“Yes.” She said it simply.
His gaze moved possessively over her face. “You look so tired. I’d carry you to bed, but we wouldn’t make it if I tried.”
She managed a small smile. “It would be okay if you dropped me on the floor. I’d just go to sleep.”
He helped her through the hall to the stairs. “Hannah has the turret leading to the battlement, doesn’t she?”
Sarah was pleased that he knew. “The sea draws her. The wind and rain. It helps her to be there, up high, where she can see it all. I’m glad you understand.”
He went up the stairs behind her, ready to break her fall should there be need. Ready to do whatever it took to protect her. “It surprises me that I feel the power in this house, but I do. I’m a scientist. None of this makes sense, what you and your sisters are. Hell, I don’t even know how I’d describe you, but I know it’s real.”
“Stay with me tonight, Damon,” Sarah said. “I feel very weary, like I’m stretched thin. When you’re with me, I’m not so lost.”
“You’d have to throw me out, Sarah,” he replied truthfully. “I know I love you and I want you for my wife. I don’t ever want us to be apart.”
“I feel the same, Damon.” Sarah pushed open the door to her bedroom and collapsed on the large four-poster bed. She looked beautiful to him, lying there, waiting for him to stretch out beside her.
Her window faced the sea. Damon could see the water, a deep blue, waves swelling high, collapsing, rushing the shores and receding as it had for so many years. Peace was in his heart and mind. Soft laughter came from various parts of the house. It swept through the air, and filled the house with joy. Sarah was back. Sarah was home. And Damon had come home with her.
Hot August Moon
KATHERINE SUTCLIFFE
Chapter 1
THE FLIGHT FROM Chicago had been a rough one. Turbulence had caused the Boeing 727 to bounce like a dribbled basketball, adding to the headache that had an excruciating grip on Anna Travelli’s head. She needed quiet. She needed darkness. She needed a freaking vacation, for God’s sake. She sure as hell didn’t need this.
The intense August sun blinded Anna as she stepped from the rental car into the New Orleans blanket of dense humidity, and she regretted immediately that she had not checked in to a hotel and changed into something cooler before coming to the Mother of Grace Cemetery.
Security surrounding the funeral appeared to be intense. Uniformed cops blocked the entrance to the cemetery, keeping the hungry reporters at bay, their sharp gazes zeroing in on Anna as she approached. She wasn’t surprised. The triple homicide of the assistant district attorney’s wife and two children had made the national news. J. D. Damascus, along with Jerry Costos, had reamed the New Orleans criminal element up the backside. They’d made a great many enemies. The NOPD wouldn’t take a chance that one of those creeps would use this opportunity, and vulnerability, to make a statement.
Anna removed her shield from her pocket as a pair of cops approached her; she flipped it open and held it up for their inspection. “FBI,” she said. “Special Agent Anna Travelli.”
The officers exchanged looks, their raised eyebrows and slight smirks giving away their thoughts on the matter.
“Is there a problem?” She pocketed the shield.
Officer Williams shrugged as he gave her the once-over, admiring her long copper-red hair braided down her back. Williams grinned. “Wondered how long it was going to be before you guys got involved in this case.”
“Obviously not soon enough.” She looked at the younger cop—Jacobson—his thumbs hooked over his gun belt and his hip shifted in a cocky fashion as he continued to appraise her. She was well acquainted with that look. “You got something to say, Jacobson?” She narrowed her eyes.
He shrugged and grinned. “Sure as hell don’t look like FBI. Not with those legs.”
She continued to stare at him, saying nothing, not so much as blinking, until color touched his cheeks and he averted his eyes.
As they moved aside, Anna continued on her way, each step exacerbating the pain in her temples, her annoyance at the cops’ attitude quickly forgotten as she ducked her head against the unbearable sun and made her way toward the distant mourners. Hundreds of them. Friends. Family. Business associates.
