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A Cold Day In Hell
Stella Cameron


'Tis the season to be wary… Christmas is coming and all is far from calm in Pointe Judah, Louisiana.Newcomer Christian DeAngelo–Angel to his friends–is at his wit's end trying to manage Sonny, the hotheaded nineteen-year-old everyone believes is his nephew. In fact, Sonny is the orphaned son of a notorious mob boss, a protected witness…and Angel's responsibility.Angel has been commiserating with Eileen Moggeridge, whose lonely son Aaron has latched on to Sonny and gotten into deeper trouble than ever. But nothing could prepare Angel and Eileen for the boys' latest crisis: as they are horsing around in the swamp one afternoon, a shot rings out. Aaron is hit, but was the bullet meant for Sonny?Suddenly, goodwill toward men is in short supply and Angel doesn't know who's more dangerous: the hoodoo mystic with an eerie hold over the boys, the hit man roaming the bayou or Eileen's volatile ex-husband, Chuck.









Stella Cameron

A Cold Day in Hell








For CameronRex and Chairman Liao.

Always an inspiration!




CONTENTS


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

EPILOGUE




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Love and thanks to Jill Marie Landis,

friend and fabulous writer.

Your encouragement, input and partially

successful attempts to teach me how to “be”

as well as “do” helped me reach my goals for

A COLD DAY IN HELL!




1


Pointe Judah, Louisiana

Late November

They never should have been there.



“Stop walking. Now. Stand still, dammit!” Aaron Moggeridge shouted at the retreating back of Sonny DeAngelo.

“Sonny,” Aaron yelled. “I’m out of rope with my mom. If she finds out about this, I’m toast. She’ll kick me out of the house.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sonny said. “I got a lot more worries with my uncle. How would you like to have Angel trying to straighten you out? And Eileen’s too soft to quit on you. Shit, come on, will ya?”

Aaron pulled a foot out of the sucky mud and stomped it down on a white cypress stump. “We’re lost,” he pointed out. At least Sonny had quit walking away. “Do you know which way to the bayou?”

Bayou Nezpique had been behind them when Sonny had insisted on striking out into swampy ground, but who knew where it was now? “You don’t have a clue, do you? I told you fooling around in swamps was a bad idea. Why did you really want to get into this stuff? And don’t give me that ecosystem crap again.”

Sonny turned around and retraced his steps, smacking his sodden sneakers through a thin layer of brown water covered with frothing scum into the bottom sludge. He looked like he was enjoying himself.

“You’re like a stupid kid,” Aaron said. “Jumpin’ in puddles. I’m calling for help. It’s getting dark, Sonny. You want to be out here in the dark? It’ll get colder and it could rain buckets. Where’d you think all this water came from? It’s almost December and we’re getting a helluva lot of rain.” He reached for his cell phone and started punching in numbers. He was scared. Sonny was a city kid, a New Yorker; he didn’t know shit about a Louisiana swamp.

“C’mon,” Sonny said. He poked at Aaron’s cell, messing up the number. “If we call home like a couple of scared girls, we’re done for.”

“Look around,” Aaron said, raising his arms. “We don’t know where we are. It’s gonna get dark. This isn’t Brooklyn, it’s a swamp. Y’know what kind of stuff hangs out in swamps?”

“Pretty much what hangs out in parts of Brooklyn.”

Sonny kept his head shaved and oiled but the shadow of his thick black hair always showed. It came to a point in the middle, in front. His eyes pissed Aaron off. They looked innocent. Big, brown and soft, and they lied. Sonny DeAngelo was the toughest kid he had ever met. Sonny was seventeen and Aaron would be before long, but most of the time Aaron felt like Sonny was years older.

“Okay,” Sonny said, his voice dropping. “I’m an ass, just like you say. But we’re in it now and we gotta get out, so quit panicking and start working with me.”

“Shit!”

“Shit, what now?”

“I know this place. I’ve lived here all my life and I know where I don’t go. This is a big don’t go. But I let you talk me into it. You don’t get to tell me to work with you, because you don’t know jack shit. You work with me, ballhead.”

Sonny grinned. “Sure thing.” He posed like a scarecrow with its head on one side, and his thin black sweater hung from his arms and body. His flat belly showed above the black pants that hung on his hip bones. He pointed one long forefinger. “I do know where we are. I didn’t tell you in case you chickened out, but there’s a guy I want to get a look at.”

What Sonny had just said didn’t compute for Aaron. He shook his head.

“I’m not making this up,” Sonny said. “We got to that busted dock and I knew we had to come this—”

“What guy?” Aaron asked. “What guy, Sonny? You didn’t say anything about looking for a guy.”

“He lives around here. The bartender at Buzzard’s Wet Bar told me about him.”

“Buzz’s? You were at Buzz’s?”

Sonny shrugged. “I just wanted to see what it was like in there.”

“If someone squeals on you, Angel’s going to take you apart. It’s gonna be ugly.” Aaron made a circle, searching for something familiar, anything that would steer them out of there.

“We gotta concentrate,” Sonny said. “That broken dock where I stopped? Back there on the bayou? That was the marker for us to head into the trees. His place is around here and we’re going to stumble right over it any second now.”

“Liar,” Aaron said. “Ecosystems.”

“They said I wouldn’t do it,” Sonny said. “I’m gonna show them. Wait till I prove it to them tomorrow. There’s no such thing as voodoo. Or a root doctor.”

Aaron moaned. “A root doctor? You’re off your head. If one of those guys was around here—and he isn’t—I sure as hell wouldn’t be stopping by for a visit. I’m calling Matt Boudreaux.”

“The police chief?” Sonny’s voice squeaked. “For crissakes, let’s move. All I want to do is see where this guy lives and get me a memento.”

Aaron looked up through the trees. They weren’t dense but they were all he could see in any direction. Cypress, their feet in standing water. Moss hanging like grey-green slime. Broken stumps scattered. “A frickin’minefield,” he muttered. “If there…whatever you’re looking for, how will you prove you saw it?”

“If I take a bit of wood back and say it’s from his house, they’ll have to believe it. Maybe I’ll haul along a dead rat, too.”

“You don’t know a thing about this place,” Aaron said. “Okay, we’ve got to choose. Back the way we came or straight on.”

“Straight on,” Sonny said, frowning now. “We’ll get out to an old logging road eventually. I just want to see his house and—hey, we can ask him how to get out of here.”

“Our bikes,” Aaron said. “We’ve got to find them or we’ll never get home. That’s it.” He gritted his teeth and dialed 911.

“Don’t,” Sonny whispered. “Please don’t do that. You know I’m supposed to behave while I’m here. That’s why I’m here. Uncle Angel’s—”

Aaron held up a palm. “No signal,” he said. His skin felt tight. Just like he’d been expecting, raindrops began tunneling down through the trees.

He heard a sound that didn’t fit. One look at Sonny showed he had heard it, too. With a finger to his mouth he got to Aaron, took his arm and backed him into the nearest cover—three tall stumps crowded together.

The sound came again and again, then turned into a steady splashing and stumbling racket.

“If that’s your root doctor, there’s no use hiding. He already knows where we are.” Aaron spoke softly through barely moving lips.

“And if it’s somebody else?” Sonny said against his ear. “Give me the voodoo man over some others it could be.”

“What d’you mean?”

Sonny’s features weren’t as clear anymore. The light was just about all sucked out. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to try running to that tree, the really big one there. If we split up, we’re more difficult to catch. That’s if there’s someone planning to catch us. If it was Angel, he’d be calling our names.”

“I wish it was him.” Aaron twisted the neck of Sonny’s black sweater and hung on. “You’re not going. We stay together.”

The splashing, the cracking of branches stopped abruptly.

“We can take him,” Aaron murmured.

“Not if he’s got a gun.”

Aaron felt puzzled and said, “Root doctors don’t carry guns.”

“You know any of ’em well?”

“Never met one.”

Only the creaking of winter-pale tree limbs and the slapping of raindrops broke the silence, these and the critters on their way home. Those raindrops whirled, catching what light came from above.

The splashing started again, then stopped—then started.

Sonny put his mouth to Aaron’s ear again. “He doesn’t know where we are for sure. He may not be looking for us at all. Hang on. I think he’ll go away.”

Aaron nodded and held his breath. With his body so quiet, his heart slammed at his eardrums. He took another breath. “Nothing now,” he murmured. They were in big-time trouble. Getting out of there was all that mattered—as long as they could do it alive.

He pulled way back between two trunks and inched around, looking for any movement. The cracks through the stumps weren’t big enough to see through. He worked slowly sideways until the fingers of his left hand touched the smooth edge of a cypress.

Sonny caught at Aaron’s right shoulder but he shrugged him away.

A loud click, a crack, a flash of light, and Aaron could have sworn he felt the bullet slice through the air close to his face.

“God.” He froze in complete panic for a moment, then rolled back the way he had come. He and Sonny didn’t speak. The time for that was over.

They were trapped with a shooter who was just waiting for them to make a tiny move.

“Strangers a-coming!” A man’s full, deep voice sang out the words and Aaron squeezed his eyes shut. He felt light-headed.

“Strangers a-coming!” Louder, even richer this time. “What they want? Who break the peace? You be sor-ry!” The laugh that followed started with a gurgle and hurtled up the scale.

“That’s not the guy with the gun,” Aaron said. “He’s behind and to the right. This one’s…” He wasn’t sure where the guy who had shouted was, but there were two men out there.

Sonny put his fingers in his ears. He didn’t look gutsy and fearless anymore.

Aaron gripped his arm. “I think the screamer’s way over to our left now. Maybe he’s trying to help us.” He let out a yell and ran toward the big voice.

Air burned his throat and his eyes. But he shouted and screeched louder and louder.

He saw a searing flash, just like the other one. It definitely didn’t come from the same direction as the mouthy guy.

A thud into Aaron’s back, way to the left side, spun him around. “I’m shot!”

There was pain. Dull pain. Then numbness, heaviness.

He hit the scummy water, face-first, before the lights went out.



Sonny turned one way, then the other. Don’t let him be dead.

A racket set up, like nothing he’d ever heard before. The clink of sharp things rattling together, and bells—or at least metal clinking on other metal surfaces.

Coming out of the boggy haze, a figure loomed. Tall, in a fever of movement. Great head shaking, voluminous cloth billowing behind, and a glow that picked out a bumpy, shiny red face with holes where the eyes should be.

The creature paused, humming, shaking his noisemakers softly. At first Sonny thought the freak’s head looked big because he had a mass of shaggy hair, then he saw a bulbous, colorful turban built up to outlandish proportions.

And Sonny heard more splashing, this time made by someone fleeing, throttle wide-open, from the red, shiny-faced guy. Suddenly he realized that the creature wore a mask—a bright red mask, with a skeletal face painted in black.

Sonny had to get Aaron.

He had to get the hell out of here, they both did.

This was the voodoo man. And damn if it didn’t look like he was staring at Aaron, but hadn’t noticed Sonny.

Long arms shot out. Spiking his knees skyward with each step, he made for Aaron. In the glow that went with him, he twisted his hands this way and that. Fingernails inches long, glowed white and clicked together. The tips glinted silver.

Amid unearthly sounds, the man—if that’s what it was—reached Aaron, stooped and brought his head close, listening. Even at a distance, Sonny saw him nod and hoped it meant Aaron was alive.

With both arms, the man scooped up Sonny’s buddy as if he was a baby. Scooped him up, holding Aaron’s left side tight with both hands.

Sonny saw blood drizzle through the fingers. “Oh, my, gawd,” he muttered. Aaron was done for. They were probably both done for.

“Chuzah, me,” the man cried. “He wants you to follow.” And he loped rapidly away. “Come you—the other boy hidin’in the three stumps. That one back there with the gun, he gone, but he could come back.” All that rattling came from garlands of bones, little bones, big bones, skulls, strung around the man’s neck and waist. The bells were gold, Sonny saw them glitter. He shouldn’t have pushed to come here. Look what he’d done to Aaron.

Sonny couldn’t make his feet move. He couldn’t feel his feet or his legs, but he felt how he was rigid and his blood fluttered in his veins.

“You follow Chuzah. Now! This boy bleedin’ to death.”




2


Eileen Moggeridge slammed the door of her van and locked it, keeping her right hand on the gun she carried in her jacket pocket.

Tonight she had met with someone she’d thought she would never see again. He had stood in this parking lot, nodding toward Poke Around, her gift shop, with a smile on his face. “I’m happy for you, Eileen. I only ever wanted the best for you—and Aaron.” And the smile was sad, his expression guilty, apologetic, humble.

As far as she could remember, he’d never regretted a thing he did and she didn’t believe he’d changed.

He wanted something, and it wasn’t an opportunity to take back responsibility for the family that was no longer his.

Chuck Moggeridge had left her, and Pointe Judah, several years ago. There had been talk about another woman but Eileen had not known who that was. Didn’t want to know, didn’t care. Chuck had beaten and humiliated her one time too many and she still hated herself for not getting rid of him a lot sooner. In the end, her so-called husband had barely beaten Eileen to a divorce lawyer.

Now he was back.

He had called from his car in the parking lot, asked her to talk to him, “Tell me about Aaron. Just for a couple of minutes. He’s my son as well as yours.”

His car had been parked only slots away from hers in the Oakdale Mansion Center lot, but Chuck didn’t know what she drove anymore. Or he hadn’t, but did now. Eileen had walked to her van and seen him hurry toward her. She got quickly behind the wheel, locked the doors and opened her window a crack.

For too long they had looked at each other.

Strange how two people who had made a life together, made a child together, could become strangers.

He didn’t ask to get into the van with her, or for her to go somewhere with him. At least he knew better than that—tonight. Eileen didn’t trust him not to push for more, not when his parting words had been, “I know my responsibilities. You should have let me know he was in rehab. Aaron’s had a rough time and he needs his father. It’s good to be back so I can make things right.”

Lies. Mostly lies.

How had Chuck found out about Aaron’s problems with alcohol? They weren’t an issue anymore. Aaron had gone through rehab—quietly, although she didn’t fool herself that no one knew—and he was just fine. When he had needed Chuck, the man hadn’t been around and now she wanted things to stay the way they were.

She had met Angel DeAngelo—his first name was really Christian—through his nephew Sonny. Sonny and Aaron had become fast friends and Angel had stepped up to give masculine support to Aaron when needed. Eileen liked him—a lot. Sonny wasn’t nearly as high on her list. Surly and silent around her, he was an Aaron-rescue. Aaron had a history of championing misfits.

