Dark Lily: Shadows, Book 4 (13 page)

“I know I fit in well in that obscure niche between the people who live on Bokur and the ones who died there. I’m not sure I ever thought much beyond that. I suppose I haven’t had to until now.” Leaning back, she glanced out the window. “Mitchell, what time should we leave?”

“Invitation says eight pm. We’ll be fashionably late, and get there at eight forty.”

“Is that us making an entrance?”

He grinned. “Honey, if that was my intention, we’d arrive at nine forty. At eight forty, we’ll be among the first twenty or thirty guests.”

She rolled her neck. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

“Yeah? Maybe I can do something about that.” Setting his gaze on hers, he ditched his glass and pushed off from the headboard.

She was wearing a very skimpy white silk robe and not another damn thing. Her hair was a glory of gold, and he knew all too well what that mouth of hers could do. He’d discovered that dizzying delight in the compact shower stall thirty minutes ago.

Somewhere in his brain, a mental clock ticked down. However, one look at Gaby and the sound was lost to a drumbeat of desire.

Thunder rumbled a warning in the darkening sky.
A presentiment of danger
, he wondered,
or merely a reminder to stay focused?

At the moment, his focus was on Gaby. He’d have to hope his plan would be broad enough to keep her alive. Because if it wasn’t, if he’d missed something by losing himself in her, the plan to save her might very well be the one that killed her.

* * * * *

CJ stepped with meticulous care into a pair of black pants and shoes. He buttoned his crisp white shirt and fastened his cape. He stuck his mask, a simple Zorro, in one of the cape’s many pockets and ordered himself to breathe.

He’d killed before. He could do it again. And any man who could kill could certainly kidnap. Bases covered, it appeared.

His phone rang while he was tossing back a bracing shot of bourbon. Seven question marks appeared on the screen. For a moment, his stomach threatened to revolt. But he kept the bourbon down and even managed a second shot before he answered.

“I’m ready,” he told Leshad.

“Excellent.” As always, the distorted voice made his skin crawl. “Can I assume by your grim-as-death tone that the whore is still alive?”

CJ swallowed the bile that climbed into his throat. “For the moment. I’m expecting her to be on the riverboat tonight. I’ll take care of her there, and Gaby as well, if you’ll trust me.”

Leshad’s chuckle made him think of maggots greedily consuming a corpse. “If I wasn’t in the process of discovering that I’m surrounded by armed and dangerous idiots with less than a single brain cell between them, I’d turn your offer down flat. Unfortunately, I lost two more men last night.”

The bourbon turned to acid in CJ’s stomach. “Where?”

“Outside the Stone mansion, a house that I discovered an hour ago is no longer where your daughter and Mitchell Stone are holed up. As you might imagine, Caleb, I’m not happy with this turn of events. That I have gunmen to spare isn’t the point. That Stone and your daughter continue to run a step ahead of me is.”

CJ kept his tone calm, even after a sweaty palm almost caused him to drop his phone. “Tell me what to do, Leshad. Other than kill Phoebe.”

“Stick to your daughter tonight as if she were flypaper and you a common housefly.”

A third shot of bourbon went down. “Anything else?”

“Oh, nothing of import.” A note of black humor crept in. “You might want to bear in mind, however, that I’ve always loved a good masquerade party.”

Chapter Fifteen

The party threatened to be a floating nightmare. Even so, Gaby enjoyed wearing the sexy black stilettos Mitchell bought for her. They set off her costume, a one-piece catsuit that, in and of itself, had little to do with graveyards or the undead. Until she slipped a beaded black sliver of jersey silk over it. The fabric clung to every curve of her body. Topped with a long black wig, dramatic makeup and a black champagne mask, the mirror showed a highly passable voodoo Vampira.

As far as the venue went, Emmett Delacroix had gutted and refurbished a riverboat straight out of the 1800s. Unfortunately, he’d done it to suit his own personal taste. With the exception of a massive paddle wheel and an immaculate whitewashed hull, very little of the original Southern charm remained.

