No one was fooled.
Marc threw his backpack over one shoulder, snatched his overnight bag from the floor, and took off toward the parking lot, without even a glance back to make sure we would follow him.
I scowled at Kevin, then raced to catch up with Marc.
In the parking lot, as the muggy Louisiana heat settled in around us, Kevin stormed past Marc, and we followed him to a green four-door sedan with a dent in the rear bumper and a four-inch scratch on the driver’s-side door. Kevin came around the car to unlock the front passenger-side door first, holding it open for me with an inviting smile. I almost admired his tenacity. Marc did not. He took my bag from me and tossed it onto the front seat along with both of his own, then reached through to the back door and unlocked it himself.
He held the back door open for me as I climbed in, then slid over to sit directly behind the driver’s seat. Marc settled onto the seat next to me and slammed the door on Kevin’s irritated pout. By the time our driver had stomped around the car and unlocked his own door, his resolute smile was firmly in place once again. He was resilient; I had to give him that.
“Where to?” Kevin adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see my face. I read him the name of the restaurant and the Metairie address my father had written down, and Kevin pulled out of the parking lot without another word. And without readjusting his rearview mirror.
I rolled down my window to relieve the locked-car heat, then unbuckled my seat belt and snuggled up next to Marc in spite of the temperature, content to know that now Kevin couldn’t stare at me without seeing Marc, too. In the mirror, our reluctant chauffeur’s eyes crinkled in a frown, then shifted to look at the road.
Including Holden Pierce, there were two other Pride cats living near New Orleans, both of whom were more courteous, more polite, and infinitely more pleasant to be around than the one behind the wheel. Yet my father had insisted that Kevin Mitchell be our guide for the day, probably just to test my self-discipline. I was pretty sure that if I made it home without Kevin’s detached head in tow, I’d get a gold star on my permanent record. Or maybe one of those little smiley faces.
Kevin’s father was Alpha of one of the northern Prides, and beating the shit out of an Alpha’s son, even if he was a real prick, wouldn’t be very good for inter-Pride relations. In fact, it would be really bad. Anyone looking for a reason to oust my father from his position as head of the Territorial Council—and there were several people on that list—would have plenty of ammunition if either of us lost our collective temper with Kevin without ample justification. For that reason, on the plane, Marc had rattled off some crap about this assignment being an assessment of my diplomatic skills. But it was really a test of my patience.
And I was willing to bet Marc would lose his before I lost mine.
After baking for forty-five minutes in the back of Kevin’s clunker, we pulled up in front of a long strip of connected storefronts, each housing a different business. Kevin parallel-parked at the curb and we got out, staring around like the tourists we practically were as brass-heavy jazz music poured from an open doorway nearby and strangers bumped and jostled us on the egg-fryable sidewalk. This part of town had obviously recovered nicely from the infamous hurricane.
The first thing I noticed was the Closed sign in the door of the Cajun Bar and Grill. According to a plaque propped in the front window, the restaurant didn’t open for lunch until eleven o’clock, which gave us nearly half an hour to stand around like idiots before we could speak to the employees inside.
“Let’s check out the alley while we wait,” Marc suggested. We went with his idea rather than mine, for obvious reasons.
The restaurant was in the middle of the block, so we had to walk past a florist and a hardware store, then around a dry cleaner to get to the mouth of the alley. Once there, we discovered that though the restaurant didn’t open for thirty more minutes, the staff inside was already hard at work crafting a jumble of spicy aromas that made my stomach growl in anticipation of dishes I’d never even tried.
How did we know this? The back door of the Cajun Bar and Grill was propped open, spilling laughter, the sharp clang of pots and pans, and piquant, lyrical accents into the alley.
“We can’t leave without eating there,” I told Marc, gripping his arm with one hand as I pointed to the open doorway with the other. “I’m starving.”
He grinned. “We’ll order extra and take it home.”
“You’re hungry?” Kevin asked from my other side. “There’s this great Italian restaurant near my apartment. You like manicotti?”