She held the gun so tight her fingers ached.

The thought of being afraid of Chuck was not new. When they’d been together she dreaded the sight of him and never knew what he might plan to do to her. But she hadn’t worried about him since he’d made a complete break. His timing for coming back couldn’t be worse. She raised her face, grateful for the fine moisture on her skin.

If she didn’t get back inside the shop, Angel would arrive before her and ask where she’d been. She wasn’t ready to tell him.

Eileen and Angel had moved slowly together, each of them scalded by past experience, but she wanted them to have a chance at something more and she thought he did, too—if he could ever stop thinking of her as his good buddy. Most afternoons, around closing time, he stopped by for coffee but their conversations tended to revolve around Aaron and Sonny.

Damn Chuck for showing up now. He shouldn’t scare her, but he did.

The rain had eased off, but the evening remained damp, the air heavy. Eileen hurried away from her van toward the lighted windows of Poke Around. The shop was in what had once been the conservatory of the beautiful old Oakdale Mansion and she had strung white icicle lights around the roof and outlined the windows with twinkling multicolored strands.

Chuck’s call came only moments after Eileen’s employee, Suky-Jo, had left. They had been stocktaking—not so easy when the shop was crammed with holiday merchandise. All but the low lights were off in the patisserie and the new salon that flanked her place. Old friends ran the salon and Eileen had an investment in that, too.

The business was hers—at last.

Eileen could not get over the excitement she felt whenever she looked at the shop. Her shop. She had come a long way from being Chuck’s mostly ignored wife, the woman who belonged at home—who mustn’t ask for anything, so got nothing.

Angel’s offices were also in the Oakdale Mansion Center. He was the operations manager for her brother’s construction firm and worked late. Then he liked to walk over and pick her up. Within the hour he’d be at the shop door. She wanted to see him. In the months since they had started their tentative relationship, her need to be with him grew daily.

They circled each other and knew that’s what they were doing. Eileen wondered how much longer Angel would be satisfied with being her close friend. She couldn’t face the question tonight.

Her cell phone rang in her purse and when she looked at the readout she saw Angel’s number.

“Hi,” she said, smiling to herself.

“Where are you?”

Eileen frowned and slowed her pace. “Where I almost always am.”

He took his time to respond. “And that is?”

“You’re not interrogating a suspect in your former life.” He admitted to several years’ service as an ATF—alcohol, tobacco and firearms—agent but wouldn’t discuss what he’d done before that. “I’m at the shop,” she said. Or she soon would be.

“No you’re not. What’s going on?”

Eileen’s scalp prickled. She felt colder than she should on a humid night. He’d never spoken to her sharply like that. He had no right to. A few feet from the sidewalk, she stopped and stared at the shop. Angel stood inside the door, staring out, his face set, hard and cold, the way she’d seen it several times before, but never when he was speaking to her.

He had his own key.

In a way, since Aaron and Sonny met, they had almost become a family—with some notable things missing.

His tone turned her stomach. It also made her angry. “What do you think is going on, Christian?” She winced. Her habit of calling him Christian when she was either really happy or really unhappy with him gave her away every time.

He kept the phone at his ear but didn’t say anything. So far he didn’t know she was only yards away and staring at him.

Angel was one of those men who took up a lot of space. When he walked into a room, there was a subtle change in the atmosphere. People looked at him, and conversation faded.

Eileen crossed her arms. The open line between them unnerved her. She tapped a hand at her throat. When she and Angel had met, she and Matt Boudreaux, the local police chief, had seemed to be moving toward a serious relationship. But Matt had been taking his sweet time, often treating her as if they’d been married for years—and she shouldn’t mind a broken date, and another and another. Eileen’s patience had run out. She would always love Matt in a certain way, but Angel’s attention had eventually distracted her.

Sometimes she thought Angel didn’t trust that it was over between her and Matt. He’d never made a romantic move but he did give the impression that she was his property.

Suddenly, Angel slipped his phone into the breast pocket of his dark blue shirt and stood with his big arms spread. He gripped the door frame on either side. Those arms and shoulders weren’t just big, they were massive. She thought about his arms and the way they moved—too often. Just touching him messed with her mind.

Eileen put her own phone away. She had about thirty seconds to see his face, his usually cool gray eyes, before she approached the door and he saw her.

She paused again. Cool didn’t have anything to do with his face now. Emotions, none of which Eileen wanted to explore, passed over his features. She could see a white line around his compressed lips. Below his rolled-up sleeves, the muscles and tendons in his arms stood out. He squeezed the door frame.

That’s enough. Where does he think I am? Or maybe that should be, who does he think I’m with? She hated the thought because playing the field wasn’t her style.

She arrived in front of him and they stared eye-to-eye through the glass. He wore his dark blond hair short and at the moment it stuck up as if he’d pushed at it. He had thicker, darker eyelashes than a man should have and he lowered them to half-mast so he could fix his gaze on her face.

Before she could find her keys, he swept open the door and stood back.

Eileen walked inside and he locked up behind her.

“You’re early,” she said.

“So you thought you had more time to get back before I found out you’d left?”

“Hey, buddy.” She walked to the back of the store where a soft red velvet couch stood, and threw down her purse. “You’re out of line. I’m not having a wonderful evening and I don’t need you to make it worse. I had to step out and deal with something. That’s all, and I don’t have to explain every move I make to you. Can I get you an espresso or a glass of wine—or a beer?”

“No.”

She turned toward him and found that in his naturally uncanny manner, he’d closed the space between them soundlessly. Although she was a tall woman, she was forced to look up at him. “A woman doesn’t belong out there alone, in the dark,” he told her. When he narrowed his gray eyes they became almost black. “It probably used to be that folks didn’t have to lock their doors around here, or worry about crime. Times have changed.”

“I walked to my van. Then I walked back from my van when I’d finished my business. Really, I do appreciate your concern.” She tried a smile, but his expression didn’t change. “As I said, thanks, but I’m a big girl.”

“That depends on what you mean by big girl.”

There would be no discussion about what he thought it meant.

Angel rubbed his face. “I tried to check on Sonny but his cell’s off. You know it bothers me when he does that.”

She sympathized with his worry about his nephew. Sonny had come to Pointe Judah because he needed a strong hand if he wasn’t going to end up in jail. “He and Aaron were out riding bikes,” she said. “You know how that goes. They always go farther than they say they will.”

“That’s fine for Aaron,” Angel said. “Sonny’s got limits. He’s got to be where I can reach him at all times.”

She took out her phone again and placed a call.

Angel moved closer, so close she could feel him. “You calling Aaron?”

She nodded. Pick up the phone, Aaron.

“So Aaron’s gone dark, too?”

“Don’t put it like that,” Eileen said. “They’ll check in just as soon as they’re close to home. You’ve got them scared stiff.”

He tapped his chest with spread fingertips. “Me? Crap, I’m a pussycat. I care, is all.”

She believed the last bit, but he was no pussycat. “Sonny’s likely to stop by my place before he goes home. He likes the food. I’ll make sure he gets back in one piece.”

The following silence unnerved Eileen. She took a deep breath and put the phone away.

“Eileen,” Angel said, his voice softening, a little raspy. “I’m sorry I came on too strong. I was worried.”

She avoided looking at him. “Forget it.”

“I will when you do. You’re mad.”

“No. Edgy is all.”

He put a hand beneath her hair and held the back of her neck. “You said you weren’t worried.”

Eileen held quite still. Her scalp tightened and she felt as if a subtle breeze lifted her hair. They might be trying to pretend they had no physical effect on each other, but it was a lie.

If she told Angel about Chuck, how would he react? He’d never understand that she couldn’t just brush it off. “I’m not worried,” she told Angel. He rubbed her neck and she shivered. When she glanced at him, he was frowning.

“Is there anything you’re not telling me?” he said.

She looked at the floor.

“Eileen?”

“Leave it. When I can talk about it, I will.”

He took her by the hand and led her into the stockroom. Once there, he turned her to face him and held her shoulders. “Not good enough. What is it?”

She kept her gaze on his chest.

“C’mon,” he said quietly. “Don’t do this to me.” He kissed her cheek, pushed her hair away from her left ear and stroked his thumb across it.

“Stop it,” Eileen said, without conviction. He had bad timing, choosing tonight to make moves on her.

“I’d rather not stop.” He pulled her against him. “I’ve already waited too long.”

“Christian, don’t.” He was a big man. If he decided to hold you, you were held.

“Sorry—I think we both need a little warmth sometimes.” He stepped back at once, but still held her arms and made it uncomfortable to look at him. It would be more uncomfortable to look away. “You’ve got a gun in your pocket,” he said.

She felt her face heat up. “Yes, I have.”

“I didn’t know you owned one.”

“You’re the one who’s always saying that even people in quiet places like Pointe Judah should take precautions.”

His fingers tightened on her arms. “Do you carry all the time?”

This was the problem when you hung around with a man who had interrogated people for a living. “No.”

“You keep a gun in the shop?”

She tried to wrench away but he didn’t let her go. “Yes. Are we done now?”

“And tonight you decided you needed to be armed when you went out to do this business in your van you talk about?”

Eileen looked him in the eye. She felt the prickle of tears and blinked several times. “This conversation is over.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Leave it, okay? Just leave it.” Chuck had driven away. What if he’d come back and was skulking around outside, hoping she’d leave on her own?

“I’m sorry I’m so snappy,” she said.

“Me, too.” He looked at her mouth. “Do you want me to leave?”

She shook her head. He was sending her messages he’d kept under wraps before. Or perhaps she subconsciously wanted that to be true.

“You sure you don’t want to tell me what’s on your mind?” he said.

She wasn’t sure, but she’d wait anyway.

“Eileen, would this be a bad time to talk about us, too?”

He’d done a great job of behaving like Aaron’s strong, benevolent uncle and her friend. And he’d done the things a woman wished for when she wanted to know a man.

He dropped his hands.

“No it’s not a bad time,” she told him, lying. She laughed a little. “We are so grown-up about things. I’m proud of us. We should get a prize for being reasonable.” And if she concentrated on something else, she wouldn’t keep trying to figure out what Chuck might or might not plan to do.

“As soon as we’re sure the boys are at your place, why don’t we go to the Boardroom for a drink?” Angel said. “And something to eat. The music’s good. We might even dance.”

“Dance? You told me you can’t dance.” Going to a club didn’t appeal to her much, but she said, “Yes. Looks like Delia and Sarah Board have a success on their hands with that place.” He was asking her out on a date. They’d had meals together before, in places like Ona’s, but there had never been any planned dates.

Located in the middle of Pointe Judah, the Boardroom had been open just a few months. It revved up when the town revved down and there was nothing else like it around.

Delia owned a cosmetics firm with offices and labs around the country but liked living in Pointe Judah. Her daughter, Sarah, was a chemist at the local lab and the club had been her idea.

Eileen hitched her bag over her shoulder and turned out the lights in the stockroom. “I’ve got extra help coming in tomorrow and I need it. It’s easy enough to get part-time people but I need someone full-time.”

“You’re working too hard,” Angel said. “Why don’t you put the gun in your purse if you’re going to keep on carrying the thing? It could fall out of your pocket.”

She did as he suggested without comment.

“Give me a couple more minutes,” Angel said. “If you don’t want to say anything, at least listen.”

In the darkness, piles of boxes loomed all around and unpacked merchandise was piled high on tables. Much of the stuff on the tables sparkled, even in the gloom. Eileen glanced at the high windows but all she saw was rain speckles heavy enough to make the glass look pebbled in the glow of the icicle lights at the roofline.

“Eileen?”

“Okay. Sorry I got distracted.”

“Something’s wrong—something you’re not telling me.”

When he nailed her like this she felt trapped. “And I told you I’ll talk about it when I can.”

“What’s changed?” he said, ever persistent. “If there’s something to be worried about I need to know what it is or I can’t help.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” Yet. And there probably wouldn’t be. “Angel, has Sonny done jail time?”

A silence followed and went on so long she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“No, he hasn’t,” Angel said, opening the door again. “What made you think he had?”

“Oh, forget I said anything. He’s a lot more mature than Aaron and sometimes I worry there could be things Aaron doesn’t need to know yet, that’s all.”

Angel propped himself in the doorway. Behind him, colored lights blinked on and off on display trees. “How did you make the leap from Sonny being mature to his having done jail time?” Angel asked.

She felt ashamed, and judgmental. “He was sent to you for some reason. You told me he needed extra discipline.”

“I said he needed a man’s hand, a man’s guidance. He doesn’t have a father.”

Like Aaron didn’t have a father. Or hadn’t. And Eileen wanted Chuck out of town again. Now.

“Look,” Angel said. “I don’t want to say this but I’ve got to. You give me the impression you think Sonny’s no good for Aaron. You’ve pegged Sonny as a bad boy.”

“No!” Was she that transparent? “Aaron got in his own trouble. He’s not perfect.” She hadn’t told him how silently belligerent Sonny often was with her.

“But Aaron was just acting out and he did it quietly. You told me that and I believe you. He got muddled up after his father left. Finn told me all about it. He tried to fill in but Aaron got the idea it was his fault his dad ducked out.”

Finn Duhon was Eileen’s brother. His wife, Emma, used to own Poke Around but sold it to Eileen when she came into money from the sale of the Duhon family home. Finn had insisted she take all the proceeds because he didn’t need them. That money had changed Eileen’s life.

“Say something,” Angel said.

She thought she saw movement outside the front windows of the shop. Her heart missed a beat, then another, then pounded rapidly. She was getting too jumpy. “Leave it, I said,” she told him, hearing her voice rise. “I can’t do this now. You’re pulling me apart like you’re suspicious of everything I say. Let me be.”

“Eileen, please—”

“No. I’d better go home on my own. I’m not good company.”

“I’m coming with you.” He reached for her but she tried to evade him. Angel caught her as she backed into a file cabinet. “Hold it,” he said quietly.

She began to shake and she had to stop it. Some things had to be dealt with on her own. “I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m just overworked.”

“You’re not fine,” he said. He pulled her against him. For an instant she resisted, but then she softened and leaned into him. “You’re making too many excuses and you’re trembling. If I’m not scaring you to death, something else is. Now tell me because I won’t quit asking until you do.”

She wanted to close her eyes, breathe him in, hold on tight. How many times had she dreamed about this moment? Now she couldn’t relax and enjoy it.

