No Safe Place

by JoAnn Ross

  Kate watched as he walked in the opposite direction, stopping when he got to a black BMW sedan that was both conservative and expensive. He was six feet, a hundred eighty, maybe a hundred ninety pounds, hair brown, eyes hazel. And, although he was not the kind of guy who usually hit on her, he seemed nice enough. If she'd been in the market for a man, she probably could have done worse.

  Hell, you've done a whole lot worse. Which brought her back to the celibacy issue. And the fact that nice guy or not, he was still a man. Which meant he'd undoubtedly expect payoff for pasta.

  The sedan even sounded expensive as it drove out of the garage. Leaving Kate all too aware of being alone. If this were one of those chicks-in-jeopardy movies that seemed to run 24/7 on cable, right about now the bad guy would come leaping out of the shadows and grab the defenseless airhead heroine.

  Fortunately, this was real life and Kate was neither an airhead nor defenseless.

  But that didn't mean she didn't have bad guys gunning for her.

  A fact she was all too well aware of every morning. Over the past weeks she'd developed a routine, which began with opening the hood of the humiliatingly ugly-as-sin Crown Vic currently hunkered down on balding tires in the building's garage.

  Okay. No signs of an ignition-fired bomb. So far, so good.

  Next she took the red creeper she'd bought at the Auto Zone and wheeled herself beneath the car's rear end. Although she hated this part of the morning routine, even worse than risking grease on her coat would be to end up like that Gangster Disciple, the one who'd been blown up by a heat-fired incendiary device some Latin Warlord enforcer had attached to the muffler of his pimped-out Escalade during last year's turf wars.

  Again, nothing.

  Sliding back out, she checked beneath the handle and along the edge of the door, then climbed into the driver's seat. When her heart started to threaten to glitch out on her again, she looped her hands over the steering wheel and tried not to think about the fact that if any of those cops who'd been calling with anonymous death threats were serious, this could well be her last peaceful moment on earth.

  She counted backward from ten, watching the numbers float in front of her, all soft and shimmering, like moonlight on misty fog banks. It was a mental trick she'd developed as a kid. Usually it helped her relax. Not today.

  "Hell. May as well get it over with."

  She didn't exactly close her eyes. That would be like waving a white flag to the bad guys. But she did slit them just a bit.

  Drew in a breath.

  Held it.

  Then twisted the key.

  The Crown Vic's engine roared to life. Okay, so technically it was more a whimper than a roar, but in this case, that was a good thing.

  "Yes!"

  She blew out the tension on a rush of relieved breath. Shook her wrists to release the nerves that had coiled in her gut like a tangle of rattlesnakes. Then finally fastened her seat belt and backed out of the garage.

  Night slid into morning as she pulled onto Lakeshore Drive. Blustery winds stirred up whitecaps and blew ice, like tumbled stones, across the steely gray surface. Although the Crown Vic's windows were tightly shut and the ancient heater was blowing hot air out of the dashboard and floor vents, Kate imagined she could hear strange hissing sounds the ice made as the almost otherworldly shapes rubbed against one another.

  Never peaceful this time of year, Lake Michigan echoed her own tumultuous mood.

  Though Kate hated the winter with a passion usually reserved for child molesters and Internet predators, some of her most memorable moments had been spent sailing on the lake in the summer, savoring the fresh air, the warmth of the sun on her face, the brisk wind tangling her long red hair into an unruly cloud, and, most of all, the exhilarating feeling of freedom.

  But after all that had happened, the memory of the last time she'd been on the water was a faint, misty memory, like a dream upon waking. Had it only been six months ago?

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, dammit!" She flexed her fingers, which had tightened into a death grip on the wheel, as a stuttering sun colored the sky a pale lemon yellow. "It's a new day. Filled with possibilities. And you're not going to die."

  At least not this morning.

  She hoped.

  ♥ Scanned by Coral ♥

  6

  New Orleans

  IT'S ONLY YOUR IMAGINATION.

  You're not being followed, Desiree assured herself as she forged through the raucous, jostling carnival crowds jamming the French Quarter.