“Thanks, Kevin.” I was trying my hand at tact and discretion. And manners. “But I’m going to try some of the local favorites. Right here.” I paused to glance at Marc, then continued, though I hadn’t seen what I’d been looking for in his expression. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Kevin frowned. “Thanks,” he said, but I wasn’t sure if that was a “Thanks, but no thanks,” or a “Thanks, I’d love to.”
“Okay, now what?” I mumbled under my breath, eyeing the row of widely spaced Dumpsters as I concentrated on the epicurean aromas to block out the other, less-pleasant smells originating from farther down the alley. Parker had said he found Harper’s body beneath the overflow from the one nearest the Cajun Bar and Grill. But what exactly were we looking for?
As we approached the Dumpster, my progress hindered momentarily when I put my sneaker through a rotten plank in an old pallet, a feeling of dread settled into my stomach. The Dumpster looked pretty clean, as far as Dumpsters go. It sat on bare, if slimy, concrete, absent of the overflow of garbage Parker had described. Trash collectors had clearly come and gone, taking any evidence we might have found to the city dump, wherever that was. And I was in no hurry to find out.
Marc climbed a stack of wooden crates to peer into the trash receptacle, tossing the heavy lid open without so much as a grunt. “It’s nearly empty,” he said, glancing down at me. “And what’s in here smells fresh.”
Behind me, metal hinges squealed as a door opened across the alley and down a few feet from the Cajun Bar and Grill. I whirled around to see a short, slender man wearing black jeans and a hot-pink T-shirt. He nudged a broken brick into the threshold to prop the door open, and when he stepped into the alley, I could see that the block printing in black across the front of his shirt read Forbidden Fruit.
“Hey, you can’t be back here,” he said, his fist tightening around the top of a bulging garbage bag.
Marc grabbed my elbow and I looked up to find something intense and imploring in his eyes. He was trying to tell me something, and I wasn’t getting it. Maybe he wanted me to pound the guy? Seemed a little extreme to me, but definitely effective.
The little man in the doorway reached for a wireless radio hanging from his belt. I curled my hands into fists and started to step forward. Marc pulled me back by that same elbow, and I glanced up to see him roll his eyes at me in exasperation.
Oops. Not the right time for a pounding, apparently. Kevin glanced from me and Marc to the man, then stuck his hands into his pockets, making no effort to help.
“My sister left her cell phone in there yesterday, and no one turned it in,” Marc said, lacing his voice with a healthy dose of bored irritation as he nodded at the restaurant behind us. “The guys in the kitchen said we could look through the garbage.”
Actually, the guys in the kitchen hadn’t noticed us yet. They probably couldn’t hear us over their own racket. But the little man bought Marc’s lie with no hesitation. His hand moved away from his belt and his posture relaxed. He seemed more than willing to believe I was just some dumb chick whose most dangerous trait was an inability to keep hold of her own stuff. I couldn’t help being insulted by how readily he accepted that thought.
“Good luck.” Shrimpy nodded at the Dumpster as he walked toward it, passing less than two feet from me without so much as a shiver of fear. Damn it. We were going to have to do something about my harmless-looking
exterior. “The garbage truck came first thing this morning,” Shrimpy said, tossing his bag into the Dumpster. “You’d have better luck finding the Holy Grail in there.” He strolled back across the alley, making no attempt at all to avoid me, though he steered noticeably clear of Marc, and even Kevin. Pausing in the doorway of Forbidden Fruit, Shrimpy held the door open with one hand and pushed his brick back inside. Then he turned to look me up and down. But mostly up, because I was at least two inches taller than he was.
“I can’t help you find your cell phone, miss,” he said, meeting my eyes much more boldly than I would have thought possible for such a small man. “But if you decide you want a job, come see me. Go to the bar and ask for Jeff.”
Before I’d recovered from surprise, he disappeared into the dark interior of the building.
Kevin’s raucous laughter filled my ears, as Jeff’s meaning sank in. “He just offered you a job as a stripper. Sounds like a lot more fun than your current line of work, and I’d sure as hell pay to watch you take off your clothes.”