The phone in his pocket rang and he switched it off.

“That could be Sonny,” she said.

“We’re going back to your place now. I’ll deal with him when I get there. Hold my hand. You’re important to me. Let me be here for you.” He held her hand and led her into the shop.

Nobody had ever told her such things, and he said them without pushing for anything more intimate.

Hammering on the front door made her jump so hard her teeth ground together.

“It’s okay,” Angel said, but he shoved her behind him and opened the door. “Hell, will you look at this!”

Sonny just about fell inside. Drenched, covered with mud and, unmistakably, smeared with blood, he staggered and Angel stopped him from tripping.

“What’s the matter?” Angel said.

Eileen rushed to him. “Where’s Aaron?”

“I gotta get back,” Sonny said, dragging in breaths, not looking at Eileen. “You gotta come with me, Angel.” He looked into Angel’s face, a hard stare as if he was sending a silent message.

“Where’s Aaron?” Eileen felt herself losing it. “Sonny—”

“Hush,” Angel said, but his face wasn’t expressionless now.

“It’s all my fault,” Sonny said. “I shouldn’t have been…I went where I shouldn’t have and talked to the wrong people. They kind of dared me. I got Aaron and me into trouble. It’s bad.” His big, dark eyes stretched wide and she could feel his fear. “Angel, do you think someone—”

“Let’s go,” Angel said.

“Tell me where Aaron is,” Eileen begged.

“Oh, God,” Sonny moaned, hanging his head. “He’s in the swamp. North of town. I know how to get back. Chuzah made sure. I hope he made sure. He sent me in his, er, car.”

“Stop it,” Angel said. “Calm down, both of you. Chuzah is?”

Sonny looked as if he could cry. “Um, a doctor.”

“Oh, thank God,” Eileen said.

“In the swamp?” Angel said. “This doctor just happened by, huh?”

“He lives there.”

“Aaron hurt himself?” Eileen said.

“No, someone else…” Sonny swallowed. “He got hurt.”

“But there’s a doctor there? A general practitioner?”

Angel pushed them both through the door and locked it behind him. “Eileen, we’ll have to take your van. My truck’s at home.”

“I’ve got to drive Chuzah’s vehicle back,” Sonny said. “I’m afraid he’d do something awful to me if I didn’t get his car back. I know the way. Follow me.”

Angel grabbed Sonny’s arm and spun him around. “What do you mean, something awful?”

“Oh,” Sonny said. “He’s a root doctor.”

Eileen felt faint. She held Angel’s sleeve. “We need a real doctor. I’ll get on to Mitch Halpern. And let’s call Matt—”

“No,” Sonny said. “Chuzah knows about other medical stuff. If we show up with some new guy he doesn’t expect, he won’t let us find him.”

“You said you knew the way,” Angel said.

Sonny scrubbed at his oiled scalp. “Do what I’m tellin’ you. Please. I know how to get to where there’ll be someone waiting to guide us in.”

To the right, at the curb, was a dark green vintage Morgan sports car. Again, all Eileen could do was stare.

“This root doctor threatened you,” Angel said.

“Well…he was nice about it.”

“I’m calling Matt now,” Eileen said. “Some voodoo practitioner has kidnapped my son.”

“Anything could happen if you call the law,” Sonny said, with his familiar hard stare. The streetwise kid from Brooklyn was back. “I know Aaron’s okay with Chuzah. He helped us.”

“That isn’t his Morgan, is it?” Angel said.

“Uh-huh. He’s really weird.”

“And you left Aaron alone with him?” Eileen said.

Sonny broke away and hurried toward the driver’s door on the Morgan. “He saved Aaron’s life,” he said and climbed in, then slammed and locked the door.




3


“I’m worried about complaints,” Emma Duhon said. “The merchants like the pedestrian traffic that comes to the fair, but they don’t like competing with the stall owners for business.”

She looked around the circle of women gathered at Ona’s Out Back—Ona referred to it as a tea shop—to discuss the finer details of the Pointe Judah Christmas fair. The event was only days away and lasted over a weekend. They sat in a motley collection of armchairs pulled up to a big low table intended for magazines. The magazines were stacked on the floor to make way for coffee, wine and empty dishes formerly piled high with fried shrimp.

Emma doodled on a looseleaf notebook. “It’s really late to be haggling over this. Why not suggest the shopkeepers have tables at the fair, too?” She’d been in a good mood when she agreed to help with the fair, but wished she’d thought it over for much longer before saying she would. How she got to be in charge, she couldn’t remember.

“They’d have to pay rent for their tables, just like all the others,” Lobelia Forestier said. She had been president of the Pointe Judah Chamber of Commerce for five years. “They should want to do their share for a good cause.”

The truth was that nobody else would take over Lobelia’s unpaid job which, apart from guaranteeing prime gossip rights, had no function other than to sit in on other people’s meetings.

Delia Board, Sabine Webb and Gracie Loder made up the rest of the committee. Delia was Pointe Judah’s most celebrated inhabitant and ran a world-famous cosmetics firm. Sabine, Delia’s housekeeper, also moonlighted at the Board-room, and Gracie worked at Buzzard’s Wet Bar during the day and the Boardroom at night.

“How do we insult these shopkeepers without insulting them?” Delia said, running her fingers through her hair and drawing a laugh. She crossed her elegant gray boots at the ankle. “No fair, no extra traffic. End of problem. The fair benefits everyone.”

Emma clamped her hands behind her neck and grinned at Delia. “Sometimes I think a really small town is more difficult to run than a major company. You would know, Delia.”

“You’re right, but we have to suffer for all the village charm we get around here.”

Lobelia grunted and Emma shared a private smile with Delia and Sabine.

“You got a lot done tonight,” Gracie said. “Sorry I was late but I’d better get on to Sarah’s place. There’s not much more to do except for deciding about the shopkeepers. And we’ve got to make sure everyone turns up to finish the decorations. We want this to knock everyone’s eyes out. More flash, that’s what we need, so folks will come from all over to see it.”

“And buy,” Lobelia said.

“That, too,” Gracie said. She shook out her damp jacket and swung it around her shoulders. “’Night, all.”

Lobelia shook her head. She coated her entire face with loose powder, including her eyebrows, and flecks clung to strands of dyed brown hair. “Barhopping the way you do isn’t good for your reputation, Gracie,” she said. “You go on. We’ll finish up without you.”

“Barhoppin’?” Sabine said and laughed. The red and green beads in her many braids clicked together. “Gracie works at Buzzard’s, then she works at the Boardroom. She’s busy makin’ her way is all. You never had to rush around trying to keep your head above water. Gracie’s either going to work or coming from work, so give her a break.” Her deep bronze skin shone, especially where a dusting of gold sparkles curved over her high cheekbones.

Lobelia gathered herself up and pursed her lips.

“I’m already parked at Sarah’s. I’ll take a shortcut through Ona’s kitchen and walk over.” On her feet, Gracie made for the kitchen that separated Out Back from Out Front, Ona’s licensed diner that faced the street. Rounded in the nicest way, with short black hair and large, smiling brown eyes, Gracie pretended to stagger into the kitchen.

Everyone but Lobelia laughed. “That girl’s trouble,” she said. “She knows Ona doesn’t like people in her kitchen.”

Emma was tired. In her seventh month of pregnancy, she ran out of steam much more easily than she was used to. “Can I leave you three to talk about the best way to make everyone happy?” she said. “If we’re going to charge the business owners, it shouldn’t be as much as the stall people just in for the fair.”

“I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” Delia Board said. Her red hair expertly cut to sweep up, and her makeup flawless, Delia managed perfect posture even in a sagging armchair. “You’re doing too much, Emma.”

That wasn’t true, but Emma enjoyed the concern. She had parked in the lot behind the building and set off, glad she’d remembered to bring an umbrella.

Finn would be waiting for her and fussing that she was late. Whenever she went out these days she was automatically late. She smiled, concentrating on her white leather sneakers as she walked the gradual incline toward her car. Out Front was busy tonight and an overflow of vehicles from the diner filled many of the slots on this side of the lot, too.

The baby did a slow somersault and Emma stood still, a hand on her belly. This was the longed-for child she and Finn had come to doubt they would ever have.

She walked on, warm with happiness.

“Mrs. Duhon?”

At the sound of a man’s voice, she paused again and looked around. She couldn’t see anyone. No moving shadows. Maybe she’d imagined the voice.

The lights inside Out Back seemed a long way away. The wind plucked at Emma’s curly hair, tossed it across her face and back again. She fought with the umbrella. Branches shook on a row of trees between the parked cars.

The wind died.

Emma’s skin crawled but she carried on.

“Wait, Mrs. Duhon! I want to talk to you.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” Emma made sure she was in the middle of the open space between the rows of cars. She calculated how far she’d have to run back to the restaurant.

“You don’t think about Denise anymore, do you, Mrs. Duhon?”

Emma’s heart seemed to fill her throat.

“You’re too important to waste your time on the past.”

Denise. Poor, dear Denise. Dead two years now, murdered at the hands of a sick pervert. Emma and Finn had literally run into one another after a whole lot of years. They had stood talking and catching up on their lives, when Denise’s body had tumbled from a nearby garbage container. The killer had been caught, but the horror never quite went away.

“Of course I think about Denise. She was my friend. I loved her.”

“Did you? Doesn’t stop you from carrying on like she never lived. Do you think that’s fair? I don’t think it is. Do you remember how Denise died?”

Emma considered running. She was fit, she always had been. Of course she couldn’t move the way she did when she wasn’t pregnant, but what choice did she have?

“I always said pregnant women were sexy.”

Emma didn’t know the voice. A shadow separated itself between two trees.

She was a little closer to Out Back than he was and he wasn’t likely to draw attention to himself by causing her to fight him…she would fight him if she had to.

Since she was a bit nearer to the building, she had a chance of catching him off guard by running. She sidestepped back the way she’d come.

“Aw, you don’t want to do that. All I want is to talk. You start trying something fancy and you could do damage to that baby of yours. You wouldn’t want that.”

Emma opened her mouth but only a rasping sound came out. She needed to scream and yell and draw attention to herself.

“You want your baby, don’t you?” he said, his voice difficult to hear now. “They say you didn’t think you could have one. What a shame if you killed it now.”

She backed away from the place where the shadow hovered, skidded on one heel and dropped her purse. She left it where it fell and turned to run. Clumsy, she was so clumsy.

“No, no, no,” he shouted. “You stop that right now or you’ll hurt yourself. You’re overreacting.”

She kept running, the weight of the baby pulling her forward.

“You want to murder your kid? Is that what you want? You want to kill that baby you don’t deserve?”

His voice kept up with her.

Emma’s knees shook. She felt tears on her face.

He had followed, and he intended to catch her. The notebook flew from her hand and she saw a sheet of yellow paper dip and sail. She managed to hold on to the umbrella. It had a point at one end. She might need that.

“Why are you runnin’? What d’you have to be afraid of? Your conscience? Stop, right now.”

No, no, no.

She heard the singing sound of something lashing through the air. A cord or rope coiled around one of her shoes. Emma couldn’t run anymore.

The toe of her other sneaker jammed against a crack. Her umbrella slid through her fingers and tangled with her legs. Stumbling toward a parked pickup, she grabbed for the truck’s tailgate.

Emma missed; she hit her shoulder and hip on cold metal. Sound hammered, louder and louder, in her ears. She was going down.

Her hands slammed into the gritty ground, then her belly. Tearing pressure under her diaphragm winded her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Then her knees gave out.

She skidded under the back of the pickup.

“You stay where you are, and keep still,” the man said. He kicked the sole of her shoe and acid rushed to her throat. “You move before I say and you and that kid are finished—if the kid isn’t done in already.”




4


“Don’t let his taillights get too far ahead of you.”

“I’m doing the driving,” Eileen said, without raising her voice. “You’re safe with me. I won’t lose Sonny.”

At least he hadn’t made the mistake of suggesting he take the wheel. He could only imagine what the response to that would have been. “I trust you, Eileen. You’re a good driver.” His face felt tight. Everything about this evening was wrong—or had gone wrong.

“Thanks,” she said and he could hear the sarcasm in her tone.

There were things Eileen didn’t know, like the true story behind Sonny being in Pointe Judah. Angel didn’t want her to find out. She had already carefully minced around whether or not Sonny was a good role model for Aaron. She hadn’t been so subtle that Angel missed the message, but at least she didn’t know how close she was to the truth.

Sonny was a kid with potential—and a lot of past baggage weighing him down. Angel’s job was to keep the boy alive until certain people forgot about him—if they ever did.

She stared sideways at Angel. “I think Sonny was telling us Aaron got shot but he didn’t like saying it right out.” Her voice shook.

“That could be. He didn’t sound completely sure.”

“Aaron will be okay, won’t he?”

She wanted him to say yes, because that’s what she needed to hear. “Of course he will,” he said. He’d better be, and there had better not be anything that suggested whatever had happened was anything other than an accident.

“Could have been a hunter who made a mistake,” Eileen said.

Angel wasn’t aware of hunters firing indiscriminately in the swamps. “Could have,” he said. “This rain makes it hard to see. Sonny’s getting farther away.”

“I don’t mind anything but the fog,” she said, leaning forward. “Look how thick it’s getting.” She rolled her window down an inch and succeeded only in letting cool, heavy vapor into the van. “Your headlights bounce back at you.”

She reached for the gearshift and her fingers closed on the thigh he’d hitched up instead. Eileen whipped her hand away. Angel felt singed. He got a backlash, a hot backlash all the way to the base of his spine. They had touched so little—mostly accidentally.

Tonight he’d planned to be alone with her, for as long as he could keep her with him. And he’d planned to point out the benefits of getting closer, much closer. Eileen had been the perfect, immaculate mother for long enough. Too long, from Angel’s point of view. When a woman’s accidental hold on his thigh gave him pre-orgasmic spasms, the waiting game had gone too far.

“I should have kept a closer eye on what Aaron’s been up to,” Eileen said.

Shit. “You’re not on your own with this. Not that I think there’s anything to worry about.” Unless someone had put out a hit on Sonny.

Angel gritted his teeth.

“This isn’t a road, it’s an overgrown, abandoned track,” Eileen said, and right on cue the van bumped up and over the buckled blacktop.

“You’re right, it’s not much of a road.” He turned in his seat to peer through the fog toward the trees. “The bayou can’t be so far away.” He had never explored out here.

