Bayou Nights (19 page)

Drake raised his head and stared straight into her eyes…straight into her soul. “No.” One of his hands cupped her cheek. He kissed her on the center of her forehead. “This is so much more than mechanics.” A wicked grin curled his lips and the other hand snuck between their bodies and found her nipple. “Now, I owe you another orgasm.”

…

If ever there was a woman with whom to awaken in a tangle of limbs and kisses, it was Christine. But she’d wandered too far. Without opening his eyes, Drake hooked his arm across the bed and found it empty.

He opened his eyes and stared at the vacant spot next to him. Only her scent lingered. He glanced at the closed door to the bathroom. “Christine, come back to bed.”

She neither came nor answered.

Drake rolled out of bed and tapped on the door. “Christine.”

Nothing.

He turned the handle and opened the door. The bathroom was as empty as his bed.

He turned. The chair where they’d draped her clothes held not so much as a length of ribbon.

Adrenaline shot through his system, leaving his mouth dry, his hands and feet cold, and his body primed for a fight. Damn it. She’d gone to find her father without him.

He jammed his legs into a pair of pants and reached for a shirt. Where had she gone? The shop? Jackson Square? The cathedral?

Tap, tap, tap.

Drake yanked open the door. “Where have you…”

Mike stood on the other side.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Mike planted her hands on her hips and scowled. “Nice to see you, too. Need I remind you that you sent for me?”

He had? He had. But he’d sent the telegram when the thought of spending another night with Christine was unbearable. He’d needed a woman to watch her and Mike, aside from her name, qualified. Sort of—Mike was too tall, too strong, and too blunt to be considered a regular woman. Mike didn’t need protecting; she was a protector.

But now—things with Christine had changed. Drake was only too happy to accept the job of protecting her.

“I got here as fast as I could.” Mike brushed past him, entered his room, and dropped her bag on the floor with a resounding thud. She glanced at the wrinkled bed then shifted her attention to him, paying particular attention to his shirt.

He glanced down. The blasted thing was on inside out.

“Am I interrupting?” Since when was Mike sarcastic?

“Obviously not.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I was under the impression that you’d asked me down here to guard a woman. Where is she?”

He flexed his fingers then curled them into fists. Mike had asked the important question.

Her sharp gaze returned to the tumbled bed. “This woman, she’s Trula’s friend?”

He grunted.

“You sound positively Neolithic.” She stepped closer to him and her eyes narrowed. “You look different. What happened? Where is she?”

He swallowed around the dryness in his mouth. “She’s missing.”

“And you were going to go looking for her dressed like that?”

Her question deserved nothing more than another grunt. He crossed to the dresser and withdrew a clean pair of socks.

A slow smile lit Mike’s serious face. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Drake sat on the chair recently occupied by Christine’s clothes. “What?”

“Nothing.” She looked smug.

He deliberately ignored her and pulled on a sock.

“Tell me about her.”

He pulled on the other sock. Where were his shoes? “She’s missing.”

“You already told me that. For how long?”

He shook his head.

“You woke up and she was gone?”

Not trusting his voice, Drake nodded.

“Any idea where she might be?”

“Several.”

“What does she look like?”

“Why?”

Mike’s expression tightened as if he was testing her patience. “We can cover more ground if we both look for her.”

Any other woman and he’d hesitate. But Mike had proved herself time and again. And, she was right.

“Her hair is dark.” And soft. And scented with flowers.

“How dark? Brown or black or chestnut?”

“Chestnut. Her eyes look like pieces of amber in sunlight.”

Mike raised a brow at his description but wisely refrained from comment.

“She comes up to about here.” He held his hand an inch or two under his chin. “Do you see my shoes?”

“No. What else?”

“She twisted her ankle. She’s carrying a cane.” There. He spotted a shoe under the bed and knelt for it. “There’s a sword in the cane.”

“So petite, dark hair, carries a cane.”

Drake reached for the other shoe. “She wears ridiculous hats.”