  It was two days of libertine frivolity before the relatively austere season of Lent. A cacophonous jangle of jazz, zydeco, and blues poured out of open doorways and the night air was rich with scents of spicy boiled crawfish, spilled beer, and sweet, sticky cocktails.

  Many of the shops and bars remained shuttered, and although the city was still in the midst of rebuilding after Katrina, its long-term future unknown, tourists had returned. Drunken frat boys crowded onto balconies, dangling strands of beads over lacy black iron railings, urging women passing on the street below: "Show us your tits, baby!"

  The women, caught up in the frivolity, happily lifted their tops, flashing for beads. The larger the breasts, the gaudier the beads—an unfair barter system, perhaps, but the Big Easy had never been a bastion of political correctness.

  Which was what Desiree loved about the hedonistic city.

  A waddle of nuns, looking like shiny penguins in black-and-white fetish latex habits and sporting prominent Adam's apples, drunkenly cheered encouragement to a horned devil chugging a pink frothy Hurricane from a plastic to-go cup.

  After polishing off the lethal blend of rum and passion-fruit punch, the demon's midnight-black eyes, framed by a scarlet half-mask, clashed with hers.

  Desiree froze. A knot, sharp as barbed wire, tightened painfully in her stomach.

  Is he the one?

  He swiped the back of his large, black leather-gloved hand across his wet mouth. Grinned evilly. Then tossed her a saucy wink before disappearing with his cohorts into the crowd.

  Desiree's breath left her lungs in a long, relieved whoosh.

  Normally, it would only take thirty minutes to walk to her destination, then back to Toussaint's shotgun house. But tonight, because of the crush of people, it had already taken nearly an hour. Not helping were the Ice-pick heels Jimmy Choo definitely hadn't designed for walking on uneven cobblestone streets.

  A shiny dime hung from a thin platinum chain between her breasts. As her fingers curled around the gris-gris Toussaint had given her for protection, she could have sworn the metal warmed.

  She had no business being out here again tonight. Not alone. She knew Toussaint would be furious at her for taking such a risk. Although he'd done everything he could to protect her, he'd always told her that such things were ultimately out of his—and her, and every other human's—control.

  But after he'd taken her back to his home, where she'd promised she'd remain until he returned from his night job as a waiter, she'd decided that keeping the videotape under his roof was too dangerous. Which was when she'd gotten the idea of exactly where she needed to hide it.

  The click click click of her heels on the cobblestones echoed in the swirling mist, an accompaniment to the off-key peal of bells calling saints and sinners to St. Louis Cathedral.

  The church, with its tapering, slate-covered triple towers bathed in spotlights, stood sentinel over Jackson Square. Desiree had often found it ironic that local Catholics could arrive at the church by carriage, confess their sins, then walk two blocks to one of the most sin-drenched streets in America. At the moment, she wasn't thinking all that much about her own sins, but of sanctuary.

  A handful of people were scattered around the Romanesque building, raising funds for a local homeless shelter. A young, fresh-faced nun handed her a flyer, which Desiree stuck in her bag without bothering to read it.

  Instead of turning onto Royal, she cut through Pirates Alley. The alley was
supposedly haunted by the ghost of Father Pere Antoine, the cathedral's first priest, who'd not only baptized Marie Laveau but had performed her wedding, as well.

  Rumors said that he'd loved New Orleans and its people so much, he couldn't bear to leave them behind when he died. According to local legends, on certain rainy nights in the hours before dawn, a male voice could be heard singing the Kyrie.

  Desiree didn't believe in ghosts any more than she believed in God. But she did admire the priest for his efforts to free women of color and his work for the city's poor and oppressed, including the city's prostitutes.

  A sound behind her—like the rattle of dry leaves or, worse yet, the scurrying of a wharf rat—caused her to shoot a quick, nervous glance back over her shoulder, A frisson of fear brushed over her, like fingers of fog against her suddenly icy skin.

  Not watching where she was going, she stumbled on a broken stone and tripped straight into the arms of a black-robed stranger.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but there was something about the stern warning in the man's eyes, which gleamed in the stuttering white glow of moonlight, that caused the half-born sound in her throat to die.

