Moira reluctantly let Rafe drive to the nightclub. She itched to get behind the wheel, but Skye frowned on her driving because she didn’t have a legal license. Moira was trying to play by the rules since the sheriff was letting her live in her house-and she liked her-but it was becoming increasingly difficult. She’d been on her own for so long that she was beginning to feel claustrophobic under the watchful eyes of Anthony and Skye.
Not to mention Rafe Cooper. But that was a whole different issue.
“You think the club has something to do with the deaths?” Rafe said after Moira told him what happened to the victims. Something occurred to her and she sent Skye another text.
Did the police talk to the women who were with Monroe and Erickson? Who are they?
“Three men-all involved in sexual acts,” Moira said. “You know what we’re dealing with here.”
“You think it’s Lust.” Rafe pondered that for a moment as they stalled in highway traffic.
“Envy killed by having people act on their deep-seated envy of others … Lust must be targeting people predisposed to being unable to control their physical desires. Most of us control lust, even when we’re attracted to someone. Even when we know that person is attracted to us.”
Rafe glanced at her, and Moira pretended not to notice.
She glanced at her phone. “Skye says the cops don’t know who the two men were with the night they died.” She stared out the windshield. “What if Lust came to town and the people she touches act out? It would explain the man who attacked the waitress. And why the married guy took a woman home from the same club.”
Rafe didn’t say anything for several minutes, which was fine with Moira. She didn’t want to talk about lust or attraction with Rafe.
Why Los Angeles? Proximity to Santa Louisa? Because this was where Fiona was hiding out? Or something else? She hated that no matter what they did, they’d never know where the Seven Deadly Sins were until someone died. There had to be a better way, but every idea they explored hadn’t panned out. She scoured the online paranormal message boards, looking for clues, but so far every possible lead turned out to be a dud. She itched to go on the road, follow up in person, but not until today had there been even a hint of the Seven Deadly Sins in action.
Maybe if she had more control over her visions … if she could find some way to use them to find the demons before someone died. But the only way Moira knew how to do that was through magic, and if she touched magic again, Fiona would be able to track her, whereas for now Moira was invisible to Fiona’s psychic eye. Worse, using magic would open Moira up to possession again. She recalled the last desperate moments with Peter, whom she’d loved so passionately. Who would she kill next time?
Rafe?
Her stomach flip-flopped and she involuntarily grabbed the door handle. When she realized she was gripping the vinyl so hard her knuckles were white, she let go. Rico was right. Fear was her worst enemy. It was going to get her killed.
Rafe broke the long silence. “Why did you let Rico take your blood?”
Moira hadn’t been expecting that question.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“He tied you down and took it against your will?”
“Shit, Rafe, you know how it is. Would you refuse an order?”
“He ordered you?”
She frowned, more than a little bit angry with this conversation. “So he wants my blood. It’s not like he’s going to drink it. Let him play his cloak-and-dagger games. It doesn’t hurt me.”
“And then you announce it to take a jab at Rico-which I admit was fun to watch-but maybe you should have told me in private so we could do something about it. He’s keeping far too many secrets that can get you hurt. Do you know why he took your blood?”
“I have some ideas, but I didn’t know I was supposed to give you a blow-by-blow of everything that happens in my life,” she snapped, knowing she was overreacting, but her heart was pounding and she didn’t know why. “It’s not like you’ve been eager to tell me more about these memories of yours.”
“It’s not the same thing, and you know it!”
“Yes, it is the same thing, because it has to do with trust.”
“So that’s why you didn’t tell me? Because you don’t trust me?” Rafe couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice, and that upset Moira, but she still wasn’t backing down.
“Rico took my blood because you cut my hand and stuffed it in the guts of that damn demon. He wants to know if my blood is ‘special.’” She said the word derogatorily. Of course it was special. She’d been conceived to serve the underworld. For all she knew, a demon was her father.
She dry-heaved.
“Moira-”
“Stop.” She put her forehead against the cool glass of the passenger-side window.
“I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Too late.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“This war is dangerous, Rafe.”
“Rico is using you.”
“Maybe that’s the only way to save my soul.”
“Don’t talk like that!” This was a futile conversation, but Rafe wouldn’t let it go. “Rico doesn’t care about anyone, only his cause.”
“His cause is my cause,” Moira said.
“Stopping Fiona is only one part of it, and you know that.”
“If you’re worried that I’m a pawn in Rico’s game, don’t be. I know what the stakes are. If I’m a pawn in anyone’s master plan, it’s the Big Guy upstairs, and you damn well know it. You, me, Anthony, all of us. All I can do is what I can do. Find Fiona. Stop her. Destroy the Conoscenza so no other magician can use it to summon the Seven Deadly Sins or whatever other evil purposes the book has.”
“And if you die?”
“We are all going to die someday. So what?”
“No!” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, making Moira jump.
“This shouldn’t be a surprise to you, Rafe,” she said quietly. “You were raised knowing that you’d die a martyr.”
“I’m not going to let you die.”
“It’s not your call.”
“But it’s Rico’s?”
