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Why did he care what she thought? When the hurricane had stolen his parents’ home and business, they’d banded together to rebuild their lives.
The tragedies had taught him about what was most important. Material things could be replaced, but loved ones couldn’t. But he didn’t want his family getting the wrong idea about their relationship.
Besides, a madman might be after Britta. He’d protect her with his life but he refused to lead the killer back to his own family’s door.
His cell phone jangled and he pressed the phone to his ear to hear over the din of laughter and voices. “Detective Dubois.”
“Dubois, it’s Carson. Listen, there’s a bartender down here at the House of Love who recognizes our victim.”
A break they needed. “I’ll be right there.” He stood and gestured toward Britta. “We need to go.”
“Always working,” his mother hissed.
Stephanie punched his arm. “Stay safe, brother.”
Catherine hugged him. “Yeah, watch your back. You’re not invincible either, you know.”
He nodded, then slid his hand to Britta’s waist as they left the restaurant. It was out of the way to walk her home, but the House of Love was a divey bar with nasty floors, cheap strippers and raunchy patrons.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as they stepped into the cloying humidity.
“My partner found someone who recognizes our victim. I’ll take you home, then I’ll go talk to him.”
She lifted her hair off her neck to cool herself, drawing his gaze to a tiny scar beneath her right earlobe. “That’s right around the corner.”
“I know, but it’s not the kind of place I usually take a woman.”
Emotions flickered in her eyes…relief, surprise. Then she shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve seen worse,” she said. “Besides I’m not the sweet, domestic type like your little sisters. This is about the case. It’s not personal.”
He shook his head, but his body hardened at the way her eyes darkened in the moonlight. “No, not personal at all.”
And he would keep reminding himself of that, even if she decided to turn her seductive powers on him.
After all, she wasn’t shy or the wholesome girl next door like his sisters. She didn’t seem to like the family scene, either. And she had refused his mother’s invitation to dinner as if a homey gathering would bore her.
Worse, she printed erotic confessions in a magazine. Watching a performer take money for stripping probably wouldn’t even faze her.
THE NIGHT FELT as if it would never end.
Britta entered the wall-to-wall packed House of Love, fighting the memories that rose from the depths of the forgotten to haunt her. Thick smoke, sweat, beer and the stench of tawdry sex filled the air; the hint of drunken lust added a layer of tension over the sea of anonymous faces.
Nausea filled her. She’d grown up in places just like this. Had watched her mother entertain night after night. Then seen her duck into the curtained-off areas to perform private lap dances….
“It’s not a bad way to make a living,” her mother had told her one night when she’d caught Britta staring through the curtain. “It’s just sex, nothing more.”
No emotions. Just the simple exchange of bodily fluids and money.
Disgust gnawed at Britta’s throat as she banished the images. She’d hated seeing her mother degrade herself. Hated even more the strange men’s grunts and groans at night, watching her mother delve into booze and drugs, knowing filthy hands touched her….
“Come on,” Jean-Paul mumbled, “I see the bartender over there.”
The strobe light blinked to the beat of the contemporary rock music, the center stage occupied with two busty half-naked women gyrating and dancing around poles. A slender black girl tossed off her spangled top and double-Ds swayed as she rode the pole, tassels of silver and bright yellow twirling as she bounced her breasts. Beside her a brunette with three-inch red nails—and red stilettos to match—tossed her gold top into the groping milieu of men. Catcalls erupted as her pasties followed. Playing to the audience’s excitement, she crawled across the stage on hands and knees, slithering her ass upward. The black girl shimmied, then began to slowly peel away her G-string, inch by inch, teasing the men thrusting dollar bills toward her.
Jean-Paul coaxed Britta through the crowd toward the opposite end of the bar, casting only a quick glance at the stage. “It’s a damn shame girls turn to that kind of lifestyle. Didn’t their mothers teach them any better?”