“Farther than you think,” Eileen said. “It’s close back toward town but around here there’s a lot of swampland before you get to the water.”

“What’s in there?”

“In the swamp?” She glanced at him. “It’s not pretty unless you get-off on mud and standing water and sodden ground in every direction. And critters—the kind you’d rather not meet.”

Angel said. “And voodoo stuff, too, huh?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Are you afraid of that bull?” Angel asked. “Don’t waste fear on superstitious crap. Unless you fancy one of those little velvet spell bags filled with—grave dust, is it? That’s supposed to keep you safe, isn’t it?”

“I doubt it.”

“Make you wildly passionate then?” Angel said, deliberately trying to catch her off guard. “Mixed with snake droppings and skunk hair? A pinch of dried fire ants to make you hot, and puree of hundred-proof alcohol to make you helpless? Sounds good to me.”

He saw how she bit her lower lip and figured she hardly heard him babbling to fill up any silence. Just as well.

She surprised him when she said, “There are things in these parts that you don’t mess with. Ignorance can get you into big trouble.”

Angel bit back a retort. Eileen was the last person he would have expected to believe in the old arts.

The little red taillights on the Morgan glowed, then faded to pink as the fog thinned and thickened.

“Watch out! Will you look at that?” He grabbed the dashboard. “The kid slammed on the brakes with no warning.”

Eileen pumped the brakes on the van and came to a stop with inches to spare behind the Morgan

“I’m terrified for Aaron,” Eileen said. She found his hand and wound her fingers in his. “Call Matt Boudreaux now. We ought to have the police here. And our own doctor. We could get hold of Mitch Halpern. You know he’d come right out.”

“You heard what Sonny said. This Chuzah doesn’t want any official company.” He rubbed her hand between his. It wasn’t her way to reach for comfort.

“If it turns out we have to go to Matt about this, he’ll be steamed.”

Angel made sure he didn’t show how much he liked that idea. “Go with me on this. Matt would do the same if he was in our position.” Maybe he would; maybe he wouldn’t. Eileen didn’t need Matt Boudreaux around—for any reason.

Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and pushed out of the van. Sonny didn’t appear but Eileen walked toward the Morgan.

Angel said, “Sonny?”

Sonny didn’t answer. Angel reached Eileen and they saw that Sonny wasn’t in the sports car. He stood a few yards ahead at the very edge of the road. His back was rigid and he repeatedly looked around the area.

“Look,” Eileen said, backing into Angel. “Over there. What is it? Sonny!”

“Quiet,” Sonny said clearly. “Keep it down. He doesn’t like noises.”

“Chuzah?” Angel and Eileen asked in unison.

Angel peered into the darkness at the side of the overgrown road. Two small, pale lights blinked on and off. “Get back in the van and lock the doors,” he told Eileen.

“Forget it,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m going after Aaron. He’s my son.”

He reached for her; the backs of his fingers met the side of her face. “You’re burning up,” he said. “Are you sick?”

“No! It’s humid.”

It was humid. Rain fell hard enough to stick his shirt to his back. He had water inside his shoes. Eileen’s long, dark hair clung to her neck and shoulders and her face shone pale and wet in the near opaque darkness.

“Those lights,” Eileen said. “They’re not normal. They look like shiny stones. What are they?”

“Probably nothing. Just something picking up reflections.” He’d never seen anything like them before. And he didn’t like that one bit.

“Angel,” she said, tugging at the sleeve of his shirt. “They’re moving. They go one way, then the other. I want Aaron.”

“Look,” he said quietly, “it would be quicker if I went on my own with Sonny. Please, wait in the van.”

“Don’t say that again. I’m getting a flashlight.” She turned around and started back.

Angel didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he took a few steps closer to Sonny and said, “Eileen’s gone for a flashlight. Quick, tell me what happened.”

“No flashlight.” Sonny hissed. “Chuzah doesn’t do flashlights.”

The silver lights drew closer and Angel said, “Get away from there. What are those glowing things?”

“It’s Locum,” Sonny said. “Chuzah’s buddy. He’s come to guide us into the swamp.”

“Don’t play any stupid games,” Angel said. “Eileen’s already scared out of her mind.”

“No, I’m not,” Eileen said, arriving at his side again. “I’m worried about my boy. Sonny! What’s that thing?”

“Don’t use the flashlight or we’re done for,” Sonny said. “Cool it, will ya? Just follow me.”

“It’s a ghost,” Eileen whispered. “My legs are wobbly.”

“There aren’t any ghosts.” Angel eased the flashlight from her fingers and pushed it into his waistband. He put an arm around Eileen and guided—or half pushed—her forward. With each step she leaned back against him.

“It’s a ghost,” Eileen repeated. “It’s floating. Look! The lights went out but I can see a silvery shape wafting above the ground.”

“It’s Chuzah’s friend Locum,” Angel whispered. “Sonny told me.” He had a wicked temptation to laugh.

“Locum?” Eileen said. “Do you think Chuzah’s a ghost, too?”

A few steps behind Sonny, they left the overgrown road and set off onto ground that soon became soggy beneath damp brush. Trees loomed, their pale trunks hung with strips of peeling bark.

“It’s a shape-shifter,” Eileen said. “Sonny! You come here at once. Don’t you go anywhere near that thing.”

“He’s not twelve,” Angel whispered.

Her face turned to his. “Sometimes they behave as if they are. Do you know what that thing is?”

“Looks like an animal.”

“Exactly,” she hissed. “Aaron’s been taken by a shape-shifter.”

“No such thing.”

“Oh, yes there are. I’ve read about them.”

Angel kept a tight hold on her. “That’s called fiction.”

“It is not.”

“Will you two keep it down?” Sonny said.

The trees had closed around them. Each time Angel lifted a foot, it broke from a seal of sticky mud. When he set his foot down again, water splashed. The overpowering scent was of mold and dank, wet things. “You should have a coat on,” he told Eileen.

“So should you.” Her voice got higher and suspiciously squeaky.

“You’re crying,” he said.

“You ought to be crying, too. We shouldn’t be here like this. We should have called the police.”

“To report that Aaron’s been taken by shape-shifters?”

“Sonny said Chuzah was a root doctor.”

“That gray thing up there is an animal and—”

“A wolf! Angel, make Sonny come here.”

“Relax. Some joker’s playing a number on Sonny. They set him up for this.”

Eileen sniffed now. “You do think Aaron’s okay?”

“Yes.” He didn’t damn well know. “Sonny—I see more lights. They’re different.”

“They’re colored,” Eileen said. “Like Christmas lights. Oh, they’re way up high. This is all horrible. I’m getting out my gun and I don’t want any arguments from you.”

“You won’t get ’em unless you start firing,” Angel said.

Sonny came back to them. His eyes resembled blank, black circles and Angel could see him shivering.

“We’ve got to do what Chuzah said, but I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Sonny said. Angel only recalled one other time when the boy admitted to fear. That had been on the night his father—a gutsy guy who went against the family—died.

“That Locum is a shape-shifter, isn’t he?” Eileen asked, and jumped. A rattling noise reached her, growing louder.

“What’s a shape-shifter?”

“Never mind,” Angel said. He listened to the eerie sounds.

“Don’t worry about that,” Sonny said. “It’s just Chuzah sending a signal to Locum—I think.”

“That’s it,” Eileen said, shaking away from Angel. She ran, as best she could, toward the lights strung somewhere high in the trees ahead.

Angel took off after her and said, “She’s got a gun,” over his shoulder.

Eileen couldn’t stop crying. She sniffed, swiped at her face. “I’ve got to hold myself together,” she muttered, and skidded to a halt, her mouth open.

She had broken into a clearing, a clearing just big enough for a large wooden cabin built on stilts about six feet tall. No, the clearing was bigger than it had seemed at first. Around the structure, there was enough space for a shed, on shorter stilts, what looked like a carport, and a row of lockers. Sure enough, the roof on the cabin was strung with unevenly looped, multicolored lights. Four small windows in the front were covered with patterned curtains and a faint glow showed from inside.

A hand on her shoulder all but sent her to her knees. “It’s just us,” Angel said into her ear. “Put the gun out of sight. Quickly.”

She sighed, but put the Glock in her purse. “Where’s the wolf?” she said.

He stroked her back. “There’s no wolf.”

“Don’t you try to tell me I was imaging things,” she told him. “You saw it, too.”

Sonny moaned.

“I’m going up there,” Eileen said and went to the bottom of a sturdy-enough flight of stairs. She stopped and covered her face. Through her fingers she saw a big gray animal, a dog with silver eyes, standing halfway up the flight. He had huge teeth and she could see every one of them. “Help.” She mouthed the word but didn’t hear a sound. “Help!” Still she couldn’t hear her own voice.

The shack door flow open. “Aha,” a great voice, a very deep, right from the boots voice, called. “You would be Eileen, perhaps?”

She nodded. “Where’s my son?”

“Are you, Chuzah?” Angel asked. “Sonny’s told us about you. Sounds like we owe you.”

The keeper of the major voice appeared in the doorway and spread his arms. A rope of bones and bells clanged and clacked around his neck.

“Welcome, welcome. My humble home is your humble home. If you see what I mean. You come in. We been waitin’ for you. They here, Aaron, and they look like they been seeing ghosts. There’s that quiet boy, too. You come on up, quiet boy. Chuzah, he don’t bite.” He threw back his head and laughed, showing two rows of gleaming teeth.

Eileen pursed her lips and started to climb. The dog didn’t move.

“Locum,” Chuzah said, “you get your sorry ass up these steps and get in the house. You ain’t nothin’ but a poser. Fierce? You don’t know about fierce. You embarrass me. Excuse him, please.”

The dog’s mouth took on what looked like a smile and he tootled up and inside, looking back once with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and, Eileen was almost certain, giving her a wink.

“You three takin’ your time,” Chuzah hollered. “We gettin’ tired of waitin’.” He whirled one hand above his head in an exaggerated queenly wave. A turban and billowing kaftan, both in a Hawaiian print featuring palm trees and hula dancers in grass skirts, and nothing else set off his black skin. “You like my seasonal decorations? In your honor. I don’t get many guests around here.” He swept back inside.

“Up we go,” Angel said, but before either of them could move, Sonny passed them, taking two steps at a time.

Chuzah’s laughter spilled from inside the cabin. Angel and Eileen gave each other a final look and walked through the door, which slammed hard behind them under the master of the house’s foot. His long, well-shaped bare foot.

“Here we are,” he said, rocking onto his heels. “I am Chuzah, and this is my friend, Locum. My assistant. Like a locum tenens, he takes over my practice when I am forced to leave for a while. And I must be forced, I assure you, because this man don’t want to go nowhere but right here.”

“Sir,” Eileen said. She couldn’t handle this politely anymore. “Where is my son?”

“All in good time, madam,” Chuzah said. “All in good time.”

A would-be Shakespeare thespian in a Hawaiian-print getup.

An altar took center stage, at least Angel thought it was an altar. Lit by many candles, giving off a variety of questionable odors, the tall, gilded base stood in the center of the room with a screen about a foot high on top. The screen, gold and enamel, stood open and Angel couldn’t begin to figure out the heavy load of items in front. He did note sticks of incense burning. He saw no reason to go closer.

There was nothing rustic about the furnishings—other than the oil lamps. Soft suede furniture in deep red invited you to sit or lie. Green and gold rugs covered the floor.

Root doctoring had to be paying better than Angel would have thought.

“Right this way,” Chuzah said and Angel stared at him. “You want to see the other boy, of course. Master Aaron, the curious. What amazement, discovering the depths to which an inquisitive youth will sink in order to investigate what he has no right to know about.”

Angel closed his mouth.

Chuzah walked on the balls of his feet to a door at the back of the room. He opened it gently and put his head inside. “We got company, boy. You put on your best face and make me proud, y’hear?”

Eileen didn’t dare to look at the other two. The gray dog returned, a wooden bowl in his mouth. This, he pushed at Angel.

“Water,” Chuzah said, flicking his fingers. “The dog, he need water.”

“Weimaraner,” Angel said. “Just remembered what he is. I’ve only seen a couple before. He’s a beautiful guy.” He took the bowl and looked around for a source of water.

“He has a large ego,” Chuzah said. “Do nothing to inflate his head. You’ll find water in there.” He indicated another door.

Eileen lowered her head, marched directly to the second door and passed Chuzah. She made it three steps into the room and stopped. “Aaron Moggeridge. What are you doing? You scared me out of my mind.”

“Mom—”

“No, don’t say a word. Be absolutely quiet while I take this in.”

“Mom—”

“One more word and I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“Eileen?” Still holding the dog’s empty dish, Angel came into the room and had to fight not to laugh. “There you are, Aaron. Having a rough time, I see.”

Propped against multicolored silk pillows on a fluffy divan, Aaron wore a robe not dissimilar from Chuzah’s. As usual, his curly black hair was pulled into a tail at his nape. True, his eyes looked huge and very dark in his unusually pale face, but apparently he felt well enough to eat chocolates out of a huge box.

“Shee-it,” Sonny muttered. “I tell ya, last time I saw him he was dyin’.”

“Dramatist,” Chuzah said, examining incredibly long, curved nails with silver tips. “There was an incident. Oh, yes, an incident. I’d lie if I denied that, but the boy is mending nicely. He’s fortunate he had his little episode right under my nose.” He turned up his hands and shook his head with exasperation. “Oh, Angel. It is Angel?”

“Yeah.”

“Aaron here told me about your former career. I’ve got something I think you might find interesting. Would you excuse me please, Eileen? Such an elegant name, Eileen.”

Eileen nodded. “Start talking, Aaron.” She sat on the edge of the divan and Aaron promptly pushed the box of chocolates under her nose.




5


His kaftan billowing, Chuzah led Angel back into the other room, closed the bedroom door and swung to face him. “Let’s be honest with each other, shall we?” He waved Angel into an armchair and sat on a couch himself. “We must use what time we have well. It wouldn’t do for your lady or the boys to hear this.”

Seated, Angel propped his elbows on the arm of the chair and tapped his fingertips together. “Your lady,” was an interesting choice of terms from a stranger.

“You do know what I’m talking about?” Chuzah said, keeping his voice down.

Angel raised his eyebrows. If this clown wanted information, he was going to have to prove he had a right to it.

“Very well.” Chuzah shrugged. “You’re going to be difficult, not that I blame you.”

