by Nina Bruhns
Remi waited anxiously until he heard Morris say, "Beaulieux? Ask Muse where Davies could have taken her."
He swore under his breath. "Muse is not available at the moment. You're sure it's Davies?"
"Positive ID from Levalois. Davies took him, too. Signs of a struggle in the apartment."
"Anyone injured?"
"No traces of blood. Ideas on destination, people?"
Dev recited a list of property owned by Davies or his front companies, which he'd already pulled up on the computer.
Morris cursed. "Could be any one of them, depending on what Davies is planning to do."
Morris's grave mistake was assuming Davies was remotely rational. But talking with Muse had convinced Remi he wasn't.
"Guaranteed he's planning to kill them," Remi said, feeling sick to the stomach. "As payback for Muse daring to steal his favorite home movie. She told me what was on it. My guess is he'll have his fun first, then dump the bodies."
"According to Levalois the video was a recording of Davies torturing and killing his foster brother. That correct?"
"His brother? Brutal. Muse didn't know who it was, but, yeah, that's what she said."
Guess that answered the question as to whether the cop worked for Davies or not.
Remi thought for a second. "She also said it was filmed at some kind of abandoned warehouse. They might go to the same place now. Dev, what fits?"
He could hear computer keys clicking in the background, then Dev said, "He owns three warehouses." And gave their addresses. One was on the river close to the Quarter, one in a run-down area on the outskirts of New Orleans well-known for drug activity, one in a town about an hour's distance from the city.
"My money's on the second," Morris said.
"You take that one," Remi said. "I'll check the one near the Quarter since I'm almost there. It'll take me fifteen minutes, tops."
"Call in," Morris ordered, and then there was a click.
"I'll alert NOPD for backup," Dev said.
"Give them all three addresses. Just in case." In case Morris was trying to lead him astray on purpose.
"I'm on it. Where do you think Muse is?"
"She's been to the apartment by now," Remi said, putting the gas pedal to the floor.
"There'll still be agents there processing evidence, so she should be safe."
"She'll also know what's happened to Grace." Remi's mind went very, very still. "She knows Davies better than any of us, and where he's likely to take her sister."
He just prayed it was one of the addresses he and Morris were headed to.
"You believe she's gone after them?"
He thought of the gun she'd taken with her. Cold panic slithered up his spine, along with dead certainty.
"I'd bet my life on it."
* * *
Chapter 16
« ^ »
Luckily it was Sunday, so traffic didn't slow him down. Remi made it to the dilapidated warehouse on the banks of the Mississippi in record time. Nerves screaming, he parked a block away and ran the rest, keeping to the lengthening shadows, sprinting along the edges of the tumbledown structures, closing his senses to the fetid squish and decay of the wharfside refuse underfoot—and the cloying smell of his own fear.
Far in the distance, he heard the wail of a police car.
There! To one side of the partially boarded-up front entrance was a long, black limo. On its fender sat a bald guy who looked like a gorilla, talking to a woman who looked suspiciously like…
Muse!
Remi halted in his tracks, panting with relief at seeing her safe—and fury at the fact that she was standing in a flirtatious pose in that sexy sundress, chatting with a man who must be Davies's goon and flipping her hair as if she didn't have a care in the world.
Remi counted to twenty, then did it again, battling the urge to run screaming to her like some kind of barbarian idiot, throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to the safety of some nearby cave. Le Bon Dieu.
The sirens grew louder. Switch the damn things off! he thought angrily.
She was all right, he told himself. Obviously Muse knew the bald guy from her days with Fox. But what the hell did she think she was doing? She couldn't possibly be planning to rescue her sister single-handedly? Surely she wouldn't—
He watched in horror as she turned with a little wave of her fingers at the man and sashayed toward the entrance of the warehouse, then disappeared into it.
Merde!
It took Remi three seconds flat to reach the limo. "I'm with her," he called, and rushed after her, to the surprised shouts of the goon.
