John scowled, but took the aspirin. “Thanks.”
Julia smiled sweetly. “I don’t think you two have been formally introduced.”
Jacob snorted.
Claudia ducked her head and pretended to be interested in the invoices on Julia’s desk.
Julia made the introductions, but the two men only sneered at each other. Terrific, she thought, and tapped out two aspirin for herself.
The bell on the door jingled.
“Saved by the bell.” Claudia rose.
Julia looked up to see John’s brother Mitch walk in flanked by a second, bald-headed man in an ill-fitting suit. She knew it was an overreaction, but her heart began to pound.
“Hi, Mitch,” she heard herself say. “Is everything all right?”
The grim-faced bald man hung back near the door. Julia thought he resembled a Mafioso. Mitch was all business this morning. His scowl lingered on John, then landed on Julia. “Is there a place where we can talk?” He shot a pointed look at Claudia and Jacob. “In private?”
“Yes, of course.” She motioned toward the storage room at the back of the shop. “Has something happened?”
“What’s this about, bro?” John asked.
Both Mitch and Julia turned to him. Mitch paused, sighed. “You need to hear this, too.”
Julia led John and Mitch into the storage room. John had folded the cot and stacked the pillow and single blanket neatly on top, but the small room was still crowded with three people inside.
“Close the door,” Mitch said.
Julia pulled the door closed behind them. The instant the door was closed, Mitch glared first at Julia, then John. “Why didn’t you tell me about the goddamn book?”
Arms folded on his chest, John leaned against a shelf, unimpressed by his brother’s wrath. “She wanted it kept confidential.”
“That’s a bullshit answer. I’m your brother. A cop. I’m trying to help and you have me out breaking my ass without bothering to show me the respect of giving me all the information I need.”
“It’s my fault,” Julia said. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
He frowned at John. “You knew I’d find out.”
“We didn’t think it was relevant,” John said.
Mitch glared at him. “You’re a cop and you didn’t think it was relevant?”
“Ex-cop,” John said easily. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“The big deal, bro, is that some sick bastard murdered a woman last night.”
Julia felt the words like a punch, so hard that for an instant she couldn’t catch her breath. A hundred questions descended at once. And suddenly she had a very bad feeling about Mitch’s being here. That somehow the murder was connected to her.
She could see that Mitch now had John’s full attention. “What does that have to do with Julia?”
Mitch pulled a notepad from his jacket. “A city worker found a woman’s body this morning at the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. She’d been strangled and stabbed. We’ll know more when the ME does the autopsy.” His grim gaze swept to Julia. “There was a book found at the scene with some weird shit written inside.”
Her heart stumbled, began to race. “Oh, no.”
Mitch looked down at his note. “A Gentleman’s Touch by Elisabeth de Haviland. Sound familiar?”
“Yes,” Julia mumbled.
“No thanks to either of you.” Mitch jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Detective McBride called the publishing house in New York and got the surprise of his life when he learned Elisabeth de Havilland is no other than Julia Wainwright.” He glared at John. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, bro, especially when I have a dead body on my hands. You want to explain to me what the hell is going on?”
John scraped a hand over his face.
Julia figured it was her responsibility to explain. “I asked him to keep this information confidential,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because my father is about to be voted in as director of the Eternal Springs Ministry. He’s worked hard to get where he is, Mitch, and I think if the members or the board found out I was writing . . . erotica it could hurt his chances.”
Mitch looked uncomfortable for a moment. “What exactly is erotica, Julia?”
Heat suffused her face. “It’s sensual writing. About emotional love and a physical relationship between a man and a woman.”
Out of the corner of her eye she could see that John was hanging onto her every word.
“There’s a lot of sex in the book?” Mitch asked bluntly.
Julia nodded. “Yes.”
“We think that’s what set this guy off, got him interested in Julia,” John put in.
Mitch’s gaze sharpened on her brother. “What makes you think that?”
