“I think I’ll retire for the evening,” Cecilia said as she passed him. “Join me?”
Liam let a torturous second or two go by, then pushed away from the rail. “Aye,” he said. “I suppose I might.”
He was kissing her well before they reached the cabin—in the hallway, in fact, up against the wooden wall, perilously close to the tilting lantern. He kicked the cabin door open and pulled her inside, already unfastening her belt and leaving it in a pile on the floor as he walked her relentlessly back, toward the bed. Her shirt marked another step, and his joined it. Boots next. Trousers.
By the time they reached the bed itself, they were naked and warm and entirely consumed with tastes and touches and not at all with thought. Liam’s hands slid around Cecilia’s head, combing through her thick short hair, and he devoured her mouth in hungry, desperate kisses with all the feverish energy of lightning striking.
When he pulled back, Cecilia found herself shaking, panting, and very close to heaven. In the firelight, Liam’s skin was the color of hot caramel, twice as sweet to the taste—burned darker on his forearms and hands and face, a true man of the sea.
“Maybe we ought to wait,” Cecilia said. Lockhart’s eyes widened.
“Wait?” he echoed, and she smiled wickedly.
“Something’s bound to interrupt us.”
Liam held up one finger, stepped back and turned to the door to bellow, “Mr. Argyle!”
The cabin door opened just a crack. “Aye, Captain?”
“You’ll guarantee our privacy this time?”
“Oh, aye, sir. Totally guaranteed.” And the door shut with a clank of metal.
“See?” Liam said. “Problem solved.”
“Except that your first mate is listening right outside the door, Liam. I don’t call that privacy.”
Liam seemed honestly surprised. “Well, then, we’ll have to be quiet, then, won’t we?”
His kiss completely derailed her objections. The lovemaking was like a dream, waves hitting the shore, sleek and salty and irresistible. Cecilia floated in the currents, anchored only by his body, the sharp nip of his teeth on her neck, the electric-hot press of his hands.
In the end, there was nothing in the least quiet about it, but Cecilia quite forgot to worry about that.
“Ah, that’s the way to mark the passing hours,” Liam said drowsily, stroking her hair as they lay twined together in an untidy heap on the disordered bed. “One day down.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” She smiled against his chest. “And forever to go.”
Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, the sixth installment of which Thin Air was released in August 2007. She also writes a young adult series, Morganville Vampires, with the third book, Midnight Alley, scheduled for an October 2007 release. In addition, Rachel has written paranormal romantic suspense for Silhouette, including Devil’s Bargain, Devil’s Due, and the recently released Athena Force novel Line of Sight.
Visit her Web site: www.rachelcaine.com.
My Space: www.myspace.com/rachelcaine.
HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER
P. N. Elrod
Gangsters, gats, and girls in Depression Era Chicago mean trouble, even for an undead shamus. Jack Fleming relates his latest case from The Vampire Files.
Chicago, February 1938
IT’S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE THAT A BLUSHING BRIDE usually waits until after the honeymoon’s over before hiring a gumshoe to check up on her husband’s whereabouts. When Dorothy Schubert, nee Huffman, plowed into the office still in her wedding gown I figured she was out to break a record along with anything else in her path.
She was the angriest woman I’d ever seen—which is saying a lot.
I’d only stopped by to pick up the mail and hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. She’d charged noisily up the outside stairs, shoving the door open so hard the glass rattled. Blindly she fumbled the switch, and the sudden brightness caught me behind the desk, envelopes in one hand, reaching under my coat for my .38 with the other. Chicago’s a tough town; even a vampire needs an extra edge at times.
You heard right, but I’ll get back to the Lugosi stuff later.
I eased off drawing my gun and put down the envelopes. The lady appeared to be unarmed, just remarkably upset. Her face was red, her brown eyes blazed, and she had very straight teeth, nearly all of them bared. I kept the desk between us.
