by Nancy Gideon
“How did she get burned?” When his question made Amber hesitate, the hint of her distrust brought a shielding distance to his handsome features. “It’s okay. It’s not my business.”
She wanted it to be. “Pearl gripped her arm when they were arguing. Evie thought it was just a bruise at first. Then . . . then it started to eat away at the skin.”
Her own horror reflected in his eyes, but he displayed no doubts, asking simply, “Did Pearl heal it?”
“Yes. With just a touch of her hand, it was like nothing had happened. At least physically.” A pause. “How did you know?”
He reflected deeply for a moment then shared, “Our king swears she brought him back from the dead, and others like her saved Colin’s life. I never knew such things existed. It’s getting to be a pretty strange world. I’m glad Evie’s okay. How are you doing?”
The question startled her. “Me?”
He squeezed her hands. “None of this was your fault. Not you letting her go. Not us being together. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just two little girls crushing over the same dumb guy . . . and one of them being a scary piece of work when she gets riled. Who knew, right?”
The guilt she’d been drowning in on every one of the points he’d mentioned eased. “Right.”
“Don’t let this scare you into making her a prisoner when she needs to be a regular kid.”
Very slowly, very purposefully, Amber drew back her hands. “I don’t think you’re the best judge of what I should do regarding my daughter’s welfare.”
Rico felt that climatic shift as he went from comforter to challenger in her eyes. He’d didn’t have time to argue her misconception. “I know you’ll do what’s best. You’re a wonderful mother. She’s so lucky to have you.”
Amber didn’t reply, having drawn back into the armored shell she hid within to keep others at bay. With a sigh, he got to his other reason for being in her tidy little home.
“I gotta get going. Do you have a number for your brother where I can get a hold of him?”
Her wary stare scoured his own purposefully neutral expression. “Why?”
“I wanted to see if he was available to help me with something this morning. If you don’t, it’s no big deal. I can check with one of the other guys.”
“He’s messaged my phone. Let me get it.”
They rose at the same time, standing close enough to sample each other’s heat. For a long beat, neither moved then Rico took a step back so she could scurry out of the room. She returned with her cell and her composure, letting him enter the information into his contacts.
“Thanks.” He pocketed the phone then stilled as her hand gripped his arm.
“Is he in trouble?”
“Not that I know of.” Not that he was sure of, so that wasn’t a lie. She didn’t need another worry until he was. “Get some sleep,” he suggested, tone roughening with concern. “You must be exhausted.”
A small smile broke through. “No thanks to you.”
He grinned, keeping his hands to himself with difficulty as he drawled, “Right back attacha.”
Amber rubbed his sleeve then retreated a step to break the intense hold between them. “Thank you for stopping by. It meant a lot to Evie.” A hesitation. “And to me.”
Those three words carried Rico through the unpleasantness he was off to do.
* * * * *
Philo hadn’t known what had drawn the pair outside their regular loop and into the Ninth Ward. They hadn’t called in anything suspicious or hinted that they were in trouble, but the silence suggested both had been true.
Even in daylight the neighborhood was grim. While most of the city had rebuilt and prospered after the devastation of Katrina, there were still pockets of poverty where help never came, no Federal funding, no will or way to return to a life ripped away. Some blocks were nothing but weeds growing up around the shadow of empty foundations and concrete front steps leading nowhere. Others were rubbled wastelands—empty containers, broken, listing, stripped of anything valuable. And the smell, that ripe, organic stink of decay and reclamation by the earth.
They found Poteet’s ancient pickup tucked in between two concrete block shells of what once had been stores, maybe a grocery or a gas station, hard to tell in their crumbled state. Trey pulled his shiny Explorer in behind it, and they got out to assess the scene.
Rico’s skin crawled with wariness. Something had happened here. The driver’s door of the pickup stood open, keys in the ignition, the dome light flickering in its death throes as the ancient battery dwindled. The two Patrol members hadn’t just walked away. The metallic scent of blood and dried stains on the seat said maybe they hadn’t walked at all, but were dragged, dead or dying.
“Sonuvabitch,” Trey whispered. “Where’d they go?”
“Be ready for anything,” Rico advised as he started down a ruined sidewalk toward a larger cluster of empty buildings, a four-corners that may have once boasted neighborhood diners, maybe a bar.
The husks stood boarded over, some sprayed with faded graffiti, one with a wry sign stating, “For Sale by Owner – Cheap!”
Rico called Auguste’s phone. A faint ring-tone echoed from one of the buildings. Rico made a quick gesture for the two with him to take opposite sides of the street while he continued down its center, breathing slow and quiet, heightened senses alert. Before he could warn him not to, Donny ducked into one of the buildings. Swearing softly under his breath, Rico jogged in his direction, calling quietly back to Trey, “Stay put!”
Hair prickling up the back of his neck, nailbeds itching as claws began to extend, he stepped inside the dim, hollowed out two-story. The scent of blood made his own heat and stir. No sign of Donny. Shit!
Something moved on him from behind. Trey wouldn’t have been that careless, or that silent. Rico went low, crouching and turning in one slick, powerful motion to confront a trio of darkly garbed attackers who, from their reactions, knew their business as well, or perhaps better, than he did. Their introduction was swift and soundless.