“I don’t know you,” Angel said. “From what I see here, I never will.”

“You carry a grudge against…” He swung out an arm, taking in the room, and Angel noted what he hadn’t noticed before, rows of herbs hung to dry on rods at the tops of the walls. And more bones, skulls and various shrunken lumps of unrecognizable material.

On the altar, one of those lumps sizzled on a tiny spit above a candle flame.

A chest with many small drawers, like a Chinese herbalist’s cabinet, covered an entire wall.

He turned toward one of the sash windows. The curtains billowed inward and he saw how an artfully placed skull propped the lower window open. A loop of the colored Christmas lights outside cast cheery spots on the shiny white dome that had once contained a human brain.

Angel took it all in. “I’ve always believed in creative freedom.”

Chuzah’s knowing eyes revealed that he was more amused than offended by Angel’s careful verbiage.

“You want to tell me your story?” Chuzah said.

“First,” Angel said, holding up a finger, “would you like to tell me why you sound as if you have a split identity?”

Chuzah gave another huge grin. “You mean my accent, mon? Me, I like to keep my options open. All o’dem options. Now, are you going to tell me about yourself?”

Angel let a few beats pass. “I think I’ll pass. Who are you?”

“More questions about me,” Chuzah said, turning his head to give a view of his dramatic profile. “I am a being. A creature of particular talents. I use my skills as I wish, and I trouble no one who recognizes my superiority.”

“That explains a lot.”

“I do not like company,” Chuzah announced. He pointed at Angel. “You should be grateful I was meditating when the boy, Aaron, had his unfortunate…encounter.”

“Thank you,” Angel said. Antagonizing unknown quantities was a don’t in ATF 101. “I’d appreciate knowing what happened.”

“I approve of sharing information.”

So if Angel didn’t toss the man a bone…some sort of supposedly interesting detail, there wouldn’t be any useful insight coming his way, either. “I’m making my home in Pointe Judah. Sonny is my nephew and he’s living with me. He’s been having problems settling down. Know what I mean? Teenage stuff.”

Chuzah shrugged. “I prefer high places,” he said. “Do you understand?”

“No,” Angel said honestly.

“My home is a high place. It’s peaceful up here. When I attend to my physical fitness, I use high places. Preferably trees. My skills are extraordinary. Some might say I fly.”

“I see.” Angel didn’t.

“Is the lovely Eileen your wife?”

Angel sucked in a breath. “No.”

“So Aaron isn’t related to you?”

“No.”

“But the lovely lady is your lover.”

“So far you’re batting zero.” Angel sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“Is Eileen your friend?”

“Yes.”

“But you would like her to be a closer friend. You are wanting sex with her?”

Angel puffed up his cheeks but wouldn’t let himself look away from the man. This was a test, he was sure of it, and he didn’t want to fail. “Yes, I am.”

“She’s luscious.”

“Hey—”

“A compliment, Angel. You have outstanding taste in womanly flesh. And she may even have a strong mind—or so her eyes suggest.”

“Is there a point here?” Angel said.

Chuzah folded his hands behind his head and looked to the ceiling. “If I am to help, I must understand all these currents I feel passing between the subjects. But—” he leaned forward abruptly, his handsome face stern “—there is a great deal at stake. There are those who wish harm. Not simple harm, but ultimate harm. You would do well to humor me.

“Now I understand what I feel between you and the woman, I can separate it from the other currents. Strong passion can cloud the messages that come to me. You may do well to consummate—”

“I don’t need your advice on how to deal with my personal affairs.”

“Of course not. But she is deeply disturbed. She desires you as much as you desire her. And you will not be disappointed with her nor she with you. You will ignite great fires together.”

Holy hell. “Is that right?”

“Without doubt. But there are other currents. I don’t understand all of them yet, but I will. Others I read very well now that you have explained some issues to me.

“I can tell you that the lovely Eileen fears she will lose you if you do not become lovers. But you will have to be the, er, aggressor, because she is tied by her duty to the boy. She will sacrifice her chances for satisfaction unless you prove to her that it is right for the two of you to find mutual heaven.” Chuzah rolled his eyes then closed them. “If you could see what I see, you would not waste another moment. Her naked body is your vessel to fill, your ecstasy. Her breasts like white melons tipped dusky dark and only waiting for your lips, your teeth. When your manroot sinks slowly into her for the first time, the she-creature will explode with passion. She will draw you in again and again, scratch your skin, sob out her desire for more and more of you, until—”

“Right,” Angel said, finally finding a voice. “It won’t be easy, but trust me to—”

“Exactly. And I am fascinated by your strengths. Both those you have learned and those with which you were born.”

Angel cleared away any expression, a skill he’d learned when he was in the CIA, a part of his life he preferred to ignore.

“An important man to have around,” Chuzah said. “Your visions, are they as strong as ever?”

Angel’s heart made a momentary full stop. How did this man know anything about Angel’s premonitions or his ability to visualize trouble already in action? He was doing his best to forget these unwelcome gifts and he’d been doing well since he left the CIA. Until very recently, that was. Vague hints of the old plague had started to return.

“Not as strong, but nevertheless still with you?” Chuzah said. “Good. They will be useful, more than useful. They may save…I have smelled death.”

“Do you always talk in code?” Angel wanted to drop the subject. “Not that you’re right about me.” He knew he didn’t sound convincing but Chuzah had caught him off guard.

“I will be very clear.” Chuzah glanced toward the bedroom. “Soon there will be questions from your woman. We must finish. What has happened is not as it appears. The injury to Aaron was minor—no more than a small bruise or two.”

“When Sonny came for us he said Aaron was bleeding badly.”

Chuzah shrugged. “He saw blood—probably from a cut somewhere. He thought it must be serious, no more.”

Angel glanced away. “There’s blood on Sonny’s clothes.”

“What we know, we know,” Chuzah said softly. “But it’s best that the truth be denied. The injury was intended to be deadly. What I don’t know is which boy was supposed to die.”

“Damn,” Angel said under his breath.

“But you knew there was doubt,” Chuzah said. “Or you suspected it.” Locum rose from the floor abruptly, loped to Angel and looked up into his face. A faint scent, wood-smoke, hovered around the animal and his silvery-blue eyes didn’t blink. Angel felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

“You cannot deny your intuition,” Chuzah said. “See how Locum feels it. Down, boy.”

“What is it you want to tell me?” Angel said.

“You believe Sonny is in danger?”

“I wish I didn’t.”

“I was in the trees when the trouble came,” Chuzah said. He stood up, breathing deeply, expanding his big chest. “Meditating. I saw the boys. They meant no harm. Curiosity about the practices is common.”

“Boys will be boys?” Angel said, biting his tongue, but wanting to hurry the man to the point.

“Mmm. That one who was quiet. The one you say is your nephew.”

“Sonny.”

“He is not your nephew. You are not related.”

Angel had regained control over his reactions. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. And I know the boy is in trouble. He fears a hunter.”

“Where are you getting all this?”

“Each of us has different talents.”

“I want to get Eileen and the boys home.”

Chuzah came toward him and Angel automatically got to his feet. The other man’s eyes were black, large, uptilted. And mysterious. But Angel saw no malice in him.

“Take them home,” Chuzah said. “But when you need me, I will be here.”

“Thanks. We’ll manage.”

“I will be here. And remember this. Out there—” He pointed both first fingers toward the outside. “Out there is an evil force made more fearsome because it has no discipline. What you face is a bitter desire for vengeance. I don’t know the reason yet, but I will. Do you know the reason?”

Did he? What was he thinking? This joker had practiced his act and what he said could mean whatever he wanted it to mean. What Angel didn’t know was what the man wanted from him.

“You’re off-base,” Angel said. “Thanks for looking after Aaron. But you’re deliberately talking in circles. Were there really shots? Or did he scare himself into a collapse. He doesn’t look as if he was wounded.”

Chuzah smiled. “Perhaps not. You’ll see. I may be off-base, as you say. Regardless, don’t let your guard down.” He stood still and his smile faded. He turned toward the bedroom and back again. “It’s important not to make a mistake. It would be disastrous to misread the signs.”

“What signs?” Angel said. “If you’ve got something I need to know, tell me.”

The haughty face was all sharp angles. “Until you are ready to trust me, I cannot be certain I read the signs correctly. Trust will take time. I understand. But you don’t have much time, my friend.

“I can tell you one fact,” Chuzah continued. “Today someone was supposed to die. The attempt failed, but there will be another attempt.”

“Someone tried to kill Sonny?” Angel said.

“When the trouble comes again, it will be when you don’t expect it. You must guard against what is least likely. One death may not come close to satisfying our killer’s appetite.”




6


Bucky Smith turned his head, tried to focus. Flashing lights. He fucking hated flashing lights. They never meant anythin’ good, or they never had for him.

He hated this town. If he hadn’t just about run out of places to be, he’d already be gone.

Cops driving down the side of Ona’s.

So what? Nothing to do with him. He just had to take a leak and he’d be out of here.

Nobody gave a shit about him. Never had.

Would you look at that? He was in the damn kitchen. What he wanted was the can, the can, dammit.

Where was everyone back here? Yeah, Ona’s Out Back. Tea room, she called it. Shit. He could smell the booze even if the place was empty. Empty, not a single piece of ass sippin’ tea.

The cop lights were out back.

Out back of Out Back.

Damn, he ought to be a poet or somethin’. He needed that can and another drink. If anyone was still workin’ around here.

The fryer smelled good. All those leftover bits of food bubblin’ in the fat. Best part of this nowhere, the food.

Bucky turned back, frowned. He must have passed the can on the way in here.

The side door to the outside slammed open and a guy came in—fast. Bucky turned his head the other way, blinked to look at him. Just a guy in a wet coat.

“You lost?” Bucky said. “Same’s me. Shit. You lookin’ for the can, too?”

The guy just stared at him, his hair dark and sopped, stuck to his face.

Bucky raised his palms. “Friendly, ain’t you? Well, fuck you.” He stumbled toward the passageway to Out Front.

He didn’t see the hand coming.

Fingers dug into his windpipe and he gagged, took a swing at the face that wouldn’t stay still. He clawed at the man’s chest.

Deeper the fingertips gouged. Bucky’s mouth opened. A shove and he fell backward. His skull hit something hard and he felt his bladder let go.

All he heard was the sizzle of the boiling fat.




7


Finn Duhon drove into the parking lot behind Ona’s restaurants. Emma had called him, whispered for him to come, but she wouldn’t say why.

A cream-colored Jeep passed him and the driver honked. Finn honked back but didn’t recognize the vehicle or the driver. Seeing someone drive by as though everything was normal didn’t make him feel any better.

He stopped his car and jumped out. The lights were on in both Out Front and Out Back. It wasn’t that late.

He didn’t see anyone in the lot and started to run past parked cars. He saw Emma’s Lexus and broke into a sprint. His left shoe scrunched on something and he paused to look down.

Car keys. He picked them up and knew immediately that they were Emma’s. Finn breathed through his open mouth. Heading for her car again, he punched the number pad on his cell, got through to the police station and demanded to speak with Matt Boudreaux.

He heard Matt’s voice and said, “Get to the parking lot behind Ona’s. Something’s happened to Emma. I think she’s been kidnapped,” then cut off.

The Lexus was empty, just as he’d known it would be. No wonder she’d whispered; she must have been in someone else’s vehicle.

Maybe she was in a trunk. Emma was no dummy. He could hope she’d find a way to put out a taillight to get air—or puncture the spare tire.

How long had she been in trouble before she could call him? Finn stared around.

He heard a siren and saw the reflection of flashing lights against the sky.

What should he do first? This wasn’t like jungle warfare—the only kind of warfare he knew about. He didn’t have the automatic reactions that would work here.

My God. He didn’t know where to start.

People who wanted children badly enough cut babies from their mothers’ wombs.

He bent double and took a deep breath. Finn Duhon didn’t panic. He’d been a warrior and that was something that changed you forever. He needed the police and they’d be here any moment.

Breaking into a jog, he headed back toward his car.

“Finn!”

He jumped, searched in every direction.

“It’s you.” And it was Emma’s voice. An instant later she broke into sobs.

Blood pounded into Finn’s head. He followed the sounds and found her easily. Under a pickup truck, on her poor, swollen belly, the side of her face resting in the dirt. She still clutched her cell. Her very curly, honey-blond hair fell over her face.

“Hold on,” he said, on his knees, peering at her. “Don’t move. Matt’s coming. I’ll call the medical-aid car now. And I’ll see if I can get Mitch Halpern to come over.”

“Take me home,” she said in a small, broken voice. “Help me out of here and take me home.”

“Cher, please don’t move.” He stayed on all fours where he could see her and make sure she didn’t attempt to move. And he called emergency again, this time asking for medical response.

Emma dropped her phone and reached out a hand. Finn closed his fingers over hers. “Has the man gone?” she asked quietly. “I didn’t hear him go. Be careful, Finn. He could creep up on you.”

Sirens grew louder.

“Man?” Finn said. “There was a man? Did you recognize him?”

“No, it was too dark. Look around. Make sure he isn’t coming back.”

Finn did as he was told but the only movement was a guy coming around from Ona’s Out Front to get on his motorbike, which he’d parked near a wall. He kicked off the stand, climbed on and roared away. He didn’t even glance toward the parking lot.

“How long have you been down here?”

Emma pushed at her hair. “I don’t know. A long time. Finn, I can move my hands and legs just fine but it was hard to calm down. I listened to the baby. There wasn’t any pain. That’s good, isn’t it? I thought blood would come—I expected to feel it rush out.”

“You’re both going to be fine.” He realized he believed it—he had to. “Sounds as if the aid car’s right there with the cops.”

“I don’t want all kinds of people, Finn. I’m fine now you’re here. I didn’t get out before because I thought he might still be waiting for me.”

Finn got on to the dispatcher at the station house and spoke to Officer Carley, whom they all knew well. “We need to find Mitch Halpern,” he said. “You know, Dr. Mitch?” Carley kept it short and efficient and assured him she’d get the local doctor over there fast.

Waves of tremors shook Emma. She heard the sound of many approaching feet and voices, breathless, high voices. And Lobelia Forestier’s rose above them all.

“Is she dead? Has Emma been murdered? Was she raped? If Matt Boudreaux had done his job properly in the past, this wouldn’t be happening now.”

“Can it, Lobelia,” Sabine Webb said. “You’re embarrassin’ all of us.”

“You doin’ okay, Emma?” Ona asked.