Her gaze shifted from the mourners to the surrounding graves—cement and granite tombs, ancient and new, clustered close enough together one could barely move between them. City of the Dead. Damn creepy.
Although the cops had cordoned off the cemetery for the Damascus funeral, her gaze still shifted along the tombs, searching. It was an established fact that killers would often attend their victims’ funerals. The files she had pored over in the last twenty-four hours, since getting the call from headquarters, attested to the fact that the animal who had been slaughtering New Orleans hookers was a power freak. Got his rocks off on domination. Enjoyed inflicting terror in his victims even more than he enjoyed the actual killing. That kind of sicko would take supreme pleasure in watching the tragic aftermath of his heinous murders unfold.
But therein was the perplexity. Laura Damascus and her two children didn’t fit the profile of the killer’s previous victims.
As Anna eased her way through the crowd, she recalled the conversation she had had with her superior, Dr. Jeff Montgomery. The phone call had come no more than two hours after she had tied up a particularly harrowing and disturbing case—a pair of sexual serial killers who had preyed on thirty-four victims in the Chicago area. Before that there had been a case in Seattle; before that, D.C. She was balancing dangerously on a tightrope of complete exhaustion, if not total burnout, and the last thing she needed was to be so quickly reassigned to New Orleans—especially after learning that she was well acquainted with the latest victims.
How the hell could she remain emotionally uninvolved when she had shared pizza and beer with Laura and J. D. Damascus? When she had attended Laura’s baby shower and witnessed J.D.’s pleasure on the birth of his son, William?
Not only that. Now she would be forced to come face-to-face with the one and only man with whom she had ever been in love. The son of a bitch who had broken her heart. Jerry Costos, District Attorney. C.B. Chauvinistic Bastard. Had her future been left up to him she would have spent the remainder of her life barefoot and pregnant.
As she stepped to the edge of the mourners, her heart sank and the emotion that she had forced back during the last many hours began to surface. The last six years she had invested in becoming one of the FBI’s leading female agents and profilers had honed her ability to shelve personal involvement. Working shoulder to shoulder with the machismo attitude that women were too fragile to handle the gruesome and dangerous circumstances of murder had toughened her into a person she hardly recognized any longer, and too often didn’t like. But for such a sacrifice, she had become damn good at her job. One of the best and most respected.
But this. Dear God, this was something else.
Three coffins were placed side by side and draped in blankets of roses and lilies. A mother’s coffin. Her son’s. Her daughter’s. As the priest’s voice rose into the humid, flower-fragrant air, the family formed a semicircle around the caskets, faces blanched in shock and despair.
Flanked by his mother and brother, J. D. Damascus wept into his hands, sobs shaking his body. The mourners gasped and cried out as Damascus dropped to his knees, his cries rising to a heartbreaking wail.
Then he was there, as Anna knew he would be. Jerry Costos, Damascus’s best friend, gently moving Helen Damascus aside and falling to one knee beside J.D., sliding one arm around his shoulders to comfort and support him.
Anna thought she had prepared herself—had erected her infamous steel wall of emotional detachment around her heart in preparation for seeing Costos again. But the moment he raised his tear-streaked face and looked into her eyes, she realized just how wrong she had been.
CALLING ON THE deceased’s family so soon after a tragedy was
one of the toughest aspects of being an agent. Damn hard to remain composed in the face of someone’s grief, yet every minute the investigation was postponed the colder the clues became.
After the funeral many of the mourners congregated at J.D.’s house, a pretty, renovated home in the Garden District. Hundreds of flower arrangements lent a sickly sweet aroma to the rooms. The kitchen and dining room overflowed with food, which the visitors dug into like vultures on carrion. Anna could never figure out what it was about death that made people so damn hungry.
After half an hour of milling through the guests, Anna finally worked up the backbone to approach J.D. She found him secluded in the den with his mother, Helen, and sister-in-law, Beverly Damascus, wife of Eric, Senator Jack Strong’s legislative director. It was Beverly who approached her, her eyes swollen and smudged by mascara.
