled my collar up, forcing his hand to drop away. “Enough apologies already. Forget it. We actually have work to do here. It is an office.”
“Oh. I almost forgot. I saw Angela this morning.” Rick pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed me some cash. “She paid me so send her a receipt, please.” He laid a stack of photos on my desk. “Also, I forgot to tell you the latest on the case. I took pictures of Brian Addington and this guy, DuShayne.”
I glanced down then did a double take. It was the same tall, cadaverous man Angela Addington had met with at the restaurant yesterday.
“See this?” Rick indicated a photo in which the man’s hand with the tattoo was enlarged. “It’s the same symbol burned into Missy Hardewar’s body.”
I thought of the stomach-turning pictures Rick had shown me of the girl he’d found in the woods. Suddenly the Addington case, both sides of it, seemed much more ominous ... and confusing. “Do you have any idea what the symbol means?”
He told me about the secret paranormal society, Invictus Malus and how people disappeared when it surfaced. It sounded like the plot of a bad horror movie, but I respected Mrs. Plazier. If she said the group existed then they must, no matter how outlandish the story seemed. If the cult was real, what did it say about Angela Addington who’d seemed pretty damn familiar with the guy in the restaurant?
I flipped through the photos of Brian and Mr. DuShayne in the abandoned warehouse and considered telling Rick my part of the story. I really should have. But stubbornly, I wanted to solve the case myself or at least have something concrete to present to Rick when I told him about taking Brian’s case. I wanted to be more than a receptionist in a financially struggling P.I.’s office so I remained quiet and handed the photos back to Rick.
“I’ll research online and talk to some locals to see what else I can learn. It looks like Brian Addington has no idea who he’s dealing with, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. I did a background on him yesterday afternoon and didn’t find anything unusual, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have secrets.” Rick picked up the photos. “If you’re going to ask questions about the Invictus, be careful. It’s like poking a hornet’s nest with a stick.”
“I’ll start online. Maybe they’re not as secret as they think they are. If there are any references to the group, I’ll find them.”
“I’m going to catch up on some of our other cases then go to the warehouse and see if the new tenants are moving in.” Rick went into his office.
I turned back to my computer, relieved to have our conversation back on normal ground. Rick and I would both play it as if last night never happened. The fact that the bite mark on my neck burned when Rick was close and the sensation faded when he moved away was not something I had time to dwell on. There was an important double case to solve.
* * * *
After a couple of hours of surfing the net, I’d found absolutely no reference to Invictus Malus. I uploaded Rick’s photo of the brand on the dead girl’s torso to several occult sites with a request for information from anybody recognizing it.
Rick left to reconnoiter the warehouse and shortly after I took my research into the field too. I went to Karen Plazier’s little shop to find out where she’d gotten her information and who I should see for more.
“Amy!” She greeted me with a hug and a kiss on each cheek. “I barely got to talk to you last night at the party. How are you?”
“Once I got sucked into the poke game, I couldn’t get out. How are you? Your friend, Mr. Major seemed very nice.”
“He is. I think I’ve got a keeper this time.” Karen’s smile was like sunshine. I’d never seen her so happy. “Best of all, Rick doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
“Why should he? It’s your life.”
“I know, but it’s been just the two of us for so many years. His dad left when he was little. Somehow I was nervous to tell him about Don.”
Rick had never spoken to me about his father. I didn’t understand how Karen had remained so close to her husband’s family after he’d abandoned her and Rick. “You never dated anyone?”
“After Rick’s dad? No. It took me this long to trust a man again. The situation was ugly even before Tom left.” She straightened a display of brochures and local maps near the checkout counter.
I nodded, thinking of Jesse. “How’d you do it? Get past it?” I really wanted to know. Sometimes it felt like I’d never be myself again.
“I spent a lot of angry years and sad years, then a lot more convincing myself I was happy without a man. I had my work, my son, my family and friends and decided that was enough.” She smiled. “It wasn’t. Now that I have Don in my life, I realize there was a whole part of me I shut off.”