That Rafe sounded jealous was too simple. His emotions were more complex than simple jealousy, Moira realized, not that he had anyone to be jealous of. And Rico? They’d been arguing about something while she was getting ready this morning, but neither of them had raised his voice and she hadn’t been able to hear anything they said. Not for lack of trying.
“That’s the street,” Moira said, gesturing to the right.
He made the turn too fast, earning a foul gesture from an elderly woman walking four tiny dogs.
Rafe passed Velocity, which was two blocks off Wilshire Boulevard and only a couple of miles from the south entrance of UCLA. He then turned around and parked in a garage up the street from the club. All without speaking.
She glanced at him, confused and ticked off at his reaction and a little sheepish. She hadn’t wanted to give in to Rico’s demands this morning! But what choice did she have? While it was an odd and unnerving request, if there was something in her tainted blood that could help or hinder them in this battle, didn’t she owe it to them to give it up? Besides, Rico had trained her. He was essentially her commanding officer. And while she didn’t like to take orders from anyone, if she did, it would be from Rico.
“Fifteen dollars an hour?” Moira said, changing the subject as Rafe took a ticket from the machine. “It took us nearly forty minutes to get here-I swear, I don’t know how the people around here can stand all these other people-and now fifteen bucks to park?”
“This conversation is not over, Moira,” Rafe said through clenched teeth as he turned off the engine. He jumped out of the car and slammed his door shut.
Moira got out of her door and said, “That’s what you always say, but it’s done. Can we just do this?”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her against his chest. “You c
an’t die.”
The anger and fear on his face was surpassed only by raw pain. She wanted to pull away, to tell him to stop manhandling her, but she couldn’t. Rafe’s intensity unnerved her, had her at a loss and bordering panic. She didn’t want these feelings for Rafe, but they were growing.
“Rafe-”
He kissed her. This was no tame, sweet embrace; it was fierce. Moira froze, stunned by the depth of his emotion. Then Rafe’s hands reached for the back of her neck, holding tight, as if he feared she was going to bolt. And she wanted to; she wanted to run far away from Rafe’s feelings. From what he wanted from her. Emotions overwhelmed her, his and hers. Fear. Desire. A deep yearning for something intangible, a freedom neither of them had. Her stomach fluttered and she returned his kiss, mirroring Rafe’s passion with her own deep longing.
His body pressed against hers, pushing her against the truck. Her hands were on his shoulders, and her mind told her to push him away, that now was not the time to do this, she couldn’t think and she had to focus. The club. The demon. The men who’d died.
But she couldn’t think, Rafe’s need becoming her own, drawing out of her everything she’d been denying him, denying herself. From the minute she first laid eyes on him, unconscious, dressed in stolen medical scrubs, huddled in the corner of an abandoned cabin, she’d been irrevocably part of him as he was of her, far more than two demon hunters trying to undo the damage her witch of a mother had done.
Her arms wrapped around his neck as his mouth dove deeper into hers, his tongue mimicking lovemaking, and every cell in her body warmed to the brink of combustion.
Moira let the heat flow within her, Rafe’s hard, athletic body pressed firmly against hers, his leg maneuvering between hers, the friction making her shudder and cling to him. Her mind was mush, her body did all the thinking for her, and its thoughts were focused on one thing: getting naked with Rafe.
His hands were under her shirt, rubbing her bare back, while he kissed her in that one spot behind her ear that he’d discovered earlier, the erotic soft spot that made her melt when his tongue fought it.
The sound of a distant car made her jump and she looked around, disoriented. They were making out in an L.A. parking garage in the middle of the day. Did they lust for each other so much they lost all sense of time and place?
Lust.
She pushed him away, not meaning to push hard, but he jumped back. His breathing was as uneven as hers.
“We can’t do this.”
“Moira, you can’t deny the way we feel about each other. Don’t even try; you’ll be lying.”
“It’s not real.”
He froze, energy rippling under his muscles. “What?” His voice was low but the anger rolled off him, so dark it was nearly visible.
“We’re near the club. It’s the influence of the demon. We both think it’s Lust here.”
“Bullshit. I can’t believe you’re using the demon as an excuse for your feelings!”
“I’m not! I just can’t think; that’s not like me.”
“Maybe because you’re overthinking.”
“Stop!”
“What are you scared of?”
She turned away and walked briskly down the ramp toward the street. Scared? What wasn’t she scared of?
“Moira!” Rafe followed her.
“Leave it alone.”
“No.”
She spun around and pushed him. Though she was strong, he didn’t budge. “I can’t do this now! I need my senses, all of them, under my control, and when you push me like this, I lose control. I feel raw, open, and exposed. I can’t let it overwhelm me. Please. Just leave it.”
On the verge of tears, she turned around so he couldn’t see her face.
He said nothing for a long minute. Moira worked on controlling her breathing, stuffing her feelings deep inside, focusing on her sixth sense, the sense that felt magical energy. The sense that felt what no one else could see.
He touched her shoulders gently and whispered in her ear, “I understand.”
Somehow, that admission unnerved her more than their argument.