Drawing his weapon, Remi ducked through the door. Right into the bowels of hell.
In the middle of the room was a circle of bright yellow klieg lights, illuminating a macabre vignette. In the spotlight a man and a woman sat duct-taped to wooden chairs. Remi knew they must be Levalois and Grace, but she looked so much like Muse his knees almost buckled from shock.
A second man stood over Grace with a lighted cigarette, ready to brand her exposed breast with it.
Davies!
Remi raised his weapon and—
The room erupted in chaos.
Levalois roared in anger. Crack! Crash! He was on his feet, the heavy chair fractured to kindling.
Bang! A gunshot cracked through the room.
Everything froze, and for a second it was deathly quiet.
A delicate spray of scarlet sprinkled over Grace as a coin-size hole appeared in the middle of Davies's forehead. Then the creep collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Sacré…
Suddenly the warehouse was full of uniforms and suits running and shouting. Morris was in the center of it all, barking orders.
Desperately Remi scanned the swarming room. Where was Muse?
She stood stock-still amid the bedlam, not ten feet away, holding the Beretta between her hands with perfect pistol form, the end of the barrel still pointed at Davies.
Ah, non.
In two steps he was by her side. "Muse, darlin', let me have the gun."
The only thing she shifted was her gaze, which flicked from Davies's fallen body to her sister and back. Then Levalois moved in to block Grace from view.
"Chère, honey—" Remi ran his hand gently along Muse's stiff arm "—lower your weapon, baby."
It began to tremble. He carefully cupped his hand under the Beretta and continued to rub her arms, coaxing them down. "You've gotta give me the gun, Muse."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Levalois pull Grace to her feet and into his arms, giving her a very uncoplike kiss. What the…?
"Beaulieux, do you have Miss Summerville under control?" Morris's anxious voice asked from behind.
"Under control, sir."
"She shot Davies?"
"Looks that way, sir."
Finally Remi was able to ease the Beretta from her fingers—along with a little gray gris-gris bag. He slid the weapon into an evidence bag Morris held up for him, then put his arms around her, sliding the bag into his pocket. She seemed numb with shock.
"How'd you get here so fast?" he asked his boss suspiciously, as he held her tight.
"A local patrol car happened to be out by the other address, so we had them check it. Needless to say the warehouse was empty. We came here instead."
"Lucky." Or had he known all along?
"Right," Morris said, then turned his attention elsewhere. That's when Remi saw Grace look their way, over Levalois's shoulder, and heard her cry out.
"Muse! Oh, my God, it's Muse!"
* * *
Remi watched as the sisters hugged and cried, hugged and cried some more. That story, at least, had a happy ending.
Unlike some he might name.
He sighed and forbade himself to think about how Muse had chosen her sister over him, and left him without even looking back. There would be time enough to lick his wounds later. After he'd made certain she was safe.
Because he still had a job to do, and he was a
hundred percent certain there was a traitor in the FBI who'd worked for Davies and fed him information. Now that Davies was dead and several of his henchmen under arrest, that traitor was a loose cannon.
Chances were the informant would panic. Try to cover his tracks. Silence anyone who could finger him. Eliminate loose ends.
Loose ends like Muse.
Even though she had no idea who he was, the informant couldn't know that. And with Davies gone and his henchmen arrested, she would be free to come forward, openly, with all her information. And possibly land the guy in a heap of hurt.
Remi shoved his hands in his pockets, fingering the small bag there.
Morris hadn't done anything suspicious that Remi had noticed since his timely arrival. He and Simmons were processing bad guys and evidence, presiding with cool efficiency over the whole messy crime scene.
Could he be wrong about Morris? Or was he just playing the part, and looking for his opportunity…
Damn. He had to get Muse out of there as fast as he could. Out of New Orleans. To safety. Until he could figure out who the mole was and put him behind bars, where he belonged.
She wasn't going to like it.
She was definitely not going to like it.