“You noticed her hats?” Was it surprise or disbelief that colored Mike’s voice?

Drake looked up. Mike had on a ridiculous hat. Not as ridiculous as Christine’s—no stuffed birds or berries or silk flowers both above and below the brim—but there was a surfeit of feathers. Did Mike always wear such silly headgear? He’d never noticed before.

Mike settled on the chair where Christine’s clothes should be. “You’ve got it bad.”

Drake ran a hand through his hair. It stood up in tufts. No wonder Mike was looking at him as if he was some adorable little boy and not a man capable of upending all of New Orleans to find Christine. “Got what?”

“Love.”

He rocked back on his heels and stared. Mike sat ramrod straight with her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. She looked nothing like a woman who’d just lobbed a grenade. Love? Christine? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She raised one brow. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this.”

“And how is that?”

She glanced around the room, her gaze lingering on the tie hanging from a lamp, his still wrong side out shirt, his hair. “Less than rigid.”

“I’m not rigid.”

Mike snorted. “You could teach steel a thing or two. The only time I…” Her voice trailed away.

“What?” he snapped.

She lifted her chin a fraction. “The only time I’ve seen you less than rigid was when Bess died.”

That day, he’d cracked. He’d buried his head on Mike’s shoulder and sobbed. Mike had wrapped her arms around him, stayed with him as he drank his way to the bottom of a bottle of scotch, and been there in the morning when he woke bleary-eyed and devastated.

This day, he mined his soul for the strength that would help him find Christine. “We have to find her.”

“Did you tell her I was coming? Does she know about me?”

He shook his head.

“When were you planning on telling her?”

Telling Christine he’d sent for a woman to watch over her would have been welcomed with as much enthusiasm as a bastard at a family picnic. “Never.”

…

Christine’s feet froze to the carpet. Probably a side effect of the ice flowing through her veins. She closed her eyes on the sight of a half-naked Drake. Not so easy to scrub the woman’s questions from her brain. Forgetting his response was an impossibility.

When were you planning on telling her?
Never.

She forced her feet to move, to back away from the cracked door of Drake’s hotel room.

When were you planning on telling her?
Never.

Those feet carried her the length of the hallway, down the stairs, through the hotel lobby, and onto the street.

When were you planning on telling her?
Never.

She drew humid air into her lungs and held it.

How could she have been so wrong? She’d trusted him.

She closed her eyes on the children dashing down the banquette, the couples walking arm in arm, and the older gentleman helping a white-haired lady down from a carriage.

Was this the same pain her grandmother and mother had endured? A knife twisting in her stomach. Her heart splitting in two within the confines of her chest. The tightening of her lungs so that each breath felt more tortured than the last.

She stumbled, only her father’s cane kept her from falling.

Remaining on the banquette while her hopes crumbled to dust wasn’t an option. She lifted a foot, put it down, and then forced the opposite foot to do the same. Not walking. Lurching.

She lurched away from the hotel, away from the man who’d betrayed her.

She lurched all the way to her shop. The jaunty awning no longer looked elegant, now the striped canvas seemed pathetic. The hats in the windows were silly flights of fancy, nothing but bits of satin and lace and straw that might protect a wearer from the sun but were useless against the pain of living.

Empty bits of fluff.

They were all she knew.

Christine unlocked the door, went inside, and sank onto the pouf, resting her back against its button-tufted velvet.

She closed her eyes. What now? How had her mother and grandmother found the strength to continue?

Her jaw ached with the effort of swallowing her tears.

Minutes ticked by and still she sat, gathering the tools she’d let fall—the sweet smiles, the flutters of eyelashes, and the honeyed tones that had kept her safe from men like Drake.

The sound of the door opening roused her.

Was it Drake? Idiot hope blossomed in her chest. Had he come to offer an explanation?

She opened her eyes to Desdemona.

Chapter Sixteen

“What do you want?” asked Christine.

Desdemona blinked as if she’d been expecting a polite welcome. The voodoo witch, who’d dressed all in white with a red kerchief round her neck, looked as out of place in the shop as a stevedore at a debutante ball. “I brought this.” She held up a sealed mason jar.

