Love is Murder

by Sandra Brown

Not as long as I was the boss.

  And he was too good to fire.

  * * * * *

  BROKEN HALLELUJAH

  Toni McGee Causey

  There was only one thing wrong with Causey’s story. It wasn’t long enough. I wanted it to go on for another couple hundred pages. ~SB

  She should not have been here. It was the worst possible scenario.

  He’d caught motion on his periphery—someone threading through the crowds, moving that same fluid way she did—a powerful motion that hit his senses as if a car were about to careen into him.

  He worked hard to not jerk around and try to find her. Instead, he sat in the folding chair on the hot sidewalk just below the oak trees and strummed another verse on the battered guitar before he turned his head, turned his supposedly blind eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and scanned across the brightly lit Jackson Square in the Quarter.

  Someone dropped change in the hat in front of him, and he nodded a gruff thanks as the coins clinked, but he didn’t turn back toward them; as a blind man, no one expected him to. Instead, he bobbed his chin a bit, keeping time with the song, and used the cover motion to sort out the tourists—thick as flies—from the buskers. The girl with the hula hoop was particularly hungover and giving a bad show today, but the mime painted silver with robot costuming was in fine form, entertaining the little kids.

  Had he imagined her?

  He had to consciously slow down the tune he was playing; his hands shook and people politely looked away from the trembling vet. The sun beamed, brilliant against the white stucco of the rising spires of St. Louis Cathedral, and he resisted the urge to shade his eyes, afraid to find her.

  Her laugh caught him in the chest and he saw her flowing—small and lithe and with a dancer’s grace—through the crowd as she greeted strangers and smiled at the children chasing the pigeons. She was more beautiful than he remembered. The sunlight caught red waves of silken hair that made his hands ache. His mouth had gone dry with fear that she’d look over and recognize him, see him through the ratty disguise, see what he had become. Years ago, the first time he’d met her, the shock of that instant attraction had been like a shotgun blast through his soul.

  This was much, much worse.

  Because he knew, now, what it was to be in love with someone who hated you.

  “Hey, mister, you okay?” a voice near his elbow asked, and he cocked his ear a little, pretending not to see the curious girl, maybe seven, maybe eight, who stood like a wisp of hope, perched on the balls of her feet as if she were about to run. “How come you stopped playing?” she asked, when he didn’t answer her.

  He looked down at his hands, still on the guitar, stiff as twigs on the strings. He couldn’t even remember what the song had been.

  “I’m fine, kid.”

  She took a step closer, unafraid because she was convinced he didn’t see her; her big brown eyes looked into his glasses and she whispered, “People who cry ain’t okay.”

  He felt his face, and it shocked him: there were tears.

  “What’s your name?” She peered up, and he could see the cookie crumbs on her cheek.

  “Phineas.” He hadn’t revealed that in three years. “I’m okay. Just missing a friend.”

  “Someone you lost in the war?” she asked, staring at the Navy baseball cap he wore.

  “Yeah.” He resisted the urge to look to see where Sadie had gone. It wasn’t the type of war the kid understood, but it had had its losses.

  A mother frantically yelled, “Marjorie Ann Naysmith!” and the kid in front of him glanced rabbit fast over her shoulder, then back at him, chagrined.

  “Gotta go.” Then she stunned him by leaning in and kissing his cheek. “You play pretty,” she said. “I bet your friend liked that.”

  He nodded and she ran off, and he could hear her mother above the din of techno music coming from a boom box somewhere as she chastised little Marjorie about talking to strangers. It worried him that the Marjories of the world would never believe that advice really applied to them, until it was too late.

  Phin set about tapping his pockets as if he’d lost something, rummaging around, using it as an excuse to find Sadie again in the crowd. His body went taut, frozen: she was setting up her easel, facing the building he had under surveillance.

  There was no way in hell that was a coincidence.