No, casual nudity wasn’t a big deal for werecats; it was generally unavoidable. But stripping wasn’t casual nudity, and an unwelcome pass at me—especially in front of Marc—was a very big deal, to which Jace could readily attest.
My right hand formed a fist, but before I could put it into motion, Marc’s arm soared past me. His fist slammed into Kevin’s stomach. Kevin’s laughter ended in a sudden whoosh of breath rushing from his lungs. He flew ass-first into the wall at his back, then crumpled into a heap of denim and cotton on the ground.
Ha! Marc lost his temper first, and suddenly I was in very good spirits. Of course, my mood was also elevated by watching Kevin struggle not to vomit.
I held my hand out to Kevin, but he slapped it away and pushed himself up on his own, glaring at Marc over my shoulder as he stood. I wanted to tell him that he’d be singing soprano if Marc hadn’t beaten me to the punch, but he looked like his pride was in pretty poor shape without hearing what might have been. Pity.
One hand pressed into his stomach, Kevin took several deep breaths with his eyes on the ground, clearly mentally assessing his injuries. When he finally looked up, he seemed angry but surprisingly calm.
If Marc had just been thrown into a wall by a single punch, he’d have come up spittin’ and swingin’. For that matter, so would I.
Kevin looked past me as if I weren’t there, glaring at Marc. “You know, I wasn’t the one who just suggested your girlfriend take her clothes off for cash.” Although, actually, that’s exactly what he’d done. “Maybe you should have taken your irritation out on that little prick.”
“He’s human,” Marc growled, his fists still clenched. “He gets an automatic walk. Once. And since I don’t plan to see him again, he’ll probably live. But this is your last warning to watch your mouth—if you want to keep your canines.”
A weak, hot breeze blew down the ally from the end opposite us, fluttering several scraps of paper and bringing with it the unmistakable stench of mold. When one of those scraps failed to settle into the shadows, my attention centered on the door Jeff had come through. A single sheet of paper flapped against the dented metal surface, hanging from a long strip of Scotch tape.
“Um, Marc?” I stepped carefully over a splintered crate on my way toward Forbidden Fruit’s rear exit. “You’re going to have to see the little prick again. Soon.”
“What?” Glass crunched behind me as Marc’s boot came down on a broken bottle. He stopped at my side, following my gaze to the homemade poster printed in black on hot-pink paper.
In the center of the page was a black-and-white photo of a stereotypically buxom blonde, smiling with her beautiful, thickly lashed eyes as well as her mouth. The caption at the top read, “Have you seen me?” Beneath the photo was the name “Kellie Tandy” and a list of her vital statistics. Below that, the poster read:
KELLIE VANISHED DURING HER SHIFT AT FORBIDDEN FRUIT ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2008.
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION REGARDING HER WHEREABOUTS, PLEASE CALL 555-7648.
$$ REWARD $$
FOR ANY INFORMATION THAT HELPS US FIND HER.
“Remember the bundle of ones in Bradley Moore’s wallet?” I asked Marc, still staring at the poster. “The only building within five miles of that damn field was a strip club. Do you believe in coincidence?”
Marc shook his head slowly, and when his frown deepened, I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “Harper wasn’t at the Cajun Bar and Grill. He was at Forbidden Fruit.”
Twelve
September 11th. The stripper had been missing for three days, since Thursday, the day we’d buried Bradley Moore in Arkansas. Then yesterday—Saturday—Parker and Holden found Robert Harper’s body in the alley behind the missing stripper’s place of employment. I saw no obvious connection, but like Marc, I didn’t believe in coincidence.
Kevin focused on the picture of the missing girl, and his forehead crinkled in confusion. “Wait,” he said, his voice rising in pitch as his words rushed out. “Greg said your men found a dead stray here. Guy named Harper. So who’s Bradley Moore, and what does he have to do with some psycho killing Robby Harper? And what the hell does all that have to do with a missing stripper?”
My father had given Kevin only the information he needed to know, which included nothing about the foreign tabby or the body we’d buried in Arkansas.