Christine slipped her hand in her pocket and closed her fingers around her derringer. “What is that?”

Desdemona ignored her question. Instead, she fixed her gaze on a black toque accented with peacock feathers. “How much does this hat go for?”

Christine stood. “Ten dollars.”

The witch sucked air through her teeth but her fingers caressed the length of the feather. “I’ll take this as part of the trade.”

“What trade?”

“I brought your daddy.” Again she held up the jar.

Warwick Lambert—southern gentleman, gourmand, and sartorial expert—was being held prisoner in a mason jar? That mason jar? If so, he was hopping mad.

“I had to make sure you gave me the real water before I returned him.”

Surely by now Desdemona realized she’d been duped. “You tested the water?” Had enough water remained in the emptied flask to save someone from dying? To give them eternal life?

“One of the men got shot and was bleeding out. I gave him a sip from the flask and he didn’t die.”

Christine held out her hands for the jar. They didn’t shake. She didn’t let them shake. Her insides were doing more than enough shaking already.

“The hat first.” With one hand, Desdemona plucked her white cloth hat off her head, dropped it on the counter, then lifted the toque off its stand. “I’ll say this for you, Miss Lambert, you make a good-lookin’ hat.” She settled the toque on her head.

“The jar?”

A cruel smile flitted across Desdemona’s features. “Let me.” She unscrewed the lid and a cloud of vapor filled the shop.

“Get behind the counter.” Her father’s voice whispered in Christine’s ear. “Find a gun.”

She already had a gun in her pocket. Her fingers tightened around the derringer’s handle.

The mist dissipated, swirling until the droplets took shape, until Warwick Lambert, looking as furious as Christine had ever seen him, stood next to her.

“Good,” said Desdemona. “We’re all here. I promised your father he’d get to see you die.” She raised her hands as if to summon a demon.

“I thought we had a deal.”

“We did. I got the water, you got your father. Leaving you alive was never part of the deal.”

Desdemona raised her hands higher and looked at the ceiling, mouthing words that would call one of her shadowy beasts to the store.

Nothing happened. Thank God for Granny’s wards.

The witch shook her hands in the air, a look of extreme concentration darkening her features.

Warwick tugged on Christine’s sleeve. “Shoot her.” His voice was softer than a whisper.

“I can’t just kill her,” she whispered back.

“Of course you can. She’s here to kill you.”

“Granny Amzie warded the store. Desdemona can’t call a demon in here.”

“She doesn’t need a demon to kill you.”

“
Ouvre baye pou mwen
.” Desdemona’s voice interrupted their furious whispering. Sweat had broken out on her brow and her eyes were screwed shut.

“Get a gun and shoot her.” Warwick’s voice was no longer a whisper.

Desdemona opened her eyes. Evil swam in their depths.

Christine pulled the little gun out of her pocket and aimed.

The witch laughed. “I drank the water. You can’t kill me.”

“The water doesn’t work that way.” There was no point in telling her that she’d drunk nothing but tap water in a fancy flask.

“Liar.”

Christine shook her head. “You have to be near death for the water to work.”

A cunning smile twisted Desdemona’s lips. “Good thing I saved a few swigs.”

A man dressed in dusty pants and a sweat-caked shirt appeared from the back of the store. He carried a Colt pistol.

How in blazes had he got into her shop?

A wave of anger washed over her.

“Remember how I taught you to shoot a gator?” Warwick whispered.

Of course she did. Gators were blessed with tiny kill spots. Aim was everything. She aimed her Derringer at the man with the gun. “One chance. Leave now.”

He cocked his pistol.

She fired.

The sound reverberated through the shop and a tiny red dot appeared between the man’s eyes. He fell.

The thud of his body hitting the floor resounded in her soul. She lowered her gun and stared. What had she done? She gasped—a mistake since her lungs had suddenly lost the ability to re-inflate. She struggled for breath.