Rico pulped the nose of the closest, sending him staggering back as he spun to the one on the right, dodging below whatever hefty weapon he wielded to drive into the exposed belly with his elbow before exploding upward with his fist. The third caught him by the coat collar, pinwheeling him around even as he shrugged out of the heavy leather as he fell. He rolled across sharp, broken bricks and glass littering the floor and up to his feet to assume an en garde.
Professionals. Hard, sleek, deadly, with eyes burning incendiary red and wicked teeth exposed. Were these the murderous Trackers he’d heard whispers about? He returned their confident smiles as a curtesy.
He’d never seen fighters move so fast or so in sync, realizing with mild surprise that he might not leave the shoddy house alive. But, a true Terriot, he’d make them work damned hard to kill him. Rico grabbed up the first one who got too close. Gripping him by the neck, twisting his arm high behind his back, Rico used him as shield between him and the two confronting him with their wicked teeth and lurid eyes. He let them back him up into a corner, preferring not to worry about an exposed flank with opponents of this caliber.
“What are you after?” Rico demanded, not expecting or getting a direct answer.
“You’re not one of them,” the taller of the two growled. “What are you?”
“I’m the one who’s going to bathe in your blood.”
A husky laugh. “Terriot.” He pronounced the name with French “o” ending instead of the hard “e-ott” sound their king had preferred. “We didn’t know your kind was still here. It will be good to have a worthy enemy.”
“Oh, you’ve got that and more.” When they cocked curious brows, Rico grinned, a savage display of teeth. “Not just a Terriot. A Terriot prince. You’d better pray I kill you quickly.”
Reassessment flickered in their eyes, not fear but a certain respect. He’d hoped for the first but would take the second.
“What have you done w
ith my men?”
“Yours?” the other sneered. “You lower yourself to deal with their kind.”
“Their kind is my kind. You should tell your friends that, or you could if you survive.”
“Enough talk,” the first snarled.
A fierce pull of Rico’s hand ripped out the throat of his hostage, momentarily blinding his opponents with arterial spray. Thrusting the body into the taller, more dangerous one, Rico sprang on the other, taking him to the floor. He managed to sink his fangs into other’s shoulder, biting, shredding tendons and muscle, rendering his arm useless while his victim struggled soundlessly.
Pain exploded through the back of his head. Rico rolled and scrambled, still dazed as he backed into a defensive crouch. Instinctively, he dodged the next swing that would have pulped his skull, outstretched hands blindly searching the rotting floor boards until he found a long shard of glass, gripping it tight, lunging, slashing through his attacker’s femoral artery. Rising as the other crumpled to secure the remaining threat for a source of information. Only to see his severed head bouncing across the bloodied floor.
A battered Gus stood over the body, dripping machete in hand.
“Dammit! I wanted him alive.” With that complaint, Rico tried unsuccessfully to stem the pump of vital fluid from the remaining Tracker, hearing Auguste’s dry, “You’re welcome.”
* * * * *
Four bodies tarped in the back, Trey drove while Gus filled them in.
Just a routine tour of their section when one of Poteet’s acquaintances mentioned odd goings on in a deserted section of the Ward where Poteet had grown up. Not thinking much of it but promising to take a look, they’d stepped from the vehicle to investigate when jumped by the deadly trio in the dark.
“By the time I came around,” Auguste relayed grimly, “I could hear them working on 'Teet in the next room.”
“What were they trying to get from him?” Rico asked, concentrating through the roar in his temples on the nuances in Gus’s voice and features.
“I don’t know. Something about Savoie. I couldn’t hear much until 'Teet started screaming.”
They’d found Poteet still tied to a chair, strips of flesh peeled off his arms and chest like skin from a grape. He’d been alive and suffering a long time before they’d cut his throat.
“My guess is they killed him to keep him quiet when they heard you drive in. I don’t know if they got what they wanted from him but,” Gus nodded toward the bodies in back, “guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“And what were you doing while they were torturing your friend?”
Gus displayed savagely abraded wrists. “Trying to get loose to save him. All I managed was to rescue you.”
His tone said that was the lesser result.
“All you managed,” Rico corrected, “was to get in the way of me finding out what they were after.”
“That’s not how it looked to me.” With that, he turned away, facing front.
Rico leaned back against the seat, eyes closing as agony banged through his abused skull. Maybe that’s how it had gone down—Auguste the hero of the day and his partner Poteet its unfortunate victim. Or maybe Gus’ role was something altogether different.
Something wasn’t right. What would three highly-skilled assassins be doing out in the rotting shell of a poor community? There was nothing there to see or find. Just a lonely location far from civilization. A place one could be leisurely tortured for hours. Rico suspected the two Patrol members had been the target of that plan. But was it Poteet they were after, or the quick-with-a-clever-response Auguste?
