by Nancy Gideon
“You have rodents.”
“They’re guinea pigs. Porky and Baco. They were a gift when I made detective.”
The fat little creatures were huddled in the corner, frozen, prey animals sensing they were about to become a meal. He tapped the cage with his fingertip and they let out shrill wheeks of alarm.
Charlotte came up behind him, almost surprising a similar sound from him when she took his jacket by the shoulders and slowly drew it off him. When he turned, she was on his mouth.
She hauled him to her with fingers hooked behind his head, mashing her lips against his before he could suck a startled breath. He’d hoped and dreamed of this, but never expected it in a million years. He let her take what she wanted, his eyes open, breathing light and fast, his hands hanging at his sides while her lips met his with fierce abandon.
Finally, she eased back far enough to free his brain from its vapor lock.
“Well?” Her question caressed his bruised mouth.
“What?” Barely a whisper.
Her fingertips followed the hard line of his jaw. “Aren’t you going to kiss me back?”
“Absolutely.” And he swooped down on her like a hawk after her little rodents.
As they indulged in deliciously wet, opened-mouth exploration, he was peripherally aware of her hands, busy unknotting his tie, unbuttoning his shirt, pushing it from his shoulders to catch on the cuff links at his wrists. Her palms started charting the furring of his chest and abdomen in a firm, seeking pattern.
He burned beneath her touch, dizzy because she actually had her hands on him, skin to skin. When he started to work free of his shirt, wanting to get a handful of her as quickly as possible, she reached around him to help. As his shirt dropped free, he felt the cold touch of metal and ratcheting circle of her handcuffs. He tried to pull his thoughts from their sensual daze. Kind of kinky, but he’d go along with it. Until something thin and sharp pierced his shoulder.
Charlotte pushed away from him, panting, her lipstick smeared, her eyes wild.
And he realized how deep her clever treachery went as the sliver of silver she’d stuck in his back began to eat through his system like acid. He staggered, stunned and quickly swamped with a weakening sickness.
Over those prickly waves of pain, he heard her hard demand. “All right, Savoie. You’re going to tell me right now just what the hell you are.”
Five
MAX STOOD STARING at her for a long moment, his eyes round with amazement and disbelief. She watched understanding dawn like a dark new day.
“Ah, hell,” he whispered, almost too softly for her to hear.
And then he was a blur of motion.
He was fast, so fast, whirling, racing for her door, apparently planning to go right through it. She hit him like a linebacker in Bourbon French perfume and heels, driving him to his knees. He had no way to break his fall except with his face.
Shaking it off, he was instantly rolling, throwing her off him while she struggled to loop an arm about his neck. His head lashed back, catching her in the chin, clacking her teeth together. She grabbed the chain linking his cuffs together, jerking them up, bringing him staggering to his feet, but when his head went down, those red tennis shoe-clad feet kicked up and over, doing a hands-free cartwheel. Once his Converses were under him he plowed into her, his shoulder knocking the wind from her with a pained Oof.
She was still between him and the door, a barrier he couldn’t breach without doing her significant damage. Still not an option at this point. His hands were useless. He only had scant minutes to escape before the poison in his system brought him down hard. He made an instantaneous choice, darting through the living room, diving over the couch into a slick tumble down the hall while Porky and Baco scrambled around their cage in frantic circles, shrieking. As the only other available route, he ducked into her bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Cee Cee straightened, rubbing her chest and wheezing for air. He was quick and he was clever, but now he was caught. There was no way out of her room. The windows had bolted wrought-iron security grills; it would take a wrecking ball to break through them. But now that she had him, what was she going to do with him? Did cuffing him and trapping him in her apartment make him less or more dangerous?
She heard him stumbling about and cringed at the sound of her lamp breaking, then hard thumps of impact. He was actually trying to force his way through the bars. Could he? And even if he could, there was a two-story fall. Her hand was on the knob, picturing him sprawled and broken on her narrow patch of yard. Then it was suddenly quiet.
He’d pushed something in front of the door. She put her shoulder into it, shoving hard to shift her dresser to one side, giving her just enough space to slip inside the dark room. She tried the wall switch, but the bulb had broken when the lamp hit the floor.
“Max? I’ve got a gun and it’s carrying loads that you won’t like. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“You mean don’t do anything else stupid.”
She followed the sound of his voice to the far side of the room, and edged in cautiously to snap on a small bedside lamp. Its twenty-watt bulb barely reached across the queen-sized spread to where he sat in heavy shadow on the floor between the wall and the bed frame.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
“Too late.”
She circled the foot of the bed. He’d burrowed back into a space just big enough to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders. With his cheek resting on updrawn knees and his back to the wall, his breathing coming in harsh, broken gulps, he didn’t present an obvious threat. But Cee Cee could still see those cold, dead eyes in that severed head, and was cautious.
“I take it hoping for sex is out of the question,” he said dryly.
“I want some answers, Max.”
“When most people want to engage in a conversation, they sit down together on the couch, and start with casual chitchat. They don’t start with handcuffs and poison and expect things to remain cordial.” He raised his head slowly. His eyes glittered with that strange eerie brilliance against his sweat-slicked pallor.
