by Nancy Gideon
She took a reluctant breath and faced the group of grim men who’d acted to save their clan. And Max Savoie. Then she looked down at the lifeless form of one who would have destroyed them all with his rage and greed.
“Take him into the swamps and sink him deep with all his secrets.” She was thinking of the red shoes, and a small child and his mother seeing to their own survival. “I’ve got to call in my report. I followed him here. I ordered him to surrender and he tried to attack me. I called for him to halt, then fired two rounds into him.” She fired twice into his still form. “He was seriously wounded but he managed to get away. And as far as I know, he’s still on the loose, probably crawling off to die somewhere. Somewhere where we’ll never find him.”
LaRoche surprised her with a smile. His voice was low and rich with admiration. “No wonder Max trusts you so. You are a wise and fierce creature, Detective Caissie. He’s lucky to have you.”
But did Max feel the same way?
She stared briefly into the darkness, then reached for her phone to make the call that would close the case.
HELEN OPENED THE front door. “I’m glad you’re here, detective.” The woman’s tight expression of concern alarmed her.
“Where is he?”
“In Mr. Legere’s office. He’s . . . he’s not himself.”
What did that mean?
It was after midnight. She’d waited alone at the warehouse for Babineau and an investigation team. She walked them through her story, then had finally gone home to shower, change, and feed her pets. Her mood settled into an odd blend of relief, satisfaction, and regret, all stirred together in a bittersweet gumbo. She saw to her duty, then all she could think of was seeing to the fragile heart of Max Savoie.
“Evening, detective.” Giles stood outside the closed doors to Jimmy’s study. He looked as relieved as Helen at her arrival.
“How is he?”
“Been pretty quiet for the last half hour or so. Tore through the place like a hurricane when he first got here. Don’t know what he was doing. Sounded like remodeling with a ten-pound sledge.”
She reached for the doorknob, and Giles sidled in to intercept her.
“He said I wasn’t to let anyone in.”
“He didn’t mean me.”
“He said you specifically.”
She refused to be discouraged. “Tell him I’m here, Giles.”
He rapped on the door, calling, “Max, Detective Caissie is here.”
A long silence, then his oddly muffled voice. “Tell her I’ll come in to make a statement in the morning.”
Giles shrugged and didn’t move aside.
“Step back, Giles. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
He stared at the whipcord tough girl he dwarfed by one hundred pounds and almost a half a foot. And he chuckled, moving out of her way.
The room was dark, moonlight ribboning across the surprising destruction of the parquet floor. Boards were broken, pried up, tossed aside with a singular violence of strength and determination. The boards stained by Jimmy Legere’s abrupt death.
“Go away, Charlotte. I’m not fit company.”
The sound of his voice, so hoarse, so weary, cramped her emotions, but she kept her tone low and easy. “That’s all right. I don’t expect you to entertain me.”
He was tucked into the deeper shadows of the room, on the floor at the foot of the old chair Jimmy used to sit in while reading his evening paper. His arms were folded on the comfortably worn leather seat, his dark head pillowed upon them. He watched her through dull, eerily lifeless eyes.
She went to the big sofa and sat there, giving him the space she sensed he needed to sort through his grief and guilt. When he saw she was going to keep her distance, the defensive line of his shoulders relaxed.
“You’ve made a mess of the floor” was her quiet observation.
“It’s my floor.”
“You’ve made a mess of your hands.” As her eyes adjusted to the limited light, she could see the torn skin, ripped nails, and swollen knuckles he hadn’t healed. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to, punishing himself with the needless pain.
“They’re my hands,” he growled, daring her to make something of it.
She shrugged and sat back against the tufted leather cushions. “Far be it from me to object to your self-flagellation.”
He eyed her suspiciously for a moment. “Are you here to take me in for obstruction of justice?”
“No. I’m here to get some sleep. If the offer of shared sheets is still open.”
The terrible tension eased another slight notch. “Go ahead and go up.”
“Shared, as in you and me under them together.”
His expression spasmed, then grew cold. “I’m really not in the mood at the moment, detective. Sorry you wasted the trip out here.”
“No need to get pissy, Savoie. It might surprise you to know that there are things that appeal to me beyond the incredible hot sex we have.”
He blinked. “Really? Well, that’s an unkind blow to my wilted ego.” He smiled slightly, and she knew things would be okay.
“Things about you,” she corrected with an answering smile.
“Oh. Yeah? Like what?”
“Come over here and I’ll tell you.”
He crossed the short distance on all fours, settling at her feet with his head on her lap. She felt his sigh when her hand touched his hair.
“You were saying? What appeals to you about me other than the incredible hot sex?”
“Well, for one thing, you never get angry.”
He laughed, a startling but genuine explosion of sound. He didn’t object when she took one of his hands, her touch gentle. Her kiss on his smashed knuckles was gentle. “Enough,” she scolded. “I can’t bear to think of you in pain.”
He sighed again. “It felt good at the time, but now it really stings.”
A long shudder ran through him, then she could feel the swollen joints and splintered fingers repairing themselves until he was able to lightly grip her hand.
