by Maria Luis
“So, did he say he would help?”
“Brady?” Shaelyn nodded again. “Yeah, he did.”
After you completely insulted and rejected him.
She shifted on her chair and told herself to stop thinking about it. It was too little too late. He wasn’t likely to try and kiss her again, and Shaelyn had way too many issues to try and explain to him why she’d turned her head when, in reality, all she had wanted were his lips on hers.
To her cousin, she added, “He needs a last name. That is, if you want him to find Tony.”
Anna fell silent and Shaelyn didn’t blame her. She thought she could have gone looking for Tony without her cousin’s support, but the reality was that she couldn’t. It just wasn’t right, not to mention that as much as Shaelyn wanted to help Julian, she couldn’t betray his mama in the process.
It was all or nothing.
Shaelyn placed a hand on the table to bring Anna’s attention back from wherever it had wandered. “You don’t have to decide today,” she said quietly. “Maybe talk it over with Julian first.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest and hiked up her chin in a clear move of defiance. “No, it’s fine. I’ll talk to Julian. I’m sure he has questions for me.”
Shaelyn cleared her throat awkwardly, motioning at the dinner spread before them. “I’m sorry if I ruined pizza and wine tonight.”
A small smile, a peace offering maybe, shaped Anna’s lips. “Don’t worry about it. This was all due to come out at some point. I guess I was just hoping it would be when I was eighty and gray.”
“Well, technically you are gray.” Shaelyn pointed her finger down at the table. “Only one hair you said?”
“You know, I think maybe I do hate you.”
She laughed, loud and bright, in a way that she hadn’t in ages. Then, lowering her voice, she asked, “Do you have a name for me to tell Brady?”
Anna’s blue gaze slid away from Shaelyn. “Tell him to look up Anthony Mardeaux.”
11
Brady was on a crime scene when his phone buzzed in his pants pocket. With a glance at the swarm of newscasters, patrol officers, and other detectives, he shoved his Aviator sunglasses to the top of his head and ducked under the yellow caution tape sectioning off the dead from the living.
After a nearly two-week homicide dry spell, the streak had ended three days ago. Two separate murders. Same neighborhood. Only an idiot would think that the crimes were independent of each other, and Brady didn’t consider himself an idiot.
Today’s vics were two men who had been gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Tire tracks were imprinted on the gravel, suggesting that the perps had swooped in, done the deed, and hightailed it out of the neighborhood before the victims had even registered gunfire. Adding to that damning fact, first responders had discovered dope tucked inside the victims’ pockets, as well as wallets filled with wads of cash.
A drug-run gone wrong.
It was a goddamn mess. The media were having a field day with this one, especially as Brady and his coworkers had no significant leads despite seventy-two hours of nonstop work.
“Somebody’s pissed off,” Nathan Danvers, a fellow homicide detective, said as Brady neared him. Danvers was still relatively fresh on the job, having only worked in homicide for a few months. As an ex-marine, Danvers was the sort of person Brady wanted beside him when shit went bad.
Didn’t help that the guy was built like a linebacker crossed with a Redwood Tree. Standing at six foot five and some change, Danvers was taller than everyone in the department, including Brady.
Brady scrubbed a hand over his face, then dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. “‘Pissed off’ might be an understatement. They’ve got nine holes between the two of them.”
“Jesus.”
Pretty much. He dug into his pocket for his phone, expecting to see a missed call from Central Evidence Processing. Yesterday a gun had been discovered on scene, and he’d sent it off to see what, if any, fingerprints might come back. Any hope that the gun might be hot dissipated when task force had run the serial number—the Glock .22 wasn’t stolen. Fingerprints were all they had left to fall back on now.
But the name of the sender on his phone wasn’t CEP, and his heart rate kicked into gear as a smile involuntarily curved his lips. He cast a quick look at the yellow caution tape. EMS had arrived, though there wasn’t anything that could be done. The victims had been dead probably thirty minutes before a neighbor had found the bodies and called the NOPD. He needed to get back over there. Do his job.