  Dark brows dove down to a sharp nose, but Desiree, an expert at reading male intent, noted a softening of his expression. He leaned toward her, close enough for his breath to fan her icy skin as his lips touched her ear.

  "Faites attention, ma jeune femme."

  His whispered words were little more than a zephyr, of night breeze drifting in from the river. Having picked up some French from her lover, Desiree understood; that he was warning her to be careful.

  A cloud drifted across the moon, throwing the alley into shadow. When the cloud moved on, he was gone.

  It couldn't be. All those stories about the priest; haunting the alley couldn't actually be true. Could they?

  "I ain't afraid of no ghosts."

  Saying the line from Ghostbusters was like whistling in a graveyard. Desiree brushed her clammy hands down her skirt, took a deep breath.

  She'd only taken another two steps when a tender touch, like silken fingertips, skimmed against her cheek.

  "Priz pour votre âme," the ghostly voice whispered in her ear as a different, all-too-human man, dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket, stepped out of the shadows. "Go with God."

  "I'm afraid it's too late for that, Padre," Desiree murmured with a sinking heart, as the flesh-and-blood male flashed a deadly smile she knew all too well.

  The last time Stephen LeBlanc had looked at her like that, she'd ended up with four cracked ribs, a broken wrist, and a concussion that had her seeing double for a week.

  It had been, he'd coolly informed her as his father's goon slammed a steel-booted foot into her ribs, her punishment for breaking the rule by doing a few tricks on the side.

  It was time she learned who made the rules. Who she belonged to.

  That had been three months ago. And she'd recovered. At least physically.

  But it was the next morning, as she'd stood beneath the shower that was pounding hot water onto her bruised and battered body, when Desiree began to plan her revenge. A revenge that began with hottie Cajun cop Nick Broussard, who'd warned her that she'd be better off taking up nude alligator wrestling than trying to pull anything over on the Gulf's most ruthless—and most politically connected—wiseguy.

  Now, as she took in her adversary's deadly cobra smile, Desiree figured she had two choices.

  She could stay here and be killed.

  Or she could take her chances and try to escape. And probably end up being caught, anyway. Then forced to die a very slow, very painful death.

  As Stephen LeBlanc's black-gloved hand reached for her throat, Desiree made her decision.

  Spinning on a stiletto heel, she took off running. For her life.

  7

  DAMN. HE WAS TOO LATE. DESIREE DOUCETT was found dead, her neck—and a great many other bones, including those in her surgically enhanced face—broken. She'd decided to take a dive out the window of her apartment.

  "Any sign of forced entry?" Nick asked his partner.

  Make that his former partner. Given the way Nick left the force in public disgrace, he knew Remy Landreaux could get reamed just for talking to him. Let alone sharing details of a crime scene. Nick appreciated the loyalty, especially since he'd been treated like a leper ever since he'd been shown doing the perp walk on WWL's Eyewitness News.

  It was one thing for a cop to bend the rules.

  Another thing entirely for him to be caught doing it.

  And, especially after Katrina, being caught on camera pretty much made you a pariah.

  Nick's meeting with LeBlanc had reminded him that there were more important things than his own ego. Or even his reputation. The death of any informant would've driven that idea home, though that was, more often than not, the breaks. Informants, after all, tended to live on the edge.

  In fact, there was an old cop Q&A joke about what to do when all your informants were shot dead.

  Answer: Open another can of informants.

  Now regret warred with an icy fury that this particular informant had been a woman he'd honestly cared about.

  "Non." Remy shook his head. Took a long drag on a cigarette. That was one thing Nick didn't miss: driving around inside a car that smelled like a week-old ashtray.

  Nick watched as uniformed EMTs lifted the red-haired corpse into the waiting ambulance.

  "Apartment was locked from inside when Homicide got there. Only way out was the window," Remy divulged. "Manner of death is the medical examiner's call, but unofficially we're ruling it a suicide."