She'd made her choice, Grace over him. She would see it as her duty to stay with her sister, especially after what had happened … and nearly happened … to her because of Muse. Not that her appearance at the warehouse had made any difference to the eventual outcome. Remi'd arrived in plenty of time to save Grace, as had both the FBI and the NOPD.
But imminent danger or no, there was no way he'd ever pry Muse from Grace's side as long as she felt her twin needed her.
Not unless…
His gaze fastened on Levalois.
Hmm.
The man stood in the middle of the room, watching Grace and Muse, brewing like a dark storm cloud, ready to burst thunder and lightning. The harsh angles of his cheekbones were covered in a wash of black stubble, his wide stance spoiling for a fight; the feral look of possessiveness in his black eyes spoke volumes about his feelings for Muse's sister.
Dieu. If Grace wasn't into rogues, she was in big trouble.
But Remi'd found his salvation.
He sauntered over, positioning himself between the big man and the door. What was the guy's first name again? Creole, that was it. Remi estimated thirty seconds before ol' Creole decided either to go over there and bodily rip Grace away from Muse or storm himself right out the front door.
Three, two, one… Levalois spun on a toe and ran smack into him.
He almost smiled.
"Sorry, didn't see you."
"No problem," Remi said, instantly recognizing the desperation in the man's eyes. A kindred soul on many levels.
The poor devil. He hated to do it, he really did, but he had no choice. After a minute of strained chitchat he broached the favor he wanted to discuss.
"Muse will never leave Grace as long as she thinks her sister needs her," Remi said to the stone-faced Levalois.
"So?"
"So I want you to make it clear she doesn't. Need her." Remi paused meaningfully, enduring a scathing, narrowed look. "Don' even try to deny you're in love with Grace," he went on. "I've seen the way you look at her."
Takes one to know one.
"You're imagin—"
Remi raised a hand, cutting off the man's brittle denial. "Don' worry, it's not obvious to anyone who isn't in the middle of it himself."
Creole stared at him, then let out a particularly potent Cajun oath. Remi gave him a smile of wry understanding, and in that moment a tentative friendship was born of mutual misery.
"Thanks, mon ami. I owe you big-time."
Merci, Dieu. Now Muse wouldn't worry about her sister while Remi carried her off … somewhere far away. Exactly where, he'd figure out later.
But before the night ended, he vowed they'd be on their own again, just the two of them. Safe and sound.
Whether she liked it or not.
And whether or not his heart was breaking in two.
* * *
It was strange how one's body could recover so quickly from killing a man. Fooling one's mind into thinking everything was okay. That you could talk and laugh and hug and pretend it didn't bother you. Because you really thought it didn't. The man was scum, after all.
Muse knew better. She'd been through denial before. No doubt she'd be in therapy for years after her true feelings surfaced. But for now she was all about Grace.
And trying to ignore Remi's Benedict Arnold gaze.
She hugged her sister like there was no tomorrow, grateful she'd gotten there in time to make sure there would be. If she'd listened to Remi— Well, there was no imagining what might have happened.
Muse sent a sidelong glance to Grace's erstwhile savior, Creole Levalois, shocked as was humanly possible at the obvious romantic connection between the two unlikely lovers. But lately, impossible things had been happening at an alarming rate, so Muse decided to take her sister's falling for a bad-boy cop as just another.
The four of them, including Remi, were taken to the district station and thoroughly grilled and debriefed by both the FBI and NOPD. Afterward, they went to grab a late supper at a nearby restaurant.
That's when Remi hit her with the news.
"It's not over, you realize that, right, Muse?"
She blinked. "What?"
"I have to get you out of New Orleans tonight."
She gazed at him in disbelief. "Davies is dead, Remi. In case you didn't notice, I shot him." She gave a little chuckle but nobody laughed with her.
"We still don' know who the informer is. You're in danger until he's exposed."
"How so?"
He gave her some convoluted explanation about loose ends. She dug in her heels. "No. Grace needs me."