“I am,” Emma said.

She saw a pair of extremely high, gray ankle boots, gorgeous legs and a deep green swishing skirt. Delia Board was there, of course. Ignoring her knees and her hose, she got down beside Finn.

A police car, lights flashing, rolled in, passed Finn’s car and stopped. Chief Matt Boudreaux got out, leaving the door open, and Officer Clemens came at a trot.

“No,” Emma said. “Not the police, please. He told me not to tell anyone. He said he’d make sure our baby died, if I did. And me.”

“Who told you not to tell anyone?” Lobelia said. “What did he do to you?”

Cold, the sweat on his body abruptly icy, Finn looked into Emma’s face and said quietly, “He won’t get near you again.”

“What happened here?” Matt Boudreaux asked.

“I think some guy was drunk,” Emma said, keeping her voice strong. “He threatened me. I’m moving out from the truck now.”

“Don’t,” Finn said. “Please, cher, just stay where you are.”

“Take it easy,” Matt said. “Tell me what went on. Take it slowly.”

“This is what happens when the police chief is too young,” Lobelia said. “We need someone with experience in the job. Every woman in this town is in danger of being raped in her bed. We’d better all make sure we lock our doors.”

“Can it, Lobelia,” Sabine Webb said again.

“I’ll have to ask you ladies to move along,” Matt said. “The aid car’s comin’ and you’re in the way.”

“The idea!” Lobelia said. “Don’t you forget who pays your wages, young man. If you don’t want to lose that cushy job of yours, you’ll watch your tongue.”

Finn glanced at Delia who shook her head slightly. “Emma, how are you feeling? What hurts, darling?”

“I’m going to be fine,” Emma said. She planted an elbow and pushed herself out from beneath the pickup. She smiled at Delia and whispered, “See if you can get Lobelia out of here. Sabine will help.”

“Consider it done,” Delia said and stood up. She flapped her arms at Lobelia. “This is too much for you. Much too much. I insist we go back inside and have some coffee. With a little something stronger in it.”

“I’ve got just the thing,” Ona said. “It’s my own special recipe for shock.”

Lobelia tutted.

“I insist,” Delia said, and the four women headed back toward Out Back.

“Where the hell’s the aid car?” Matt asked, and more flashing lights appeared as if he’d summoned them. “Well…well, we’ve got a good portion of the police force. But I want medics.” Another cop car pulled in, followed by a dark-colored Prius.

“The aid car could have been called to an emergency,” Emma said.

Matt opened his mouth and Finn as good as heard that the other man intended to say that this was an emergency. “Good thing everything’s under control here,” Finn said quickly. “Rusty’s arrived. I don’t think we want a whole lot written about this in the papers, at least not yet. Whoever did this needs to be caught, not scared off.”

Rusty Barnes ran the local newspaper and he was also a close friend of Finn and Emma.

The arms that closed around Emma were the only ones she wanted to feel. She looked up at Finn, into his dark, troubled eyes, and he managed a half-hearted grin. “Sit still,” he said. “When I get you home I’m keeping you there. You’re too dangerous to be out. What have you got on your feet? You’ve got to wear sensible shoes.”

Emma just listened to him and kept her head on his shoulder.

Rusty arrived. He had a camera slung over one shoulder. Like most very-small-town newspapers, The Pointe Judah News didn’t run to many employees. In fact, Rusty and two production people were it.

“Emma?” he said, dropping down beside her. “What’s happened? You okay? Finn?” Anxiety tightened his voice.

“Can we talk about it when we get back home?” Finn said, looking straight into Rusty’s eyes. “I’m going to ask you for a favor. Please don’t write about this.”

Rusty nodded, showing immediate understanding, then backed off to give them room. “You bet.”

“Emma,” Matt said. “Do you feel up to telling me what happened to you?”

“Yes.” She suddenly wanted to. She wanted that man arrested. “A man waited for me out here—in that line of trees. He said horrible things about my baby getting killed. And me. He talked about…he talked about something that happened before and he was angry because he said I’d forgotten it, only I haven’t.”

“What was he talking about?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Denise Steen and how she died such a horrible death. He said everyone’s forgotten her and I’m just getting on with my life like she never lived. I didn’t expect that to be brought up again.”

Finn’s arms tightened around her but he didn’t interrupt. Denise Steen had been murdered in Pointe Judah two years ago. He and Emma had found the body.

Clemens was taking notes.

“So he threatened you and took off?” Matt said.

“He chased me,” Emma said in a small voice. “I was almost to my car but I knew I shouldn’t try to get in with him so close. I think he would have driven away with me.”

“He chased you,” Matt said. “But he didn’t catch you.”

“I dropped my purse. It’s black leather so you’ll have to use a flashlight to find it. And the pages from my notebook went everywhere. I couldn’t hold on. I just ran and I thought I was going to get back to Ona’s, but he used a whip around my ankle and I tripped up.”

Finn took her by the arms and looked into her face. “He what?”

“He flipped a whip thing around my ankle and yanked it to stop me from running.”

Finn rubbed both hands over his face.

“Sampson and his partner are going over the carpark,” Clemens said. “There’s the aid car coming right now.”

The boxy vehicle squealed around to pull up close to Matt’s car.

A medic hopped out, followed by a second one. Both men leaned over, hands on knees and one of them said, “Hold still, Mrs. Duhon.” A good-looking blond kid, he had a reassuring smile on his face.

“She was under that pickup,” Matt said, brushing dirt from her face.

The medic looked at her and his eyes flicked down to her belly. “I don’t know how you managed to get where you were, but you wouldn’t be able to get there again if you wanted to.”

“Don’t bet on it,” she said, laughing weakly. “I’m a talented klutz.”

“Are you in any pain, ma’am?”

“I ache,” she said. “But I’m not really in pain.” Except in her mind. She was so scared.

Officer Sampson’s partner hurried up. “We’re not seeing any purse, or any notepaper sheets,” he said. “Did you hear a vehicle leave, Mrs. Duhon?”

“No. Even if he took my purse, the papers went everywhere. They did, I tell you. Yellow pages—”

“It’s all right,” Matt said quietly. “We’ll have a better look.”

“A Jeep left when I was arriving,” Finn said. “I didn’t recognize who was driving but he honked so he obviously knows me. I’d say the guy didn’t even know anything had happened. How long ago did this man leave, Emma?”

“I’m not sure. I left the restaurant around nine-fifteen. I don’t think the whole thing took long to happen and then everything went quiet. I just stayed under the truck and waited.”

“That’s more than an hour now,” Matt said, looking at his watch. “Which ankle did he get with the whip?” Matt asked.

Emma stuck out the appropriate foot.

Immediately the blond medic examined the skin. He undid her shoe carefully and slid it off, then the sock. “You did mean it hit your ankle? Not somewhere higher?”

“No, my ankle.”

“How long ago was this?” Matt said.

“Forty-five minutes?” Emma said. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“There aren’t any marks,” the medic said.

“It was my foot really, not my ankle.” With difficulty Emma bent over to study her foot. “I’m all muddled.” She looked up. “The marks must have faded.”

She saw the medics glance at each other and suddenly felt angry. “I’m not making this up. I couldn’t come up with something like that if I tried.”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Matt said. “As soon as Mitch gets here and says it’s okay, we’ll move you Emma. I want more blankets, please.”

At that moment, Dr. Mitch Halpern ran up. “Had to park at the side,” he said. “You guys have about filled this place. Hi, Emma. How are you feeling?”

“Great,” she said, wanting only to get into Finn’s car and leave. She could see that Mitch was, as usual, in a track suit and exuding health.

He unzipped his bag and tugged out a stethoscope. “Kneel behind her so she can lean on you and relax,” Mitch said to Finn, hitching the blankets more tightly around her. He listened to her heart and lungs, smiling directly into her eyes as he did so. “Ready to run a marathon,” he said.

Mitch moved on to her belly and Emma held her breath.

“Breathe,” Mitch said, laughing. “We don’t want you to pass out. Junior sounds as good as Mom. Good. I would like you to go over to the clinic so I can take a better look, though, Emma. Best go by aid car.”

“There’s something wrong,” Emma said. “Isn’t there?”

Mitch shook his head emphatically. “If I was worried, I’d say so. I believe in caution.”

“I’ll come with you, cher,” Finn said. “There’s nothing to worry about. This is my baby, too, and I want to know both of you are perfect.”

“Sir! Chief Boudreaux!” Officer Sampson, who had put on a few pounds since his recent marriage, puffed toward the group. “Could I have a word, please?”

“If you’ve got something to say that’s to do with us, we’ll hear it if you don’t mind,” Finn said.

Emma leaned harder against him and reached up to hold one of his hands.

“Sir?” Sampson said to Matt.

“Okay, it can’t be that big a deal,” Matt said. “Shoot.”

Sampson shuffled forward and held out a hand. “This was on a chair in Out Back, sir. And this was on the floor.”

Emma couldn’t see what they were talking about.

“So?” Matt said.

“Mrs. Forestier says these are Mrs. Duhon’s purse and notebook. We can’t find any pieces of yellow paper out here.”




8


At Aaron’s house, Sonny asked, “How long d’you think they’ll be gone?” He propped himself beside Aaron on his bed and they watched the back lights on Eileen’s van bob up the driveway. She had dropped the two of them off after they got back from Chuzah’s. Now she was driving Angel back to his place.

“What is it?” Aaron said. “About twenty minutes each way?”

Sonny slanted a glance at him. “If your mom goes straight there and straight back.”

“She wouldn’t be running errands at this time of night.”

“Nope,” Sonny said. “Too bad he chose today to run to work.”

Aaron swallowed from a can of Coke. He followed this up with a handful of jelly beans.

Maybe it wasn’t easy to talk about your mother, Sonny thought. He tried not to think about his, but that was easy.

“D’you know how to use that gun Angel gave you?” Aaron asked.

Sonny sat up straighter. “He wouldn’t have given it to me if I didn’t. I grew up around guns. Makes sense to make sure I can look after us, especially now—unless we want Angel glued to us 24/7.”

“Will you teach me?”

They were from different planets. Sonny crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Angel’s the one to do that. We’ll ask him.”

“Then my mom will find out.”

Different solar systems. Sonny drew up his shoulders. “I dunno, then. I guess…”

“Drop it. But, thanks. Maybe I’ll talk to Mom about it, just feel her out.”

“She has a gun.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said.

Sonny figured it really was time to drop the subject. “Didn’t Eileen ever date before?”

It was a long time before Aaron said, “She was married to my dad.”

“Like how many years ago?” Sonny said.

“A couple of years.” Aaron tipped back his head and poured more jelly beans into his mouth, lifting his hand higher and higher but never dropping a bean. He coughed. “She went out with Matt Boudreaux last year, but they were just friends.”

Sonny felt guilty—just a little guilty. He’d known about Matt from something Angel had said. Angel didn’t like Matt Boudreaux.

“Off topic,” he said. “How close are you and Sally? She’s hot.” He needed to change the subject again and girls were close to his heart—and other things.

Aaron treated him to a slit-eyed stare. “None of your business.”

“Okay, but those eyes aren’t all she’s got that’s big. She’s got—”

“Cut it out.”

Sonny sighed loudly. “I think I’m getting through to Miranda. It’s about time she figured out I’m the best thing likely to happen to her in this hick town.”

“Yeah?”

He liked Aaron a lot, but talking to him took a lot of effort. “I’m thinking about a double date.”

“Keep on thinkin’,” Aaron said. “Those two aren’t panting to go out with us.”

“Well, I’m panting. I’m in pain…you’re, well, we’ll work it out.”

Aaron looked like his mind had moved on. Time to get back to the Angel-Eileen question. Sonny thought it would be good for Angel to have someone else to fill up a lot of his time. The guy was decent, but he cramped Sonny’s style.

Sonny slid down flat and watched the muted television flicker colors on the ceiling. “My mom dated.”

“Yeah?” Aaron stopped chewing for a second, then carried on. “How long after your dad was dead?”

“He wasn’t.”

Aaron choked on his jelly beans. “Sorry.”

“S’okay. They’re both dead now.” Now what had made him spill his guts to Aaron? True, he’d never had a good friend before, but he knew better than to get loose lips. Angel would kill him if he found out. “Aaron?”

“Yeah?”

“In my family we don’t talk about personal stuff. I’d get in trouble for that. You understand?”

Aaron landed a floppy punch on Sonny’s chest. “What you tell me stops here.”

“Same for me,” Sonny said.

They both fell silent.

It would be good to be able to talk about stuff, Sonny thought. What was going on was hard. Angel was the best but he had his own crap to deal with.

He’d waited long enough to ask the big question. “Hey, I don’t want to pry, but you were majorly bleeding when Chuzah picked you up out of that swamp.” He twisted up his face. Swamps would never be big with him.

“Was I?” Aaron turned his head away, looking for another subject to distract Sonny. “I got to get rid of all the kids’ books in those shelves. Mom won’t let me toss ’em, but I can box ’em up.”

Later he’d go back to what happened out there. He wasn’t ready to talk about it.

“I’ll help you with the books,” Sonny said.

“Thanks.”

“I just about live over here. Your mom must get sick of it.”

Aaron looked back at him. “My mom likes you, even if you are an asshole around her most of the time. She doesn’t give up on people.”

“She will,” Sonny said and felt mad because he sounded like he felt sorry for himself. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t loosen up with Eileen—except she was a woman. “Was your mom always on her own, before Angel came along? Except for when she was seeing the cop, I mean.”

“She worked at the shop. Same as always. And she had me and some girlfriends. She and Matt still get along.”

“No other men?”

“No.” Aaron sat up straighter. “You keep pushing about that. She’s never been the kind to look for men.”

“She’s pretty.”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell Angel thinks so, too. You’ve seen the way he looks at her?” Sonny was really warming up to the idea of Angel and Eileen being more than just friends because their boys hung out together.

“My mom’s quiet,” Aaron said. “I don’t think…Angel’s big and tough.”

“He’s not tough with her. I think he wants to be real soft and gentle with her.”

“What are you sayin’?”

He shouldn’t have mentioned this, Sonny thought. He cleared his throat and thought about the way his dad had taught him to say things carefully. “I just think Angel and Eileen would be a nice, er, couple. They don’t do much except work and look out for us. They ought to go out for dinner, maybe a drive.”

“Where would they drive?”