“The notes. Some of the things he said to her when he assaulted her last night.” He shrugged. “It’s an assumption, but it fits.”
Mitch appeared to digest that for a moment. “Do you think he finds her work offensive or is he turned on by it?”
“Offensive,” Julia said.
“Both,” John said simultaneously.
“Shit.” Mitch scrubbed a hand over his face, his gaze meeting John’s.
“He’s turned on, but he doesn’t like it,” John finished.
Julia didn’t miss the silent communication that passed between the two men, and a chill crept up her spine. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“You let the cops do their job.” Mitch met her gaze. “I’ll need a copy of your book, Julia.”
She hesitated. “Will you be able to keep my identity in confidence?”
“I’ll do my best, but I can tell you the investigation will take precedence over your privacy.”
Now that someone had been killed, her privacy—her father’s fast-track career—didn’t seem as important.
Turning away, she left the two men to get a copy of the book—and for the first time since she’d begun A Gentleman’s Touch, she wished to God she’d never written it.
TWELVE
“You look like you got caught in a meat grinder,” Mitch said after Julia had left the room.
John figured a meat grinder would have been a hell of a lot kinder than the abuse he’d put his body through last night. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Mitch looked him up and down, then sniffed. “You smell like a goddamn bar.”
Because he didn’t know how to respond to that, John walked over to the door, closed it and asked the question that had been burning in the back of his mind since his brother had walked into the shop. “So what aren’t you telling us about this murder?”
“It’s bad shit, John.”
“Yeah, well, murder is always bad shit.”
Mitch shot a pointed look to the flask on the floor next to the folded cot. “Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut?”
That his brother would even ask irked. But John figured better men than him had succumbed to the mouth loosening effects of alcohol. “You know you can.”
Mitch grimaced. “I talked to the ME while I was at the scene this morning. NOPD isn’t going to make it public, but the son of a bitch that killed the woman inscribed something on her abdomen. Carved some weird bullshit into her flesh.”
“Jesus.” John thought about the possibility of the man who’d accosted Julia in the alley and the murderer being one and the same, and shuddered inwardly. “Was the inscription legible? What did it say?”
“CSI took a bunch of photos.” Glancing once toward the door, he pulled a few laser prints from his jacket pocket. “It’s some sick shit, that’s for sure.”
John had seen plenty of crime scenes in the years he’d been a cop. He’d seen the vicious things one man could do to another, and he’d long since stopped letting any of it bother him. But he’d never seen anything like the sight that accosted him when he looked at the photo.
The wages of sin is death.
John stared at the crude words. Blood red against pasty white f
lesh. The dried blood that had streamed from the cuts told him the words had been carved into her flesh while she’d been alive . . .
“That’s the same as one of the letters Julia received.”
“I’ll need a copy.”
“You got it.” John sighed. “What else?”
“We won’t know exactly what happened to her until the ME finishes. Looks like he tied her up, cut her, then strangled her. There was a bloody crucifix inside her body. Prelim exam says she was raped and sodomized with it. She was torn up pretty bad, like he was in a frenzy.” Mitch’s gaze met John’s. “I don’t have to remind you that there was a crucifix found in the alley where Julia was accosted.”
“I made the connection.” The hairs on the back of John’s neck prickled. “They the same?”
“Similar enough for me to drop by and tell you this.”
“Shit,” John said.
“Any idea who the wacko is?”
John shook his head. “No idea, but I’m working it. I’m running backgrounds on her employees. Skinny guy out front, Jacob Brooks, doesn’t have an alibi.”
Mitch scribbled something in his notepad. “I’ll plug him into the database and see if anything pops.”
“Thanks.”
Mitch motioned toward the flask lying on the floor a few feet away. “This might be a good time for you to clean up your act, bro.”
Because he wasn’t sure if he was up to that task, either, John frowned. “I’d rather you assign her an officer.”
