Remembered by Moonlight

by Nancy Gideon

  Simon Cummings had no response. He looked to his wife impatiently. “Imogene Wayland has been trying to get your attention. You should talk to her. She carries a lot of community respect along with her family’s old money.”

  Things Max Savoie could never offer.

  Max smiled at Noreen. “I’ve monopolized enough of your time.” He took out his check book and scrawled a lengthy number. “Put this to good use.”

  She blinked at the sum then shocked her husband, and Max, by impulsively hugging the former mobster right in front of all that respectable old money. “Thank you. And I will. You can count on it.” Her tone softened. “Thank you, Max.”

  Cummings interrupted the embrace with a brusque tug on her arm, hurrying her off into the murmuring crowd, leaving Max alone in the center of those disapproving whispers. Anxiousness began to build within his chest, making his heart rate race and his head grow light. And suddenly, he saw all through a hot wash of flames. He took a stumbling step back where Giles’ fortifying grip and quiet voice steadied him.

  “I think you’ve overtaxed yourself, Mr. Savoie. I suggest you say your good-byes.”

  Furness’s huge hand settled on his shoulder. “That’s probably a good idea, Max.”

  He looked to the priest, and his vision focused. “But there’s so much I need to ask you.”

  “Another time, in more appropriate surroundings.”

  Before he could object that enough time had been wasted, Giles steered him toward the exit. He’d already given the gossips enough for one morning. Or maybe not.

  His path was blocked by a dramatically made-up woman in clothes too young for the harsh lines on her face. Her assertive manner had Max drawing up in defensive alarm.

  “Karen Crawford,” Giles whispered. “Reporter. Avoid her.”

  “Mr. Savoie,” the woman cooed as she motioned her cameraman closer. “This is your first public appearance since your accident some months ago. You’re looking well.” A hungry, detailing gaze swept over him. “Not at all like a man who sustained a near-fatal head injury.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving, Ms. Crawford. As a supporter of the Cummings Foundation, I felt the cause worth the effort.”

  “I see you’re solo for the event. Is Detective Caissie on some important case, or has your rumored affair with a Bourbon Street stripper created some estrangement between you?” Her microphone lunged at him like a knife.

  In a tone as sharp as a deflecting blade, Max told her, “I’m here for a humanitarian purpose, not to discuss my personal life. If you’ll excuse me.”

  But Crawford held her ground. “Did she excuse you, Mr. Savoie, or is there trouble in mobster paradise?”

  Max cupped her microphone in his palm. “No comment.” He gave it a push away from him and quickly maneuvered around her and her scandal-mongering crew, letting Giles clear his way to the exit. Once outside, he sucked in a huge draught of air and expelled it noisily. Then he gave Giles a pointed look.

  “Am I having an affair with a stripper that I should know about?”

  Giles laughed, finding his question quite hilarious, and herded him to the car. “You’d best ask Charlotte.”

  Max balked when Giles opened the rear door for him. “I’ll ride up front. Sitting in the back makes me uncomfortable.”

  A spasm of grief and regret twisted his friend’s pleasant features, but only for a moment. Another mystery to pursue, perhaps on the way back to his penthouse prison.

  “All right then. But driver picks tunes.”

  Max bent, about to slip into the vehicle, when a single word tore through his head like a bullet.

  “Max!”

  He gripped the metal frame, creasing it as his hands convulsed and knees buckled. Waves of heat, cold, and shaky sickness swept over him. Blood dripped from his nose, dotting his crisp white shirt front. From a long way away, he felt Giles grasp his arms to keep him from going down, from falling into that sudden sinkhole pulling at his senses.

  Just when he thought he might recover, the anxious voice came again, louder, sharper, slicing between his ears.

  “Help me, Max!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  “So?”

  Cee Cee glanced at her partner. “So, what?”

  “So what’s with you and Savoie?”

  Though she enjoyed her conversations with MacCreedy, this was one topic she wished to avoid. She stared determinedly out the windshield as they waited for a cargo container to be moved out of their way. “Things are fine.”