“Oh,” Sonny shrugged. “Around. You know. To some nice places. They could even go to Mississippi. New York’s great but it’s a long drive.”

“Okay,” Aaron said. “Quit pussyfooting around. You’re talking about them having sex. Go on, say it. You think your uncle’s horny and my mom’s convenient.”

Holy crap. “Watch your mouth. Don’t talk about your mother that way. I meant just what I said. They’re nice people and they could do worse than be real good friends. You ought to be thinkin’ what’s gonna happen to Eileen when you move on. Or are you sticking around Pointe Judah for the rest of your life? Maybe going to work selling hedgehog boot-scrapers at Poke Around?”

Aaron sighed. “When I get caught up with school I’m going to college. Okay, I’m sorry I got pissed at you. I just don’t like thinking about my mom having sex, okay?”

“Sure.” Sonny smiled to himself and wondered what Aaron would have done if he’d walked in on his mother having sex—with two men—and neither of them was his father.

“Angel’s okay.”

Sonny’s stomach flipped. “He’s the best guy I ever knew. Cares more about me than anyone else ever has.”

“You think my mom will come right back?”

I’ve got a big mouth. “Probably.”

Aaron scrubbed at his face.

Sonny drew in a long breath. “Chuzah said your clothes were too messed up to clean so he threw them away. That’s how you got to come home in a dress.”

He expected the elbow he got and laughed.

“Chuzah’s okay,” Aaron said. “He said we could go back there if we wanted to return the kaftan.”

“I don’t think I’ll want to.”

Aaron took a bit to say, “I’m going to. I like Locum. When I was a little kid we had a dog and he went everywhere with me. He was only a mutt, but he was the best.”

“What happened to him?” Sonny said.

Aaron frowned and sighed. “I don’t know. Ran off, I guess. One day he was there, the next he was gone. It was tough. Wouldn’t you like to have a sidekick like Locum?”

“He’s okay for a dog. There was blood on my clothes, too. I got it on me when Chuzah carried you back to his place. It was comin’ through his fingers.”

“Forget it, will ya? It must have been something from the swamp. It just looked like blood is all.”

“You were shot,” Sonny said bluntly.

Aaron didn’t answer him and Sonny sat up. He put on the bedside lamp and glared at the TV. Some black-and-white movie had come on. Loads of men in fedoras and ties hanging undone arguing with some guy behind one of those old-fashioned windows, the ones they used to have inside banks. Looked like a major heist gone wrong.

He touched Aaron’s side and saw how he recoiled. “So show it to me,” Sonny said.

Aaron got off the bed and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. He paced back and forth.

“Look,” Sonny said. “We’re in this together. All of it. Whatever happens, I’ll be there for you.”

“And I’ll be there for you.”

“So show me.”

Aaron hauled up the left side of his T-shirt and walked close to Sonny. “Satisfied?”

Sonny sat on the edge of the bed and touched a round, brownish bruise on the skin just beneath Aaron’s ribs. Aaron turned slowly around to show a matching mark on the other side.

“Entry and exit wounds,” Sonny said. “Or that’s where they should be. That’s too freakin’ creepy.”




9


Angel lived on an oxbow lake not too far from The Willows, the building project he was currently managing for Finn Duhon.

When Eileen had asked him why he’d chosen to buy an old house by the lake when oxbows disappeared eventually, he had said, “Because almost no one else lives there. Anyway, whoever built that place of mine had imagination. They knew it would stand, lake or no lake, and maybe there would always be someone to love it. I’m going to do a lot of the renovating myself.”

He had big hands. Eileen watched them on the wheel while they drove the winding road west and out of town. His hands gave her a funny feeling; she wanted to take and examine them, to find out how the bones and the veins and the muscles felt. “You do think it was okay to leave the boys like that?” she asked.

“They’ll be fine. Aaron’s a smart kid and Sonny knows a lot about how to look after himself. I pity anyone who tries to get in there after them. Anyway, Sonny would call me if he needed to.” He smiled at her. “We can’t keep them locked away. Learning to react effectively in bad situations takes practice.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “That’s good then, I guess. It’s quite a way from your house to your office.”

Angel worked with Finn in a suite at the old Oakdale Mansion but spent a lot of hands-on time at whichever building site needed his attention.

“I never liked living in towns.” He chuckled. “Not even little burghs like Pointe Judah.”

“How early do you start out when you come into town?”

“Early.” He smiled. “A lot earlier if I run. I don’t do that too often.”

The road narrowed and Angel took a half-right where tire tracks intersected shaggy grass and the old oaks made a tunnel. Ahead the area was black and rain continued to fall. Eileen didn’t relish the drive home once she’d dropped Angel off.

At last the headlights picked out the house, three stories of faded faux antebellum. The place might have been pretty if it were the real thing, but Angel said the land was a find and he intended his new house to sprout out of this old one and look similar—only better.

“Light by the door went out again,” Angel said. “I’ve got to take a look at the wiring.”

“Must be nice to be so handy with those things.”

He put on the emergency brake. “Anything you need done, just call and I’ll do it. You like gardening and plants?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling and looking toward sets of double doors to the left of the entrance where Angel was having a conservatory refurbished. “That’s going to be so lovely. Your conservatory. If I were you, I’d probably just about live out there.”

“Hey.” He turned sideways. “Christmas is coming. I was trying to think what to give you. How about a greenhouse? Unless I build it from a kit, it won’t be finished in time, but it wouldn’t take so long. I’d rather build one from scratch. That way I could help you design exactly what you want.”

She felt awkward, flustered. “I wasn’t angling for any favors. And a greenhouse is a ridiculously expensive gift, but thank you.”

“You’ve never angled for anything from me, Eileen. I often wish you would.”

She looked at her hands and blinked rapidly. He couldn’t know that she hadn’t had any practice asking for things from a man in her life.

“What is it?” Angel said. “Why do you look…scared, if I say I’d like to do something for you? There would never be any strings attached.”

“No! No, I would never think of that,” Eileen said. “I’m so unpolished. I never got all the finer points of interacting with people the way other girls did. I think I must have been the most unpopular girl in school. I’m so sorry if I insulted you.” She closed her mouth. Why did she babble like that? Well, she didn’t, except with Angel. And why was that?

“Eileen,” he said, leaning closer. “If you weren’t the most popular girl in school, then every guy in the place was dumb. I never saw a woman more beautiful than you.”

She grinned and immediately covered her face.

Angel chuckled softly and ruffled her hair. “I’d like to tell you all the ways you’re beautiful but you’d kick me out of the van and never speak to me again.”

“Why?” She frowned and slid her hands down enough to look at him.

He gave her an evil look. “Don’t ask. Ahh, you can ask. I’d describe all your positive points, and they are many, and then you’d slap my face.”

She punched his arm. “Get outa here, you soft soap. I’ve got to drive home.”

“Nope,” he said.

“Okay, enough joking around. It’s getting late.”

“I can get my motorcycle in the back of the van. Then I’ll drive you home and ride back.”

“You will not. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Don’t fib.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

He was very near to her. “I know,” he said. “Don’t you love it?”

Eileen didn’t answer. What she felt wasn’t new, just a little rusty. It shortened her breath and she was aware of a very strong man who could make light of almost anything, but a man who was tough and whom she barely knew. What did she know about him really?

“It won’t be any use arguing with me, Eileen. Besides, I’ve got your keys.” He pulled them from the ignition and rolled a little to put them into a pocket. “Let’s go in and have some coffee before you go home. This night has been hard on you.”

“Please give me my keys. I just need to get back.”

“No you don’t. Didn’t you hear Chuzah say he thought Aaron collapsed from shock? So if there was a gunshot, it missed him. That means we aren’t dealing with something to worry about—as long as we keep the boys out of the swamp after dark.”

Eileen processed what he’d said. “Anybody can miss a shot, can’t they?”

He looked straight ahead. Dim light caught in his eyes, and showed how his mouth turned down. “I should have known you were too smart to miss that slip. No, anyone can’t miss a shot. There are people who never miss.”

She swallowed. “What kind of people?”

He half-lowered his eyelids and she saw him bare his teeth. “The kind you’re never going to meet, thank God. Now, let’s get that coffee.”

“No.”

“Eileen.”

Now he was trying the forceful male on her and she was through with that stuff. “I don’t take crap from any man.”

He turned his head sharply toward her. Too much time passed for her to feel other than edgy. “Sorry,” he said finally. “You’re right. I got out of line there. Come on in and I’ll explain what I mean. I want you to accept one thing, though. Will you do that?”

“If I can.”

“Promise.”

“Angel, I don’t know. You haven’t told me what you want me to accept.”

He snorted. “I didn’t, did I? Trust that I can look after you and Aaron. Sonny already knows I can. I admit I had a moment earlier when I thought someone had gotten through the net, but I was wrong.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Do you believe I’ll look after you?”

What was he asking her to agree to? He knew nothing about Chuck or the problems he could present. Was Angel telling her he intended to be more than a friend? She was a fool. He was offering to take care of her and Aaron.

“Yes, Angel, I believe you will. It’s a good feeling. I never had that before, not that I’m such a slender-stemmed flower I have to be staked up all the time.”

“You can stake me up any time, my flower.” He laughed and the laugh was full of fun. “Let’s go.”

She had been inside the house before, a few months earlier when Aaron had first become fast friends with Sonny. At that time it resembled the set of a horror film with curtains of cobwebs festooned between sagging ceiling beams and rotting carpets on the floor. She remembered walking into a spider and feeling smug because she wasn’t afraid of it and had just brushed it aside.

Those months had made a huge difference. Gone were the old rugs and the cobwebs, the damp wallboard and broken windows. They walked to the right, through the large hall, passed a central staircase leading up to a gallery and went into what must have been the grand salon. From what she saw, the place had a long way to go but Angel had spent a lot of time, and money, on his pet project.

“What do you think?” Angel asked. He turned on the recessed lighting in the high ceilings. It shone softly down pale caramel walls. Refinished oak floors glowed. White canvas drops covered areas of the floor where decorating and building materials were stacked.

The only furniture in the room was an oversized circular ottoman, antique; its heavy pink brocade upholstery and fringe shabby and torn in places.

“It’s wonderful in here,” she said. “You’ve done so much. Congratulations.”

He smiled and looked as she’d never seen him look before, carefree and boyish. “Take a seat on the ottoman, my lady. Or, let me see—you could always sit on the ottoman. I decided to keep it because it seems to fit in.”

“Wait till it’s reupholstered,” she said. “It’ll be a knockout.”

“You think?” He frowned.

“I know. You’ve got great taste.”

“So have you, Eileen. I like you in red.”

She shrugged. “Thanks. It’s just an old sweat suit.”

He looked her over from head to toe—rapidly. Not rapidly enough for Eileen to miss the sexual appreciation in his narrowed eyes.

“I can’t put it off any longer,” he said. “I’ll have to show you the kitchen.”

Rubbing her hands together as if in anticipation, she caught up with him and followed through a long corridor framed with open studs, to the kitchen at the end. The lights were on and she could see a lot of umber color.

“Are you going to have a dining room?” she said.

“Sort of.”

“If it’s as far away from the kitchen as that salon is, you’ll never get a warm dish on the table.”

Angel didn’t respond. He bent to straighten some loose boards just in front of the kitchen door and stepped inside.

Eileen followed and hid a smile. “You’re enjoying this moment.” The kitchen was part of a great room with a huge, wooden-topped island delineating the two areas. Already Angel had an iron rack hung with pans immediately above the island, and a table and chairs stood in the as yet untouched—apart from newly sheet-rocked walls—dining and sitting room areas of the space.

In a corner, where an uncurtained window wrapped around, stood an undecorated Christmas tree.

Angel saw her looking at it and crossed the room to quickly push in a plug. A zillion tiny colored lights blossomed. “Voilà,” he said. “I haven’t got any ornaments for it, but I wanted Sonny to have a tree.”

From the way he looked at the lighted tree, Eileen decided Angel wanted it for himself, too.

“Now coffee,” Angel said. He returned to the kitchen and pulled forward a stainless steel coffeemaker on a stone-topped counter. The appliances were all stainless. The stove was gas, an Aga, and all business.

“Would you mind if I just had something cold?” Eileen said. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Sure. You want to go back to the other room?”

“I’ll sit at the table.”

The smell of fresh paint hung around and Eileen wrinkled her nose. She liked it, all clean and new. At the level of the high ceilings in the kitchen there were narrow plaster moldings of vegetables, fruit and loaves of bread in a lighter shade than the umber walls. She felt a twinge of envy. It would take time, but one day she’d be able to think about moving from the tiny house she’d shared with Chuck. At least with him gone, she and Aaron had enough space to spread out.

Chuck was a subject she wanted out of her mind.

Angel came around the island with a large glass of white wine in one hand and red in the other.

She smiled up at him. “I had water in mind.”

“Then you should have said so.” He put the white in front of her.

“I thought you were going to tell me to take my pick,” Eileen said.

“You prefer white.”

“Mmm.”

She sat at one end of the table. He pulled a chair close and dropped into it so that their legs touched under the table and their elbows touched on top. Eileen felt too aware of him but she wasn’t about to make a fool of herself by moving away.

“This is nice,” he said and sighed. He drank from his glass and watched as she sipped from hers. She passed the tip of her tongue over her upper lip, caught him following with rapt concentration and felt herself turn the color of the crimson sweat suit.

Eileen looked away. “Now you can tell me what you meant about feeling better because if someone shot at Aaron, they missed.”

“I could. Why spoil a nice moment?”

“For most men it takes a whole lot more than a drink at a kitchen table to…make…a nice…moment.” Careless chatter. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“I was afraid you didn’t. Sonny is with me under unusual circumstances. He is here because he’s had difficulties, but they weren’t anything to do with him getting into trouble.”

She frowned and moved the base of her glass back and forth. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “Could I taste the red?” she said, buying time.

Angel hesitated, then gave her his glass. She drank and made a face. “Cranberry juice. Ouch, that’s bitter after the wine.”

“The wine’s dry,” he said, sounding defensive.

“And you’re getting me drunk while you stay sober,” she said with mock annoyance.

“I have to drive,” he pointed out.

“Oh, boy, you are so holy,” she said.

“Wanna bet?”

Eileen whistled out a breath. “I think I’ll pass on that. What’s the deal with Sonny?”