“This would be gorgeous on a Hollywood sound stage or in a resort hotel.” Gaby kept her voice low as she and Mitchell strolled through the upper lounge. “And the art on the walls could rival a Paris gallery.”

“But?”

“If I did anything similar to Celia’s plantation house, she’d run me off Bokur whether Captain Morgan was there to transport me or not.” She pivoted to regard the crowd. “Not that I can’t guess, but why is every woman I see wearing the same costume as me and every man dressed like you in black pants, a white shirt and cape?”

“It’s meant to add mystery. Only the choice of mask was left up to the wearer. We’re talking subtle nuance here.”

“We would be if people’s body types didn’t vary so widely.”

“I don’t know, Gaby. I see a lot of guys you could mistake for me.” He grinned at her get-serious stare. “All right, a lot of guys anyone except you could mistake for me.”

“Is Ryder here?”

“Nope. He’s working tonight. Billy?”

“Haven’t seen him. Mitchell, I’m not overly comfortable with this clone thing.”

“Neither am I, but Delacroix had his orders, and he passed them on to his guests through their invitations. The masquerade dress code was extremely specific. Only the fortune tellers will be wearing color. The rest of us come straight out of a black-and-white horror flick. Leshad’s up to something.”

“So is that absurdly obvious group of people huddled next to the casino doorway.” Gaby nodded over the rim of her champagne flute. “The two tall men would be Crucible on the left and Tom Cutter on the right. The man with the ice-blue eyes is Henrick Skahr. The one wearing his dreadlocks in a bun? Jackson Shepherd. Ponytail guy with the hoop earring is John Killian, and the woman is Miranda Montgomery.”

Mitchell walked around behind her. “You know you can be seriously spooky sometimes. Seeing as your Spidey senses are so well-tuned, you should probably keep scanning. You could get lucky and stumble across Leshad.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mitchell, those people want me to know who they are.”

“Even the best of us have mental lapses, honey. As far as anyone knows, Leshad’s still a member of the human race.”

She made another sweep of Crucible’s clique. “One of the directors is missing,” she noted. “Cutter, Skahr and Shepherd are only three of the four. Killian’s a go-between—that must be a tricky job—and Miranda is Crucible’s personal assistant. I like her.”

“You can tell that from here?”

“Deep impressions.” She fluttered her fingers. “Difficult to explain. Except for her, the others in the group are literally throwing their thoughts at me. I’m not sensing our host or Daddy Dearest. If you’re interested, however, there’s a ghost. Male. Died in his mid-fifties. He captained the Delta Belle in its heyday. He hates what Delacroix’s done with it.”

“Yeah, well, ask him not to sink it out of spite until the party’s over.”

“I’ll pass the message along.” Smiling, she plucked a Cajun canapé from a long table. “I hear thunder outside, and I don’t think those flashes I’m seeing are coming from shore. If it starts to rain, this masquerade party could get very confined very quickly.”

“We’ll deal with that if and when. Keep reading people. Try to figure out who’s here as a guest and who’s been hired as security, muscle or worse.”

“What if there aren’t any guests? What if everyone’s on Leshad’s payroll?”

“Then that’s something we’d want to know sooner rather than later.”

The lights dimmed to an eerie midnight-blue glow as he spoke. Some of the fortune tellers took up stations in the strategically shadowed corners. Others wandered through tables that were draped in white linen with silver and blue toppers.

Gaby smelled exotic perfume, was dazzled by streams of precious jewels and wondered how on earth she’d managed to survive this lifestyle in California.

“I used to do massive Hollywood parties,” she told Mitchell. “We’d socialize, kiss ass and get hammered. The playbill seldom varied. I met a producer of some really bad, straight-to-DVD horror films at one of those events, even dated him for a while.”

“Is he the one you scarred?”

“No. That was Malik. He’s a documentary filmmaker. Does the bulk of his work in Eastern Europe. We crossed paths one day while I was scouting a really creepy Romanian castle. Dinner, dark romance, small village with mysterious inhabitants. As you might imagine, the mystery lost its appeal, on both sides.” She switched her attention to a stage at the back of the room. “Delacroix hired a torch singer. Our ghost captain’s getting really pissed.”