  “Define fine.”

  “Better than before.” Before, when Max had first opened his eyes in the back of the speeding SUV after she, Giles and Susanna freed him from an experimentation table in Chicago. When he’d looked up at her, eyes wild with disoriented panic. Before, when she’d told him her name and gotten no reaction. Before, when he’d fought and struggled against their attempts to penetrate the blankness those bastards in the North had left in his once razor-sharp mind. Now wasn’t great, but it was better.

  “He giving you any problems?” A hint of concern edged the calmly asked question.

  “No. We’ve come to a tentative arrangement. I’m not sure trust is involved yet, but need is a good substitute. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and I’m his best option at the moment.”

  How that truth hurt.

  For now, his desperation let her control him. But that wouldn’t last forever. Max was getting stronger every day. He’d been bred to adapt, to learn quickly, to blend in. Soon he’d be able to navigate this foreign world on his own. Without her.

  She tapped the dash with restless hands, eager to get moving. Anything to prevent Silas from pursuing the uncomfortable conversation. She wasn’t ready to bare a heart she’d kept carefully closed off until Max Savoie had found the way inside. “LaRoche is probably in his office at the club doing the books. Maybe he can shed some light on this mess at the morgue.” She glanced over her shoulder and frowned at the sight of semi-tractor and trailer backing across the pavement behind them. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is getting ridiculous.”

  MacCreedy looked in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t amused.

  “Hang on.”

  At his grim warning, Cee Cee grabbed the dash and the Oh Shit handle above the door to avoid being whipped about the bucket seat as Silas executed a sharp, tire-squealing turn, hoping to cut around the big rig before they were blocked in. No such luck. He backed quickly into another tight half circle to find their only two exits closed off.

  “Call for backup.” Silas began reaching toward the small of his back for his service piece. “This isn’t going to be pret—”

  There wasn’t time to brace, as a lift truck suddenly appeared on the driver’s side. Violent impact rocked the vehicle as its raised forks pierced through the door panel. One impaled MacCreedy’s thigh, pinning him as they were steadily pushed toward the edge of the wharf and the deep waters far below.

  “Silas!” Cee Cee reached frantically for his seat belt, but his hip was smashed against the dividing console. She couldn’t get to the release.

  He pushed her away, his features tight and gray with pain. “No time. Get out. Get out!”

  Gun in hand, Cee Cee pulled herself through the passenger side window, crouching over the roof to get off several shots at the driver of the lift. The car shook, spoiling her aim, sending her bullets careening off the protective roll cage.

  Then, a tremendous jolt as they hit the raised lip of the pier sent her flailing backwards. There was nowhere to go but over the side. And down. With the now driverless forklift still joined and following.

  Cee Cee instinctively flung out a mental distress call as she pushed away from the plunging vehicles so they wouldn’t come down on top of her. She hit the river’s murky surface. The hard slap of it against her spine knocked most of the breath from her. As water closed over her head, she sent another frantic psychic cry, not knowing if it would be heard.

  Finally the shock of impact
lessened, allowing her to kick arms and legs in a struggle not to get caught up in the sinking tangle of metal. Instead of heading for the surface and her own safety, she dove, following the hazy shapes all the way to the bottom. The car hit first on the passenger side with the fork truck above it, then rolled onto its roof as the heavy lift toppled over to settle on the silty bottom beside it.

  Mac!

  It was almost impossible to see with the already dirty water clouded by the disturbance to its floor. Cee Cee felt her way along the undercarriage, trying to find entrance to the upended coupe. The force of landing with the weight of the forklift on top had crushed the passenger side like a trash compactor. The space where she’d been sitting was obliterated. She couldn’t get inside and could only hope the damage had sealed in a pocket of air to keep her partner alive. She couldn’t carry news to Nica that her new husband had died after insisting Cee Cee save herself. Help. She had to get help.