Warwick seemed not to notice that the world had tilted on its axis. “Good shot, darlin’. Now her.”

Desdemona glanced at the man on the floor and her lip curled. Her arms, already held in the air, stiffened and her chant grew louder.

Would Granny’s wards hold?

“Kill her.” Warwick’s voice carried a sense of urgency.

Christine glanced at the dead man on the floor and found enough breath to say, “I can’t.”

Her father sighed. Deeply. Then he took flight, rushing through the air like a twig in a hurricane…or an arrow from a crossbow. He dove at Desdemona’s chest.

The voodoo witch covered her heart with her hands but he passed straight through her.

Desdemona’s hands curved into claws and her arms crossed her torso. She murmured words Christine didn’t understand and fumbled in her skirts, removing a wicked knife.

“Your voodoo won’t work here.” Warwick passed through her a second time.

She cried out then stumbled toward Christine, the knife raised as if she meant to gut herself a fish—or a hat-maker.

With a hand shaking so badly, it would be a miracle if she could hit the side of a barn, much less Desdemona, Christine lifted the gun.

“Will you shoot her now?” demanded Warwick.

The witch and her knife stood only a few feet away but Christine’s finger refused to pull the trigger.

Warwick’s third pass through Desdemona’s heart left her on the floor, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Christine approached slowly. Was she stunned or dead? “Hand me that…” She stopped herself. Her father couldn’t hand her anything.

Christine hurried to the counter and grabbed a hand mirror. She held the looking glass over Desdemona’s face and waited. Nothing. Not so much as a wisp of fog. “You killed her.”

Warwick flicked an imaginary bit of dust off his ghostly suit. “I did.”

“How?”

“You learn a lot sitting on a shelf in a voodoo witch’s kitchen.” Warwick sat on the pouf, leaned back, his fingers locked behind his neck, stretched his legs, and crossed his ankles. Despite his insouciant air, he looked weak, less substantial than he had just a moment before.

“Are you all right?” Christine demanded.

Something like a grimace settled on her father’s face. “Truth be told, that took a lot out of me. I couldn’t do it again any time soon.” He rested his head against the upholstery. “It’s good to be home.”

After being confined to a mason jar, it probably was. But there was still the problem of two dead bodies on her carpet.

Desdemona moaned.

Well, there was one dead body on the carpet.

Christine stepped outside her door and spotted a boy selling his last morning paper. She waved him over. “I’ll give you a dime if you fetch Detective Kenton from the police station. You tell him it’s an emergency.” She handed the lad a nickel. “You can have the rest when he arrives.”

The boy tugged on his cap then took off at a run.

She went back into the shop.

Desdemona was gone.

Christine didn’t care. She took a seat next to her father and stared at the body on the floor. She’d killed someone.

“You look pale.”

She’d killed a man. She felt like an empty pillowcase, a bit of linen with nothing inside. “I feel pale.” What now? She folded her shaking hands in her lap. Only it wasn’t just her hands shaking, her whole body trembled.

“You’re worried, aren’t you? You needn’t worry.”

She glanced at her father and raised a brow. She wasn’t worried. She was terrified.

“You’re not so hard to read.”

She’d never said she was. “I killed someone.”

“He had it coming.”

Christine couldn’t sit. Not while a man grew cold on her carpet. Not when she was responsible. She rose, went to the counter, found a basket of ribbon that needed sorting, and withdrew a few feet of pink silk. She wrapped the end around her finger then circled the length around and around.

Her father regarded her with his head cocked to the side.

She pinned the pink ribbon, dropped it back into the basket, selected a length of black satin, then picked up the pink again. The two ribbons looked charming together.

“What are you doing?”

Wasn’t it obvious? She was straightening the ribbon basket. Creating order in the midst of chaos.

“Your grandfather stepped out on your grandmother before the war. I gambled before I killed my friend.” Warwick’s gaze was serious, steady. “Killing didn’t cause our problems.”

Her father was dead wrong.

“It didn’t help them either.”