  * * *

  This was the fourth day in a row now that she’d tried to get this spot—the damned man had been set up right where she had to be. Every day. By dawn. She’d beaten him this morning, though, and was the only person out here in the silence of the square. Big, vast, with shops lining two sides, the huge St. Louis Cathedral on another, the river opposite…this place would be crazy with crowds by midmorning, speaking languages from all over the world.

  But right now? It belonged to her. Finally.

  Sadie opened her folding chair in the blind vet’s spot, shivering in the cool spring air, waiting for the sunrise; she watched the cleaning crews who were only just finishing pressure-washing the sidewalks of the side streets, something they did every morning here in the Quarter. There was an entire silent army keeping the place clean so that the tourists wouldn’t see what their debauchery the night before had rendered. An entire silent army, just for trash.

  It had been a cleaning crew who’d found Abby.

  The first rays of sun peeled back the night sky, and a cacophony of birds sang above Sadie in the magnolia trees, as if all were well in the world, and it was wrong that birds could sing after Abby died. It was wrong that the world could laugh and people could vacation. It was wrong that she still hurt with every breath, wanting the man who’d been supposed to stop her big sister, the undercover cop, from going back in when her cover was blown.

  Phin.

  She sank her face in her hands. Why did she think of him so much here? It had to be the stress. What she was about to do. Because all she could think of lately was Phin, who’d been her sister’s boss on the task force trying to take down human trafficking slime. Phin, who’d taken one look at Sadie when Abby had introduced them and had turned to her sister and said, “I hope like hell we get along, Dawson, because I’m going to be family.” And he’d meant it.

  Sadie had had no intention of settling down. And then he’d courted her, tugged her along, and she could still feel the heat of his hands, the way he touched her, still feel his breath against the back of her neck, still feel that moment when he’d make her fall apart, sublime, and then put her back together again. He’d made her hope.

  He’d been running the show, still, when LaCroix had butchered her sister, cut her from her navel to her neck, sliced her up and laid her out in a dirty alley, laid her out on a heap of trash for the world to see.

  Phin had known Abby was in trouble. He hadn’t stopped the investigation—and all for nothing. LaCroix managed to disappear, conveniently, just as the police were closing in.

  Until now. She forced herself not to glance over at the house, at LaCroix’s place.

  Three years it had taken to find LaCroix’s hideaway. To make this plan.

  The tap tap tapping of the blind man’s cane echoed off the almost-empty square, and she snapped open her easel, letting him know of her presence. She’d tried to talk to him, but he’d studiously ignored her, and she knew he wasn’t deaf. He thought if he ignored her, she’d go away.

  Too damned bad.

  She felt a twinge of guilt. He was blind. He was a vet, if that cap and those patches on his shoulder were his and not something he’d bought from Goodwill. He bothered her, and she couldn’t put her finger on why. For four days, she kept thinking of Phin when she saw him, which was ridiculous; he was at least twenty years older than Phin’s thirty-six. Phin was tall and broad-shouldered and tan, close-cropped dark hair, hands that played her as well as this man played the guitar. But the hands were the only thing they had in common. This guy curled in on himself, nearly broken, it seemed; he had a long, ratty gray ponyta
il, plaited with something that looked like it had crawled up in there and died. His fuzzy, bushy eyebrows that sat above those mirrored glasses looked alive, like they would fall off and sprout legs. Where Phin had been lithe, athletic, predatory…this guy was nothing but disarray and vulnerable…and he made her sad.

  There were a handful of early-morning tourists, taking advantage of the light breaking over the cathedral for photos, but not another single busker had ventured out here, yet. It was too early for the real crop of tourists to wander out of their hotels, ripe for plucking. And still, there he was, shuffling forward from the shadows on the side of the cathedral.

  It wasn’t this man’s fault he had set up in the only place in the square that had a direct line of sight into LaCroix’s home. The. Only. Spot. He probably just liked the shade, the acoustics. He was a blind vet, for God’s sake, she told herself. Not Phin, the bastard who was two thousand miles away in San Francisco. He just reminded her of Phin.

