Voodoo or Die

by Stephanie Bond

  "I'm Zane Riley," he bit out, erasing all doubts.

  She took a step back, gouging the corner of the desk into the back of her thigh. His appearance was so surreal that she was swamped with fear and confusion, as if she had stepped into another time dimension.

  "I know," she said on an exhale. At his surprised look, she gave herself a mental shake. "That is, I heard, that the t-town has a new chief of police."

  "And you're the new attorney," he said with disinterest, bending over Steve.

  "Yes," she murmured. Of course he wouldn't recognize her. If he remembered Lorey Lawson at all, he remembered her as a blonde, not a brunette, with stick-straight hair, not spiral curls, and blue eyes, not green. Having lush curves, not compact muscles she'd honed through kickboxing. Wearing brightly colored clothing, not the browns and beiges that had become her staples. And speaking with a heavy Jersey accent, not the generic pronunciation she had perfected with a diction coach while she'd attended law school in Arizona.

  "Ms. Gaston said you administered chest compressions," he said, feeling for a pulse and seeming satisfied. "You probably saved his life."

  Between the shrill siren of the ambulance arriving and the fact that Zane Riley was looking at her and talking to her, gooseflesh raced over her arms and shoulders. A shudder overtook her, and she had to cross her arms to get a grip on her emotions. "I... did what anyone would do."

  She stepped aside as the ambulance workers rushed in and checked Steve Chasen's vitals, then transferred him to a gurney, hooked him up to oxygen, and swept him out of the shattered room.

  "I'm riding in the ambulance," Marie announced.

  "Is there someone I can call?" Gloria asked.

  "I'll check his wallet for emergency numbers and call on the way if I find any," the young woman said, then rushed out.

  "You'd better get out of here, too, ma'am," Zane said, touching her arm. "The roof might have been compromised."

  He was studying the ceiling, unaware that his casual touch had practically set her on fire. She noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, and she wasn't sure how that made her feel. Then he looked at her.

  "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

  She panicked—did he see past her carefully contrived disguise? She averted her gaze. "Gloria," she mumbled. "Gloria Dalton."

  He gave her a tight smile. "Ms. Dalton, I need to ask you some questions about Mr. Chasen and the accident."

  "Okay," she said, immediately nervous at the thought of spending time with him. "Let me get my purse and briefcase. I'll meet you outside."

  "I'll phone a tow truck," he offered and walked through the hallway with her. His long stride came back to her in a rush, the way he moved next to her, walking a half step behind, as if to protect her. She closed her eyes briefly to will away the ache that settled in her chest. Her mind whirled with a thousand questions—what happened next?

  At her office door she veered off and walked woodenly to her desk. She put her hands on the back of her chair and leaned forward, gasping for air. She'd dreamed of seeing Zane again, but deep down, she had known it wouldn't happen, had known it couldn't happen, not when her safety was still at risk... along with anyone else who knew her true identity.

  "Ms. Dalton, are you okay?"

  Zane stood at the door, his shoulders back and his face creased in professional concern, as if he didn't need another unwell person on his hands.

  "Just a little shaken up," she said, straightening. Over seeing you again.

  "I don't mean to hurry you," he said in a voice that clearly indicated he did mean to hurry her, "but I have a lot to get to today."

  "Right," she said, a little surprised at his brusque behavior. He seemed to have developed a hard crust, which was natural, she conceded, especially considering his line of work. "I'll be right there."

  She picked up her briefcase and purse, still reeling. When she'd driven the short distance to work this morning, she couldn't have imagined what a turn her life would take. What were the odds that she and Zane would wind up in the same small Louisiana town at the same time?

  And poor Steve Chasen—when he'd left his house, he couldn't have imagined how his short commute would end.

  As Gloria made her way back to the hallway, she remembered the voodoo doll. Glancing toward the rear door, she saw Zane on his cell phone, his back to her. She picked her way to the desk, where she stooped to recover the bizarre gift. A brisk breeze blew through the gaping hole in the wall, kicking up dust and small pieces of debris. The car sitting in the lobby looked positively cartoonish.