“The only thing you’ve ever felt compelled to do is make hats. Now that you’ve killed someone do you want to make more?”

Christine glanced at the pink and black ribbons. Creating a hat was all she wanted to do. It was how she dealt with stress.

Had it been the same for her father and grandfather? At least her compulsion hurt no one.

Warwick cocked his head to the other side. “Something else is bothering you.”

“No.” The single word came too quickly.

He sat a little straighter. “How did you lay hands on that water you gave Desdemona?”

“I found it in the cathedral.”

“By yourself?”

“I had help.”

“Who helped you?”

“Trula sent someone.” Christine concentrated on the black satin circling her finger.

“And who would that be?”

“No one important. A Yankee. His name is Mattias Drake.”

“Where is this Mattias Drake now?”

“At his hotel with his lady friend.” It counted as a victory that she kept her voice steady. She fixed her gaze on the door. “I wonder how long it will take Detective Kenton to get here.”

The door opened and a woman paused, framed by the light from the street.

“We’re closed,” said Christine.

The woman stepped inside, looked at the body on the floor, and said, “Oh. My.”

“I’m sorry, we’re closed. You’ll have to leave. The police are on their way.”

The woman shook her head and stepped farther into the shop. “I’m Mike.”

“Who?”

“Drake sent me. He’s worried about you.”

Drake had sent his—what was she to him?—to her shop?

Acid green vines unfurled, wrapping tightly around Christine’s heart, throat, and tongue. How could she tell Mike to get the hell out when she couldn’t speak?

The woman looked at her expectantly.

Drake had sent her? Did he expect her to sell the woman a hat? From the looks of her, she already had plenty. Much as Christine hated to admit it, the woman had a sense of style. From her navy skirt to her jacket piped in green, Mike’s ensemble screamed New York chic. Why had she come? To see the pathetic little woman with whom Drake diddled on his trip south?

Except Mike stared at the body, not at her. “What happened?”

As if it was any of her business.

Christine cleared her throat. “Nothing with which you need concern yourself. I think it would be best if you leave.”

Mike shifted her gaze, a wrinkle formed between her brows, and she opened her mouth as if to speak.

Christine turned her back. Nothing Drake’s woman might say interested her.

Her father gaped at her. So what if she’d never been deliberately rude before. There was a first time for everything.

Detective Kenton—God bless him—pushed through the front door with the newsboy in search of his nickel on his heels.

Christine placed five cents in the lad’s open palm before he ran off.

Kenton’s gaze fixed on the two bodies. “What happened?”

The police detective would neither appreciate nor believe a story of dead pirates, water that granted eternal life, and her presence at a shoot-out in Jackson Square. Christine pointed to the dead man. “He tried to rob me.”

Detective Kenton leaned over the dead man and stared at the neat hole in his forehead. “Who shot him?”

“I did,” said Christine.

Kenton’s lips thinned then he straightened and looked at Mike. “Who are you? Are you a witness?”

“I’m a friend of Mattias Drake’s. And, no, I’m not a witness.”

“Where is Mr. Drake?” asked Kenton.

“No idea,” said Mike. She looked Kenton straight in the eye. So why was Christine sure she was lying?

“It hardly matters where Mr. Drake is.” Christine’s heart constricted. “The main thing is to file a report then move this body out of my shop.” Christine allowed the tears she’d been holding at bay to shine in her eyes. “I’d hate for Molly to arrive and find another corpse. It would be such a shock for the poor girl.”

At the mention of his fiancée in the same room as the dead man, Kenton pulled a notepad from his pocket.

“Where have you been?” Drake bellowed from the front door. His gaze swept the room, pausing on Warwick but landing on the dead man. “What happened?”

It was none of his damned business.

He stepped inside.

As if he could just stroll into her shop after betraying her.

Her father sat straighter and studied Drake through narrowed eyes.

“Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, Detective Kenton, but isn’t Mr. Drake disturbing your crime scene?” Christine sent a tight smile in Mike’s direction. “The lady as well.”