“Any significant human vibes?”

“Mostly what you’d expect. A lot of problems layered under the numbing effects of alcohol. Unhappy people make me so sad.”

“Move past the personal. What else is out there?”

“Fifteen men and counting with guns.”

“Looking for you?”

“I can’t always tell who’s giving off what vibes. This isn’t my forté.” Tilting her head up and back, she smiled at him. “Maybe we should dance.”

“Trickier for me to concentrate that way.” But he took her champagne glass and set it on an empty table.

The singer, a sexy Creole with a mole and a feather mask, sang “Stormy Weather” almost as well as Lena Horne. The overheads transformed into a starry night. Gaby swayed against Mitchell and wished all of it would just end so she could…what? Return to Bokur Island? Go back to running the Lily? It was fun while it lasted, but…

Mitchell stroked a seductive hand up and down her spine. “Why the sudden stiffness?”

She rested her cheek against his shoulder, savoring the feel of him. “Thoughts, wishes, questions. My mind wanders even when it’s occupied with stuff. Mitchell?”

“I don’t know if Phoebe plans to be here or not.”

She relaxed into a laugh. “I was actually going to tell you that a man—not our host—is standing in the main entryway, trying very hard to locate us. Well, me. This specific disguise idea has as many drawbacks as it has benefits.”

“Does this man who’s not our host have a name?”

“Jubal Canard. And that’s exactly all I’m getting from him. Whoever he is, he has exceptional mind control.”

“Canard is Delacroix’s brother-in-law. Or was. Delacroix’s wife died several years ago.”

“Does he often fill in for Delacroix?”

“Not my area of knowledge. But he could be acting in that capacity tonight. Rumor has it Delacroix has a business deal of some sort going down in the Caribbean.”

When the dance allowed for it, Gaby regarded Jubal Canard. A three-quarter mask covered most of his face, but his jaw was firm and square. He was a tall man, fit from what she could see, and he had excellent posture. “Bet he’s elegant looking,” she said. “I still can’t read him though, beyond knowing who he is.”

“Give it time, and don’t stare.”

One smoky song drifted into another. People wandered in from outside. Rain was beginning to fall, Gaby realized. The ballroom was a sea of masked black-and-white bodies. The corner fortune tellers took their predictions on the road and paid most of their attention to the females.
Interesting
, Gaby thought,
and undoubtedly deliberate.

One of the fortune tellers remained in the shadows. She kept her eyes on Gaby until her gaze was felt. While Mitchell got them more champagne, Gaby strolled over to her. “Do you have something to say to me?”

“The moon is almost full tonight,” the woman replied. “Dangerous time for those who are hunted. My name is Armene. I’m not a ghost or a visionary. This is a costume, nothing more. Mitchell wants to draw Leshad out from under his rock.”

Gaby couldn’t bring the woman’s features into her mind, but she sensed no particular malice. There was something though, and it intrigued her. “You don’t want anyone to know you’re here,” she said. “Why?”

“Because I’m one of the few people at this party whom I can say with absolute certainty isn’t in league with Leshad.”

“That’s less than reassuring and not what I asked. Are you telling me I shouldn’t trust anyone on this riverboat?”

“With very few exceptions, yes.”

“Do you know Crucible?”

“I know he’s here.”

“You’re a master of evasion, Armene. Can I trust him?”

“In principal, yes.”

Tired of the game, Gaby swung away to search for Mitchell. “Why did you want to meet me?”

“So I could warn you. Crucible would like very much to bring you in before this night is done. And you must know Leshad has the same thought in mind.”

Gaby’s smile was placid, though her insides jittered. “Are you saying this is a no-win for me, or that I should choose a side now while I still can?”

Armene shrugged. “You’d be a fool to choose Leshad. I just thought you might want to know Crucible’s agenda.” Her tone grew cryptic as she melted deeper into the corner shadows. “Take care, Gabrielle.”

Lightning streaked through the sky outside. Thunder crashed. As it did, the paddle wheeler shuddered. The vibrations caused crystal to rattle and elicited several startled gasps. A male guest stumbled into Gaby’s shoulder, spilled his champagne and mumbled an apology.