  Kicking fiercely upward, she broke the surface. Gasping noisily for air, half expecting a hail of bullets to rain down, she searched for any sign of movement along the edge of the dock above. Someone had to have seen them go over.

  No one appeared.

  The wall, slick with slime, offered no hand holds.

  Taking a determined breath, she jackknifed back down. The water had begun to clear, but the river’s natural yellow-brown filter still obstructed a good visual. A gentle trail of bubbles coming up from the crippled vehicle gave her a burst of hope, but time still slipped away far too quickly as she worked her way over to the driver’s side. She pounded her palms against the ruptured door panel, listening for a response from inside. Nothing.

  Dammit Mac, hang on!

  Emotion cramped about her oxygen-starved lungs as she continued her futile search for some way to breach the car’s exterior. Even if she could smash in the cracked windshield, would she be able to free her partner as the water rushed inside? She couldn’t see through the webbed glass to gauge MacCreedy’s condition. Odds were she was already too late, but Silas had an uncanny way around the odds. An involuntary moan of anguish escaped the tight press of her lips, carrying the sound to the surface in a trickle of little air pockets. Air Silas MacCreedy no longer had.

  Something hit the water above her. A dark shape plummeted downward. She couldn’t tell what or who it was until she caught a glimpse of red.

  From Max Savoie’s hightops.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cee Cee’s relief was short-lived as Max gripped her arm and began to tow her toward the surface. Her tenacious struggle surprised him until he followed her desperate gestures toward the car. Max quickly studied the scene as a large hook on a sturdy cable came drifting down from above. Before Cee Cee could react, he applied his heel to the windshield and, as it caved inward, secured the hook to the frame. Together, they tugged on that life line. Slowly it went taut and began to retract. The car started to rise off the bottom but the weight of the forklift dragged on it, slowing the upward progress.

  Seeing the problem, Max wedged himself into a small space between the vehicle and the lift. When an alarmed Cee Cee tried to intervene, he waved her away and braced his back against the fork truck. At first he was pulled forward, and Cee Cee had a terrifying vision of him getting knocked over and crushed beneath it. But his knees locked and his heels dug in until he was nearly up to mid-calf in river bed. And there, he held.

  Slowly, agonizingly, the two vehicles began to separate, the forks tearing from the car with a muffled scream of steel. And then the coupe, with MacCreedy inside, started upward.

  Chest burning, Cee Cee grabbed Max’s arm, supporting him as he wrestled free of the bottom so they could swim up together. By the time they broke the surface, gasping and coughing, the car was safely on the wharf, and a heavy rope had been lowered to them. Max positioned the wheezing police detective behind him and curled her arm about his neck.

  “Hold on.”

  She clung in shivery relief as he began to climb, lifting them out of what might have become their underwater grave.

  Finally, on legs nearly as liquid as the river, Cee Cee ran ahead with a strength born of fear toward the crushed vehicle where Giles St. Clair was prying open the door. She pushed through the small cluster of workers who had gathered on the now unobstructed dockside. Where had they been when they were needed? But only one question mattered now.

  “Is he alive?”

  MacCreedy slumped in the seat, shoulder belt holding him upright. She reached around him to release the buckle, letting him spill into her arms. Carefully, she maneuvered him from the car and laid him on the wet concrete. He was pale and unresponsive, so she began mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.

  “C’mon, Mac. Don’t do this,” she cried almost angrily.

  Max stood back and watched her work, her expression fierce, her actions quick and competent. An amazing female. Such reckless courage. Such devotion. Risking everything for one who wasn’t even her own kind. Staying under to the very last seconds, until she was certain all had been done that could be. And now, even exhausted and weak, she battled to revive that life she’d been willing to surrender her own to save.

  He could still hear the faint vibration of her call. Like some kind of beacon, it led them right to her. Reading the story of what had happened in the scorch marks on the pavement, he’d jumped in without hesitation while Giles ran to commandeer the needed assistance topside. And they’d been able to save her and hopefully, her partner. She wouldn’t have left MacCreedy. Max knew that with a shaky certainty. She would never leave behind someone she cared about. Even now, as she tried to force life back into the body of her colleague and friend.

