Phantom of the French Quarter

Chapter Four

Before Marcus’s stunned eyes, the night shattered into stark frames. Blackness and confusion. Lightning flash-lit still shots.

A dark figure dragging off a fallen blonde. Dragging her away to—

No! Shaking off the shock of the ear-splitting boom, Marcus didn’t think but reacted solely on instinct. An instinct to protect Caitlyn Villaré at all costs.

Hurtling through the pitch dark, he struck like a guided missile. The force of his leap knocked the kidnapper off his feet.

Knocked him down and made him drop her as the rain crashed down in blinding sheets. Marcus ducked two broad swings before coming up with a spinning hook kick that should have taken his opponent’s head off.

Instead, he heard a startled grunt and felt the impact as his foot struck either the man’s shoulder or his chest. Rather than staying to throw more punches, Marcus’s opponent turned and vanished, out of sight and out of reach.

But had he left for good? Or was he only waiting for a second opportunity?

And how could Marcus follow and catch him, when he couldn’t possibly leave Caitlyn lying, crumpled and unconscious, in the rain?

AS HE PACED the cramped motel room hours later, Marcus’s pulse throbbed at his temples and his heartbeat boomed in his ears. What the hell had he done? Had his lonely, nomadic existence worn him down so badly that he’d decided to crush it out like a burned-down cigarette?

If I wasn’t a criminal before, I am now, he realized, as he stared at the beautiful blonde woman sleeping in his bed. Still, for all his remorse, his fingers itched to touch the shutter button, to record the contrast of the angel in repose against the grungy hell of this bottom-rung dive.

Great idea—give them proof you’re an obsessed animal.

Regardless of the temptation, he knew it would be days before the lens arrived to fix his camera, and probably only hours before he was taken into custody for kidnapping.

How would he explain the drastic steps he’d taken to safeguard Caitlyn Villaré—or the unanswerable yearning that her presence, the very thought of her, set off in his soul?

Insane. You’ve had some kind of break with reality. Wasn’t that what the shrinks would say when he tried to make them understand? The cops and the DA would have another name for it, especially once they discovered the charges against him back in Pennsylvania.

Murder, arson—each flare of memory seared his awareness, choked him with the bitter ash of regret.

But he had to keep his mind on present problems, such as the item he had accidentally scooped up in the cemetery while collecting the things that had spilled from his camera case. The new evidence that had driven him to risk contacting Caitlyn again.

He thought, too, of the low-life motel clerk, the one witness who had seen him walking in supporting Caitlyn.

“Your girl have one too many?” The skinny kid had laughed, his beaky nose poking through a screen of greasy hair and his vintage heavy-metal T-shirt as holey as his black jeans.

“Just tired,” Marcus had assured him.

The clerk’s leer said that he knew better, and he’d handed Marcus a card with his name, Craven, and a number scribbled on it. “You decide you need somebody to drop her somewhere later, just text me your room number. For a little cash, I’m your man to make things happen. Anything you want.”

Marcus had passed Bird Beak two twenties to ensure that he wouldn’t be disturbed, but he had to take it on faith that Craven was exactly what he appeared to be: an opportunistic lowlife who would sooner sell his grandma than talk to the police.

As light rain pattered against a grimy window, Caitlyn moaned and shifted. Marcus’s relief slid free in a sigh, because if he’d been wrong and she failed to regain consciousness, if she—he scarcely dared to think it—died, all of this would be for nothing, and he might as well go turn himself in.

At the chipped sink, he ran warm water over a thin washcloth, then wrung it out, and returned to sit beside the bed and gently clean her face. She stirred, and he smiled, the first real smile that had crossed his features in… He shook his head, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to remember a time when he’d still been his own man, pursuing fame instead of hiding from it.

“Caitlyn,” he said softly. “Caitlyn, can you hear me?”

Her eyelids cracked open, lamplight reflecting off irises the shade of moss touched by the morning sunlight. Relief washed over him, a floodtide of emotion.

She stared at him for a moment before those eyes flashed open and she scrambled away until her back was pressed against the peeling, laminated headboard. Looking around wildly, she cried, “What—where am I? What are you doing here? What happened?”

But she didn’t scream—not yet—something Marcus counted as a blessing.

“Let me explain,” he said, rushing to cram in as much as he could before the inevitable explosion. “You’ve had an accident, or not really an accident. I’m pretty sure someone hit you on the head. I caught him dragging you off in the chaos after the lightning strike.”

He could still smell the ozone, still hear the tourists screaming and scattering as a male voice—Reuben’s? —warned them to stay together for their safety. But Marcus’s eyes, already adjusted to the darkness from his long wait, had seen more than the others—perhaps because Caitlyn had been his sole focus from the spot where he had watched in silence, mentally framing every angle for a photo he had no camera to take. And waiting for his chance to…

“I had to get you out of there,” he tried to explain.