Tibideaux had no answers when Rico provided him the bad news. Savoie had gotten Poteet the job on the docks some time back, apparently having done a favor to earn the Shifter leader’s gratitude. As far as Philo knew, the hard-working family man had no particular insight into Savoie’s doings, nothing worth his life. He had less to offer regarding Gus, who’d shown up with decent references, caused no trouble and got quickly caught up in the ideals behind their Patrol. The newest member was first to volunteer for long hours, and no bad habits had surfaced, hence the nickname of Preacher. He never visited the club after work, didn’t show up with a hangover and never got into arguments with his fellow shift mates. The perfect employee and volunteer.
But that didn’t keep Rico from turning Auguste’s way. He had a bad feeling about a guy who would steal from a woman and child then run away, leaving them to clean up his mess. That made him a creep. But did it also make him a traitor? The answers lay with his sister . . . another day.
Thankfully, he returned to freshly sanitized rooms where no tormenting whiff of sex remained. He worked his way painfully out of his torn and bloodied clothes, steamed his aches into compliance and burrowed under the covers, opening his eyes to a new day holding no fewer questions.
Carrying a jumbo to-go cup of chicory coffee and a massive headache, Rico encountered a subdued group awaiting his arrival. Since they were burying one of their own that afternoon and he could barely move, he directed Gus to take them to the site of their friend’s death and walk them through what had happened there, challenging them to find anything that might answer why three professionals thought two dock workers worth their efforts. They nodded somberly but didn’t disperse, standing in an awkward huddle staring at him as if he leaked brains out his ears.
“What?”
“You went up against three Trackers,” T-Ray marveled on their behalf. “Alone. Are you crazy, or are you just that good?”
“They had two of mine. I wouldn’t have cared if there were a dozen. Nobody fucks with my people. Besides, I wasn’t alone,” he nodded gingerly to Gus, Donny and Trey, “and I don’t want any of you to be from here on out. No lone rangers, understand? I don’t know how these creatures got inside our perimeter or how many are still out there, but I’m not going to have them knocking on our families’ doors. Be smart, be safe and protect each other.”
Murmurs of agreement, then after nodding to him with a new deference his followers got to work. That left Rico with nothing to do except what he was trying to avoid.
He called Amber, getting her voice mail which meant she was working an early shift, giving him time to get his game face on. She wasn’t going to like him muscling into her business. Hell, he didn’t much like it, either! But he needed answers only she could give.
And he just plain needed her.
Chapter 13
The lack of lunch crowd was a relief. Amber used the time to organize their stock room, keeping busy to occupy the direction of her thoughts. Jacques had let her change shifts with Fran, so she could be there when Evangeline got home from school. Though her daughter put on a cheerful front, anxiety churned beneath it at the thought of seeing the girls from the party, and especially Pearl. But off she went, a stoic trooper, every bit the image of her mother. Some days being them was a dreadful burden to bear.
Maybe they didn’t have to.
A subtle whisper goaded with an increasingly louder voice. The fact that her objections grew fainter didn’t frighten her quite so much this morning.
A sudden rush of business distracted her from those musings as a dozen or so Patrol members, in a strangely subdued mood, settled at a table. There was no conversation as she approached.
“What can I get you, fellas?”
“Shots and a coupla pitchers. Keep 'em coming.”
Her brows soared. “Kinda early in the work day, isn’t it?”
T-Ray sighed heavily. “Not today. We’re going to bury one of our own.”
Her pulse jumped, noting Rico’s absence. He’d become a regular in their midst. “Who?”
“Not your boyfriend,” he assured her, granting a feeling of relief so strong, Amber didn’t think to deny the term. “But your friend’s damned lucky we aren’t saying words over him, too.”
That nudged several affirmatives but no further explanations, so Amber reluctantly went to fill their order, balancing a large tray on her hi
p as she set down the pitchers and doled out glasses large and small. A few murmured thanks but no further information, so she returned to the bar to anxiously polish the already-gleaming surface.
Did it have something to do with Augie? She couldn’t dismiss as just a coincidence Rico’s odd request for his number the previous morning. Hands unsteady, she pulled out her phone, the first call to Auguste going right to voice mail. She left no message, quickly connecting to Rico’s number. The sound of his voice weakened her knees.
“I’m not here. You know what to do.”
The beep caught her unprepared. She stammered, “Hi. Your Patrol friends are here at work and they said there was some trouble.” What could she say? “I’m half out of my mind with worry? Please tell me you’re okay!” She settled for a brief, “Call me when you get a chance. I’ll be home around three.” She disconnected before babbling something foolish and emotional. Like, “I can’t lose you before I tell you how I feel!”
She kept herself busy, refilling and worrying until she returned with an empty tray to see she’d missed a call. Brother or boyfriend? Rico. Please let it be Rico.
“Hey. Got your message.”
Her bones went to water.
“I’m tied up right now. Give you a ride home then we need to talk.” That was it.
The Patrol members cleared out to attend their somber duty, leaving generous tips behind. Amber spent the rest of her quiet shift dissecting the meaning behind Rico’s brief message. “Talk” meant questions pushing into personal areas she’d fiercely protected since childhood. Areas of shadowed gray unpleasantness that could endanger her and her daughter and drive him away.
Mia’s advice threaded between fearful whispers.
Tell him. Trust him. If she couldn’t do those two things, there’d be no future with him anyway. A future without him was a dark, empty place she no longer wanted.