  Hunching his shoulders against a rain that had turned ice-cold, Nick lifted his gaze to the open window, where white lace curtains billowed in the breeze.

  "Just like that?" Nick wished he could be surprised that the brass was so willing to jump to the easy judgment.

  "The door was locked," Remy reminded Nick. The tip of the cigarette glowed red as he inhaled. "From the inside. Looks like she'd barricaded herself inside by pushing a bunch of furniture against the door."

  "And no one found that a little strange?"

  "Hell, Nick. You know as well as I do that this fuckin' j city is strange on a good day. During Mardi Gras ..."

  He shrugged his Burberry raincoat—clad shoulders, Remy Landreaux had always liked the good life. Fortunately, thanks to trust funds bequeathed him from a doting grand-mere and various elderly aunties who'd passed on, he could afford it.

  "Besides, the girl was a junkie," he said.

  "She'd been clean for six months."

  His former partner's look asked what crawfish truck he'd just fallen off of.

  "Addicts fall off the wagon, cher," Remy said gently. " 'Specially during this time of year when people go buck wild."

  And didn't Nick know that all too well? Back when he was a kid, he'd learned to stay out of the old man's way from Thanksgiving until Lent.

  "I gotta go."

  Remy tossed the cigarette into the gutter, where it hissed, then winked out. He gave Nick a long, searching stare. The kind a cop gives a "person of interest" when he's trying to decide whether or not to read him his rights.

  Then he shook his dark head, turned on the heel of his Bruno Magli tasseled loafer, and began to walk away.

  "What?" Nick demanded toward his back.

  Remy stopped at the openly belligerent tone. He glanced back over his shoulder. Pursed his lips, exhaled with obvious frustration.

  "How long have we known each other?"

  "I don't know." Nick shrugged. "Twenty-five years. Going on twenty-six, maybe."

  They'd met back in grammar school, when Remy's mother moved back to her hometown after her husband died in an explosion on an oil rig out in the Gulf. The new kid had been in Nick's class all of two days when they'd gotten into a playground fistfight over the favors of Evangeline Rochefort, a flirtatious, dark-eyed, seven-year-old beauty who would go on to represent the stat
e of Louisiana in the Miss Universe pageant.

  "And all that time, we've been straight with each other, right?" Remy demanded.

  "Right."

  Nick may have told a helluva lot of lies in the past six months, but this was one thing he wanted on the record.

  "So, what the hell happened?"

  "If you don't know, you haven't been watching Eyewitness News."

  "I know the media's saying you're just another crooked NOPD cop. I know the friggin' brass is saying pretty much the same thing while doing their damndest to wash their hands of you. Ditto the cops on the street, who figure you've gone over to the dark side. Some even say you're aimin' to outdo your old man by becoming LeBlanc's top enforcer." He dragged a hand through his fifty-dollar haircut. "But you've never said a single damn thing. Not even to me.

  "Your partner," he stressed. "The guy who stood up beside you at your wedding. And got tanked with you the night you came home on leave and found your wife shaggin' her hairdresser."

  "That was a long time ago. But, hey, thanks for reminding me."

  His former partner's heavily lidded dark eyes—which Nick had heard more than one female call "bedroom eyes"—turned sad. "What the hell happened?"

  Nick shrugged. "You know what they say, cher. Shit happens."

  Remy's gaze drifted toward the ambulance that was taking off, the rooftop bar lights dark, the siren silent. There was, after all, no need to hurry.

  "Isn't that the truth." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "I don't suppose it'd do me any good to suggest you try to stay out of trouble?"

  "Hey, I've got me a new business, a new lease on life. No way am I goin' to screw all that up."

  "Desiree Doucett was a train wreck waitin' to happen, Nick. It's best just to let sleeping dogs lie."

  'You got any more clichés you want to throw at the situation?"

  Being a hotshot detective, he could tell from Remy's dark scowl that his former partner was less than amused. Well, didn't that just make two of them?

  "She was also a fellow human being," Nick said. "Was she flawed? Mais, yeah." That was, in Desiree's case, a vast understatement. "But aren't we all?"