  She’d called to him. What was that? How was it possible? This strange connection he felt with her, just how deep did it go? Just how intimately were they linked? At the hearts? At the souls? At the psyches?

  MacCreedy’s chest gave a sudden hitch, then a great gout of dirty water erupted from his mouth. Cee Cee rocked back on her heels, her hand stroking through his crisply cut hair, tears finally streaking her face now that it didn’t matter. She rolled him gently to his side so he could cough his lungs clear. Then, while Giles made a tourniquet with his belt and used his jacket to bind the gaping leg wound, MacCreedy’s eyes blinked open. Cee Cee palmed the side of his ashen face, greeting him with a smile.

  “You scared the shit outta me,” she scolded. “Don’t do that again. Good partners are too hard to find.”

  Silas managed a small smile before his consciousness waned.

  Then her attention turned to Max. The complexity of that look made his heart skip a startled beat.

  “Talk about nick of time. Thank you.”

  “Glad to be so punctual, Detective.”

  Her gaze softened, then with a blink, she turned to Giles, all business once more. “Let’s get him to Susanna. I don’t like the looks of that leg.” As she stood, she leaned over to touch a light kiss to the human’s cheek, murmuring, “Thank you, too.”

  Something growled through Max at the sight of that tender gesture. Something that felt a lot like possessiveness.

  When he recognized their destination, Max froze. The Institute. Its low, long lines and careful landscaping were inviting, its purpose a total deception. Touted as a research, recovery and long term rehabilitation care facility, it was that . . . and much more. From Giles Max learned that he’d purchased controlling interest in the failing privately-funded clinic to arrange for special treatment for Charlotte’s best friend Mary Kate Malone, as well as for those potentially compromised Shifters who needed observation. He’d obviously never dreamed he’d be locked inside as a patient, but he could testify rather begrudgingly to its security and discretion.

  Susanna Duchamps ran a cutting-edge lab within its walls. There, unencumbered by species politics, she continued studying Shifter genetics based upon the astounding discoveries she’d made since escaping tight supervision in Chicago. Jacques’s mate was a tremendous addition to th
eir cause and their community, and even though he could sense her differences, she’d earned his respect if not yet his trust.

  But he still didn’t like being under her roof.

  As they followed the gurney rushing MacCreedy down the hall, Max could feel eyes upon him. Eyes that recognized him as the wailing, snarling wild thing they’d caged within their walls, now returned amongst them in a soaking-wet Armani suit. He didn’t blame them for their uneasiness. It sparked through him like electricity.

  Because this place reminded him of another in the North.

  Then Cee Cee’s hand touched to the back of his shoulder. A brief stroke, settling him like smoothing raised nap on velvet.

  A tall, whipcord lean woman with black hair flying in a heavy braid raced down the hall toward them. Her deep blue eyes fixed upon Cee Cee while her hands clutched the man on the cart.

  “What’s happened? Is he all right?”

  “A tussle on the docks. Thanks to Max, he’ll be fine.”

  Her intense gaze rose to him. He remembered meeting her. Nica Fraser. Silas’s mate. Former assassin for the North. No one to be on the wrong side of. And at this moment, vulnerable with gratitude.

  Her wide mouth trembled. “Thank you,” she whispered then turned her attention back to her husband.

  At the brush of her fingertips along his jaw, MacCreedy opened his eyes and focused on her anxious features.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi, yourself, hero. I’d never forgive you if you made our child fatherless before he was born.”

  “I’ll try to be more careful.”

  “You do that, lover.” Keeping up with the pace of the gurney, she bent to kiss him, conveying with that brief gesture the enormity of the love between them.

  After observing them, Max glanced at the woman beside him. Was this how it had been between them? This desperate, unbreakable bond of emotion that made two into inseparable one?

  Susanna Duchamps came trotting toward them, her attention on her new patient as she calmly asked for details. By the time she’d heard them, she had a plan formulated.