  She shuddered, remembering his heat, the feel of the length of him pressed against her, skin to skin, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut to stop the tears.

  He’d let Abby die, may he rot in whatever hell he’d crawled into.

  When the vet reached her, she expected aggravation. Not fury. Even though buskers were territorial, what could one spot possibly matter over another, five feet away, to a blind man? He was being silly.

  She would be patient. She would be kind. She would be pleasant. But he was not getting this spot. She was not missing that signal.

  * * *

  He folded his cane, anger showing as he clacked the sections together harder than necessary. He’d spent three nights of determined research and paying bribes, trying to figure out what she had planned. He hadn’t slept. Had barely eaten. And as soon as he spoke, she’d recognize him, and his own game would be jeopardized.

  Who the hell was he kidding? She probably wouldn’t recognize him from his voice. He had known when she was simply walking on the other side of a crowded fucking square filled with people from all over the world. He’d have known her in the pitch-black. And she’d sat right near him for four agonizing days, had heard him playing and hadn’t even begun to suspect. He hated her for that.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said, coming up out of her chair to stand in front of him, where she barely reached his chin, her face tilted up so close, he could see how weary she was. “I just need this spot for a couple of days, tops, to get the light just right on that building I’m painting. Well, I guess you can’t tell which one—but this is the only spot in the whole square with this view.” She pushed earnestness hard, like a car salesman who knows he’s lying, and she tried smiling brightly and flirting, then remembered he was blind. Her face fell as he didn’t answer, and she tried for cheery. “And I brought a picnic lunch, to thank you. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

  “I mind,” he said, straightening up, crossing his arms at his chest as her eyes narrowed, first at the tone, then the words.

  * * *

  He…unfurled… . One moment, he was bent over, looking war-worn and haggard and old and blind, and then he straightened up and squared his shoulders, feet planted, arms across his chest and Sadie knew she was in trouble. Something was wrong here, and it took a heartbeat more to really hear the voice and ignore what she was seeing.

  “Phineas Michael Donnelly. You bastard,” she snapped, balling her fist, wanting to hit him. “Have you been having fun here? Is this some kind of joke? How’d you know I would be here?”

  “I’ve been here for eight months, Sadie,” and his voice dropped to that lethally cold tone she hated. “Eight months, and you’re not about to waltz in here and screw this up. Go home. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?”

  “I can be wherever I want, Phin. I’m on vacation.”

  “Oh, please. You just happened to be here, painting the building that Louis LaCroix owns? What do you plan to do, Sadie? Confront him? Turn him in? The police know he’s here. He’s well protected. Go home.”

  “They’ll believe it when I catch him red-handed.”

  “You’re waiting for a signal—a red handkerchief hung on the balcony.”

  She slanted her eyes at him, livid. “How in the hell did you know that?”

  “It’s my job to know.”

  “Why?”

  When he didn’t answer, she pressed closer, letting all of the anger of his betrayal pour through her. All of the years of dreaming of him at night, wishing…wasted years. Damn her stupid heart. “Who. Are. You. Working. For?”

  “LaCroix,” he said, his voice as flat as the flagstones where they stood. “I’m telling you, for old time’s sake, Sadie. It’s a trap.”

  She felt light-headed. Disconnected. She couldn’t believe it.

  Was he why LaCroix got away from the police three years ago? Had he been lying to her then, too? Was everything they’d had a complete farce? She remembered laughing as she chased him one spring day, not unlike this one. Tackling him while he held her keys out of reach, a gleam in his eye. Kissing him, then. Craving him, all over again.

  Even here. Even now.

  She itched to take a swing at him, but she remembered how fast he could move and she held still. “I knew you were heartless and ambitious, letting Abby go back in there, but I never dreamed you could be the enemy.”

  Her heart hurt, so much. How stupid was it to still have hoped?

  Something flexed in his jaw, like he was holding on to his temper by extreme determination, but he just leaned forward, smug, and said, “Well, darlin’, now you know. Go home.”