“Is that you?” she demanded, jabbing a finger at the name painted on the door’s pebbled glass panel. It read THE ESCOTT AGENCY.
I hesitated replying, wondering what my partner had gotten himself into, and then realized she’d not have asked the question had she ever met Escott. “No, but maybe I can help?”
“I need a detective,” she said, tottering forward to grab the back of one of the wooden chairs in front of the desk. The charge up the stairs must have winded her.
“You look like you need a drink.”
“That, too.” She dropped onto the chair, her classy wedding dress making an expensive rustling sound. She was more arresting than pretty, with thick black hair, a hawk’s nose, strong brows, and wide mouth. By turns she was the type who could turn ugly or traffic-stopping beautiful depending on her mood. A sculptor would have made much over her cheekbones, chin, and throat. I noticed the big vein there pulsing in time with her heartbeat, which was audible to my ears. She was calming down, though, the beat gradually slowing.
Her floor-dragging veil was half off, and she wore no coat over the gown. Last time I checked it was cold enough that even I felt the bite of Old Man Winter. The lady must have departed straight from the church in one spitfire of a hurry. Post-ceremony, I noted, her rings were in place. One was a showy engagement sparkler, the other a more modest band with diamonds embedded in its gold surface. She had enough on one finger to buy the block, never mind the pricey trinkets hanging from her neck and wrists.
“You cold?” I asked. Her bare arms showed gooseflesh.
She considered, then nodded. The heat was down for the night; I took off my overcoat and draped it over her shoulders.
“You’re nice. So polite,” she said, pulling it close around her body like a blanket.
“Sometimes.”
Escott kept a pint of Four Roses in the bottom left drawer—cheap stuff and strictly for clients in need of a knock-in-the-head bracer. I pulled it out and started toward the back room to get a glass, but the bride didn’t wait. She had the cap off, bottle upended, and drained a quarter of it away in two shakes. It being her wedding day she had good reason to indulge, but still—impressive.
She slammed the bottle on the desk and whooped in a deep breath, her dark eyes watering. “Wow.”
I’d given up drinking booze some while ago, but knew that Four Roses could peel varnish without much effort. “How may I help you, Miss—uh—Mrs.—?”
“Mrs. Jerome Kleinhaus Schubert as of an hour ago. I want you to find my husband.”
“Uh.”
Damn few things are a cause for flummoxing, but this peculiar situation had me nailed to the wall. Had Mrs. Schubert been a bad-tempered, gun-waving mug with one of the city’s mobs I’d have known exactly what to do. Instead we traded stares for a long, much too-silent moment; then I remembered to fall back on procedure, and got out one of the agency’s standard contracts, notepaper, and a fountain pen.
“Is that you?” She again pointed at the name.
“Mr. Escott’s out of town. I’m his partner, Mr. Fleming. May I ask who referred you?”
She took a turn at assessing me. I was taller than average, leaner than some, and looked too young for my actual age of thirty-eight. Her gaze drifted upward. I removed my fedora and put it on the desk, and that summoned a glint of humor to her eyes. “Taxi driver. I told him I wanted a detective, and he took me straight here.”
I peered between the blinds to the street below. A yellow cab was double-parked next to my Studebaker coupe. The driver waved up. I knew him slightly; he often hung out in fr
ont of my nightclub at closing, hoping to snag a late fare. It was no surprise that he knew about Escott’s agency and that one or the other of us might be found there at odd hours. The club’s doorman liked to chat when things were slow. They’d have plenty to gossip about with this development.
“Did you pay him?”
The bride glanced pointedly at her dress, which was unburdened by pockets, and she had no purse. “Put it on my bill. I’m good for it.” She unpinned the trailing veil from her hair and began winding it loosely around one hand, apparently confident that her word alone was enough.
I hadn’t said I’d accept the case, but decided this was one I couldn’t miss. “No problem.”