She shuddered, revulsion twisting her mouth. “So you could abduct me, drag me to some sleazy hotel and—”

“No! It wasn’t like that. I never touched you that way. I only meant to keep you safe.”

She tugged at her peasant blouse, which had fallen off her shoulder, and narrowed her eyes. “Then why not take me to a hospital? I was—”

Her hand drifted toward the side of her head, and before he could warn her, she was hissing in pain, fingers coming away tacky with coagulating blood.

“Ow…” Her face lost color, putting him in mind of the dead girl’s from that morning. “He—whoever hit me could’ve killed me.”

“You’ve been stirring, making noises. I didn’t think you were under too deep,” Marcus said, but even to his ears, the excuse rang hollow. “And once I’d taken you—because I was afraid he’d come after you again—there was no way I could go anywhere the police could…where they could get hold of me.”

“So instead you disappeared again, like some sort of phantom—only this time, you’ve dragged me with you.” Her expression hardening, she said flatly, “You’re on the run from the law, aren’t you? That’s why you wouldn’t get involved this morning. Why you were afraid to stick around tonight.”

Her eyes flicked toward the softly shifting light of a slow-motion slideshow on his laptop. His photos from the cemeteries, running as a screen saver. But she said nothing of them.

“I was afraid for you this evening,” he insisted. “You have no idea how damned hard I’ve prayed—”

“To what gods, Marcus?” The stone angel’s image, miraculously captured in the instant before she’d knocked the camera from his hands that morning, flashed across the screen. “Do they have a separate pantheon for stalkers?”

“This is the thanks I get for saving you? For watching your every breath these past two hours? I’m no damned stalker, Caitlyn. I swear to you, I’m only—”

She bolted upright, flinging aside a cobweb-thin sheet and swinging her feet to the floor. “Two hours? Oh my God. Poor Reuben—he’ll be frantic. He’ll have called the police. And Jacinth, too—my sister.”

She stood, or tried to, wobbled and then sank down again with a groan.

“I know they’ll be worried.” Marcus struggled beneath the weight of resignation. “I know that, and I’m sorry. But you’d better rest for a few minutes before you call. Before you report…whatever you decide to tell them.”

His gaze locked onto hers and held it. But instead of the accusations, the curses, he’d expected, he saw something soften in her eyes.

“You’re going to let me do that?” she asked.

He nodded. “Of course. Which is not to say I’m going to stick around and wait to be arrested.”

She studied him for several moments. “Why were you out at the cemetery tonight? I mean, your camera is broken, right?”

“I was hoping you’d show up,” he confessed. “I was hoping for a chance to catch you alone for a moment.”

Her brows rose. “While I was leading a tour group?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I never said it was a great plan. But I was thinking maybe afterward you’d let me take you for a cup of coffee.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Reuben would’ve loved that.”

“I was hoping your pit bull would look away for a minute.”

“He’s not my pit bull, he’s my assistant. He’s just a little… He used to be a cop, so he’s naturally protective.”

“Protective’s one thing, but he looks like he enjoys ripping off heads just for fun.”

“He grew up in a shack on Noble Street, smack up against the old projects,” she said. “So what did you expect, a handshake and a warm welcome?”

Worry creased the smooth skin of her forehead, and moisture clumped her lower lashes. “Reuben may look like a tough guy, but he’s going to be absolutely beside himself with me gone.”

“Then call him,” Marcus said. “Tell him you’re all right.”

Caitlyn looked worried. “You’ll really let me do that?”

Marcus nodded solemnly. “I said I would. But if you can wait for just a minute, there’s this one thing I have to show you first.”

“This better not involve any body parts, or I promise you, I’ll scream louder than you’ve ever heard a woman scream before.” Her eyes sparkled like a honed blade. “In theater school, they always called me the girl with the made-for-horror-movie lungs.”

“I remember from the cemetery.” With another smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, he pulled the matchbook from his jeans pocket and tossed it to the bed. “That’s the only thing I’m whipping out. Even if you beg me.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she murmured, picking up the matchbook.

“This morning in the cemetery, I accidentally grabbed this when I was gathering the stuff that fell out of my bag. I didn’t notice it ’til later, after I’d already left your house.”

She turned the matchbook cover, reading the advertising logo: New Orleans After Dark Guided Tours.

“I worked with Josiah Paine’s company,” she said, her voice trembling, “before I went out on my own.”

“How does your old boss feel about the competition?”

Her gaze dropped, and she ran a corner of the sheet through her fingers, flicking the frayed hem with a chipped pink thumbnail. There was an unconscious sensuality in the small gesture, one that left Marcus too aware of their closeness in this cramped room, of the gulf of need that hollowed him out when he looked into her face.