“Agent Travelli, FBI.” Anna flipped open her shield. “I’d appreciate a minute of J.D.’s time, if that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. The last thing J.D. needs right now is—”
“Anna?” J.D. left the sofa and moved toward her. “Anna Travelli?”
Anna moved around Beverly to smile at Damascus. “Hey, pal. Long time no see.”
“Jesus, it is you.” He wrapped his arms around her, holding Anna so fiercely she could hardly breathe. She hugged him as tightly, closing her eyes as she felt the shudders of grief ripple through his chest.
“God, I’m so sorry, J.D. So damn sorry. My heart is breaking for you.”
He said nothing, just held her, his fingers twisting into her suit jacket for support. They had once been friends. Very good friends. The only person she could turn to when her relationship with Costos had begun to sour.
At last he pulled away, swiped the tears from his cheeks, and did his best to smile. “To say I’m surprised to see you here is an understatement.”
Anna glanced at Helen and Beverly Damascus, both women obviously concerned over her intrusion. “Could I speak with you alone?” she asked J.D.
Only then did his gaze slip down to the shield in her hand. A spasm of pain crossed his features, yet he nodded and glanced at his family, who reluctantly left the room, closing the door behind them.
As J.D. moved to the liquor cabinet, Anna pocketed her shield. “I’ve been assigned to the case. I know what a difficult time this is for you, J.D.—”
“But you gotta do what you gotta do.” He partially filled up the highball glass with vodka—no ice. “I’ll make it easy for you. Tyron Johnson killed my family.”
She frowned and joined him at the cabinet, watched as he kicked back the vodka like it was water. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that her old friend was accustomed to the drink. A light boozer would have been knocked flat on his ass.
“Who is Tyron Johnson?”
“Local pimp. Pretty boy who controls the hookers in the area. Enjoys beating them up when they cross him.” He refilled the glass. “I’ve dragged his sorry butt into court many times trying to put him away. Always bullied the girls into refusing to testify. The last time he threatened me in front of witnesses.”
He turned away and drank again, easily emptying the glass. “Now I’m going to kill the bastard. I’m going to blow off his fucking head.”
The door opened, allowing muted conversation to float through the room.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Anna braced herself. This meeting had been inevitable, of course. But turning to look once again into the eyes of her former fiancé was as difficult as staring into the barrel of a loaded Glock.
Jerry Costos slammed the door. As he moved across the room, Anna drew back her shoulders and turned to face him. Perhaps it was spite that made her withdraw her shield and thrust it toward him.
In the six years since she had left her hometown, and Costos, he had changed little. He’d always had the uncanny ability to cut out a person’s heart with his blue eyes, as well as melt a heart. Obviously, he was now more in his slicing and dicing mode.
“Put that damn thing away,” he snapped. “I know what the hell you are.”
“Then you also know why I’m here.”
“When I called the FBI requesting a profiler, I sure as hell didn’t think they’d send you.”
“Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?” She pocketed the shield. “The agency felt I’d be an asset since I grew up here. So if you got a problem working with me on this case, take it up with them, Costos.”
“Maybe I’ll just do that.”
“Fine. I could use a vacation. But until they pull me, I’m here whether you like it or not.”
J.D. dropped onto the sofa; he stared at the ceiling. “If you two want to open old scars, take it outside.”
“Right.” Jerry caught her arm. Anna pulled it back, but moved to the patio door while Costos followed on her heels.
The back garden of Damascus’s home was lush with blooming flowers, their color somewhat bleached by the intense sunlight. A cobblestone path meandered to an area shadowed by giant oak trees. There, erected beneath the gnarled old limbs, stood a swing set and sandbox wherein sat a little pink pail and shovel and a soccer ball.
Anna leaned against the tree trunk and dug into her purse, extracting her cigarettes. As she looked at the swing set, a sudden breeze moved the swing forward and back, as if the child’s spirit remained.
