by JoAnn Ross
"Word on the street is that she got greedy and tried to run a blackmail con on Leon LeBlanc. Which, if true, given how that guy controls his empire, means she'd committed suicide before she took a flying leap out that window."
Remy shot a killer glare up at the rain that was making dark spots on his tobacco-colored coat. Then he looked back at Nick.
"You stay out of trouble, yhear?"
Nick flashed a grin that was as phony as everything else about his life these days. "Roger that."
They both knew it was a lie.
Again, Remy was not amused.
Nick watched his former partner walk back to the courtyard. Watched him talk with the detective who'd caught the case.
Martin Dubois made The Pink Panther's bumbling Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't so much that he was carrying an extra eighty pounds on his five-foot-eight frame (which he was), or that he apparently believed a comb-over would hide the fact that he was going bald (it didn't), or that he sweat like a bureaucrat facing a congressional committee hearing (which he did, even in the middle of winter).
It was that he was, hands down, the most crooked police officer Nick had ever known. And considering he'd grown up in New Orleans, with a cop father who routinely returned home with pockets filled with cash, that was saying something.
Desiree Doucett, admittedly, had been screwed up. She had also been, at times, greedy. Impatient. And headstrong.
Some of the dangerous choices she'd made—like ripping off the LeBlancs, for chrissakes—might lead someone to believe she was suicidal. Someone, that is, who didn't know her as well as Nick had.
There was no way the woman would jump out a window. A dramatically slit wrist in a bathtub, maybe. Pills, sure. And though it would be a tragic sight, he could easily picture her clad in a body-clinging white nightgown artfully posed on the bed so as to leave behind a beautiful corpse.
But kill herself in a way that would not only break bones, but shatter the already pretty face that a Gulf Coast plastic surgeon had enhanced to a movie-star ideal?
No way.
It was obvious she'd been murdered.
Just as it was obvious that Dubois—who couldn't find his oversize ass with both hands if someone drew him a picture—wouldn't be able to find Desiree's killer.
If he even wanted to. Which Nick didn't believe for a minute he did. How coincidental was it that the cop known to everyone in the city to be Leon LeBlanc's own personal bagman just happened to be on duty when the 911 call about a hooker's suicide came in?
Slim to none.
Zero.
Zip.
But dammit, someone had to stand for the murdered. Especially when no one had stood for this particular victim in life.
"Looks like you're fucking elected." Which was precisely what Nick did not need.
8
DARK WAS FALLING AS KATE LEFT THE DIRKSEN Federal Building through the underground parking garage after her second and—thank you, God!—final long day of testimony. Although the prosecutor had arranged for a phalanx of federal marshals from Judicial Protective Services to keep reporters from rushing her car as she left the twenty-eight-story black glass tower, that had not stopped a contingent of uniform cops from lining the sidewalks. Seeing their folded arms and stony expressions, Kate doubted she was going to win the Fraternal Order of Police congeniality award anytime soon.
Another clue that she'd fallen out of favor was the used condom left on the driver's seat of the Crown Vic while she'd been inside the courthouse. There was, of course, no point in asking any of the JPS court-security officers if they'd seen anyone approach the car.
The CSOs may have been assigned to protect her, but she suspected that deep down, where it really mattered, more than a few of them shared that one-for-all, all-for-one cop mentality. By crossing that blue line of police silence to testify against some of her own, she'd earned a jacket she'd never overcome. After today, she was pretty much out of the cop business.
She was about to cross the river when, despite the crush of afternoon traffic, a patrol car suddenly pulled in front of her.
Another closed in behind.
A third on her driver's side.
Kate's fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and she knew that if there'd only been enough room, they would've put her into the center of a diamond formation, a classic cop intimidation technique.
They continued that way for several blocks. When they all stopped for a red light at Ohio, the cop to her left continued to look straight ahead, not giving any sign at all that he knew or even cared who was beside him.
Which was a crock. If there was one thing all patrol cops paid attention to, it was cars anywhere in their vicinity. She knew because she'd once been one of them. And, like them, she would run the plate whenever she was behind a vehicle at a stoplight. Because you just never knew when you might stumble across a stolen car. Or better yet, a wanted felon.
The damn light seemed to be lasting forever. Although she'd managed to get through hours of testimony, including being badgered by the attorneys for the police defendants, without breaking a sweat, moisture began to gather beneath her bangs. Under her arms. Even on the palms of her hands, which had a death grip on the wheel.
Never let them see you sweat.
It was the first thing she'd learned in the police academy and was even more important for a woman cop here in this macho, sports-crazy land of Bulls and Bears, ribs and beer.
It had begun snowing again, thick, fat flakes driven by wind off the lake that splatted against the windshield.
The cop to her left still hadn't looked at her. But Kate knew he was every bit as aware of her as she was of him.
The light—finally!—turned green. The cars peeled away, like a Navy Blue Angels flying team. Her heart pounding jackhammer-fast, jackhammer-hard, just as they intended, Kate had just turned right, toward the lake, when her cell phone rang.