“Robby Harper?” I asked, turning to watch Kevin through narrowed eyes as his familiar use of the dead stray’s name sank in. I ignored his questions in favor of one of my own. “You knew him?”
Kevin shook his head as if to clear it. “Only by reputation. He…uh, used to sneak across the boundary line every so often to party in the Big Easy. Guess there’s not much to do in rural Mississippi.”
“And, of course, you reported him for trespassing, right?” I asked, already well aware that he hadn’t.
Marc took a threatening step toward him, and Kevin shrugged, slouching back. “It didn’t seem important enough to bother Greg about. Especially considering all the trouble he was having keeping tabs on you.” He shot an accusing glance my way before turning his attention back to Marc, who represented the biggest threat. So far as he knew, anyway.
Kevin’s last statement rang in my ears, and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. My immediate impulse was to correct his misconception with my fist, but a slow, deep breath brought my temper back under control. See, I really was growing up. Mostly.
“He was not having trouble with me,” I snapped. “And you should have reported Harper the minute he set foot in the south-central territory.”
“Come on, Faythe.” Kevin crossed his arms over his chest, as if unaware that Marc was prepared to maim him if he couldn’t justify his failure to report the trespasser. “We all know you have your father over a barrel. You won’t settle down with a decent tom, for no reason anyone else understands, and he can’t make you, so the best he can do is try to keep tabs on you until you listen to reason and give him some heirs.”
A grinding sound met my ears, and it took me a long moment to recognize it as the sound of my own teeth gnashing together. I was struggling to keep a grip on my rage, but that wasn’t easy to do with Kevin flaunting the fact that my personal life was about as private as a celebrity sex video.
“Rumor has it your dad’s had you under round-the-clock surveillance for the last five years just to keep you safe and in one place. If that’s true, he’s not only been consistently one man short, but he had to break up a team of enforcers to keep one man free to watch you prance around campus with all your college buddies. Greg hasn’t had the manpower to check out every trespassing report in years. Because of you.”
Even as I shook my head in denial, fury sending sparks of indignation up my spine, part of me wondered if he was right. Had I kept my father from doing his job? Had I forced him to divide his loyalties between me and the rest of the Pride? Had I compromised the security he worked so hard to giv
e us all?
I hadn’t meant for any of that to happen, for my decisions to affect everyone else so drastically. Yet they had. I’d just wanted a little freedom, but the entire Pride had paid for my liberty. If an ass-clown like Kevin Mitchell had seen that, why the hell hadn’t I?
Fortunately, Kevin was so consumed in his own defense that he noticed neither my fury nor my self-doubt. “I was doing your father a favor.” He crossed his arms, as if determined to make himself believe the load of cow shit he was shoveling. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping an eye on the odd stray who wanders across the border without having to bother Greg. If there was a real problem, I’d have given him a call. But there wasn’t. I had it under control.”
Marc took another step forward, and Kevin mirrored him with another step back, flinching and uncrossing his arms when he bumped into the Dumpster. Marc stared down at him, gold-flecked eyes glittering in rage and unspoken challenge. “Then how do you explain Harper winding up dead in an alley?”
Kevin held up his hands, palms out. “I had nothing to do with that. I wasn’t here yesterday. I have no idea who killed him.”
Stunned, I blinked at Kevin, and from the corner of my eye I saw Marc stiffen. He’d heard it, too. “You weren’t here yesterday?” he growled. “Meaning you were here on other days? With Harper?”
Kevin stuttered as comprehension surfaced in his eyes. Finally, he understood how deep his pile of shit was. And he had no idea how to dig himself out of it.
“Spit it out, Kevin.” I made no move to intercede as Marc closed in on him. Marc was the better bad cop, anyway—not because I couldn’t carry it off, but because he wasn’t believable as a good cop. “Did you and Harper go to Forbidden Fruit together? Were you strip-club buddies?”
“Don’t bother. The answer’s obvious,” Marc spat, his voice dripping with disgust. He watched Kevin the way a cat watches a mouse he plans to play with, rather than eat. “The only thing I don’t understand is why a prissy little snot like you would hang out with a scratch-fevered stray.”
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