The censure in his voice raised her defenses. “Not every girl comes from a Cosby home like yours, Detective Dubois.”
He slanted a frown over his shoulder. “Not everyone who has problems turns to drugs, alcohol or hooking, either.”
The jab hit home and Britta clamped her mouth shut, humiliation heating her face. How could he possibly know what drove some people to make the choices they did? She’d never understood her mother, but she claimed she’d worked at the bars for Britta, so they could survive.
“You’re a bad girl, Britta. Just like your mama.”
The words echoed in her ear, reminding her of her roots and the vast difference between her and this cop. She wondered about his personal life, about the woman in the photo at his parents’ restaurant. His girlfriend? Lover? Wife? Where was she now?
He wasn’t wearing a ring. And his family would have mentioned if he was married. And the woman…she’d looked so sweet, delicate. Nothing like Britta.
Jean-Paul Dubois would not understand her childhood. Or what she had done later that had marked her for life.
He flicked his hand toward a man at the door. “That’s my partner, Carson Graves.”
She nodded, not bothering to try to speak above the noise. Jean-Paul shouldered his way through the mob, then up to the counter. A beefy man reached out and pinched her ass, and she flipped around and nearly swung at him. “Keep your hands off, buddy,” Britta snapped.
Jean-Paul gave the man a lethal look, then slipped his arm around her waist, keeping her pressed close to him as they sidled up to the counter. Heat emanated from his hands and broad chest, and they were so close his breath brushed her neck. His protective gesture was subtle yet comforting, but after his comment Britta refused to allow herself to enjoy the feel of his hard chest against her back. She could stand on her own. She always had and always would.
He introduced her to his partner, who seemed to assess her the way the drunks in the room had when she’d entered. He was shorter than Jean-Paul, but still close to six feet, and handsome with short dark brown hair. When he shook her hand, she noticed an odd tattoo.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Berger. And that—” He indicated the three-ringed marking on his hand. “Was a gang tattoo,” he explained without seeming offended. “I came up through the trenches but I finally got my head on straight.”
She felt an immediate connection with him personally.
“Britta,” she said automatically.
“I heard you’ve had a rough day, Britta,” he said in a Southern drawl.
She shrugged. “Not as rough as the poor girl in that picture.”
He conceded with a nod. Jean-Paul cleared his throat, his voice gruff when he spoke. “You have information on our victim?”
Carson pivoted toward Jean-Paul. “Yeah, this bartender says he’s seen her. His name’s Moe Leery.”
Carson waved the thin, thirtysomething bartender over and Moe leaned across the bar and wiped the counter.
“What can you tell us about this woman?” Jean-Paul flashed the picture again.
The guy winced and pushed the photo away. “Her real name is Elvira Erickson. But she went by Pooky.”
“She was a stripper?” Jean-Paul asked.
“Yeah, but she’d only been working here a couple of weeks. Told me she needed tuition money for school. Said she was planning to go to Tulane.”
A muscle ticked in Jean-Paul’s jaw and Britta saw the wheels turning in his mind. He was thinking about his sisters.
“Do you have an address?”
Moe scribbled on a napkin. “I think she lived in an apartment near the university.”
“We’ll check it out,” Carson said. “Did she have a boyfriend?”
Moe smirked and grabbed two mugs to fill an order. “If she did, she sure as hell didn’t bring him in here. Wouldn’t be good for business or her tips.”
Jean-Paul gave him a clipped nod. “Did you notice any guy hanging with her? Say two nights ago?”
Moe shook his head. “Naw, man. The girls come and go. I try to keep my head down. I don’t want their pimps’ wrath on me.”
“How about any strange men who might have been watching her?” Jean-Paul asked. “A stalker maybe?”
Moe indicated the crowd. “Half the guys in here fit in that category.”
Jean-Paul grimaced and Britta searched the mob of lust-starved, dollar-holding men, remembering similar scenes with her mother. More than once, a customer had jumped on stage and tried to drag her off with him.