“What else?” he prompted. He settled in, turning onto his left hip, his cheek nestled against the firm cushion of her thigh. His free hand began to move up and down her calf in slow, almost seductive repetitions. He studied her face, his own more composed and in control, but his eyes still holding vulnerability.
She let her steady tone and strong emotions build them both back up. “I love your sense of fairness, of what’s right.”
He snorted. “Yeah. And that’s why I was endangering everything and everyone this evening. I could have killed them all, Charlotte, and for what? And I brought you into the middle of it, expecting you to back me even when I knew I was wrong. I knew I was wrong.”
“But you didn’t ask me, Max.”
“Doing a wrong thing myself is very different from asking you to do it with me.”
Her tone, her touch were tender. “The way you protect me—from the past, from yourself—even when I don’t need to be protected. That appeals to me, Savoie.”
He was silent for a long while, and she wondered what he was thinking about. He seemed so far away.
Finally he said, “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. I failed you once. Never again.”
“You’ve never let me down, Max. You’ve always been there when I needed you.”
He straightened, turning away from her to lean back against the couch. She couldn’t see his face, and when he spoke, his voice was neutral.
“Jimmy Legere was the only father I ever knew. Even though he didn’t give me his name or share my blood, he gave me everything else. He was the one who loved and protected me—not this man who shows up after half my life is gone. Rollo was nothing to me, Charlotte. Nothing. So why do I feel—why do I feel—”
He waited for the agitation to leave his breathing before saying, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how a father could do such things to his own son. I had him followed because
I knew what he was going to do. I knew the money wouldn’t be enough for him, that he would try to turn me in for a little more. I was hoping he wouldn’t, yet I knew he would. I wanted him to be a little more . . . heroic. He was my father.”
Charlotte bent to lay her cheek against the top of his head. “Sometimes the pain of guilt is so great, it’s easier to escape it than to confront it. Once you know you’ve failed someone who depended on you, it’s easier just to keep on letting them down than to accept that first failure.”
“Is that what your father did? After your mother left?”
Cee Cee stiffened in surprise. She hadn’t thought he’d remember that ragged Freudian slip during their confrontation outside the club.
So much of her hurt and anger had been focused on her own past, not on him. She didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted it buried deep and forgotten. But she forced herself to answer because he was being so honest with her.
“Not at first. He tried. He really tried. But it got easier to stay away, to stay busy, to turn the burden I’d become, the reminder I would always be, over to someone else. To let St. Bart’s care for me. By the time Jimmy’s men took me and Mary Kate off the street that night, trying to force him to change his testimony, he’d fallen into a bottle and into the arms of a long line of faceless others that could never love him the way I did.
“After you brought me back, Max, he never touched me. Not a hug. Not a hand on the shoulder or a kiss on the cheek. Nothing. And that hurt for a very long time.” Until Max Savoie filled all those lonely hollows in her life. She took a shaky breath. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I never even told Mary Kate.”
He came up on his knees to face her. “I will never do that. I promise you. I will never leave you feeling alone and unloved.”
He brought her down to him, to kiss her slow and sweet with a tenderness that had tears wobbling in her eyes.
When he finally let her pull away, her hands slipped over his. “Thank you, Max. For what you did tonight. For what you did for me.”
“Only for you.”
“Max, who was he talking about?”
Max’s heart dropped like a brick. “What do you mean?”
“Who did Rollo betray you to? He said they were coming for you? Who?”
He shrugged with pretended nonchalance. “It’s some feud that goes back generations. Apparently he made it worse by running off with my mother. They were after him, not me. They don’t even know I exist. LaRoche snatched him up before he could pass on that information. And I don’t plan to bring myself to their attention.
“There’s no threat, detective. LaRoche and the others will see no harm comes to me. Now let’s go upstairs. I could hibernate for a month, as long as you’re curled up beside me.”
She rose up with him, her fatigue showing in the way she leaned against him. His arm curved about her waist, tucking her in close as they went out into the hall where Giles and Helen were loitering. He didn’t miss their looks of relief.
“We need to have the flooring replaced in there,” Cee Cee told the housekeeper.
“I’ll call someone in the morning. Good night, detective. Mr. Savoie.”
Max nodded absently, his thoughts and heart caught up by one word. We.
The bedroom was cool, scented by the rain that had finally quit falling. The sight of Charlotte undressing against the backdrop of moonlight had him staring, transfixed with fascination and possessiveness. She never stopped amazing him: with her courage, with her passion for what was right, with the love he still couldn’t quite believe she felt for him. All deceivingly soft femininity and bronzed skin, she slid between his sheets, and it took him a minute to remember to breathe.
Snuggling down into the pillows, she glanced over at him. “Aren’t you coming?”
A slight smile. “Probably not right away, but hopefully by morning.”
He undressed and sank into her uplifted arms with a huge sigh. “I love having you here.”
He felt her smile against his neck. “You love having me anywhere, you beast.” She was fading fast, her breathing growing deep. Then she vowed softly, “I’ll keep you safe, Max. They won’t get by me.”