Creole's arm rested casually along the back of her sister's chair, making a powerful statement by its mere presence there. "Grace will be all right," he said.
"I'm fine, Muse," she agreed quietly. Grace had been unusually quiet all evening.
Muse glanced between Creole and her sister, and it dawned on her maybe she was intruding where she wasn't wanted.
All right, fine. Family loyalty and responsibility weren't just about riding to the rescue—though it might have been nice to receive a thank-you. Had she ever thanked Grace when she'd pulled Muse out of scrapes? She'd have to remember to do so again, just in case. Anyway, no, family loyalty and responsibility weren't just about helping but also about butting out when you're not wanted.
"Okay, so Grace doesn't need me."
And being happy for your sister when she'd finally found someone who so obviously loved her.
And Muse was happy.
She gifted them with a smile, then turned to Remi, whose expression had gone, if possible, even more sullen. "What?"
"We'll talk about it after we get out of here." He finished the last bite of his meal and reached for his glass, draining that, too.
"I don't want to leave town."
"You'll go where I tell you to go."
Her jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"
His lips thinned. "You're suddenly so big on responsibility. Well, you're my responsibility. Morris hasn't taken me off the case, or relieved me of my baby-sitting duty. I'm in charge of you, and until that changes, you'll do as I say."
"Baby-sitting?"
She regarded him, speechless. Was this the same man who'd shared her bed last night, who'd surrendered to her every whim, who'd made her feel if she'd asked for the moon and the stars he'd somehow get them for her?
With whom she'd fallen so much in love that it hurt?
Was it all a lie? Just to get her where he wanted her?
She shoved her plate away. "Right. Let's go."
Grace peered at her as though she hadn't heard a word. Creole just squirmed in his chair, then rose along with Remi.
Out front he hailed a taxi. Muse managed to hold it together long enough to say
a warm goodbye to Grace and give Creole a hug.
"Don't worry, I'll see she gets back home safely," he assured her.
"Then I'll see you soon," she said, throwing a glare toward Remi. "Just as soon as my bossy, overbearing, so-called bodyguard stops jumping at shadows."
"Agent Beaulieux has your best interests at heart," Creole replied softly. "You do what he says."
Obviously, a conspiracy between overbearing men. Poor Grace.
Still, she couldn't help but like her sister's new admirer. He exuded empathy and solid goodwill, and Muse knew he really was only thinking of her. Unlike a certain other man.
She slid into the taxi, careful not to bump up against Remi as they drove to the warehouse to retrieve their cars.
How had it all come to this?
Suddenly the weight of the day was too much to bear. Her heart was stone heavy, her shoulders seemed to carry a ton of burdens. All she wanted was to find a corner somewhere, crawl into a ball and sleep. Or cry. She'd been doing that a lot lately.
Why did everything always go so terribly wrong in her life?
All she'd wanted was … was to show Grace and Remi, and herself, that she was capable of being like her sister. Loyal, reliable, responsible. Muse had done everything she could to prove she was worthy of their trust.
Yet Grace hadn't seemed particularly surprised or overjoyed at her actions. And all Remi saw was that she'd disobeyed his orders, taking it as a personal betrayal that she'd chosen to defy him and his blessed plan for the sake of her sister's safety.
Didn't they realize she'd do anything, anything at all, to win their respect? Even kill the man who'd threatened them both?
She scrunched back in the uncomfortable taxi seat and felt the stinging in her eyes begin.
She'd killed a man.
Actually killed a man.
Oh, God help her.
The floodgates opened, and every emotion she'd felt over the past week descended on her like a tidal wave. Crushing her.
"Muse?"
"Go away," she gasped. What was the use? He'd never understand what she'd done or why.
She hadn't even understood it herself, until just now. And the most terrible part was, it had all been an exercise in futility.
"Chère?"
She felt herself being lifted from the seat, but was oddly powerless to resist. Her arms wouldn't function, she couldn't even find her hands, and she couldn't see, either.