  “How do they know I’m here?” LaCroix had not been there, the times she’d been inside. No one else knew her real name, or how she was connected to LaCroix.

  He turned, unfolded his cane and tucked back into himself somehow, suddenly the old, blind vet again, as seamless as air. “Because,” he said, as he tap tap tapped his way away from her, “I told them.”

  * * *

  He’d walked away. It had taken everything he had, but he’d left her there, tears streaming down her face.

  Good.

  She’d stay away. She’d be shocked and angry and it would take her maybe a day to recover. She wouldn’t get the signal she was waiting for; he’d seen to that.

  Phin clicked on a pin light: it was twelve hours after his confrontation with Sadie and he was now beneath LaCroix’s house. Underground—a place most people would never have believed existed in the Quarter, given how far below sea level the city was, and how common the flooding, even in light rains. Most people did not know there were vaults below the streets that held all of the electrical and cable conduits which wired everything; city code prohibited any wiring above ground.

  There were things about the Quarter that went beyond the eye, and tourists rarely ever saw that side, unless they were unlucky. Instead, they experienced the beautiful hotels, the antique shops, the galleries, loud bars and restaurants. Few were ever invited into the homes that were also a part of the Quarter—buildings which had been a part of the fabric of the Vieux Carré so long, people had forgotten how many times they’d been updated and remodeled. Renovation upon renovations, and often the original floor plan was lost in history. There were even old Underground Railroad passages; it was blasphemy, that LaCroix used some of the hidden passages—buildings connected to buildings in ways that weren’t obvious from the street—to move his “merchandise” without anyone on the outside able to hear or see.

  It had cost Phin the better part of his cop pension to get his hands on the plans he’d needed.

  He slid a makeshift plywood door aside and held quiet a moment, patient. Listening. He’d connected two passages over the past couple of months from two very old tunnels, both left off the later plans LaCroix had used and had based his own renovations on.

  LaCroix screamed obscenities at someone three floors up, and then a slap echoed and everything went dead silent. Phin tensed, waiting for noise to cover his movements. There we
re more girls above; some locked in rooms, some shuttled out in the night. He’d tipped off the police, and they claimed their hands were tied without hard evidence, and no one had any intention of getting any, from what he could see. LaCroix had paid off someone fairly powerful to keep the warrants at bay. It was how he’d kept the police at a distance in San Francisco when Abby was murdered.

  Phin pinched the bridge of his nose to ward away the memories, and there was more yelling again above him. Chairs shuffled about, then a crashing sound, like a vase hitting a wall. Someone had pissed LaCroix off. He listened, praying Sadie had heeded him, when Abby hadn’t.

  It took him nearly an hour to move through the vaults and tunnels below the house, to make his way through ancient rooms, cobwebbed over, slick with mold, and up into dingy crawl spaces and finally easing into the dark kitchen, quiet for the night, the cook having been sent home every day at 10:00 p.m. He exited the hidden passage into the pantry, and he had to let his eyes adjust before moving forward, making sure he made not a single sound to betray him.

  “So this is why you wanted me to stay away,” Sadie whispered in the dark and his heartbeat ratcheted to the sky as panic flooded him with adrenaline. When he got his bearings, he realized she was sitting on the floor of the big pantry, dressed in black, her red hair hidden beneath a black cap. She had night vision goggles. And a gun. How the hell?

  “You’re not here because you work for LaCroix, Phin,” she said, quietly, deadly. “You’re here to kill him, too.”

  * * *

  This was the Phin she remembered: clean-shaven, cropped hair, murderous expression that she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. He held out his hand and Sadie gripped it, letting him help her stand, holstering the FN pistol.

  “I nearly killed you, just now,” she seethed, the shock of that still sending tremors through her as she stepped so close, she could feel the heat radiating off his body. “You should have told me earlier.”

  “For the love of God, Sadie.” His fury pulsed through the small room. He paused to crack the door and keep a view of the kitchen. “Get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”