  Beneath the edge of the desk lay a Hartmann briefcase, presumably Steve's. From it spilled folders with names on them—clients, no doubt. Steve had told her he'd been working from home to sort Deke's files. Gloria removed the folders and stuffed them into her own briefcase. She shouldered her bag and hefted Steve's briefcase in one hand. Then, with her heart thumping, she retrieved the grotesque little voodoo doll and the crushed burgundy gift box it had come in.

  She walked outside just as Zane was putting away his phone. "The tow truck should be here soon. Does one of those briefcases belong to Mr. Chasen?"

  She nodded and handed him the Hartmann briefcase. When he looked at her, she was struck all over again with disbelief that after all these years of wondering what had happened to the quiet, handsome, good-hearted teenager she'd fallen head over heels in love with, he was standing a mere arm's length away.

  Her hands itched to touch him. Her skin felt too small to contain her emotions.

  "Can you tell me what happened?" he asked, pulling out a notebook.

  My father was murdered and my mother and I were hustled away in the middle of the night, given new identities, and told to forget the lives and the people we'd left behind.

  "Ms. Dalton," he said sharply. "I know this has been a great shock to you, but I have to get your version of what happened while it's still fresh in your mind."

  His irritation helped her focus. "I don't know what I can tell you other than I looked up and saw the car coming toward the window. Marie and I barely had time to react."

  "You were both standing in the reception area?"

  "Yes."

  He whistled low. "You are one lucky lady."

  His observation put a sheen of perspiration on her upper lip. She had never considered herself particularly lucky—in fact, just the opposite. But at this moment she was feeling... charmed. And mystified.

  "Did you notice if Mr. Chasen braked before impact?"

  "It seemed to me that he sped up, but it all happened so fast, I can't be sure."

  "Did he have any medical conditions that you were aware of?"

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry—I really didn't know Steve Chasen very well I came to town to interview him, and we've talked on the phone several times. He oversaw the delivery of the new office furniture and supplies while I tied up loose ends in New Orleans. Today would have been the first day we worked together."

  He closed his notebook. "Probably had a heart attack—he's young, but I've seen it happen."

  Zane's own father had died of a heart attack at a young age, she recalled with a pang of sympathy. She pressed her lips together and looked away—how would she be able to live in the same town and pretend they were strangers to each other? Zane Riley had been the cause of her metamorphosis from shy teenager to sexually aware young woman. They hadn't made love during those stolen hours in his bedroom while his mother had worked, but they had done everything short of it. Those intense, erotic sessions of learning every inch of each other's bodies had fueled her fantasies for years afterward.

  She clenched her hands and realized she still held the box and the voodoo doll. "Zane—" She blushed furiously and cursed her lapse. "I'm sorry—I mean, Chief Riley, I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but this was waiting for me when I arrived this morning." She removed the voodoo doll and handed it to him.

  He took the doll, then gave her a disapproving glare. "Is
this some kind of joke?"

  "No," she said, feeling warm around the collar. "I mean, maybe. I don't know who left it, or why, b-but the brown fabric looks like the fabric of the jacket that Steve Chasen is wearing."

  He raised his eyebrows. "So you're telling me this voodoo doll caused the accident? That's nice, Ms. Dalton—how would you propose that I write this up on a report?" He dropped the doll back into the crumpled box.

  She frowned, irritated that he'd made her out to be the village idiot. "But—"

  "Stop," he said, lifting his hand. "I've read all the stories about what happened in this town over the past few months, and I refuse to believe all that voodoo garbage." His mouth twitched downward. "Accidents happen and sick people do horrible things on their own, not because someone stuck a voodoo doll and made it happen."

  His phone rang, piercing the tense moment. "Chief Riley," he answered, his condescending gaze raking over her.

