by Nancy Gideon
Would he remember that price when surrounded by those tragic reminders?
He flinched when she took up his cold hand. His fingers finally curled tight about hers. Tension and a strained anticipation vibrated from him as his unblinking gaze fixed upon the front door.
I’ve got you, baby. I‘m right here.
She wasn’t sure he’d picked up the message until his clasp squeezed gently, then relaxed, but didn’t let go. And his relief was palpable when Giles met them at the door.
“Hey, boss man. C’mon in.”
“You could have said something about the visit earlier today.” Censure edged Max’s claim.
“Didn’t know about it until just a bit ago. You know how ladies like their surprises. Well, surprise. Welcome home.” He moved aside to let them enter, and Cee Cee felt the past buffet Max like a forceful gust.
He took in the surroundings with an emotionless attention to details. The wide, curving stairs, the marble tiles, the floor-to-ceiling doors opening into the formal parlor, and the set opposite that was closed. The ones leading to Jimmy’s office. Her questions buzzed to be asked. Did he recognize anything? What was he feeling? Were the sights and scents familiar? Did they spark any associations? But she bit her lip and let him take it all in slowly, at his own pace.
“Our guests have arrived,” Giles called out.
Brigit MacCreedy ascended the staircase like a glam '30s movie star. The cling of her shiny dress with its twists of glittery netting at the bold neckline made her look like an inviting flute of pale champagne. Gorgeous, composed and confident of her sexuality, she was everything Cee Cee wanted to dislike. Until Giles moved to the foot of the steps, a stunned stupid smile on his face. He offered his hand and murmured something that sounded like, “Goddess.”
As he lifted her fingertips to his lips, her beautifully superficial mask fell away for just an instant.
How could Cee Cee hate someone who gazed upon her friend with such obvious contentment?
Stroking his square jaw lightly, Brigit corrected, “I believe technically we are their guests.”
Stepping into the big house quickened a flurry of emotions in Cee Cee. It was the lair of her worst enemy, the place where she and Max had fought their fears and, at times, each other. The penthouse in New Orleans became a refuge away from the long simmering pressures within these walls, a pretense, an illusion of faux lives they’d created out of necessity and convenience. This rundown estate with its haunting souls and melancholy shadows held the truth of their relationship. The struggles, the betrayals, the passion, the dreams. What would that seeping atmosphere stir in Max? Something, she hoped. Anything, she prayed.
“Mr. Savoie, Detective, welcome home.”
That their dour housekeeper would include her in that greeting clutched about Cee Cee’s heart. The solid woman who’d once been so disapproving followed that pronouncement with an accepting nod toward her.
“Thank you, Helen. I’m looking forward to a decent meal at a real table.”
“It’s ready any time you are.” Though she deferred to Cee Cee, Helen’s attention was on Max who’d grown up under her care. Having controlled a mobster’s household for decades, her features were carefully schooled, but there was no disguising the softening of her gaze as they beheld one another. Max gave away nothing but then, Helen would be used to that. Until she said with a gentle scold, “You are far too thin for my liking. We’ll have to do something about that.”
He blinked away a suspicious shininess before rumbling, “I’m in your capable hands, as always.”
The four of them sat down at Jimmy’s banquet-sized table to a meal befitting a 5-Star city restaurant. While Helen’s pretty daughter Jasmine served, Giles and Brigit directed conversation with a relaxed banter, putting the other pair at ease.
“How’s my brother?” Brigit asked with feigned indifference. “Has he recovered from your adventure at the docks?”
“Thanks to Max and Giles’s timing,” Cee Cee assured her. “Back to work with hardly a hobble.”
“Ummm. Always the job first. Tell him his sister worries and that a call wouldn’t have killed him. Though his neglect of her just might.”
Sensing the other’s carefully hidden hurt under the air of annoyance, Cee Cee smiled. “I’ll remind him of his priorities. Family first.”