In his mind’s eye, the thin mattress grew feather-soft and cloud-thick. The worn cotton sheets rewove themselves from sumptuous threads of wine-rich silk. She lay back, her rain-tangled hair brushed to a fine sheen and splayed out against the heaps of fluffy pillows.

Looking away, he bit down hard on his tongue, desperate to bring both his imagination and his body to heel before she noticed and really did scream.

“Paine was furious about it,” Caitlyn admitted in answer to his question. “But he never would’ve lost me if he’d kept his hands to himself.”

Marcus’s focus snapped back to her. “He put the moves on you?” He all but growled the question, a dark possessiveness roaring through his veins. If this Josiah Paine had touched her…

She shook her head, then lifted her hand toward the lump. “Ow—no. I didn’t mean that. He just—he always had a temper. But one day he took it too far.”

“How far?” Marcus ground out.

A delicate flush colored the exposed skin above her breasts. “One night he accused me of holding back tip money.”

“What did he do?”

“The jerk shoved me, and I walked out. Started my own company, Villar-A1 Tours.”

“Revenge?” he asked, as his own subconscious crept in that direction. Imagining himself pummeling a man he’d never met for a woman he hadn’t even known at this time last night.

What the hell’s wrong with me?

Picking up the matchbook and turning it around, she pressed her mouth into a grim line. “Turns out, it’s not as sweet as I expected. Especially not if Josiah’s insane enough to have killed poor Megan Lansky.”

“That’s the dead girl?”

Caitlyn told him about the student who had been reported missing, and how Megan had told her friends she was going on a cemetery tour. “The police thought about mine first, because of the resemblance and because I found her, but what if she went on one of Josiah’s? He leads groups himself some nights—he’s actually quite good—when one of the regular guides takes a night off or he’s short-handed.” She wrapped her arms around herself and added, “His employees tend to quit a lot. Or he gets mad and fires them. He’s kind of famous for it. If I’d known when I first came to town…”

“Then the police are investigating him?”

“I doubt it. He seems to be a drinking buddy of some of the detectives. They acted like his temper’s nothing but an old joke between—”

Cutting herself off, she began looking around, lifting the covers. “I really need to call Reuben. Where’s my bag? My cell phone?”

“Sorry, but I didn’t see them.” Marcus picked up the receiver of the phone at his elbow. With a meaningful look, he passed it to her, and then forced himself to sit there, his jaw gritted, while he waited to find out if she would rain fresh hell down on his head.

CAITLYN FOUGHT TO LOOK AWAY and couldn’t, held captive by the grim resolve on his face. Whatever she did or said, she realized Marcus wouldn’t try to stop her. Wouldn’t ask for help in keeping his involvement hidden, no matter what it cost him.

Though he’d cared enough for her, a virtual stranger, to bring her first the photo and then the matchbook from the crime scene, he expected nothing in return. Not even hope’s ghost lived behind his storm-dark eyes.

Thunder murmured in the distance, followed by an answering frisson of awareness that sparked along her backbone. Alone inside this room, he could have done anything while she lay helpless. Could have but hadn’t, only watched over her instead. Praying she would waken, he had told her.

Surely those details said something about the man he was. Perhaps more than the fact that he was avoiding the police.

Forcing herself to drop her gaze to dial and wait for an answer at the other end, she barely squeezed out a syllable of greeting before Reuben’s worry blasted through the phone line.

“Are you hurt, girl? Where did you go? I’ve been goin’ crazy lookin’. Called out half my buddies from the force to try to find you.”

Her eyes stung at the pain she heard in his voice. Pain that Marcus had inflicted on a man who had shown her and her sister nothing but kindness since the day they had arrived in New Orleans.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “So sorry you were frightened. What about the tour group? Everyone okay?”

“No one hurt, just shaken.”

“And you?”

“You answer me first, chère,” Reuben shot back.

“I’ll be fine. I just…” She wanted to explain, but Marcus’s regard, the weight of his bitter expectation, stopped her.

Looking into his dark eyes, she imagined she could almost hear him saying, I’m already in the wind, so I don’t give a damn what you do. How long had it been since anyone had offered him the slightest support?

“This is so embarrassing,” she said, astonished by the words that poured out. “When the lightning struck, I just—I panicked, Reuben. I don’t know how else to explain it. I ran and ran before I understood what I was doing.”

Marcus lifted dark brows in a question.

“I tripped,” she added. “I must’ve hit my head. When I opened my eyes, it was pitch-dark. So I got up and started searching for you.”

“What? Where are you, Caitlyn? Let me come and get you.”