Max’s eyes snapped open, gleaming in the dark. She hadn’t believed him for a second.
Nineteen
SIMON CUMMINGS CHECKED the dark countertop for his keys, cursing softly. He liked to be at the gym before five so he’d have time for a two-mile jog through Audubon Park afterward. He was already running late. That would leave him with only a brief time to stop by the hospital without disrupting his schedule. He reached for the light.
A jingle.
“Looking for these?”
Cummings jerked up in surprise at the sight of a shadowy figure seated in his breakfast nook. His dangled keys and the man’s eyes both glinted with quick metallic flashes. He snapped on the overhead light with an unsteady hand, knowing what was waiting for him. All he could do was brazen it out and hope to keep his insides where they were.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?”
“We need to talk.”
“You know where my office is. Make an appointment. Now get out.”
Max Savoie leaned back in the comfortable chair, swirling the key ring around his index finger. He glanced down at the loose jogging clothes he wore over the inevitable high-tops. “I’m not dressed for the office yet. And our conversation isn’t the kind of business that you want to go any further than the two of us here in this room. We can talk now, or I can follow you to the park for your morning jog. Only if it comes to that, I guarantee you’ll be running a lot faster than usual. And you won’t get very far.”
A healthy jump-start of alarm warred with the outrage in the businessman’s expression. “If you’re waiting for an apology—”
“I’m not the one you owe the apology to.”
Cummings sneered. “If you’re suggesting I should make one to your out-of-uniform slut of a girlfriend—”
Max’s eyelids drooped slightly but his tone was still pleasant. “No, I’m not. And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t allow you to address her that way and continue to breathe.”
Cummings wasn’t stupid or angry enough to mistake the line he’d just crossed. “Perhaps I do owe her one. It would seem she’s found who was behind my daughter’s death.”
“No, I don’t think she did. Her killer, maybe—but not the one responsible.” A pause. “That would be you.”
The sputter of furious objection died on his lips under Max’s penetrating stare. “What do you know about all this, Savoie?”
“Everything. About how you cut legal corners in a development deal with Etienne Legere. How you underbid by using substandard materials, then took a hefty cut for yourself. And when an ambitious cop found out about it, you made a deal with him that would protect your future and guarantee his.
“You and Caissie bribed Legere’s man Rollo to set up his boss and to make him think it was his own brother who soured the deal. Legere snapped and killed him, and no one was the wiser about your involvement and profit in it. Except Rollo. Caissie came out looking like a hero and got his grade raise. Legere went to prison, and Rollo disappeared with the promises you made to him. Caissie went on to become a solid cop and a real hero. You used your ill-gotten wealth to invest wisely and build a reputation as a brilliant businessman and philanthropist. Jimmy kept Rollo off you for occasional favors, and Tommy Caissie buried your name in the paperwork for the kickback. And then it all went bad.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
“Sure I can, or I wouldn’t be here. Rollo didn’t care that you were trying to cover your ass so you could run for office. All he knew was you were the golden goose, and he didn’t want to end up with egg on his face. You never expected him to show up on your doorstep. You thought you could bully him into disappearing again. You underestimated him.”
“He killed them before he even came to me. Just to get my attention, he said.” Cu
mmings dropped into a chair across from Max, his expression stark with grief and horror. “That’s why I thought it was you, at first. I couldn’t believe he’d show up after all these years to confront me. I couldn’t believe he’d be that much of a fool.”
“Or just that desperate for the money.”
Cummings shook his head slowly. “The greedy bastard. I would have found some way to make it right with him. He didn’t have to . . .” He covered his face briefly, then scrubbed his eyes to face Max with an all-business solemnity. “So, what now? Your girlfriend brings him in and tears everything out from under my wife and other daughter?”
“I don’t want to hurt your family. They don’t deserve that. They’ve been through enough.”
A flicker of hope sparked in Cummings’s eyes. Then he gave a wry smile. “How are you going to keep your tenacious little lady from doing that job she’s so proud of? Or does she have a bit of her father in her?”
“No,” Max snarled. Then his voice smoothed over again. “I wouldn’t stop her. And I couldn’t, if she knew the truth. She believes Rollo went after you because you blew the whistle on Legere and spoiled Rollo’s comfortable life. She doesn’t have any facts to the contrary. I made sure she couldn’t find them.”
“What facts?”
“Jimmy learned his habit of record keeping from his father. He made nice notes about his dealings with you. About the arrangement you made with him, to have Tom Caissie killed when his conscience and his drinking started to get the better of him. My attorney took those files off the computer before Charlotte got curious enough to see what was on it.”
“What’s it going to cost me for those files to be erased?”
“I don’t want your blood money.”
“You must want something or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I want to make sure the truth about Tom Caissie never surfaces. I want to make sure Charlotte never finds out that in a moment of weakness her father made a wrong choice to provide for her. The shame and guilt and disillusionment would kill her. I won’t let that happen. Protecting her is the only thing that matters to me. I’m not one for the letter of the law. I figure all of you paid a steep price for what you did. There’s no point in anyone else suffering for it. Do you agree?”