Larue lowered his head, shaking it.
“No, I don’t know who the hell they were,” Quinn continued. “Goons who worked for Shumaker—Eyes—is my bet. Maybe we’ll be able to prove it. We have something this time—bodies.”
“There always seem to be bodies around you, Quinn,” Larue said.
“Nice way to look at it, Larue. What about, ‘Hey, Quinn, glad to see that you and the women survived’?”
Larue raised his head and grinned. “You know, I wasn’t really worried about you. Sorry. I was hoping to get here before you had to kill the goons.”
“You’ve got more faith in me than I do,” Quinn told him.
“God, you stink again.”
“Sorry.”
“Hell,” Larue said. “Let’s start cleaning this up.”
“Larue.”
“Yeah?”
“We may have something. Carl White received threats on his cell phone. And one of his girls was threatened. She’s dead—died in her bathtub this morning.”
Larue swore softly. “Where does this end?”
“When we find the bust. It’s still out there somewhere. And apparently someone’s still looking for it. That someone thought Carl had it. We have to find the bust and stop his dreams of riches and power. That’s where it will end.”
* * *
That night, Billie was waiting up when they returned to the shop. He opened the door to the courtyard, letting Wolf out to greet them as they arrived.
“You look like bloody shite!” Billie said, his brogue strong with his emotion.
“Yeah, I guess.” Danni was hugging Wolf. She loved that the dog seemed as happy to greet her as Quinn. Well, maybe not quite as happy. He let her stroke his head for a few minutes, but then seemed to need Quinn to make a fuss over him.
“I have tea,” Billie said gruffly.
“Tea,” Dani said, smiling.
“Hot tea with milk and sugar and a good dollop of Jameson whiskey, if you feel the need,” he said firmly. He pointed at Danni. “Up to your room, change into something dry. And you, sir—up to my attic chamber. I haven’t a thing that could pretend to fit you, but I pulled out a few old pieces that belonged to Angus, and you can make do with them. Then you’ll come down and catch me up on what’s going on.”
“It is three in the morning,” Quinn reminded him.
“So it is. You should get moving.”
Quinn looked at Danni and grinned crookedly. She looked back at him and felt as if her heart had stopped beating. She could well imagine his old days, when all he had to do was give out that smile and people fell over themselves to be near him. He was physically imposing, and that grin was sheer seduction.
Yes, she was really liking him, really caring about him—and almost pathetically attracted to him. But he was different. He heard things before anyone else did; the strength he’d betrayed tonight had been astonishing. He’d hefted Carl White around as though he’d been no more than a baby, and there was no questioning why that man had gotten his moniker.
“Clock’s ticking,” Billie told her.
“Yessir!” She turned and raced up the stairs.
It was hard not to stay in the shower for a long time. The spring days were getting warm, but the water in the bayou at night had been chilling—not to mention everything that had gone on in it. She tried to weigh her feelings. She’d been numb, in a way. Men had tried to kill her. She could still remember the terror of grappling with them, of not being able to breathe...of being certain she was about to see her father again.
Drying off, she studied herself in the mirror. Marks from the hands that had tried to strangle her remained on her throat. She tried to conjure up the man’s face. All she could remember was his look of brutal determination. She realized that she’d never seen any of the men clearly.
She brushed out her wet hair and pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt. When she got downstairs, Quinn was dressed in one of her father’s old flannel shirts and a pair of his jeans.
They came to his ankles, but Quinn seemed warm and dry. She was surprised that he looked at her with accusing eyes. “You didn’t tell me there was almost a break-in here,” he said.
She was startled and glanced at Billie. “Um, we don’t know if it was an attempted break-in. Wolf barked. And Billie came down. With a gun,” she added, raising her eyebrows.
“Honesty is a good thing here, between us,” Billie said.
“Yes—we honestly don’t know if it was going to be some kind of break-in,” Danni said. “And you! You talk about honesty!”
“I haven’t been dishonest,” Billie protested. “I hold down the fort—and do whatever I’m asked. But I need to know where you are and whether you’re all right, young woman. I’m too old to pace around like a mother hen waiting for a teenage daughter to get back from a date. Now, drink your tea.”
She laughed out loud. The terror she’d felt that evening was slowly leaving her. When she looked up, she saw that Quinn was studying her.
“You could have died tonight,” he said quietly.
“I could have. And you could, too. Again.”
“I’m living on a second chance as it is,” he said.
“Which makes it that much more precious,” she returned.
“It’s no good fretting about each other. It is what it is,” Billie told them. “But from now on, you keep me up on what’s going on. Thank God for Jez tonight and the fact that he called me and the police. You could’ve been killed by those thugs.” He turned to Quinn. “You would have heard the car, but Jez bought you a few minutes that might have been all-important. So—the bust is out there. Somewhere. Eyes, or his men, killed Leroy and Ivy. Maybe Leroy was holding out, trying to get more money...who knows? Shumaker’s goons might have been getting ready to torture it out of Leroy when they realized you were coming, Quinn. But if he’s still killing people—”
“It’s not because of what he thinks they know. It’s because of what he thinks they have—or know where to find,” Quinn finished.