She stepped away from the man, whose ungloved hand resembled a claw. Taking another quick step, she frowned. “Jesus.”

“Problem?” Mitchell pushed a bubbling flute into her cold fingers.

Gaby noticed he positioned himself between her and the man. She peered around his arm. “Possibly not. It could be the weird fortune teller wound me up. She was in the shadows behind us before the lightning flashed.”

Mitchell looked. “She’s not there now.”

“I know. I imagine she wants me to think she disappeared, but there’s a small pocket door in the corner. She used it. She said her name was Armene. I’m trying to sift through the layers of what she didn’t say.” Gaby kept her voice low as she tested her sticky fingers. “Do you know where the washrooms are? That man with the claw hand spilled champagne on me.”

Mitchell took her arm. “There’s a hole-in-the-wall powder room behind the casino. I’ll wait outside. Be fast.”

“Count on it. I haven’t— Whoa, wait. Stop.” She pressed her palm to his chest, waited for the unexpected image to clear. When it did, a smile feathered across her lips. “Oh, well now. That is interesting.”

Mitchell swept the crowd. “Make my night, Gaby, and tell me CJ Best just walked in with Leshad.”

She shook her head. “Nothing that revelatory. I managed to knock down the fortune teller’s mental wall. Her name is Armene. She’s a tiny bit psychic and a whole lot unfathomable. She’s also the missing fourth director.”

* * * * *

How anyone had managed to identify Gaby on this floating palace of the undead, CJ couldn’t imagine. But he supposed it really only took a boatload of listening devices and several well-placed cameras to get the job done.

However she’d been made, his orders came straight from Leshad. Restrain and transfer. As imperative as it had been before, Phoebe’s death had apparently been shunted to the back burner. It was just as well, since CJ had no idea if she was among the undead or not. Prior to leaving the dock, he’d felt certain she would seek him out, but so far, no contact.

Not important, he decided. The change in Leshad’s attitude was the real puzzler. Did it signal that his benefactor’s mindset was shifting from determined to desperate? It struck CJ that the insanity, long since a given, was beginning to bleed through a mask riddled with spider-vein cracks.

CJ settled his jumpy nerves with two—or was it three?—tall shots of bourbon. He knew the man watching him down the last one was Jubal Canard. His stance gave him away. Feet firmly planted, hands clasped behind his back, posed like a demi-god near the portside deck entrance.

“Prick,” CJ muttered. Then he pressed a finger to his earpiece and the liquor he’d consumed dropped straight into his bowels.

“I’m watching you, Caleb.” Leshad’s computer-distorted voice dripped honey over hemlock. “I’m waiting. I’m pressing the button. Tick, tick, tick, tick.”

* * * * *

Gaby reminded herself that Mitchell was waiting for her right outside what was surely the most obscure washroom on the boat. He was an ex-cop, she was far from helpless, and they both wanted this done. Their way, not Leshad’s. So why did it still seem as if the odds were heavily stacked in Leshad’s favor?

The makeup area was empty, and she only saw one other pair of feet in the restroom stalls. The woman to whom they were attached wobbled out, mask in hand. She offered Gaby a lopsided smile and carried on through to the vanity area. Water trickled, the woman gave a tinkling laugh and the room fell silent.

The lighting was more subdued here than outside. The torch singer hummed to the music now, and the lack of words was like a blood-tipped finger running along Gaby’s spine. Spooky.

A second stall door creaked while she was refreshing her scarlet lipstick. How had she missed that? She glanced at her mask on the counter, but truthfully, she was sick of wearing the thing. It did its job, covering three quarters of her face and leaving only her mouth and dramatically enhanced eyes exposed. However, it wasn’t comfortable for prolonged periods.

Trusting the shadows to conceal her, Gaby squinted at her reflection in the smoky mirror. Who’d recognize her even without a mask? Mitchell, maybe. And Celia. Billy. Possibly one or two people on Bokur, but few others. Certainly not CJ Best.

“Interesting party, don’t you think?”