Across the room, a man in a gray suit and wire-rims caught her attention. He seemed familiar, so she tilted her head to study him, then remembered that she’d seen him in the market. She’d thought he was watching her.
Always looking for ghosts from her past. In New Orleans, they were all around her….
He flashed some money at the black dancer, then spotted her and his eyes widened as if he was a deer trapped in a set of headlights.
Britta tapped Jean-Paul on the shoulder to get his attention, but by the time he turned around the man had disappeared back into the crowd again as if he’d never existed.
JEAN-PAUL INCHED CLOSER to her. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I recognized a man in the crowd,” she said in a shaky voice.
Jean-Paul immediately scanned the smoky room. “Who? What does he look like?”
“He’s gone now. But I saw him in the market earlier.” A strand of her red hair fell across her cheek. “I guess it was nothing.”
“Was it that photographer?”
“No, another man. It’s probably my imagination.”
“You’re smart to stay alert,” he said, itching to touch her hair and tuck it back into place. “We don’t know that he wasn’t the man who broke into your place. Or the killer.”
“If he was after me, why not just approach me?”
Jean-Paul lifted an eyebrow. “In a crowded bar? No way.” He stroked her arm gently, and a small tremor rippled through his body, stirring protective instincts. Dammit, the Dubois men were always suckers for a woman in trouble. “If he made me for a cop, he’d definitely run.”
His logic made sense but only heightened her anxiety level.
“Come on,” Jean-Paul said. “I’ll take you home, then I need to see what information I can dig up on Elvira Erickson.”
“You have to locate her family and tell them, don’t you?” Britta asked.
Detective Dubois’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, I might as well get it over with.”
“I’ll meet you at the station,” his partner said. “Nice to meet you, Britta.”
Jean-Paul glared at his partner. Carson was notorious for flirting and he seemed intrigued by Britta.
He shook off the disturbing thought as he took her home, instead concentrating on the call he needed to make to Elvira’s parents. He hated like hell to tell them the details of her death, especially when he had no suspect or leads in the case to offer them.
His gaze shot to Britta. Was there a connection in her past that she hadn’t told him about?
If there was and she’d been lying, he’d damn well make her confess her secrets.
A FEELING OF TREPIDATION overcame Britta as the detective walked her back to her apartment. The tension between them had been palpable since they’d left the bar.
He scowled at a wino lying near the garbage can next to her building, then at the poster of the magazine cover on the front window as she unlocked the door.
“You don’t approve of the magazine I work for, do you?”
His dark eyes met hers as they entered the hallway, climbed the steps and stopped at her door. But he didn’t reply until the locksmith left and they’d stepped inside.
“No.” The short word was filled with disapproval. “You seem like a smart woman, but you live on Bourbon Street and you work with sickos. You put yourself in danger.”
Her temper flared and she folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose you think that the way women dress invites rapists, so it’s the victim’s fault if she’s attacked.”
He leaned closer and braced his arm on the wall behind her. “That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s obvious that you want your woman in an apron—tied to the kitchen, waiting with a martini in one hand and your slippers in the other when you arrive home.”
His look darkened. “Tied to the kitchen?” A ghost of a smile played on his mouth. “Only if she’s naked beneath the apron.” His husky voice sent a tingle through her. “And I prefer a beer over a martini.”
She lifted her brow at that remark. “One of your fantasies, Detective Dubois?”
“Jean-Paul.”
His masculine odor made her dizzy. And that smile…his killer smile, mixed with that sexy rumbling voice was about to hack through her defenses. Dare she call him by his first name or was that too personal?
“Now tell me one of your fantasies, Britta?”
She wet her parched lips with her tongue. For him to kiss her.
“I…We weren’t talking about me,” she stammered, struggling for control. “We were talking about you not liking my job.”
He lowered his hand, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m simply pointing out the obvious about your safety. That’s my job.”