Even as he told himself all that, his thumb was already swiping to the right to open the text.
I got his name from Anna. Anthony Mardeaux. Thank you.
His immediate reaction was to smile. But then he squashed the feeling with a self-directed order not to travel that road again. He’d already made a fool out of himself when he’d gone to kiss her. No way would he let a ten-word text ease his embarrassment.
He’d still help find Julian’s dad, but only because Brady had witnessed too many domestic disputes during his career. Brady was going to do this for Julian, because he didn’t want Julian to turn out like one of those kids who got caught in the parents’ crossfire. He wasn’t doing this for Shae.
Shoving his phone into his pocket, Brady reached for his Aviators and slid them onto the bridge of his nose to fight the glare of the afternoon sun glancing off the concrete.
“Woman trouble?”
Brady’s head jerked toward Danvers. “What?”
“You dealing with some women issues?”
“We’re on call.” It was a weak excuse and they both knew it. If it had been any of Brady’s other coworkers, they’d have let the excuse stand. But Danvers was like the gators roaming the Southern Louisiana bayous—once he latched onto something, he didn’t let go unless you pried his jaws loose.
Case in point: Danvers holding up his hands in what had to be a universal sign for, what? I didn’t do anything. “Don’t think we didn’t notice your visitor the other day.”
Brady stared at him.
“A visitor of the female persuasion,” Danvers specified with a grin. “Curly short hair? Great curves? Ringing any bells?”
Hell, his coworkers were worse than Brady’s elderly grandmother when it came to keeping secrets. He grumbled as much before adding, “We’re not talking about this.”
Reaching into his back pocket, Danvers took out a pack of Trident gum. He grabbed two sticks, offered one to Brady, and shrugged his massive shoulders when Brady shook his head no. He popped both pieces into his mouth after unrolling the foils and stuck the pack back into his pocket.
“Just sayin’,” the other detective said as he blew an obnoxious mint green bubble. “She was cute in that girl-next-door sort of way. A few of the guys wouldn’t mind taking her out.”
Brady’s eyes narrowed. “You included?”
Danvers let out a strangled cough. Was it wrong of Brady to hope that the other man choked on the Trident?
Danvers made a fist and pounded his chest, as Brady turned on his heels and doubled back to the sectioned-off area. The crowd had thinned, as some of the patrol officers had left for other calls. Brady mentally prepared himself for another sleepless night. The thought that the killer—or killers, because they really had no clue who’d done this—could strike again in less than twenty-four hours was alarming.
“I know we’re working right now, but I’ve got to ask. You seeing her?” Thanks to Danvers’ long-as-hell legs, he had no problem catching up. When Brady ground to a sudden halt, Danvers was already two steps ahead of him. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a no,” Brady clipped out.
“So, she’s single?”
Brady didn’t have time to shoot the shit right now. He had two dead men, an unidentified murderer, and if he didn’t get rid of the giant with the chatty mouth, there was a good chance that tally of three victims might turn into a fourth. To say nothing of the fact th
at his rank was watching him like a hawk, waiting for him to screw up. All it would take was one mishap—a little bit of perceived laziness—and Brady’s third-in-line ranking for sergeant dropped to fourth or fifth before giving way to dead last.
Brady didn’t do last place.
He told himself that it was for that reason only that he turned to Danvers and lied.
“She’s engaged,” he announced, and then he strode back to the taped-off area to do what he did best.
Figure shit out.
12
Five days after she sent Brady the text about Anthony Mardeaux, Shaelyn had yet to hear from him.
At first she’d chalked up his silence to the fact that these things took time. Three days in, she’d begun to wonder if he had, in fact, received her text at all. She hadn’t sent another—worried that he might change his mind. So, she’d waited.
Waiting had never been Shaelyn’s strong suit.