Costos remained silent as she lit her cigarette. She was well acquainted with that silence. The intensity of it could thicken the air.
She glanced at him. “So how is he holding up?”
Costos briefly closed his eyes, ran one hand through his dark hair. “His heart has been ripped out of him. Christ.” He sighed. “Frankly I don’t know how he’s held it together as well as he has.”
“So what’s your theory on this Tyron Johnson?”
“The guy’s a son of a bitch. A two-bit pimp who occasionally beats up his girls if they cross him. He has an alibi for the time of the Damascus murders.”
“Reliable?”
“Marcus DiAngelo. Owns the Lucky Lady Casino. Could be mob connected, but so far we’ve been unable to prove it. J.D. brought him up on charges of racketeering last year, but the bastard beat it.”
“Jury tampering?”
“More like judge tampering, I think. His Honor enjoys the tables and is known to lose. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was into the Lady for a lot of money.”
Jerry reached for her cigarette, took a deep drag from it as he focused on the swing set. Anna turned her face away, the memories of the years they had spent together causing her head to throb harder. She was having second thoughts again about taking on this case. Certainly not too late to back off. Call headquarters and suggest they put another profiler on it.
Jerry crushed the cigarette out against the tree trunk, then tossed the butt into the sand pail. “For the record: I’m not happy that we’re going to be working together on this case.”
“Ditto.”
“I’m not happy to see you at all.”
“Live with it, Mr. Prosecutor. Or maybe your problem isn’t simply working with me. Maybe it’s working with a woman, period. Seems I recall you felt a woman’s place was in the kitchen—”
“That’s bull, Anna, and you know it.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest and focused on the house. “Doesn’t matter any longer. I didn’t come back to New Orleans to kick open that old kettle of rotten fish. I’m here to help you find a serial killer who may or may not have murdered Damascus’s family. So do we meet with Captain Killroy now, or later?”
He stared at her, the heat of his gaze burning the side of her face. “I’ll call Killroy and set up a meeting for the morning.”
“I’ll want to see the crime scene photographs and the coroner’s report first. Then I want an up-close and personal look at the crime scenes themselves. About J.D.—”
“I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Just leave him alone for now.”
“Fine. I’m
staying at the St. Louis.”
“Fine. I’ll pick you up—”
“Got a car, but thanks anyway.”
He stared at her a moment longer, then turned on his heels and walked toward the house.
Releasing her breath, Anna sank back against the tree, and closed her eyes.
HE IS HUNGRY again.
The streets are quiet here. The hookers are scarce. And rightly so.
That pleases him. Very much.
The scent of fear lingers in the air as he moves along the dark wharf and gazes out at the river. Moonlight glitters on the swirls and ripples of the moving brown water and casts halos over the scattered warehouses lining the docks. The fog moves in—gray, hazy fingers creeping up the alleys like specters, little by little obliterating the stars.
A perfect night to feed.
A woman moves out of the shadows and stands in a pool of light from an overhead vapor lamp. She smiles, tosses back her scraggly bleached hair, and licks her overly painted lips.
“Hello, handsome. Looking for a little companionship?”
He pauses, cocks his head to one side, and appraises her face. She isn’t pretty. Not anymore. The life has grooved deep creases in her forehead. He would do her a favor by killing her. Put her out of her filthy misery.
“Not interested,” he says, and keeps moving. Not his type. He likes them young and more vulnerable.
Onward. Prowling the old sidewalks, in and out of the shadows along St. Peter Street, right on Pauline. Jazz drifts to him from Bourbon Street, the boisterous frivolity of drunks, women’s high-pitched shrieks, and laughter.
Ahead. Blond. Petite. Young.
She is nervous. He likes that.
He watches as she shifts from foot to foot, glances over one shoulder, then another. Her hair is long and silky and cascades over her back. She doesn’t want to be here. But she has no choice. Perhaps she is fresh to the life. Ah, that would be nice. So much easier to frighten the new ones.
Lover Beware Page 11