And that was all it took for Brigit to warm up to her. “Now that Tina and Oscar have moved back home, I have way too much time stuck out here with nothing to do but imagine the worst.”
Giles caught her hand as she reached for her wine, giving it a playful kiss. “You have me.”
“And a delightful distraction you are when you’re not in the city or doing homework.”
“Homework? You weren’t just kidding before?” Cee Cee shot the big bodyguard an “explanation needed” look. He just looked uncomfortable. Brigit filled her in with great relish. And pride. Another reason to like her.
“He’s taking classes to finish his degree. He was in law school at Harvard when Legere got his hooks into him and made the law something to hide from instead of something to pursue.”
Both Max and Cee Cee stared at Giles until a ruddy color rose in his cheeks.
“It’s no big deal. Something to fall back on when I retire from being a thug.”
“It’s a very big deal,” Brigit corrected. “He’s going to intern with Antoine D’Marco until he can go out on his own.” Her gaze slanted toward Max. “Seeing to business interests in more acceptable circles than D’Marco can reach.”
Shifting awkwardly in his seat, Giles mumbled, “I’m doing it for my family, not to extort work from my boss. Bree, stop embarrassing me.”
“Tony will take care of you,” Max assured him. “He knows the law, not just how to bend it. He had a well-respected practice before some dealings with Vic Vantour got unpleasant media attention and him almost disbarred. Kinda limited his clientele after that. You’d be wise not to make the same mistakes.”
“No worries,” Giles promised. “My days as a wise guy are winding down. Gotta look toward providing for my other half’s expensive tastes.” He grinned as Brigit gave him a swat then ravaged her with a look. “Worth every penny.”
“You’ve always got a place to stay here. These ole rooms could use some laughter and good times to shake the dust off 'em. I’d be honored if you’d think of it as your home.”
The couple stared at Max then at each other, Brigit hopeful, Giles a bit more reserved.
“'Til we can get our own feet under us, at least. Can’t say I know what the future holds, but for now, we appreciate the roof over our heads, boss man.”
Max’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think of you as an employee, Giles.”
Giles grinned wider. “Yeah? Just don’t go taking me off the payroll. Got obligations to see to. Need that health plan.”
Max smiled, appreciating his humor, and turned to the remainder of his meal with more gusto.
Watching him, Cee Cee tamped down the flicker of excitement. When he’d spoken of the estate’s attorney, he wasn’t reciting something he’d heard.
He was repeating something he remembered.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The meal was heaven. Warm, rich, delicious, each mouthful an explosion of flavors and spices. Max imagined sitting to Helen’s table would have been the best part of living in this mobster’s paradise. He forced himself to eat slowly to savor and enjoy when his instinct was to consume everything with the urgency of someone who’d known hunger. Never under this roof of plenty. Those learned behaviors would have come from the darkness of his childhood. From things best not recalled.
As he drank the wine Cee Cee poured so generously, Max began to chafe with unsettling déjà vu. Like whispers of a conversation just out of earshot, the familiarity of the room, the food, the very scent of his surroundings had him straining to understand what they were trying to tell him. That dull pulse of pressure returned to muddy interpretation. A troubling restlessn
ess continued to build, stirring anxiety like ripples in a pond.
It’s not real. It never happened. This is all a lie.
He gave his head a shake to clear it, but the insistent whisper continued, soft and sinister.
They aren’t your friends.
No. That wasn’t true. Who’d planted such an idea? Giles’s was the first face he recalled, the rock he’d clung to. Charlotte was the heart of his past, the dream of his future.
They’ll hurt you.
His breathing quickened. His heart began to race as he clutched at the edge of the table. He didn’t look up, afraid what he’d imagine behind the smiling faces surrounding him.
Run, Max! Run!
Max pushed back from the table with a screech of wood across wood, drawing their concerned stares.
“Too much wine,” he announced. “I’m going to walk it off for a bit. If that’s all right?”