“I wanted to make sure we understood each other.”
“I think I’m getting the picture now.”
As she settled on the edge of the bed, his stare never left hers. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure I could trust you to behave.”
“You’ll never know now, will you?”
“Talk to me, Max.”
“About what, Charlotte?”
“About how I stood right next to you when you took a bullet. About how I had my knife in your belly and now there is hardly a scratch to show for it. Explain that to me, Max.”
“I’m a fast healer. And I have great skin.”
“You said poison. Is that what silver does to you? It can kill you, but the bullet wound itself couldn’t? Someone wanted you dead, Max.”
“Sounds like you’ve got everything figured out.” His smile was small and mocking as his features tightened in obvious distress. Was he as weak and shaky as he looked, or was that to lure her into lowering her guard?
“Is that what it’s doing now? Will it kill you?”
“Would you be sorry if it did?”
“Who wants you dead, Max?”
“You, apparently. I didn’t realize I was such a poor dinner companion.”
“You’re not.” Her voice softened as unbidden thoughts of the feel of his palm on her waist teased her memory.
“Maybe we could try it again sometime. Sometime when you don’t want to kill me.”
“There won’t be another time, Max.”
“Ah, well.” His voice lowered into a deep, smoky ripple. “Thank you for the dress. You looked so beautiful, I forgot how to breathe.”
For a moment, she was nearly seduced by the intensity in his eyes. She made her own hard and indifferent. “How does it work, Max?”
He just continued to stare up at her.
“You killed those men. You ripped th
em apart with just your hands. That’s not possible, Max. Fangs and claws, that’s what the coroner said. Explain that to me.”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t.”
“I don’t know how it works. It just does.”
“Show me what you are that makes dangerous men wet themselves at just the thought of you. Show me what you become for Jimmy Legere.”
His expression stiffened and his eyes chilled to pale, smooth jade. In a low, fierce tone, he said, “In your dreams, detective.”
“Jimmy has to know,” she mused. “Is that why he keeps you on such a short leash? All he has to do is snap his fingers, and you jump to become whatever creature you are beneath that civilized suit? What does he hold over you? What do you owe him?”
A stillness settled over him, calm, cold, and deep as the grave.
“Talk to me, Max.”
“I’m not telling you anything. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be admissible in court.”
“No court is going to be judging you, Max. You know it. Who put the hit on you? Vantour? Petitjohn? Or was it Jimmy? How long before they start thinking that you might be a little too dangerous to control?”
A tiny flicker burned way back in his eyes, a pilot light that she would fan to full flame if she could.
“He’s using you, Max. He’s not thinking about you, only himself. He’s trading off your loyalty, your love.”
His voice was as slick as black ice. “And that makes him different from you how, detective?”
How indeed?
“What do you want from me, Charlotte? I’m not going to tell you anything you want to hear, so you might as well let me go.”
“Back to Jimmy? Back to becoming his soulless killer?”
“It’s all I have, detective. It’s what I am. All I know how to be.”
“Give him up, Max, before he turns on you,” she urged. “I can protect you. Let me protect you.”
His laugh was sudden and loud, springing out again to surprise her before dying a quick, terrible death as he growled, “And who’s going to protect you from me? You have no idea what you’re dealing with, no idea what I can do. I could tear off these cuffs and rip out your lying heart before it takes its next beat.”
Alarm jumped in her throat, then was stilled by cool reasoning. “If you could, you already would have. But you can’t, can you? You’re not invincible, Max. I’ve found your weakness.”
“Yes,” he agreed tonelessly, “you have.” He looked away from her, resting his forehead atop tented knees. He was shivering now, his breathing quick and uneven. And just as it had when she’d seen him in Hammond’s cuffs, on the floor at the church, a pang of regret undercut her purpose.
It wasn’t because he’d kissed her.
“I’ll give you some time to think about it. When you get uncomfortable enough, you’ll talk to me.”
“If you’re waiting for me to say something against Jimmy, I’ll tell you now that I will sit here until I die. It shouldn’t take long—maybe by morning. And how are you going to explain that, detective—a half-dressed dead man in handcuffs in your apartment? Or is that how you end all your dates?”
“Think about it, Max. You’re a smart guy. You know there’s no future with Jimmy Legere. You’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Then I’ve got nothing to gain, do I?”
She closed the door quietly behind her and leaned back against it. How would she explain it to her coworkers, to a judge? He’s this monster, you see. He tears his victims to pieces with fangs and claws. No, I don’t see fangs and claws, either, but he changes somehow. Really, he’s not a man. He’s not what you see at all.
Dr. Forstrom would have her straitjacketed in a rubber room drinking Halcion cocktails by the next evening.
She went into the bathroom, changing into an NOPD sweatshirt and gym shorts. After scrubbing the makeup from her face, she went to fix coffee to prepare for a long night—and had to stop herself as she put out a second cup. Max Savoie wasn’t here as her guest; he was a killer employed by killers. He wasn’t a man at all, but something else entirely. Something out of the stories she’d heard as a child. Something that couldn’t possibly exist, yet was handcuffed in her bedroom.