“But I want you to know that this isn’t simple lust. Together, we have far more than a physical attraction. We’ll talk about it more. Sooner rather than later.” He kissed the back of her neck, and Moira almost leaned against him. Almost gave in to a moment of bliss that she didn’t deserve. Rafe understood her. No one else did. No one else even tried.
But she didn’t give in to temptation. How could she when so much was at stake? When at risk was not only her life, but the lives of scores of innocents?
Rafe dropped his hands and led the way out of the parking garage.
NINE
Grant sat in the interview room at police headquarters with Nina Hardwick, a plump, attractive woman in her late thirties. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn’t have given the hysterical woman more than two minutes of his time, but Nina Hardwick was not a typical woman. She was a well-respected lawyer for the Board of Supervisors, and they’d crossed paths several times over the years.
Nina had always seemed by-the-book. That she’d admitted to an affair with the married George Erickson, regardless of his open marriage arrangement, surprised Grant. But his bewilderment turned to shock when Nina made strong accusations against her dead lover’s wife.
“Pamela Erickson killed George,” Nina said. “You can’t let her get away with it!”
Sitting across the table from her, he tried for sincerity. “Nina-it’s okay that I call you Nina?”
She looked down her nose at him. “Cut the good-cop crap, Grant, I think we’re past the formalities. I’m not crazy.”
“Mrs. Erickson has a solid alibi.”
“I don’t care if she was at a dinner with the governor, president, and pope! She killed him as sure as I graduated summa cum laude from USC. She doesn’t have to actually be there to kill him, right? She could have poisoned him, or hired someone, or-”
Grant cut her off, “I just came from the autopsy.” He had a hundred things to do and the day was nearly over. And while he’d certainly go over Erickson’s case again, he had nothing that pointed to Pamela Erickson as a killer. “There are no physical signs of foul play. We should know more after the weekend. If he was poisoned, we’ll know from the bloodwork. Full panel.”
She dismissed his comments with a regal wave of her unadorned hand. “You don’t get it, Grant. She doesn’t need to poison him. She’s a witch.”
Grant rubbed his temple. “Nina, it’s been a long day and I just came from the morgue. Pamela Erickson has an alibi, and I have her on security camera, not just a witness. Jeff and I have talked to half a dozen people who confirmed that the Ericksons had an open marriage. I haven’t talked to everyone on the list, but by Monday I don’t expect to learn anything different. You were having an affair with him, I can understand why you’re upset, but there were signs he was with a different woman last night.”
She slammed her hand on the table. “He wasn’t!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Were you with George last night?”
She stared at him, obviously stunned. “What?” She shook her head. “Grant Nelson, I swear-”
“I’m a cop, Nina. You just admitted to an affair with a married man and are accusing his wife of murder. We know he was with someone last night, someone who walked out while he was dead or dying. Was that you?”
She stifled a sob. “No.”
“I assume you have an alibi,” he said softly.
“I was in Sacramento for the last two days. County business. My flight came into Burbank at eleven-thirty this morning. I heard about George on the noon news as I was driving to the office.”
Pretty damn solid, Grant thought, even though he hadn’t believed for a second that Nina had killed Erickson. “Nina, if he cheated on his wife with you, he could have cheated on you with someone else. Believe me, I know what I speak about. I wasn’t faithful to my ex-wife, or my mistress.”
Nina
leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped on the table, her knuckles white with the pressure. She spoke slowly as if he were a child. “Grant. George’s marriage was only open on one side.”
Grant frowned. “Excuse me?”
“George let Pam fool around because that’s what Pam wanted. I swear, he was under a spell when he married her. I’ve known George for years, since I interned in his offices while I was in law school. We were friends for a long time-he’s ten years older, I never thought we’d get involved-but about a year ago I ran into him at a political fund-raiser. He was upset. He explained their arrangement and how he didn’t know why he’d ever agreed to it, because it wasn’t how he was raised. He said he loved Pam … but when he said it, somehow he didn’t mean it. I think he knew he didn’t mean it.
“We started talking, and I was going to help him divorce her. One thing led to another and we fell in love. It was an affair of the heart long before it became sexual. Pam found out and had a meltdown. George was not allowed to cheat on her, but she could screw any number of men. That’s when I hired the private investigator.”
She reached below the table into her briefcase and pulled out a half-inch manila folder. “He found some very interesting things about Pamela Levin Erickson.”
The folder was standard P.I. issue. Photographs of the subject, timed and dated notes, detailed observations. He flipped through the folder more to humor Nina than because he expected to find anything. He stopped when he came to a photo of an orgy. Two women and one man who couldn’t be identified in the picture, his face blocked by one of the women. Pam Erickson was naked and very much an active participant.
“Interesting, hmm?” Nina said.
“This doesn’t prove anything.”
“Turn to the next one.”
This picture was of the same scene but a wider shot. The three participants were in the middle of some sort of odd circle with candles surrounding them. Several partially clothed women were observing the orgy.
Grant recognized Wendy Donovan, the manager of Velocity. She stood inside the circle wearing a sheer gown, watching. She held something in her hands, but Grant couldn’t tell what it was. It seemed to reflect the light of the candles.
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