The display read "private number." Given that it was next to impossible to keep those threatening cops from getting her unlisted phone number, she'd been changing cell phones every few days. So far, the only people who knew this number were on the federal prosecutor's staff.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Delaney?" an unfamiliar male voice asked.
"Who's calling?" A cop still down to her toes, Kate wasn't about to give out any information to a stranger.
"This is Lieutenant Remy Landreaux. From the New Orleans Police Department. I'm calling for Ms. Kathleen Delaney."
"How did you get this number?"
"From information. Your other one has been disconnected," he told her, nothing she didn't already know.
"Information should have told you I'm unlisted."
"That's exactly what the operator said. Until I explained to her supervisor that I'm a detective, calling on police business." Meaning doors would open magically for him as soon as he pulled his shiny NOPD badge.
"What precinct house are you calling from?"
"I work the cold-case squad out of the Eighth District. That's the French Quarter," he revealed.
She took a pen from the center console. "Give me your number. I'll call you back in five."
As much as she disliked Chicago winters, Kate was grateful for the frigid temperature, which kept the press from camping out in front of her building.
She waited until she was upstairs, inside the loft, with the three double bolt locks fastened and the drapes pulled, before returning the call. But only after double-checking with information to make certain the number he'd given her actually belonged to the NOPD.
"So," she said when he answered, "you're calling about a cold case?"
"Cold case is my squad. Other districts have their own homicide departments, but we don't get many death by murder in the Quarter, so we sort of pitch in when needed. Technically we're the Major Cold Case Homicide Squad."
"I see," she said, not seeing anything at all.
"Do you have a sister named Desiree Doucett,
Ms. Delaney?"
"It's Detective Delaney. I'm a Chicago PD lieutenant."
"Sorry," he said, switching gears, "the notation in her address book doesn't mention that."
"Also, no, that name's not familiar"
Though she wouldn't be surprised to discover Tara was living under an alias.
"But you do have a sister?"
"Yes." Kate blew out a frustrated breath. No wonder so many civilians disliked cops. "But her name is Tara Carroll."
"Okay," he said, shuffling some papers. "That works, too."
This couldn't be good. What trouble had Tara gotten herself into? "And you're calling because ..."
"I'm sorry."
Kate knew that tone. Hadn't she used it herself when breaking bad news to a civilian? She braced herself for the words she knew were coming.
"I'm afraid your sister's dead, Detective."
"Dead?" And wasn't that the same thing civilians inevitably said in response?
She began to pace the chestnut plank floor, her mind scrambling to make sense of this call. "You said homicide."
"That's right, ma'am. Uh, Detective. Actually, your sister's death appears to be a suicide, but legally we're required to treat it like a homicide until we get the official cause-of-death report from the coroner's office."
That was how it worked. But one thing wasn't ringing true. Despite all their problems, despite having been estranged ever since Kate had taken the opportunity to escape to Chicago, they were still twins. Their DNA was identical; despite the difference in lifestyle, they could've been the same person. If Tara was dead, she'd know it. Wouldn't she?
"You've made a mistake."
"You are Kathleen Delaney?"
"Yes, but—"
"And your sister's Tara Carroll, who also went by the name of Desiree Doucett?"
"I don't know anything about her using the name Desiree."
Whatever name she was using, her sister would never commit suicide. No more likely to than Kate herself.
"She must be running some kind of scam," Kate decided.
"A scam."
It was not a question, but she understood that she was expected to answer it. This was not a story she enjoyed sharing. Especially with another cop.
"Look, Detective Landreaux. My sister and my mother are grifters. They lie for a living. They're also big on staging phony scenarios."
Kate's first job had been at age five, when her mother—wearing a pillow beneath her dress to simulate a late-term pregnancy—fainted during a champagne brunch at a historic hotel in Biloxi. As the well-heeled crowd rushed to help, her sister, displaying natural acting skills, wailed to high heaven while Kate moved like a shadow around the dining room, slipping billfolds from purses.
By the time she was eight, her mother had graduated to insurance falls. Store managers might suspect a lone woman of pulling a con, but it was hard to believe two such sweet and visibly shaken little girls would lie through their pretty white teeth.
When she was in high school, her mother—who'd always insisted her daughters call her by her first name, Antoinette—had moved them to Memphis, where she began pulling off sweetheart schemes, using her considerable sexual appeal to scam money from emotionally vulnerable males, more often than not men ancient enough to have forgotten what dementia meant.
"This is undoubtedly just another game they've cooked up. Probably to cheat some insurance company." Kate could far more easily picture them getting the idea to pull off a phony death scheme than imagine Tara dead.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Not one of those cop pauses designed to get the other person talking. But one that told her Detective Landreaux was processing this information.
"And your mother would be?"
"Antoinette Carroll Pickett. But I heard she'd recently married again."
The invitation had come from out of the blue to the cop shop six weeks ago, with the notation that her mother was registered at the Canal Place Saks. Like sure, Kate was going to rush out and buy a pricey set of Waterford champagne glasses for the newlyweds.
How about not in this lifetime?
"To a Martin Le Cru. No, that's not right." It was like the island, she remembered. "St. Croix."
"You're sure of that?" His tone sharpened. "That the name is Martin St. Croix?"