“You’re happy now.” It was a statement not a question. The answer was plain to see on her face.
“Yes. And I trust him completely.” Karen fingered beads hanging on a stand by the register. They caught the light in a twinkling multitude of colors.
I remembered what it had been like to believe in someone like that, but the memory was tainted by the horrible results of blind trust. “I’m happy for you.”
Karen reached out and squeezed my hand. “Amy, you’re young. Don’t let it take you twenty years to get past your heartache. You know my son likes you, right?”
“What?” The sudden shift in subject took me unaware. “No. I don’t think so.” Last night flashed through my mind, the heat and intensity of Rick’s kisses. “No,” I repeated. “He just likes women. All women. Not me in particular.”
“That’s what you think?”
I could hardly tell a doting mother that her son was a player--a skirt-chaser in old fashioned slang. “He goes out with a lot of different women,” I said politely.
“Because he’s afraid to get close to anyone and you know why.” She stared hard at me. “Does his wolf aspect frighten you?”
“Um. No. Not really.” I clenched my fingers to keep from reaching for the bite on my neck.
“Good.” Karen smiled.
I was uncomfortable with the drift of the conversation so I brought up the reason for my visit. “I’m helping Rick with the research on Invictus Malus. Can you tell me how you found out what you know and who else I could ask about the lore?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t want to get involved. Simply asking questions could get you killed.”
“But we can’t stand by while they kidnap and murder people. At least we need to have more information to tell our client. I don’t know if Rick told you, but it seems one of their members is trying to buy or rent property here.”
Karen ran a hand through her mop of curly and blew out a breath. “All right. There’s a man named Gerald Racette, who’s in tune with chaos magic and the dark elements. He may know more than I was able to find out. But he lives a ways out of the city in the bayou.”
She gave me directions to Racette’s place in the swamp with great reluctance and instructions to call her when I arrived there and again when I was safely back home.
“I don’t imagine Racette would harm you, but I’ll feel more comfortable knowing you’re all right.” She frowned. “You should wait until Rick can go with you.”
“I’m fine on my own, Mrs. Plazier. I’ve collected from clients in bad neighborhoods before. I’ve got my pepper spray and my attitude. No one ever bothers me. “I smiled to put her at ease, but the truth was I was a little freaked out at going to see a v
oodoo witch doctor in the middle of nowhere.
I followed Highway 10 out of the city, making several turns on increasingly rough roads until my car was enveloped in the luxuriant green woods of the bayou. The chorus of frogs and birds was loud even through the closed windows of the car and over the air conditioning fan. After driving almost a mile down a deeply rutted dirt track, I saw a tin-roofed shack on stilts through the trees. I parked the car and got out.
It was like entering a swamp-smelling steam bath. The air was so thick and moist I could drink it. And if the frog and bird chorus had been loud in the car, it was deafening outside of it. My shirt clung to my damp skin as I walked the grassy trail to the house.
My pulse accelerated as I climbed the stairs to the raised dwelling. A weird assortment of spoon wind chimes, fetishes, herbs and what looked like small animal bones hung from the ceiling of the porch, clacking and clanging when a slight breeze stirred them. A rocking chair faced the railing and I glanced down at the view of the swamp. Besides half-submerged trees and a lot of brackish water, there was a dock with a skiff beside it. I rehearsed what I would say to Gerald Racette then turned from the view to knock on the door.
A scrawny old man with a wrinkled, brown face and piercing black eyes stood before me in the open doorway. His lips were closed in a tight seam over a toothless mouth.
I let out a squeak surprise before recovering my composure. “Mr. Racette?”
He stared.
I sweated. “Hi. My name is Amy Chang. I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind. It’s very important. Someone’s life might be in danger.” The little speech I’d planned sounded melodramatic out loud and seemed even stupider when Racette didn’t respond, letting the words hang in the sultry air like buzzing mosquitoes. He stared through me with his penetrating gaze then turned and walked inside.