Catching the defensive challenge in his words, Cee Cee was quick to soothe, “Of course. It’s your house.”
They want to use you, hurt you. Get away while you can.
He forced himself to walk calmly to the door when self-preservation screamed for him to flee. Glancing back, he could see them murmuring together.
Conspiring . . .
Once out of sight in the cavernous foyer, Max pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, trying to squeeze out the doubts and troubled fears pounding beneath the surface. These were his friends, he reminded himself. He was safe with them. He could trust them.
So why the crippling sense of alarm? Was it this place that agitated him? Or was it the whisper of returning madness?
He’s not what he seems.
Max glanced down the long hall, his gaze fixing upon the closed door. The urge to seek safety inside both compelled and repulsed him. Instead, he entered the parlor for a look at the pretentious and uncomfortable antiques. He was drawn to the ornate sofa to trace fingertips along the carved wood. There on the sumptuous fabric he could envision an inviting Charlotte stretched out, naked and sated. Her dark, liquid gaze lifting to seek his.
Max took a quick step back, breath catching, shivering as if a ghost had reached out and brushed an icy hand against his cheek. In a sudden claustrophobic crush, he back-peddled into the hall, escaping the press of walls by slipping out into the heavy weight of early evening.
A storm was moving in off the Gulf. Moisture, thick and cloying, saturated the air into a damp curtain that dragged across bare skin. Cicadas screamed from the trees, their constant whirring adding to the unpleasant white noise in his head. For a moment, slightly feverish and disoriented, Max thought he might get sick, but the queasiness passed when he bumped against the porch glider. The hypnotic swing, back and forth, held him for a long moment, making him think of those pearls. Again, cool specters of the past crowded close, pushing aside the steamy touch of the night to quiver through him. Tendrils of fright, of pain, of confusion and distress roiled inside, so acute he nearly went to his knees. A child’s fear. A child’s anguish.
What the hell had happened to him in this house?
Cautiously, he walked along the rail, keeping his distance from the walls and dark windows that both imprisoned and invited. The feeling of being watched crawled over him. The surveillance cameras. Or ghosts from that past he couldn’t quite embrace? His attention turned to the long slope of rough-cut lawn that surrendered to a tangle of woods beyond.
Chase me. Find me.
The tease of those words sketched a brief smile on his face. Charlotte.
Don’t you run from me, you coward!
Max winced away from the anger steeped in that echoing shout. He began to move more purposefully along the old porch boards, as if he could outrun the murmuring all around him. Words he didn’t remember stirring feelings he couldn’t comprehend. It was too much. And not enough. He couldn’t make sense of them. Part of him didn’t want to.
And then a voice he did know coming from the open doors to the dining room.
“What if he doesn’t get better? What if none of it comes back? Are you still thinking about going back to Chicago?”
Giles’s frank questions made Max draw up and stand as still as the evening air.
“A suicide mission,” Brigit concluded. “One that I’m not going to let you throw yourself away on. Not this time.”
“Bree.”
“Don’t you Bree me, Giles St. Clair. All your debts here are paid. You owe it to me to be here for me and for— For me.”
“She’s right, Giles.” Cee Cee’s claim was quietly sensible. “I’d never ask Brigit or Nica to risk losing what I did. Never.”
“But he’s not gone,” Giles protested. “He’s just—asleep.”
“And that’s better than nothing.” Brigit’s summation was coolly practical.
“No,” Cee Cee argued. “It’s not. Would you settle for less than what you’ve been blessed to have and hold and enjoy? Would you be satisfied with an empty bottle of that expensive perfume you wear? Would you be content with just the whiff of fragrance as it fades instead of having it all smooth and warm on your skin, breathing it in with every breath, having it fill your senses until you’re light-headed and alive?”
Silence. So she continued. “No, of course you wouldn’t. I don’t want to settle. I want my Max back.”
Empty and unsatisfying. Could she have made herself more painfully clear? Could he blame her for not being content with less than what she’d known?
