“I have nothing for you, Mr. Shumaker,” she repeated. She wished then that she’d called Quinn back. But what could he do? Her shop was public. Quinn might have started a fight that would’ve gotten them nowhere.
Shumaker continued to study her. Finally he smiled. “Well, thank you, Danielle. A pleasure to meet you. Perhaps we’ll do business in the future.”
“I sincerely doubt that, Mr. Shumaker.”
“Oh, don’t be so dubious, Ms. Cafferty! I do believe we’ll meet again.”
He offered her his hand; she ignored it.
“Danni!” Jane chastised softly.
She ignored that, too.
“Thank you, Jane,” Shumaker said. “It was a delight meeting you.”
“Likewise,” Jane said.
Shumaker turned to leave the shop.
“Danni! What is the matter with you? How could you be so rude to a customer? Not just any customer, but Brandt Shumaker. Danni, he’s probably going to be our next mayor!” Jane said, obviously distressed.
“He’s not a customer, he’s a monster,” Danni exploded, still feeling the tension. “I don’t want him in here—and if he comes back, you can make that clear to him.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll never come back,” Jane said. “You couldn’t possibly have been ruder—unless you’d used foul language! Thank heavens you didn’t do that.”
“Jane, I mean it. The man is a monster. I don’t want him in the store.” Danni tried to control her voice and her emotions. “He uses other people to get down in the dirt, but he’s a drug dealer and God alone knows what else.”
“Danni, that’s just rumor by people who are jealous of his success,” Jane said, apparently mystified.
Danni leaned on the counter. “Please, Jane, I don’t want him in here, okay?”
“Well, okay, but it seems you’ve managed to tell him that yourself!”
Danni didn’t want to argue. She walked quickly away, heading downstairs to the book.
* * *
Natasha was in her store explaining certain herbs and their powers to a customer when Quinn arrived. She glanced up at him when he entered—and then looked him up and down. He realized he’d clumped in a pile of mud and flushed in embarrassment. Danni had been right; with no imminent danger, a shower would have been in order first.
He indicated that he’d be in the back. He and Wolf walked around to the courtyard entrance and waited for her. He sat at her wrought-iron table, setting the dolls on it. Wolf lay down, his nose on his paws.
Natasha came out a minute later. “Something’s happened?” she asked anxiously.
Quinn gave her a brief rundown of their day. “And these were at what I assume is Shumaker’s ceremonial site—the sugar mill. Beside a fire.”
Natasha picked up the dolls and studied them. She shook her head. “These are not part of any legitimate voodoo, but the attempt to mimic a form of black magic is evident. According to these, you should be blinded. You need to be careful.” She paused for a moment, adjusted her turban and picked up the dolls. He caught only a few words of her Creole as she began to murmur a prayer. Cleanse and bless were words she used, along with protect and strengthen. As she spoke, she removed the pins from the dolls. When she was done, he placed his hand on hers, met her eyes and smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
“These are just dolls, you know. Belief is what we have faith in, and what we’re willing to give in to. Your belief, Quinn, is in creating good in the world around you. These dolls could not have any effect on you, whether I blessed them or not.”
“Ah, but I believe in your goodness, Natasha!” he told her. “So it feels better.”
“We’re both more concerned with what it means that they were there—not with the dolls themselves,” Natasha said.
“Yeah. He knows Danni and I are together.”
“I’m sure Brandt Shumaker did his research on you,” Natasha said. “And he would also have found out that there was something unusual about the shop. Maybe he knew about Danielle’s father.”
“In any event, we took the dolls. He’ll know we were out there. It stands to reason that we should stay on the offensive.” Quinn said as he started to rise, “Thank you, Natasha.”
She set a hand on his arm. “Be careful.”
“Natasha, I’ll be extremely careful. The police are backing me. We’ll go in, and the minute we see anything out of the ordinary—which we will, since he does have the statue—I’ll call Larue and he’ll have a brigade of patrol cars and troopers ready to go in.”
Natasha nodded, troubled. “Jez overheard customers talking in the store. People he didn’t know, maybe tourists. They were talking about a ceremony someone had told them about. They seemed to think it would be fun and adventurous to go out and dabble in satanism.”
“So that’s what he’s practicing—satanism?”
“I don’t know if it could even be given a name.”
“Natasha, we’ll take care. I promise you.”
“I will be praying for you,” she said.
“Come, boy,” he ordered Wolf. As he walked the short distance to Danni’s, he noted that Royal Street was crowded with happy tourists, shopping, laughing, enjoying the music in the Quarter. The world seemed far too normal for something as evil as the bust to exist.
He went in through the side entry. There were people in the shop, but he didn’t see Danni so he hurried down to the first level.
She was seated behind her father’s desk; she’d taken the book from its glass case and brought it there. She looked up at him, white-faced.
“What is it?” he asked urgently. “What did you find?”
“He was here, Quinn. Shumaker was here—trying to buy wands and fetish items. For his collection.”