Excusing myself, I left to take care of her fare, trusting that she’d not run up an excessive amount in the brief time since her nuptials. I’m too much the optimist: the meter showed two-fifty. They must have come from across town. I gave the driver three bucks and asked if he knew what the hell was going on.
He was cheerful, shaking his head. “That dame shot out of St. Mike’s like one of them human cannonballs. Boy, was she mad. Never seen anything like it. She spotted me, was yelling for a PI, an’ I thought of you.”
“You were driving past?”
“Nah, waiting for the wedding to end. There’s always someone needin’ a ride after. Weddin’s and funerals is always good for business, right?”
On that point I had to agree. I thanked him and trotted back to my client. The Escott Agency undertook the carrying out of unpleasant errands for those with enough cash and a need for discretion. Escott flatly refused divorce work. Finding a missing groom was a gray area, but odds favored an easy fix. He’d probably succumbed to cold feet and was hiding out with friends. Why wait until after the ceremony, though?
I asked Mrs. Schubert some basic questions, scribbling her answers in shorthand. Soon as I heard her maiden name a light went on.
“Are you related to—?”
“Yes, Louie Huffman. He’s my father.”
My interest in the case went up a few notches, along with a sudden urge to back out before things got more complicated. I knew Huffman slightly. He hung out at another club—the Nightcrawler—with half the mobsters in the city. He wasn’t a big-time boss like my pal Gordy Weems, but one of the lesser chiefs.
Which still made him someone I didn’t care to cross. My friendship with Gordy provided a certain amount of insurance against bad guys getting stupid with me, but it wasn’t something I ever tested. Huffman oversaw debt collection, and he was very good at it. He had a reputation for being almost as handy with a baseball bat as Capone. You paid your debt or got shattered kneecaps or disappeared entirely. It was pretty simple.
That he had a daughter should not have surprised me. Many of the mugs were family men, they just kept their work well separated from their home life.
I wondered if the groom owed money to his new father-in-law. “What happened at the wedding?”
Dorothy Schubert melted a little at the memory. “It was beautiful. My favorite flowers—Daddy had them shipped up special from Florida—and the music and everyone was there and it was perfect. Jerome was so handsome; he looked just like Ralph Bellamy in that tuxedo.”
An instinct within tipped me off that a flood was on the way. She made another whooping noise, but by then I’d ducked into the back room and returned with a box of tissues. I had it in front of her just as the dam burst. She tore out a handful and bawled into them.
“I—thought—he—loved—me!” she howled.
Crying dames are nothing to be afraid of, but for the next few minutes part of me wanted to run like hell; another said to put an arm around her and go, “There-there.” A much more sensible part kept me seated until she’d recovered enough to continue.
“We’d come back down the aisle and went to the church’s social hall for the reception. I was just floating.”
“No pictures?”
“Did those yesterday. Maybe I shouldn’t have let him see me in my dress before the ceremony—no, that’s silly—uh-uh-u …” She soaked another wad of tissues and blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. The reception?”
“We had a line and a big cake and we cut the cake and it was perfect. Then Jerome wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I looked away for just a moment talking to someone, and he was just gone.”
“Men’s room?”
“No—I sent the best man to check. Then they all started looking for him. No one saw him leave. Some thought it was a joke. Jerome’s a kidder, but he knows when to stop and this didn’t stop. I stood all alone while the ushers turned the church inside out. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. How dare he humiliate me like that?”
“Your father have anything to say about it?”
“I didn’t ask. This is my problem, not his.”
She dabbed at her puffy eyes, which were rather raccoonlike from smeared makeup. In the pause I heard several sets of shoes clomping up the stairs. No knock, the door was thrown open yet again with violence. The glass panel thankfully held.
The man who trundled in was Big Louie Huffman. The tuxedo did little to mitigate his fundamental toughness. He was built like a balding fireplug with a solid trunk, thick arms, and seemed to use his raw muscle to suppress the force inside. His daughter had inherited his pronounced nose and downturned mouth. On her they looked good; on him they were intimidating. He looked ready to take the building apart.