He didn’t warrant the tears burning in her heart. He wasn’t simply a charming, mysterious, exciting man whose kisses made her resistance melt. A man who looked so damned good in that dark gray Armani suit, in that dark blue shirt with its gray stripes. Colors that accented his eyes amazingly as he’d stared at her across the table. Those beautiful unblinking eyes, so calm on the surface, yet so deep and turbulent. He was not the man who could fill the lonely after-hours of her life with wit and warmth and hints that sex with him would be so glorious, she wouldn’t ever want to leave his sheets.
He wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t a safe man. So why did she wish so ardently that he could be her man?
What was he?
She moved restlessly into the living room, righting chairs, straightening furniture, putting a handful of timothy grass into the pig cage where Porky and Baco sat in frozen certainty that she was just fattening them up for the kill. They knew instinctively what Max was. A ruthless, vicious animal who acted without remorse, without pause.
She picked up his coat. Jimmy Legere must pay him well because he owned wonderful things. She stroked the fabric. Sumptuous, classic, elegant, just the way he’d looked when he came toward her to claim her as his dinner date. She lifted the garment up to her face so she could feel the material against her cheek and breathe in the scent of him on the silk lining. She’d wanted to lean against him while he was wearing it, to move with him on the dance floor pressed close, as close as she could get without being inside his clothes with him. Or without clothes entirely.
And that terrified her. Because it forced her to see the real reason he was here as her prisoner.
It wasn’t because he was a murderer. It wasn’t because she wanted to drag information out of him to convict Legere. It wasn’t because she had to know what creature moved beneath his skin. It was because of the words he’d said on the foyer floor at the church.
If you care about me . . .
If you love me . . .
She threw his jacket on the couch and began to pace.
Why would he say that to her? How could he even conceive that it was possible? She was a cop, for God’s sake. Her job was to hunt down men like him and put them away for life. How could he believe any relationship could exist between them beyond the satisfying adversarial one they enjoyed?
So beautiful, I forgot how to breathe.
Damn you, Max! How could you do this to me?
Who was the monster? Max Savoie, for being honest about who he was and what he did? Or Charlotte Caissie, for luring him in, abusing his trust, and torturing him because he was everything that frightened her in a male? Because she was so terrified of what she felt for him that she had to make him into something unlovable? Something as dark and fierce and unrecognizable as the man who had wooed her so stealthily, she wasn’t aware of it until it was too late.
He wanted things from her that she couldn’t give. Things that had nothing to do with who they were or what they did. Things she had never in her wildest nightmares ever thought she’d want to share.
She didn’t want Max Savoie to care about her. She didn’t want his attention, his touch, his devotion. She wanted their meetings stripped down to black and white, right and wrong—because that was safe; that she could handle. She wanted to be afraid of him, to push him into showing her not that he was different, but that he was the same. It wasn’t the monster in him that frightened her—it was the man. She wanted him to prove that he would hurt her and betray her and shred that fragile trust she’d always, always felt when she was around him.
She stalked back to the bedroom, hearing the low, hoarse pulls of his breathing. Ruthlessly crushing any empathy, she walked around the foot of the bed. He’d tipped over onto the rug and was lying on his side, kn
ees pulled up tight against his chest, shivering hard, bathed in sweat. His eyes were tightly closed. The area of shoulder where she’d stuck him with the silver hat pin was inflamed and bubbled like a hideous burn.
Because her immediate response was the desire to give comfort, she acted with ferocious disdain, grabbing him by the upper arms, shoving him back on his heels. He looked terrible, ashen and gaunt, as he gazed at her.
“Time’s up, Max.”
“Are you going to kill me now? You’d might as well.”
She shook him, putting enough force behind it to snap his head on his neck, needing to bring that cold, hard focus back into his eyes. He slowly straightened to regard her, breath seething between his teeth, stare flat but keenly aware now.
“Show me, Max. Show me right now.” She crouched down, pushing her face up within inches of his, letting him see and feel the aggressive fury of her demand. “No more hiding behind that mask of humanity. Let me see what you really are.”
She reached around him, jerking the silver pin from his back.
He made a soft sound of surprise before his eyes rolled back and he dropped forward until his head touched the floor. Then the muscles in his back and shoulders shifted and bunched, pumping up like a bodybuilder on steroids. The harsh rasp of his breath deepened to become a steady rumble. A growl.
“You want to see what I am, detective?”
There was nothing of Max Savoie in that gravelly murmur. His arms gave a powerful jerk, snapping the chain linking the cuffs. His hands came around to brace on the floor in front of him, splayed on either side of Charlotte’s knees. His fingers stretched and grew; his nails thickened and curled into razor-sharp talons.
“Take a good look at the last thing you’re ever going to see,” he growled.
He pushed up with his forearms, head lifting until she could see his eyes. His pupils had shrunk to pin dots in a sea of molten bronze. She sat riveted by his stare as it brightened to an eerie phosphorescence. A low snarl of unbelievable menace vibrated up from a chest that expanded in bulk with every breath, his shoulders growing massive, muscles swelling until his neck had all but disappeared.