He turned away, his temper, and his fear, soaring.
Danni leaped up and came around to face him, setting her hands on his shoulders. “He’s gone, Quinn. I told him to leave.”
“You should have called me.”
“Why? You would’ve started a fight, you would’ve won—and he’d have gotten you locked up. Maybe that’s what he was hoping to do.”
Maybe.
He pulled her close to him, holding her tight.
Shumaker was trying to tell him in his own less than subtle way that he knew exactly how and where to find Danni.
Somehow, he had to keep her away from that sugar mill. Shumaker had the bust. And he might be planning a grand sacrifice....
Chapter Sixteen
JANE LOCKED UP for the day soon after Quinn arrived. Billie would be in the hospital until the following morning, and Danni decided they should cook their own dinner that night. “Honey, we’ve been out so often lately. Let’s stay home,” she teased. “I have some steaks in the fridge and we can toss a salad. If that sounds okay to you.”
Quinn said it sounded great and went up—finally—to take his shower while she puttered in the kitchen. He returned to help her, setting the table, watching the oven grill while she tossed the salad.
It felt good to be here, together, at her house. Except for the tension she was feeling.
Quinn must have been feeling it, too.
He watched Wolf now and then, but Wolf seemed content and tired, sleeping on the kitchen floor.
“You set the alarm, right?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s set.”
When they were almost ready to eat, she said, “I’m sorry if I’ve unnerved you. I hated that he was in here, that he was chatting up Jane as a potential voter!”
Danni took the steaks out, turned the oven off and discovered that he was behind her, gently drawing her into his arms. “Don’t worry. He’s never going to come up for a vote.”
“I just feel—”
“That he somehow sullied your shop.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said quietly. “And I guess I’m lucky he didn’t come in here and start shooting.”
Quinn put the steaks on plates and the plates on the table. He didn’t sit until Danni came around to take her chair. When she did, he took his own and said, “Whoever, whatever, resides in that bust isn’t stupid. If Brandt Shumaker came in here shooting, he’d never make it to his grand ceremony tomorrow. There’d be witnesses and he’d find himself taken down to the station. As far as we know, he’s never actually pulled a trigger himself. He’s always gotten someone else to do it. But I suspect he came in here today to taunt us. He wants to tell us that we may know about him, but he knows about us, too.”
“He’s going to assume we found those dolls.”
“Natasha did her voodoo thing over them, by the way.”
“That’s good. Although...Quinn, are we immune?”
“I think so.”
“Great. You think.”
He reached across the table to take her hand. “It’s like hypnotism. The bust can’t make us do what we would never, in our heart of hearts, do.”
“Gladys killed herself.”
“Gladys didn’t understand what she was up against. Pietro Miro wanted her to commit and evil act. She couldn’t do it, and suicide was her way out. Neither of us is going to kill ourselves. But—now hear me out on this! I want you to stay here tomorrow night. I will get the bust, and when I have it, we need to know what to do with it. Your father’s private room—that’s where things like this go. Down there, with the book, is where it may lose its power. I need you to be here, ready when I do get the bust thing in my hands.”
She shook her head. “You’re suggesting I let you go alone.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ve talked to Larue. He’ll have a small army ready to come in the minute I give him the call.”
“You’re the one who came into my shop like a crazy man, demanding I get the statue—and learn who and what I am, although I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”
He smiled at her. She liked the look in his eyes and the slight curve of his lips. “I can’t help it that the stakes have changed,” he said. “I’m not a chauvinist. I’m an equal-opportunity guy. But your father was a crack shot, something else you might not have known. He could wield many a weapon. He was big and tough and...you’re not. You could actually put me in danger tomorrow night because I’ll be too worried about you to pay attention.”
Danni felt the truth of his words. She was afraid herself—but she wanted to go. She wanted to be what she was supposed to be, learn to face the demons and difficulties of the role she’d somehow been cast to play. She didn’t want him going alone.
But she knew that he would die for her. Not because of who she was, but because he was who he was.
She sat back in her chair and nodded slowly. “All right. I guess it’s like the don’t-split-up rule in a horror movie, huh? Don’t let the bad guys force you to show yourself. Then they’ll just kill both of us.”
“Something like that.”
“All right,” she said again.
“Billie will be back tomorrow. And...” He hesitated. “And I’ve asked Larue to see that he keeps a man stationed in the street. That way...”
“Half the police force will already be involved, if you’re telling me the truth and—”
“I’m not lying to you, Danni. I don’t lie. Larue’s worried that he’ll go through a song and dance with the courts if he just bursts in and Shumaker can prove he’s simply having a religious ceremony on private property. There’s nothing illegal about that—even if he’s practicing satanism. The separation of church and state allows him to do that. Larue wants something he can use to really put Shumaker away.”
“Did you tell him about the dolls?” Danni asked.
“Nothing illegal about having dolls, Danni.”