She slipped her hand over her eyes, hiding from her own lies. “I would’ve called before, but I lost my purse and my phone—”

“I’ve got ’em,” Reuben told her. “But where the hell are—”

“That’s great. Thanks, Reuben. I’m safe. Really.” Some trained actress, she thought, recognizing the too-swift cadence and high pitch of her own panic. “I ran into a friend, and he’s putting me in a cab. I’ll be home soon. We can talk there.”

“What friend? What’s this number you’re calling from? If you’re in trouble, just say ‘okay.’”

“I’m not in trouble, promise,” she said lightly. “See you in a little bit. Bye.”

“Caitlyn, don’t hang—”

Guiltily, she replaced the receiver, handling it as carefully as she might a stick of dynamite. And ignoring it moments later when the phone rang and rang and rang.

MARCUS SAW SHE WAS STILL TREMBLING as he sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into his arms, unable to resist the tidal force of the impulse washing over him. Because against all odds, Caitlyn seemed to see him, the man behind the fugitive. She sighed against him, her body relaxing into his embrace.

It was more than anyone had done in years, and though he’d meant only to comfort her in her obvious distress, the result unleashed a passion that had him tipping back her head and slanting his mouth over hers. The shock of contact, the warm, full wetness of her mouth beneath his, sent raw desire spearing through him.

Yet he pulled back when she froze like a fawn. Pulled back to whisper, “You never need to fear me. To fear this, Caitlyn. Never…”

Half expecting her to scream or slap him, he waited, his breath held with the worry that four years punctuated only by the most fleeting and unsatisfying liaisons had cost him the ability to read a decent woman’s cues. Had the connection he felt been a mirage formed out of loneliness and need?

Heat bloomed in her green eyes an instant before she closed them, leaning forward a bare fraction of an inch—but just enough.

In the gritty gloom of that small, cramped space, their kiss became all the world’s light, focused to form one perfect, concentrated beam. A beam too bright to look at, too hot to bear for long.

Overwhelmed, he pulled his mouth from hers, only to dip his head to slide softer kisses along her neck, behind her ear, as, reverently, his hand skimmed along her ribs and waist, then found the sweet flare of her hip.

Her breaths were coming faster, as hard and quick as his own. Her soft fingertips feathered light caresses at his jawline.

With their bond a starved man’s sustenance, Marcus could have feasted all night, feeding at the subtle notch beneath her pulsing throat, the willing heat of her mouth. But his impatient body had its own imperative, and before he knew what he was doing, he was untying and loosening the bodice of her peasant blouse.

Caitlyn pushed his hand away and sucked in a startled lungful of air. Jerking back, she fixed wide eyes on him, with passion, confusion and regret all playing staccato-swift through her expression.

“No.” She slipped around him to clamber out of the bed. “No, I can’t. This isn’t me, for one thing. And Reuben’s waiting, worried. I have to go. I have to.”

With each word, she backed farther out of his reach.

“Caitlyn, it’s all right,” he said, though his body grieved her loss already. “There’s no need to be upset.”

Beyond listening, she turned from him, scrambling to unfasten the door’s cheap chain and deadbolt.

“Don’t go,” he said. “I’ll call a cab, like you told Reuben, and then I’ll see you to it. You have a head injury, and this neighborhood’s not safe for—”

But it was too late. Door swinging wide, Caitlyn blazed straight through it, not hesitating for an instant before she raced out into the sultry Crescent City night.

Chapter Five

Caitlyn slipped around a corner and ducked behind a trashcan, her heart a snare-quick drumbeat in her chest. She strained her ears to hear past the muted thump of a bass from somewhere nearby, her breath held until she heard footsteps pounding past. Marcus’s footsteps, she was certain, even before she heard him calling her name. He sounded frantic, as worried as Reuben had been on the phone.

“What am I doing?” Her whisper echoed in an alley that reeked of garbage and a pungent smell she didn’t dare risk considering too closely.

Though the rain had finally stopped, recriminations bounced back at her off wet brick and concrete: Reuben’s and the detectives’ warnings about Marcus, along with Jacinth’s scolding that she was too quick to think the best of all those she encountered.

In every other way, you’re brighter than anybody I know. In Caitlyn’s memory, her sister’s dark eyes gleamed with worry as she spoke. But you’re going to end up hurt if you keep dragging home strays and feeding strangers.

Caitlyn sighed, realizing they’d all been right. She’d been dangerously naive, and kissing Marcus, a man who’d carried her beyond the help of Reuben and the police, proved it.

It proved, too, that she had gotten over her boyfriend in Ohio, who’d waited only three days after her move before texting that he guessed he wasn’t cut out for long separations. Apparently he’d never been cut out for monogamy, either, according to her friends.