Max withdrew like that shadow of the man she believed he’d become, to be swallowed up in the cold embrace of darkness.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“How could he just disappear?”
Helen remained stoic in the face of the detective’s panic. “He used to do it all the time when he was younger. He’d be gone for days, but never outside these walls. He’s here close by, just out of sight. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry? He’s alone. He doesn’t know who he is.”
“He’ll be fine, Detective. If there’s one thing he’ll remember, it’s how to protect himself. And how to become invisible. You’ll find him when he’s ready to be found.”
Cee Cee had wanted to head back to the city. Her concern over Mary Kate chafed her nerves raw. She needed to find her, to begin a search. To come up with a way to cushion the truth that had shredded her vulnerable friend’s world. But she couldn’t walk away from Max, even though frustrated by the hide-and-seek game he was playing. Because she was also afraid for him.
She sighed. “Then I guess you’ll have overnight company.”
Helen was too professional to sound pleased. “I’ll freshen your room.”
The room she and Max had shared as lovers, as combatants, as friends, as mates.
Why would he run from the only people he knew? Cee Cee was asking herself that when she stepped back into the dining room and noticed the cooling scent of rain drifting in through the open doors. She peered through the parted drapes at the impenetrable blackness. And froze.
He’d heard them. He’d heard her discussing his worth as if he was no more than a useless gum wrapper to be discarded once relieved of its juicy filling.
And how that revelation must have hurt him.
She had to find him. Now. If she had to look in every room, every closet, pry up every floorboard.
Cee Cee was heading toward the stairs when her cell buzzed. She’d set it to go to voice mail. Her brow lowered at the name that came up. Philo Tibideaux? Not more bad news. Their case couldn’t butt up against many more dead ends. Or dead bodies.
Philo’s message was a whisper. “She’s with me, Detective. At Tito’s place. Thought you’d want to know she’s safe.”
The house was dark and still as the grave. Max moved about its long halls like one of the dead who refused to rest. He’d stayed carefully concealed from those who searched for him. Why let them find him when he couldn’t find himself? Giles and Brigit had retired to the modest servant’s room they shared on the
main floor. Though Brigit had commandeered several of the guest room closets to house her burgeoning wardrobe, apparently they preferred those close quarters to the more elegant comfort upstairs. Charlotte had finally settled into the suite they’d shared, where their belongings and scents mingled with the familiarity of old habits. He thought about going to her, drawn by the sound of her restless movements and by the plaintive apology she’d sent to soothe his mind.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.
How else could she have meant it?
Instead, he was lured with a reluctant fatalism to that room off the foyer and the secrets sequestered behind its closed doors. Jimmy Legere’s study.
The vast space was mostly empty except for a scarred desk, leather couch and a ratty old chair. Hardly the business hub one would expect from a man who controlled an international enterprise, and an archaic step backward from Max’s own gleaming LEI address on the waterfront. He remained on the threshold, slowly inhaling the traces that lingered of the man who’d been savior, mentor, father figure. Manipulator.
For a long moment, there was just the quiet of the night and the mustiness of disuse. He stood tense, waiting.
Max? Dat you, boy? Don’t go slinking about in the shadows. Come in here on your hind legs like a man. Take my hand and speak your piece.”
He advanced into the room, closing the door behind him. His palm outstretched automatically and hung there, open and empty. Laboring breaths echoed as he slowly lowered the supplicating gesture. Hairs stood on the back of his neck. Shivers rippled across his skin. The sense of being alone was eerily replaced by another presence.
“Jimmy?”
“Where you been, boy? Whatchu been up to?”
Then his own voice, murmuring words he, himself, wasn’t speaking, broke the tomblike silence. “Nothing, Jimmy. Just out for a run.”
“Running to or from something? Don’t lie to me, Max. You’ve never been any good at it. Come clean now. You got nothing to fear from me. You know that.”