Flanking him in the now much smaller office were two large goons also dressed for the wedding. Their tailor had failed to get the padding right, so you could almost tell the make and caliber of what they kept in their shoulder holsters. Each had a hand inside the coat, ready to pull out and blast away.
I held myself very, very still. “Uh—Mrs. Schubert—?”
“Don’t call her that,” Huffman rumbled.
“Oh, Daddy,” she said, her voice creaking with the threat of more tears. “How did you—?”
“Followed your cab. Dot, what are you doing here?”
“I’m taking care of my problem myself.” For this she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “Just like you tell me.”
He pushed out his lower lip, eyes going narrow as he thought that one over. “You’re a grown woman, you know your mind, but we should keep this in the family.”
She lowered her head and made a low noise deep in her throat. When my girlfriend made that kind of sound I knew to take cover.
Apparently so did Huffman. Even the goons backed up a step.
“I want,” she said in a disturbingly level tone, “an impartial outsider to deal with this. I know you want to help, but I need to do this my way.”
He thought that one over as well, then focused on me. Recognition clicked in his expression. “You’re Jack Fleming—that creep from Gordy’s club.”
It beat being called a number of other, more colorful, descriptives. There was a lady present, after all. “Good evening, Mr. Huffman.”
“Dot, we’ll find another man for the job.”
She rose and faced her father. With him and the others there for comparison I noticed just how tall she was, being eye-level with them. “I want this guy. He’s got very nice manners.”
“He’s still a creep, sugar bun. I’ve heard stories.”
By that point I was hoping she’d listen to her father so as to spare the office from damage, but young Dorothy planted herself, fists on her hips, feet apart, ready for a fight. My coat slipped from her shoulders. She looked just as scary as Huffman, yet somehow vulnerable.
I’ve got a sad and fatal weakness for dames in need. “May I suggest—”
All three men rounded on me. I could handle them more easily than Dorothy having another crying jag. “Mr. Huffman, if you would speak with Gordy he’ll tell you I’m stand-up. Perhaps you’ve also had to deal with the burden that comes from having an undeserved reputation.”
“He talks like a la
wyer,” muttered the older goon on the left. I took him to be Huffman’s first lieutenant.
“Gordy’ll give you the true blue,” I said, less formally. Actually, I’d been trying to mimic my Shakespeare-raised partner. I must be getting better at it.
Huffman considered that. “I’m sure he will, young man. But just so we’re clear, be aware that my reputation is very much deserved.”
“Yes, sir.” Yet another reason to be polite and not make any fast moves. I dialed the number for the Nightcrawler club’s office, and one of the guys put me right through to Gordy.
That, if nothing else, got Huffman’s attention. I said hello, told Gordy I had a guest with a few questions, then gave my chair up to Huffman. The goons watched, ready to shoot if I sneezed wrong. They didn’t worry me. Not much. Cautiously, I picked up my overcoat, redraped it on the bride, then stood by the windows and made an effort to look harmless. Bullets won’t kill me, but damn, they cost me blood, hurt like hell, and I liked this suit.
I could hear both sides of the phone conversation. Huffman identified himself.
“Problem?” Gordy asked.
“My kid wants to hire Jack Fleming for something. He said to call you.”
“Your kid picked right. Hire him for what?”
“Find a missing person. It’s a family matter.”
“Fleming’s okay.”
“I don’t like him,” said Huffman.
“Get over it.”
“He’ll keep his yap quiet?”
“Like the grave.” Gordy was in rare humor. He knew all about me.
Huffman cradled the receiver, stood, and gave me the benefit of a very effective glower. With a look like that he didn’t need a baseball bat to make his point with slow-to-pay gamblers. He spotted the fedora and picked it up, checking the label inside. “You bought this at Del Morio’s.”
My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon Page 12