  Gloria's skin tingled under his obvious disdain. Between being knocked off balance by his appearance and revealing the voodoo doll, she probably did come off as someone who was a notarized-form short of being committed.

  He snapped his phone shut, then sighed. "That was the hospital. Steve Chasen went into cardiac arrest en route. He was dead on arrival."

  She covered her mouth. "Oh, no."

  "I'm sorry, Ms. Dalton, really I am. And I'd appreciate it if you kept this nonsense about a voodoo doll to yourself. One of the reasons I came to Mojo was to restore faith in the law enforcement around here. I can't do that if you get everybody stirred up over a bunch of black magic baloney." He leaned in, his eyes challenging. "Do we have an understanding?"

  Behind her fingers, she nodded mutely.

  He made a rueful noise, then suddenly reached forward and took her hand.

  She inhaled sharply at his touch, her senses jarred, then she realized he was scrutinizing the forgotten cut.

  "You'd better have this looked at," he said. "It's a deep cut."

  "I'm okay," she said hurriedly, trying to pull her hand away from his unnervingly familiar touch.

  But instead of releasing her, he removed a snowy handkerchief from his back pocket and wrapped it around her hand. She stood mesmerized, thinking how his long, gentle fingers had matured into the hands of a man accustomed to dealing with emergencies and carrying a weapon. Tiny jolts of electricity shot up her arm. He had no idea what he was doing to her.

  He gave her hand a pat, then he nodded toward the tow truck pulling in. "Let me have a word with the driver, then I'll take you to the doctor's office."

  It was a statement, not a question. She watched him as he strode away, his broad shoulders set in a line that said he wasn't a man who would suffer fools... especially fools who believed in voodoo. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to calm her whirling mind. How was she going to handle this... proximity? Maybe if she played the resident kook, Zane would give her a wide berth.

  Then she stared down at the voodoo doll someone had left, unable to believe Steve Chasen was dead... and unable to shake the feeling that no matter how improbable, there was a connection between the two events.

  And if so, it still wouldn't be the strangest thing that had happened today.

  She massaged the headache that had mushroomed behind her eyes. An hour ago, her life had been simply messed up. Now simply messed up looked pretty damned good.

  A dead paralegal and a resurrected boyfriend. What was it that Marie had said?

  Welcome to Mojo.

  Chapter 4

  "I could have driven myself to the doctor's office," Gloria murmured to Zane's profile. She sat as close to the door of his cruiser as was humanly possible. She was self-conscious about any mannerisms that might inadvertently give her away.

  "I thought you might get more attention with a police escort." He gave her a little smile, as if it was an effort to make his mouth work that way. "Maybe you'll be in and out more quickly—I assume you'll want to supervise your office being boarded up."

  She winced. "That reminds me—I need to call my landlord, Mona Black."

  "The mayor is your landlord?"

  "The man's practice I'm taking over, Deke Black, was her son."

  His jaw hardened. "From what I've heard, he wasn't the most upstanding guy."

  "No," Gloria agreed. "He represented the voodoo museum on legal matters and was aware of the goings-on there, but no one is sure of the extent of his involvement. His ex-wife, Penny, knows he was no saint, but she believes he was murdered because he was on the verge of exposing the situation."

  "Penny's the lady who runs the health food store across from the pink Victorian?"

  "Right—The Charm Farm." She gave a little laugh. "But the pink house is a bit of a sore spot for Penny. She and Deke renovated the Victorian. When they split up, his girlfriend Sheena moved in and had it painted, um... that color. Sheena still lives there."

  "She's the lady who runs the tanning salon?"

  "You've met her?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  Gloria bristled. Of course the busty blonde would go out of her way to meet the handsome new chief of police—not that it was any business of hers who Zane associated with. He'd obviously been with dozens of other women over the years not to have noticed anything about her that was remotely recognizable. She rerouted the subject. "The girl with the blue hair, Marie Gaston, works for Penny."