Billie nodded, his face grim. “Tonight goes to show that you two are in danger, real danger. More so than those poor fools who just get in the way.”
“We’ll be careful, Billie,” Quinn promised him. “Wolf will be with you until this is over.”
“And then who is with you?” Billie asked. “Angus, he had me. You had Wolf.”
“I want Wolf with Danni,” Quinn insisted.
“Hey, I’m in on this, too, remember?” Danni said. “And I have a solution.”
They both looked at her.
“Until we find the bust, Wolf and Quinn both stay here. My father’s room is empty. So Quinn can stay there.”
“I have a house,” Quinn said.
“A great house,” she agreed. “But here’s the deal. We keep you and Wolf.”
“How is that a deal?” He laughed. “A deal usually means some kind of give-and-take.”
“Yes, usually.”
He nodded slowly.
“You must be wearing her down, Quinn. Danni didn’t want anyone else even going through Angus’s things.”
“I happen to like living,” Danni said. She saw that she hadn’t touched her tea. She swallowed down the contents of her cup and rose. “And sleeping. We don’t seem to be getting much of that around here lately. Good night. Oh, by the way, I let Wolf in my room,” she told Quinn.
She left them in the little kitchen and started through the shop. In the darkness, it should have been eerie with the sarcophagus and other funerary items, medieval pieces and tribal fetishes.
But she wasn’t afraid of the shop, and she realized that was because nothing in it was evil.
Somehow, her father had seen to that.
And now...
She turned bac
k, thinking that, first thing, they should find out exactly how Carl White’s girl, Shirley, had died.
But Quinn was still speaking to Billie, and although she shouldn’t have eavesdropped, she found herself listening in.
“So, how is she working out? Is it like being with Angus?” Billie asked.
“She’s his daughter,” Quinn said. Danni smiled. It was probably the greatest compliment she could receive. But then he added, “It’s harder. Much harder than working with Angus.”
“How’s that?” Billie asked.
“Well, Angus wasn’t built like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, for one,” he said, and went silent for a minute. “And I wasn’t falling halfway in love with Angus all the time,” Quinn continued. There was something in his tone that touched her soul. After a few seconds of silence, he lightened the mood. “Angus wasn’t my type at all, you know. Too big—and hairy.”
Both men laughed. But there was warmth in the laughter. These men had loved her father in very different ways.
Falling halfway in love...
Was that what she was doing, too?
Not a good thing, she thought.
He was too strong, too aware, too—
I died, he had told her. And it was true; he had flatlined on the table.
His life was a second chance....
But if she was following in her father’s footsteps, what was hers?
Chapter Twelve
QUINN WONDERED IF he would actually sleep that night; he was overloaded with the remaining adrenaline.
And tea.
To his surprise, exhaustion from the past few days kicked in, and soon he was out like a light.
He woke up hearing Wolf’s nails clattering on the wooden floor outside the bedroom door. He sat up quickly, pulling the covers to his chest as the door opened and Danni and Wolf entered the room.
Danni looked great—bright-eyed, fresh and beautiful. She was wearing jeans and a tailored shirt, and it all seemed to hug her body perfectly. He was glad of the covers.
“Ten o’clock, rise and shine. The hell with that not going to bed till 4:00 a.m. thing,” she said, sitting on the foot of his bed. “Larue called on the shop phone, since you weren’t answering your cell. He wants you down at the station right away. I think he’s getting worried about keeping Carl White safe.”
“Why do you think that?” Quinn asked her, struggling to really awaken.
“Because he said, ‘I’m worried about our ability to keep Carl White safe.’ Well, he didn’t say that, but I’m assuming he figures that Shumaker knows you’re on this case and maybe he knows about your affiliation with John Ryan. If so, he may go after Father Ryan, and then he could go after nuns and nurses and doctors....”
“Yeah, I get it,” Quinn said. “All right, I’m getting up.”
She stayed on the foot of his bed, staring at him.
“Once you’re out of the room,” he said. He grimaced. “Your dad didn’t have any pj’s that fit me.”
“How did you do it?” she asked him.
“Pardon?”
“No human being without superpowers could have lifted Carl White the way you did last night. And you hear things before other people do. I’m not sure what else. I’m going to have to be more observant.” She kept staring at him, obviously determined.
Wolf gave a little whimper. He stood by the bedside and nuzzled Quinn’s hand.
“The strength...the hearing—they’re gifts, I guess,” he said huskily.
“From whom?” she asked carefully.
He smiled and said, “I don’t really know.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “The story, please?”
He pulled a pillow from the other side of the bed, placed it on his lap, then sat up and looked at her. He’d never seen eyes bluer than hers at that moment, or more intense.