Three days had turned into four, and then four into five, and five—Shaelyn gnashed her teeth together as she parked her car across the street from Brady’s house in New Orleans’s historic Irish Channel neighborhood. Once upon a time, the houses had belonged to the Irish immigrants disembarking from their boats on the Mississippi River. Legend had it that many of the Irish, not having any other option, then tore their flat-board boats apart and used the wood for the siding of their new homes.
One of the many random tidbits Shaelyn recalled from history class. Surprisingly, as she’d spent most of her time passing notes with Brady.
“I forbid you from going to his house,” came Meme Elaine’s raspy voice over the phone, just as Shaelyn’s GPS announced, “You have reached your final destination.”
“Too bad, Meme. I just got here.”
“You’re making my bad cholesterol rise.”
Shaelyn snorted. “Now you want to play the sick patient? Don’t think I didn’t notice you skipping your doctor’s appointment this morning.”
Silence greeted her from the other end of the receiver, as if her grandmother was pondering her next move. Then, almost on cue, she said, “If I had known what you were scheming, I wouldn’t have given you his address.”
“If you had known what I was scheming, you would have found me another fake fiancé,” Shaelyn said wryly.
Her grandmother huffed. “If I thought that could have worked a second time . . .”
The angle of Shaelyn’s parked car provided a nice vantage point of Brady’s shotgun-style house. His sat amidst three identical properties, all of which were adorned with wrought-iron railings encaging the front porches. Elaborate Victorian trimmings detailed the overhang and grand shutters bracketed the two front windows. Brady’s house was painted a pretty lavender color, and the window trim and flower boxes were all a dusty forest green. The color scheme wasn’t to her taste—and she had a hard time believing that Brady had chosen those paint swatches—but Shaelyn liked the homey vibe.
Granted, the dead flowers in the window boxes were very non-Martha Stewart.
“He’s trying to take advantage of you,” Meme Elaine said, drawing Shaelyn’s attention away from the house, “and you’re probably going to let him.”
“Jesus, Meme. We are not having this conversation.” Twisting the key in the ignition, she listened as the hum of the engine settled into silence.
“I’m telling you, cher, that boy is trouble.”
That she could believe. Trouble was Brady’s calling card, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the way she looked at it), Shaelyn had his number.
“If it helps, he knows that I’m stopping by.” Climbing out of her car, Shaelyn slammed the door shut. “I’m not worried.”
“You should be. All you have to do is look at his grandmother to know that he must’ve inherited her . . . lesser qualities.”
Shaelyn tapped her finger against the back of her phone. “You know, you’re right.”
“I am?”
“Sure are. On that note, I’m off to go and make you some great-grandbabies, Meme. Love you!” Shaelyn quickly ended the call, cutting off her grandmother mid-word. Elaine Lawrence was not going to be pleased, but it was a necessary price to pay.
She crossed the street, nearly wiping out when she stepped into a crater-sized pothole. She half hopped, half tripped back to safety, all the while cursing New Orleans’s infamous shitty streets.
“Never again,” she muttered, “I’m never wearing stilettos again.”
She glanced down at the offending foot contraption and rescinded her statement. She loved high heels, and these were her favorite—a flashy pair of cheetah-print pumps with a thin fuchsia band that wrapped around her ankle.
She latched onto the smooth iron railing and hobbled her way up the stairs. Up close, she noted two different colors staining the front door. Half had been painted a foggy-gray hue, while the other half was still white, the old paint so badly chipped that the unfinished wood showed through.
Glancing down, she noticed a paintbrush resting on top of a cracked-open gallon of paint. Clearly Brady hadn’t had enough time to finish what he’d started. She briefly let herself wonder about how long he had lived in the house before she pumped the break on those thoughts.
Stop procrastinating, she told herself. Right. She’d come with a purpose, a goal in mind. Time to get to it. Think about Julian.
With no doorbell to ring in sight, she raised her hand to knock.
She didn’t get the chance.