  "Ah. And Penny hangs out with B.J. Beaumont."

  "Yes. They met a couple of months ago, when he came to town working on a missing persons case."

  "That's what led him to the voodoo museum."

  "Right—and why the governor asked B.J. and his brother Kyle to be on the task force."

  "You seem to know a lot about the people in this town to be new yourself," he commented, a curious note in his voice.

  She squirmed under his interest, even if it was only casual. "I represented Penny in her divorce and when the police questioned her about Deke's death. I got to know a few people around here."

  "Is that why you moved here?"

  "Partly," she said, not wanting to mention her Meniere's attacks. Zane had been with her once when she'd suffered an attack in high school—it might jog a memory. "I was tired of practicing family law in the city. My workload was about eighty percent divorce settlements. I thought practicing in a small town would allow me to do more things."

  "To find yourself?" he asked with a little smile.

  She nodded, transfixed by his lopsided smile and by the irony that she'd landed in the one town where now she couldn't possibly be herself.

  "I know what you mean," he said vaguely, as if he, too, were on some kind of personal quest. "Where are you from originally?"

  Caught off guard, she hesitated before offering her practiced answer. "Wisconsin."

  His eyebrows went up. "You don't sound like you're from Wisconsin."

  "That's because I've lived all over." That, at least, was the truth. "What about you?" she asked, a glutton to hear the mundane details about his life that were burned into her permanent memory.

  "I grew up in a small town in Jersey," he said.

  You played receiver for the Dillard Hill Diamondbacks. You were a straight-A student in math and biology. You drove a battered blue Ford Tempo that leaked oil. And the sound of your laugh took my breath away.

  "But I've spent most of my adult life in the South," he continued.

  "Do you have a family?" she asked, digging her fingernails into her thigh.

  "Not of my own," he said, his voice rueful.

  The news made her chest squeeze painfully—partially because she remembered that he had wanted his own family someday, and partially because she'd been half-hoping for a wife and kids to put emotional distance between her heart and his body.

  "My mother is still up North," he said. "And my sister is married and has two boys. They're great." He smiled the first smile that reminded her of the old Zane, a smile that made his gray eyes flash like silver.

  Litt
le Lisa, she marveled—married with two children. Zane's sister had been a pesky eleven-year-old when she and Zane had dated, conspiring to interrupt their make-out sessions whenever they'd been at Zane's house pretending to study.

  "How about you?" he asked.

  She looked down at her loosely wrapped hand. "No. No family." She tried to laugh. "There's something about handling divorces that makes a person think twice about settling down." And there was the little issue of struggling to trust a man while simultaneously lying about her entire background.

  "But you came to Mojo for a change, didn't you?"

  She turned her head to find him studying her. It was the first indication that he'd noticed her as a woman rather than a resident in need of his services.

  The realization sent a lump to her throat and a thrum of desire to her stomach. It was impossible to look at Zane and not remember him as she'd known him—young, cocky, and achingly sexy.

  The softness of youth had passed from his face, leaving sharp features, and the cockiness had been replaced with confidence. And heaven help her, the man was still sexy enough to make her forget her name.

  Her new name, that is.

  She hadn't felt like Lorey Lawson in years, but one look into his gray eyes and she was sixteen all over again, with heaving hormones driving her to distraction. With a jolt, she realized he was waiting for a response. What had he asked her?

  "Um, yes... I did come to Mojo for a change." She cast about for a segue out of dangerous territory. "The town itself seems poised for change."

  "More like being forced to change," Zane said, his voice taking on a hard edge. "It makes a person wonder how something like what went on at the museum could have happened under everyone's noses."

  "The people arrested were trusted members of the community," she offered.

  He scanned the quiet streets of the picturesque town, slowing before driving around the town square. Children ran around the giant Christmas tree that had been erected in the center of the square, old men sat on park benches eating sausages, and women carried colorful shopping bags.