“I’ve told you most of it. He got caught up in something—none of his doing—something really dangerous. There was some possibility that bad types saw him where it would have been better for him not to be. If they did, they might well have decided to get rid of him. When he showed up tonight, that was my first thought, and I think it was his. But we were both wrong. Those guys don’t miss, and they don’t make mistakes like shooting the wrong person. They can’t afford to if they don’t want to end up on the wrong end of the next gun barrel.”

After much too large a swallow of wine, a big enough mouthful to make her cough, Eileen collected herself and said, “You’re talking about the Mafia.”

He shook his head. “We don’t talk like that anymore. The scene has changed.”

“Who is we, Angel?”

“Just people in the business.” He waved an airy hand. “You know I’ve been in various kinds of enforcement over the years.”

“I thought you were out of all that now.”

“I am.” His expression was so innocent, there was no way she believed much of what he said. “This is just something I had to do for an old friend.”

“You’re not used to making up bedtime stories for soft women, are you?” she asked. “Or women you think are soft. Who is this old friend?”

“Eileen. I’ve already told you far more than I have any right to say. I have rules I must live by. They’re for good reasons.”

“You’re still involved. You said you weren’t, but you lied to me.”

He got the bottle of wine and refilled her glass. Eileen made no attempt to stop him.

“I didn’t lie. I’m not on active duty. I quit because I had other things I wanted to do. I came here to talk to Finn because he went through the same thing, changed his lifestyle pretty drastically. And now I’m his manager of operations. That’s not a lie.”

“But you’re doing something that could bring gunmen after you.”

He reached for her hand but she put it in her lap. “Don’t be like that,” he said.

“Who is this friend? You don’t have to give me his name, just tell me what kind of person he is. What he’s mixed up in that makes him so dangerous to know.”

Angel leaned against his chair, tipped it onto its back legs. “He’s not dangerous to anyone anymore. He’s dead.”

She pressed a hand on the wooden tabletop and her mind raced. “I’m sorry. So, why do you—”

“He was Sonny’s father.”

“Oh, no. Your brother. Oh, Angel—”

“Don’t. It’s okay. He was doing something the people he worked for didn’t like.” He looked at the ceiling. “They really didn’t like it.” He let the front legs of his chair slam to the floor and put his face closer to hers. “If you talk about any of this, someone could die. Do you understand?”

She nodded and whispered, “Yes.” He looked so desolate. There was a mountain of bad stuff on his back. Loneliness and isolation were the only reasons he was telling her all of this.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she told him.

“Good. They shot him, emptied a Beretta submachine gun with a forty-round magazine into him.”

Eileen held the wine with both hands and drank. “You know these things happen, but most of the time you can pretend they don’t. They thought Sonny saw this, but he didn’t? They may have figured that out by now and they’re leaving him alone.”

“They could think that,” Angel said. “I hope they do. But he did see his father shot. He saw him die.”

“Oh, God.” Eileen shuddered. “The good people shouldn’t come out last.”

Angel didn’t answer and she caught his eye. She felt so cold. Knowledge you didn’t want could freeze you. “He wasn’t a good guy?”

“I think we’ve said enough,” he told her without inflection.

“Poor Sonny. I don’t know why he isn’t a worse mess. No wonder he acts so surly and bitter.”

Again he was silent.

She held his wrist on the table. “Thank you for being honest. It helps to know what’s going on…or could be.”

“Not necessarily. If you weren’t involved, I’d never reveal any of this to you. But you are in a way and you need to be too scared to open your mouth about anything. You don’t know anything about Sonny, right?”

“I understand.” Like this, he was scary. “I’ll do anything I can to help. And you’ll never have to wonder if I’ve said anything to anyone or if I might for some reason. Nothing could get it out of me.”

“Good,” Angel said, looking at her hand on his arm, “because I can sense things, like when someone is wavering. I’d know if you were thinking about running your mouth off to someone.”

“I never would. Angel?” Her heart thumped. “I really wouldn’t.”

“Good. Because if I got that feeling, I’d have to kill you.”




10


No man’s eyes should look that cold.

Eileen noticed the lines that flared from the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines? She pictured him squinting into the sun through dark glasses, a gun in his hand.

“That was a joke,” he said. “A bad one.”

Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t. She stood so quickly, her chair screeched on the wood floor. “Thanks for the wine.”

“Eileen.” He got up, too, and she was aware of how big he was. Fear and intense excitement mounted her spine.

“I’ve stayed too long,” she told him. “Aaron will wonder where I am.”

Angel walked behind her and she held her ground with difficulty. “You never have to be afraid of me,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. I can smell it. Men like me have a particular relationship with fear.”

And with danger…and violence.

“I know you’ve had a hard life,” she said.

“I chose it.” He didn’t even pretend to smile now. “Aaron isn’t worrying about where you are. Both of them know you’re with me.”

She colored. “I shouldn’t be any longer.”

“Why? Because they might think we’re doing more than driving to my place and sharing a drink, maybe?”

Eileen laughed nervously. “No, of course not. I’m pretty tired. All the hocus-pocus in the swamp must have worn me out. I’m so grateful Aaron’s okay.”

He moved again and this time he stood behind her right shoulder where she could almost, but not quite, see him. She could feel him, hear him breathing.

Eileen stood straighter. She wished she wore high heels because they brought her closer to his height and she felt more powerful then. “Let me wash these glasses out for you.” She reached for them but Angel’s hand on the back of her neck immobilized her.

“Forget the glasses. You’re scared and I don’t like that. Not when I’m the one you’re scared of.”

“I’m not.”

As long as she stayed with her back to him she would appear nervous. She faced him. His hand slid from her neck, over her shoulder and down her arm. He circled her wrist and stroked the tender inside skin there.

The lightning climbed her back again, matched by the same feeling low in her belly, between her legs. Was she that kind of woman? The kind who got sexually excited by fear? She ran the fingers of her free hand across her brow and they came away damp.

“It’s probably not a good idea to call voodoo hocus-pocus in these parts.”

She raised her chin. “I’ve lived here all my life. I know to be careful what I say about those things in some circumstances. These aren’t those circumstances.”

“Did you look at Aaron’s body?”

“He wouldn’t let me. You know how boys are.”

He grinned. “Only until they grow up and the women they’re with aren’t their mothers.”

She had to smile. “I guess you’re right. I don’t suppose Aaron counts as a boy anymore, either.”

“I’ve made more progress in the house. Let me show you.”

She couldn’t bring herself to repeat that she ought to get back. “I’d like that.”

Still holding her wrist, he took her to the far side of the room where an archway was framed into a wall. Once on the other side, with the unfinished conservatory to their right, he headed directly for the stairs and climbed. Eileen went behind him, every heartbeat feeling bigger and harder.

“What do you think of Chuzah?” she asked. “I don’t know whether to accept that he was kind to the boys, or be terrified of him. That dog is strange.”

“A shape-shifter?” Angel said, and chuckled. “That was a strange comment you made. He’s a great dog. It’s the breed. Silver ghosts.”

“He looked like a ghost when he moved through the fog,” Eileen said.

“Maybe he is. Maybe Chuzah is, too. He surely doesn’t fit any profile I’ve encountered before.”

She paused, frowning.

Angel stopped a couple of stairs above her. “Eileen, something’s going on. Something happened in that swamp. Sonny said Aaron was bleeding—a lot—and he had blood on his own clothes. But there wasn’t any coming from Aaron when we got there.”

“Don’t. Aaron’s fine.”

“Chuzah said he threw Aaron’s clothes away because they were such a mess. That doesn’t sound unreasonable to you?”

Eileen thought exactly that. “The man’s unusual.”

“That’s enough for you?” Angel said.

“I’m trying to make it enough.”

He produced his cell phone and pressed a button. Almost at once he said, “You guys okay? Uh-huh. No calls before this one? Good. We’re taking things a bit easy. It’s good to get away from you two now and again.”

Eileen suppressed a smile and shook her head.

“Okay,” Angel said. “Stick with the instructions. See you eventually.” He put the phone away and gave her all of his attention. “I want to kiss you.”

She stood absolutely still, looking up at him in light that hadn’t been upgraded. He was in the gloom but the glint in his eyes, the sexual intensity, was clear. So was the downward tilt of his lips and the tight movement of the small muscles in his jaw.

“That’s abrupt,” she said.

He pulled on her arm so she had to go up another step, and another. “It wasn’t abrupt. You’ve been taking up most of my mind for months. How about you, Eileen? Have I been on your mind?”

Without taking her eyes from his, she nodded.

His expression turned predatory, possessive—and determined.

If she wanted out of this, there wasn’t much time. There wasn’t any time.

Angel spread a hand behind her head and lowered his face over hers. He kissed her and she felt instantly weak, and wet, and wanted to get closer to him.

Eileen wanted to be naked with him.

She started hard enough for Angel to raise his face. A new element had appeared, a feverishness. “What?” he said. “You jumped.”

Parting her lips, Eileen stood on tiptoe and delivered her own kiss. She worked their mouths until he groaned and dragged her hard against him. She swayed a little and grabbed for him to steady herself.

Angel put an arm around her waist and walked her up to the gallery, kissing her repeatedly as they went. Without warning, he unzipped her sweat suit jacket and slid a hand inside. She hadn’t put on another top underneath. There was no mistaking his satisfaction when he weighed a breast, hooked a thumb inside her bra.

She pulled out his hand and moved away a little. “You believe in moving right along.”

“And you aren’t ready for that?” Angel said.

“You’re going to show me what else you’ve done to the house, remember?” That anxiety, that conviction that somehow she must be wanting when it came to being with men, returned. Chuck had always said she was boring in bed.

Angel took her from the gallery into a passageway. He reached through an open door and flipped a light switch. The room they entered wasn’t large. The walls were paneled with warm cherry; a deep window seat had yet to be finished, but the floor matched the paneling and, almost in the center of the room, stood a piece of furniture that made Eileen frown. “What’s that? Are you starting an ottoman collection?”

Walking around it, he put his fists on his hips and looked pleased with himself. “I could be. It’s a tête-à-tête.”

“So you say. It looks like a big, square ottoman to me, with a fat post in the middle. It’s really old, isn’t it?”

“It’s something else I salvaged from all the stuff that was here. I was told it would have been in a public room of some kind and people liked them, particularly the young and lovelorn, because it was easy to accidentally brush shoulders and arms while sitting side by side. Their legs might even have touched. Imagine that. All that pent-up desire in the heat of a Louisiana night and in a room much bigger than this one but packed with dashing young men, and girls with trembling white breasts spilling from their bodices.”

Eileen stared at him. She swallowed. “I can imagine it. I wouldn’t have expected you to.”

“I’m interested in the history of the area. Particularly the social history. I’ve had enough of war.”

“You and Finn fought together, didn’t you?”

“We met in a field hospital. We kept in touch.”

He wasn’t inviting her to probe further.

“I’m seeing a new side of you,” she said. “You’ll make this a fantastic house.”

“I’ll try. But I’m only showing you and talking about it to keep you with me.” He offered her a hand and she held it. “This is going to be part of the master suite. I’ll show you the best bit to date.”

Double doors, which he closed behind them, took her into an amazing bathroom. Tiled from floor to ceiling with large, unglazed white stone, a shower large enough for an intimate party sloped down from all sides, and had no doors. Stone benches lined the sides and several showerheads jutted from each wall.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Eileen said.

It was too intimate, too personal—but he knew that and had brought her here deliberately.

Angel turned a knob on the wall and she expected lights to brighten. Instead, a fan of white fabric finished like parchment swung open to reveal a skylight. Tonight she saw raindrops on the glass and heard more falling, but on a clear night it would be filled with stars.

She lost the battle to keep her attention away from a bathtub made of heavy glass. It stood on pewter feet in the center of the room and since vertical strips of mirror were incorporated into each wall there would be no way to bathe without seeing yourself from every angle.

And the tub was huge, curved, almost an oversize Victorian shape.

Eileen would not keep looking at that bath. “You must have brought in a designer,” she said. “What an imagination!”

“A guy over in Toussaint,” Angel said, “Marc Girard. Finn’s cousin Annie recommended him and he’s responsible for all the plans. He’s my architect, but someone in his firm consults on design.”

“I know Annie. She used to live in Pointe Judah.”

Small talk.

Another set of double doors, also closed, stood on the other side of the bathroom. Angel caught her looking at them. “That will be the bedroom but it’s pretty basic at this point. Okay to sleep in, though. I haven’t tried out the bath yet. I’m always in a hurry so I shower—not that the bath would be much fun on my own.”

The glow Eileen felt had to be visible. She must be luminous.

“Don’t you think there’s something sensual about water, Eileen?”

She drew in a breath through parted lips. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

He turned on the bathwater and almost at once, steam rose.

“What are you doing?” Eileen said.

“Showing you how it looks with water in it. We could put in some soapy stuff, if you like.”

How was she supposed to answer a comment like that? She didn’t.

Angel stopped smiling. He pulled his dark T-shirt over his head and Eileen took a step backward. His body shouldn’t be covered, ever. Muscle and sinew, every line defined. Not a millimeter of spare flesh. His jeans settled low on his hips and she couldn’t look away from his hard belly, the bands of muscle; the start of dark hair she didn’t have to see to know how the rest of it would look.

He walked straight at her, unsnapping his waistband as he came. When he reached her, Eileen backed up and kept backing up all the way to the wall where steam had dampened the tile. Her back hit solidly and she raised bent arms, palms out.

“We don’t want the bath to overflow,” he said.

“Christian?” she said. His real name came naturally. “We aren’t thinking.”

“I always know I’m supposed to be in trouble when you call me that.” He unzipped her jacket and pushed it from her shoulders. “Sure we’re thinking. I’m thinking about what I want and what you want.” Quickly, he pulled down her pants and panties, went to his knees and freed her feet.

He parted her thighs with inflexible hands, pressed his face low against her belly, and drove his tongue into the folds between her legs. Eileen cried out and pulled at his hair with both hands.

If it hurt him, his shudder said he liked it. Pushing up on her buttocks, he lifted her legs over his shoulders and held her in place while he nipped and probed at her pulsing flesh. She released his hair and threw out her arms, tossed her head from side to side.

A climax ripped through her. Eileen sobbed and heard sounds she knew she made, but hadn’t heard before.

Moving so fast that he disoriented her, Angel tossed her over his shoulder and went to turn off the bathwater. Then, with no ceremony and her bra still on, he dumped her into the tub. It was deep and she slid, dousing her hair and face. When she sat up, she swiped the water away and slicked back her hair.




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