“You know most of the story, don’t you? I had everything. Loving parents, a great family. I did well in school with no effort, sailed through, became known as the high school player to watch. I graduated, went to college, got a reputation as the college player to watch. Everyone loved me—or loved being in the sunshine that seemed to surround me. And I was an ass, a total prick. I couldn’t count the girls I had in a night and I discarded the decent ones as easily as the—forgive me—sluts. I just took everything offered to me. Including tons of alcohol, pills, cocaine...you name it. Then I overdosed. I was hit by a car. They were trying to pump my stomach and do surgery to sew up the gashes at the same time, and I died.” He paused, and saw that she was waiting for more. And there was more.
He inhaled on a deep breath. “I know you’ve probably heard this story before, too—maybe not in connection with me. I saw it happen. I was there, but floating over my body. I saw the doctors and the nurses...and in the waiting room, I could see my parents and my family, crying their eyes out. I thought about what an ass I’d been and I wanted to comfort my mother so badly....”
He grimaced, took another breath and met her eyes again. “Then...I saw a doctor walk in. A man with scrubs on over jeans and a leather jacket. He was about forty, I’d say—dark, wavy hair...good face. I saw him down there, giving instructions...and when I turned—up where I was floating—I saw him again. He looked at me with pure disgust and said, ‘What a waste. What a pathetic waste. You had the stuff to make a difference.’ I looked down at my bedside and he was still there, telling them to rev up the heart blaster one more time. They did. I remember feeling as if I’d been struck by lightning. I think my body jumped off the bed. During the next few days in the hospital, I couldn’t shake what I’d seen—or imagined I’d seen. And I knew it had all happened because my sister had never entered the room that night, but I’d known exactly what she was wearing. As I began to heal, I realized I was stronger than ever and that I could hear every word the nurses were saying when they whispered at their stations. I asked about the doctor I’d seen, but no one knew what I was talking about. I dropped it.
“When I was finally in shape to get out, I spent some time telling my family how grateful I was for them and begged them to forgive me. I was going to sign up for the navy. I did my two-year stint, then went through the police academy and started with the New Orleans Police Department. I worked for the department several years, and got a degree—I studied criminology. I thought that being a cop was what I was supposed to do.” He stopped speaking again. Danni hadn’t said a word. She was watching him with steady eyes. She didn’t seem frightened or even entertained. Her look was dead serious, as if she was glad of what she was hearing.
“Did you want to say anything?” he asked her. “Maybe tell me that the neurons flapping around the brain at time of death probably cause such visions?”
“I’m sure physicians do have an explanation for it—whether they’re right or you’re right, I don’t know. But there’s more.”
He nodded. “One night, I was off-duty. I was at a bar on Frenchman Street and a fight broke out. I ignored it at first—there were other cops on duty. The fight went outside, and I followed. The one guy was ripped to shreds. I realized that the on-duty cops hadn’t intervened. They felt those two should bash the hell out of each other, since they were both junkies. I stepped in and they remembered they were supposed to enforce the law—not make judgments. Anyway, I left the bar to head home and ran smack into the man I’d seen at the hospital.”
“The doctor who was telling them to hit you with the paddles again—and who was with you, floating above the scene?”
“Yep. He was angry. He told me I wasn’t supposed to wait for others to step in. I wasn’t getting it. I needed to do more—and take help where I could get it. I felt him brush by me. I thought about that meeting for a few days and then I resigned and got my P.I.’s license. For a while, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. All I got at first were cases
where someone wanted me to spy on someone else...until the little girl disappeared. I took the case right away. The father was an old friend I’d gone to school with—a real friend, one who hadn’t enabled me, but who’d been there for me when I needed to talk. He told me the police were trying but he wasn’t sure they were trying everything. I agreed. I’d picked up vague hints of some Satanic activity but didn’t know how to investigate it, how to pursue it. Later that same day, I gathered up a pile of clothing I hadn’t worn in ages. I was going to have it cleaned to give to Goodwill. I emptied the pockets...and I found your father’s card. Once I met him...well, everything clicked. I had a few cases that were mundane, that I managed on my own. But I found that little girl because of your father, because of what he knew—because of what he did.
“So...do I really have any answers about myself? No. I’ve seen the man a few times since—in a crowd, sometimes, giving me a push in the right direction at other times. Literally and figuratively. But who he is—what he is—I don’t know. I have no idea what name he goes by, if any. I don’t even know if he lives in my mind, if I got that card the night he brushed by me...or if I picked it up somewhere. I do know that I’m finally doing what I’m supposed to do.”
She was thoughtful as she studied him, chewing her lower lip. “So that means I should know what I’m supposed to do,” she said softly.
“You seem to be doing it—and very well,” he told her.
“And I made you go see a band,” she said regretfully.
He shook his head strenuously, reaching out to clasp her by the shoulders. “You were right to see the band. You’re right to live your life as normally as possible. Life is nothing if we don’t enjoy every second that we can.”