Yes, he thought she put herself in danger by way of her work and her apartment. What would he think if he saw her on the streets at night?
Emotions crowded her chest. “You can’t always play it safe, Detective. And you can’t protect everyone.”
Pain flared in his eyes, then a shuttered look fell across his face. She instantly regretted her comment, but she couldn’t discuss fantasies with this man and not want him to touch her.
And touching her would be too dangerous. She might lose control….
Then the demons that chased her would finally win.
“I can take care of myself, I always have.” She ducked under his arm to escape his closeness and gestured toward the door. “You can go now.”
He straightened, heat pouring off his body in waves. “You can’t run forever, chere. Sooner or later, I will figure you out.”
His words mimicked the killer’s. A cocky smile tilted his mouth as he turned and walked away.
She closed the door, then faced her desk, trembling. A copy of the latest Naked Desires magazine lay open to the spread on her Secret Confessions column, mocking her. Other people might bare their souls for all to read, but her fantasies were private.
Yet the killer claimed to know them. And there might be another letter from him in the pile. She had to find it before Jean-Paul Dubois did, just in case the letter revealed too much.
She couldn’t let him get near, close to her in any way. If he did and discovered the truth, he would destroy her.
DISGUISED BY HIS homeless man’s attire, he hid amongst the shadows of the party-seekers and noise along Bourbon Street, so close to Britta Berger’s apartment he could see the light as she switched it off.
It had taken him a long time to find his Adrianna. In fact, for a while he had given up. Had assumed she was dead. As dead as he had felt inside.
But he’d searched for her in every woman he’d met since that day. Hoping, yearning, dying to discover that she was still out there. That he could still have her.
And make her pay for the pain she had caused him.
Then one day he’d picked up a copy of Naked Desires and had seen the small photograph of her in the editorial section. She was so beautiful she looked like a hand-painted porcelain doll.
One look into those witchlike eyes, though, and he’d recognized her instantly. His Adrianna.
She had been so close all along. So near Black Bayou where they had met, where they had almost been joined together.
Running had only brought Adrianna back full circle. There was no escape for the sins that lived within her. But passing the trial by ordeal, the fact that she’d walked across the gator-infested waters and survived, did not mean she was innocent. Only that she had performed some black magic spell to keep the snapping gators at bay. That she was no ’tite ange.
That she had been spawned by the devil.
The reason he had to destroy her. She was here now spreading her wickedness, enticing depraved men with her looks, casting a spell over the weak ones with her bewitching eyes—just as she had him, years ago. Through her column, she’d found the perfect venue to reach the masses.
He wanted to complete the ritual sacrifice. But he was a man and just as the crocodiles did during mating season, he had to mate with numerous partners.
Tonight he’d choose another.
He fell into the shadows and changed his clothing. Another disguise, this time one that would entice a woman. A white shirt and tie. A pair of dress slacks. An air of authority.
A wad of money.
And a mask over his face.
Another redhead, although her wavy hair was dyed an unnatural shade, tapped her foot at the corner of the House of Love, wearing a black micro-mini skirt, thigh-high boots and a flashy green top that looked like a bra. Her cleavage spilled over and through the mesh netting, her dark nipples stood turgid.
She twisted her head one way, then the other. Her nose jutted in the air as she took a drag from a menthol cigarette and flicked ashes on the grimy pavement. Finally aware he was watching her, she dropped the cigarette to the concrete, crushed it with her boot, then curled a finger toward him, beckoning him to join her. She looked impatient, primed, ready.
In need of some cash. Probably for drugs.
He had those in his pocket, as well. One that would give her the high of a lifetime.
He smiled, then smoothed his jet-black hair into place and strode toward her. Tonight, the whore would pleasure him. He might even draw out the fun a day or two if she was good, play with her, test her resistance.
Make her beg.
Then he’d force her to confess her sins before he killed her and added her to his kingdom.
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