"Absolutely." Now that she'd recalled the name, Kate could picture the groom's name calligraphied in raised gold type on that gilt-edged invitation.
There was another pause. This one longer than the first.
Then, "I think you'd better consider a trip to New Orleans, Detective."
"Why?"
"Because your sister listed you as her next of kin to be notified in the event of her death. And she definitely is dead, Detective. Her body's in the morgue as we speak. And, coincidentally, your mother's new husband is in the hospital. In critical condition."
Oh, God. Kate's mouth went dry, "Why do I suspect he's not there because he keeled over from a heart attack?"
Or any normal occurrence. Heaven forbid her family should ever be involved in anything normal.
"It was hit and run," the detective said.
Of course it was.
Kate rubbed her temple. The headache that had been threatening since those cops had boxed her in as she'd left the courthouse was now exploding full-blown.
"How old is he?" she asked over the sound of evil maniacs pounding sledgehammers against slate behind her eyes.
"Early seventies."
Which put him around twenty, twenty-five years older than his new bride. "Is he rich?"
"Let me put it this way. He owns a car dealership. A Mercedes dealership," he tacked on significantly.
Of course he did.
"Are you saying you believe his accident and my sister's death might be related?"
"A link hadn't occurred to me when I called you," he allowed. "Because I didn't know the connection between Desiree Doucett and Mrs. St. Croix. But now that I do, I'm going to have to consider the possibility. Unfortunately, your mother's left town and we haven't found anyone who knows where she might have gone."
Kate blew out a long breath. Well, at least she no longer wondered about what she'd be doing tomorrow. "I'm on my way."
9
NICK'S FIRST THOUGHT WHEN SHE APPEARED at the dock was that he was seeing a ghost. Or hallucinating. Those goons had roughed him up pretty good before throwing him into that boat. Maybe they'd shaken a few brain cells loose.
She was tall, lean, and reminded him a lot of Nicole Kidman in her Days of Thunder days, before she'd gotten all sleek and polished and become a high-class clothes hanger for dress designers to the rich and famous.
Thanks to a warm front that had moved in from the Gulf, she'd left her black suit jacket open; a white silk blouse clung to pert breasts, which, while not as voluptuous as Desiree Doucett's silicone-enhanced ones, were still damn fine.
Her copper-penny hair had been pulled back into some sort of twist at the nape of her neck, but heat and humidity had it springing out into a bright cloud around a face that belonged on one of those cameos in the antique-shop windows on Magazine Street. Her eyes were cat-green and tilted upward, just a bit at the corners. Her nose canted slightly to the left, which kept her from being classically perfect.
But her mouth! Good God almighty, Angelina Jolie, eat your heart out! Although she'd chewed off most of her lipstick, that didn't keep his obviously injured mind from conjuring up potent sexual fantasies of those top-heavy, cotton candy-pink lips pressing against the swollen flesh around his black eye.
Then against his chest, soothing the pain in his rib left by a well-placed punch. And that was just for starters.
In the fantasy that sparked through his mind like one of Louisiana Power and Light's infamous power surges, those amazing lips began traveling lower. And lower. Until...
He jerked his unruly, horny mind back from where it had been about to get him into real trouble. As it was, if she happened to look do
wn, she'd take him for a pervert and probably get back in that cab idling at the pier and leave.
The funny thing was that although Desiree, who'd been an expert at using sex to get what she wanted, had pulled out all the stops trying to get him into bed the past few months, Nick had never been interested. It wasn't so much that he doubted she could count the number of men she slept with in any given year.
Call him crazy—and he knew a lot of men undoubtedly would—but the top-dollar call girl had never gotten his dick to stand at attention like it was doing right now.
Her lips were moving, but her words sounded as if they were coming from the bottom of the lake. Maybe the concussion the thugs had given him had affected his hearing.
"Are you Nick Broussard?"
It was her voice, edged with an impatience you only heard around these parts from northern tourists, that finally tipped him off.
The woman whose bright brows had beetled over those remarkable catlike eyes wasn't Desiree. But the sister. Cathy? Karen? What the hell had Desiree told him her name was?
"That's me," he said. "And you'd be Kate." That was it! "Kate Delaney. Desiree Doucett's sister."
Her uptight law-and-order cop sister, Nick remembered.
Surprise came and went so quickly that had he not been watching her face carefully, Nick would've missed it. They might be identical twins, but Kate Delaney had definitely learned how to conceal her thoughts a helluva lot better than her sister.
Her lips drew into a tight line. In a nanosecond she'd gone from fantasy female to a clone of Sister Mary Francis, a habit-wearing harridan who'd struck terror in the hearts of her entire third-grade class.
"My sister's actual name was Tara Carroll. And how did you know her?"
Could she actually think he might be one of Desiree's—Tara's—johns?
And jeez, wasn't that an ego boost?
He resisted the urge to assure her that he'd never had to stoop to paying for a woman.
"New Orleans may look like a city, but it's pretty much a small town." A lot smaller now than it'd been eighteen months ago. "Everyone pretty much knows everyone else. And if you go back enough generations, you'd probably discover that most of us are related one way or another... I'm sorry for your loss."