Just as her hand curled into a fist, the door swung open and . . . Sweet mother of—
Shaelyn struggled to keep her eyes on his face. She really tried, but holy baby Jesus, where were his clothes? Her gaze dropped to Brady’s bare chest. Strong pecs immediately snared her attention, but it was his tattoo that really caught her eye. Comprised of various abstract and geometrical shapes, the tattoo covered his upper bicep, over the arch of one rounded shoulder and down over one hard pec. Two bands of thick ink wrapped around his forearm, completing the design. The tattoo wasn’t anything like she’d ever seen before—the black and gray shades forming a detailed mosaic of art across his chest. It was hot. No, scratch that—he was hot.
It was all too easy to continue her slow downward perusal from there. At the sight of his abs, Shaelyn felt the strong compulsion to return to her parish church, Holy Name of Jesus, and attend confession.
What she wouldn’t do to worship the hard ridges of his stomach. Her mother would have been horrified to learn the R-rated direction of her daughter’s thoughts. But, honestly, Shaelyn couldn’t find it in herself to feel ashamed for the shameless way she ogled his body. The man was seriously ripped, without a single ounce of flab on his body.
Donuts were clearly not Brady’s preferred food group.
Instead he looked like he feasted nightly on kale and grilled chicken with a heavy sprinkle of Creatine powder. Come to think of it, if he told her that he actually hunted and butchered all of his proteins she wouldn’t be surprised.
Tarzan 2.0, minus Jane and the loincloth.
Shaelyn’s gaze dropped again and . . . Sweet mother of—
Brady was naked.
Okay, minor exaggeration, but the navy-blue briefs did nothing to conceal the bulge between his legs. Heat swept over Shaelyn, the sort that only seemed to sneak up on her whenever she was in close proximity to Brady.
“Like what you see?” he asked, real nice and slow like he was thoroughly enjoying the prospect of leaving her speechless.
Shaelyn swallowed her nerves. And her lust. “So cliché, Brady. You can do better.” One glance up, past all of the goods on display, revealed that he had one hand resting flat against the doorframe. The pose sharpened the angles of his lean muscles. A lesser woman would have wept joyous tears at the sight of an almost-naked Brady Taylor. Shaelyn wasn’t that woman, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes on his face and not south of his equator.
Brady’s mouth quirked smugly. When he spoke, his voice was as smooth as ch
urned butter. “Considering the way you’re having a hard time keeping your eyes on my face, I’m pretty sure the comment is justified.”
A hot blush warmed her cheeks. “Didn’t you get my text?”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t bother to answer?” Another few minutes of verbal sparring with Brady, and Shaelyn wasn’t sure she’d even find him attractive anymore. Then again, that was probably safer than the alternative. A silent, brooding Brady was a dangerous Brady. “I sent it to you nearly an hour ago.”
Broad shoulders shifted up in a shrug. “I was asleep.”
“You’re not asleep now.”
“You wouldn’t be either if you woke up to hear a woman outside of your house claiming that she was about to make great-grandbabies with you.”
Shaelyn’s dignity ignited in a big ball of fire. It was a great visual, made only more appropriate when Brady leaned down and murmured by her ear, “That’s assuming I want to make great-grandbabies with you.”
Was it possible to die from complete embarrassment?
“Good catch on not falling into that pothole, by the way. I didn’t know you had those sort of reflexes.”
Yes, yes it apparently was.
Shaelyn’s eyes squeezed shut as she blocked out his presence. She could still feel the heat of his body, sense the tension radiating off him in waves. She hadn’t seen him since that awkward moment in his office the week before. Opening her eyes, she focused on the tight, guarded expression on his face.
Yeah, he wasn’t over that almost-kiss. A veil had fallen over his blue eyes—a wall that hadn’t existed five days ago. Shaelyn was surprised to feel an acute sense of loss, even though that didn’t make a lick of sense. It’s not like she’d had him to begin with.
She threw a quick look over her shoulder at his front porch. “Can I come in?”
“You gonna ask me to put on clothes to appease your fragile sensibilities?”
Shaelyn nearly laughed. What she wanted to do to his body in no way correlated to her fragile sensibilities, if she even had any. “Let’s compromise on a shirt.”