“Fine. I’ll stay here—because I don’t want to endanger your life,” she told him. “But,” she added, rising, bringing her plate to the sink, “I don’t like it.”
Quinn rose, too. She didn’t look at him as he came up behind her but he slipped his arms around her, his face buried in her hair. His hands slid over hers in the soapy water, stroking along the length of her arms and she turned into him, into his embrace, lifting her face to his, eager for the feel of his lips on hers.
“Dishes can wait?” he asked huskily.
Dishes could wait.
She wound her arms around him, feeling the sweet pressure of his mouth on hers, the hot, wet hunger in his kiss. They stumbled away from the sink, still in each other’s arms. His hands glided beneath her shirt, caressing the bare skin of her torso and her breasts. She lost her balance and he backed away, catching her, and they half landed on the table, laughing.
“We’re all alone tonight,” he whispered. “Well, except for Wolf.”
“He’s such a well-mannered dog. He’ll look the other way.”
“But we could be romantic,” Quinn teased.
“Really. How?”
“Well, you know, I can sweep you off your feet and carry you up the stairs.”
“You do have wonderfully strong arms.”
“Yeah, and when you’re my height and size, a bed is more comfortable than the kitchen table.”
She laughed again as he swept her up. They moved through the darkened shop to the stairs, heedless of the paintings on the walls, the statues, medieval swords, eighteenth-century vampire-killing kits and the other curiosities they passed. The staircase was narrow but Quinn swore that he could maneuver it and he did, and in a few minutes they were in the bedroom, tearing at each other’s clothes.
Her drapes on the courtyard-facing window remained open. The moon was nearly full and cast a soft light into the room, as if highlighting the bed in the midst of the shadows. Danni was glad; she loved seeing his eyes, the bronzed color of his shoulders, the grace of his hands as he touched her. They fell, entwined at first, shoving stray pieces of clothing off the bed. Then he was above her, looking at her, and their lips met with the fire of arousal. She found herself bathed in the heat of his mouth as his lips trailed over her flesh, eliciting desire wherever he touched. Hunger filled her and she touched him in turn, relishing the tremor and tension in his muscled form. Her lips caressed his shoulders, her fingers skimmed the length of his back. Then she felt his touch going lower and she clutched at his hair. She was aware of the color of the room, the coolness of the sheets, the beauty of the moon beyond, but soon she became aware of nothing but him, his touch, the fire burning deep inside and radiating through her until it seemed to leap into an inferno that was all-consuming. She tugged at his hair, his shoulders, writhing and drawing him back to her and then deep within her. Soon they were rolling and twisting on the bed, seeking each other again and again, desperately needing release while never wanting this to end. She felt the climax coming and clung to him and felt the power in him as he climaxed, too, and then the shuddering of his body against hers. Their lips touched, and the world seemed to explode between them, and they shuddered together, still entwined.
He smoothed back her hair and said softly, “I’m definitely not going to die tomorrow. Not when I can return to you.”
She curled more tightly into his arms. “You can’t die. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“If you have no idea what you’re doing, we should keep it that way,” he said with a laugh.
“You know what I mean,” she said, nipping his shoulder.
“I do,” he told her. “Danni, all I have to do is get in there—and call Larue.”
“What if Shumaker isn’t doing anything but holding a ridiculous ceremony?”
“Then I’ll have to get out.”
“What makes you think you’ll manage that so ea
sily?”
He rolled onto his back, gazing up at the ceiling. “Because I’m a Louisiana boy, born and bred. I’ve been out in that bayou country a million times since I was a kid. Shumaker hires his goons from afar.”
“He has the bust.”
“And I have...I don’t know what I have, but I have it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I came back from the dead, Danni. I came back for a reason—and because I had some kind of protector who wanted me to.”
She propped herself up on one elbow to look down at him. “Was he real? The man you saw when you died? Maybe he was created by neurons or whatever the scientists suggest. Maybe we should both get out of this now and let the police do their job.”
He gently pushed her down, his face serious. “Danni, I’ve never wished so fervently that I could just forget the world—which I actually did a few minutes ago,” he said. “But we can’t go back to what we were. I can’t go back. Even if we wanted to, we’re already branded by Shumaker. But that doesn’t matter. Don’t go to the sugar mill tomorrow night.”
She stroked his hair, studying his eyes. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that. How annoying and yet...”
“And yet?”
“And yet it’s the mystique that makes you so...”
“So?”
“Palatable!”
“Palatable! I’ll show you palatable!”
She laughed, and then she was shrieking, and they made love again until they were both spent and exhausted.
She lay with her face on his cheek, thinking she’d be awake all night, tormented by worry about what was to come the next day.
But they really had exhausted each other. The extent of their physical exertion took its toll; lying in his arms and thinking she would never sleep, she slept.
* * *
Quinn woke with a start because something wet and cold was touching his hand. He jumped up. It was Wolf, of course. But the dog had been shut out of the room.