“NOPD doesn’t have the manpower for that. You know how it works.”
“Maybe you could pull some strings.”
“I’m sick of pulling strings for you. For chrissake pull yourself together.” Mitch shook his head as if in disgust. “The NOPD is recruiting. I added your name to the list.”
“Mitch, I’m in no shape to be taking on a job . . .”
“Instead of wallowing in all that self-pity, maybe you ought to be thankful you walked out of that warehouse that night. You’re alive, man. For God’s sake, it could have been you who’d taken a bullet. Do you ever stop to think about that?”
John stared hard at his brother, his heart pounding. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about it, goddamn it.”
What he didn’t say was that for the last two months he’d wished it had been him who hadn’t walked away.
“You’re going to what?” Julia wasn’t one to raise her voice—not much anyway—but she couldn’t keep the incredulity out of it.
John didn’t look the least bit fazed. “I said I’m going to move into the storage room.”
“Move in?” she repeated stupidly.
“In light of the attack on you and the murder last night, Mitch and I both think it’s a good idea.”
Julia didn’t agree. Not that she didn’t feel safer with John around. She did. But after seeing the shape he was in this morning—and taking into consideration the way she was reacting to him—she didn’t think his moving in was a good idea at all.
“You won’t be comfortable there,” she blurted.
“My apartment’s not much bigger. The cot is fine. I can use the little half bath off the hall.”
“There’s no shower.”
“I’ll have to use yours.”
The image of him naked and soaping his sculpted male body rendered her speechless. An author of erotica, Julia was no prude. But it didn’t keep the heat from creeping into her cheeks. A naked John Merrick using her shower was not a thought she wanted to have at the moment.
“Don’t you think Mitch is overreacting?” she asked.
“Mitch doesn’t overreact.” He tilted his head and frowned at her. “Neither do I.”
The intellectual side of her brain knew his moving in temporarily was a good idea. But another side of her that wasn’t quite so logical was beginning to feel hemmed in. It was a feeling she’d been dealing with since childhood. A feeling brought on by an overbearing father whose love could be oppressive. As an adult, Julia had learned to deal with her father; she loved and respected Benjamin Wainwright. But having seen the crumble of her parents’ not-so-perfect marriage, she guarded her independence with a fierceness not many people understood.
Not that she would ever consider a relationship with John. He hadn’t talked about it, but she knew he was in a very dark place right now. She could see the pain etched into his every feature. While she was willing to be a friend, that was where she drew the line.
“How long?” she asked after a moment.
“At the very least until NOPD can rule out the possibility that the murder last night is related to the attack on you.” He lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “Preferably until your stalker is found and stopped.”
“Do you think the police will find him?”
“Sooner or later he’ll screw up. Or the police will get lucky.” His eyes met hers. “In the interim, I think this is the best way to keep you safe.”
She sighed, hating the thought of how this would affect her life. Julia came and went as she pleased. She saw whom she pleased, when she pleased. She loved socializing, but she also valued her privacy. Unfortunately, she didn’t see a way out of this.
“I’ll do my best to make the storage room comfortable for you. In fact, I’ve got an old recliner upstairs that I’m not using. And there’s an antique floor lamp I can bring down.”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
“I’ll see if I can get Jacob to help me with them.” She started toward the cash register counter, where Jacob had just rung up a sale.
“Hey you,” she said, walking up behind him.
“You’re not going to believe this.” The thin young man turned to her and smiled. “I just sold the autographed copy of In Cold Blood. Capote signed it in 1963.”
Julia glanced at the amount on the cash register and grinned. “Holy cow. Nice job.”
“He’s a collector from Baton Rouge.”
“Did you get his card?”
He passed her a business card. “Of course.”
She dropped the card into her pocket, making a mental note to enter the information into the customer database she had on her laptop upstairs. “I was wondering if you would help John move a couple of pieces of furniture to the storage room from my apartment.”
Jacob looked past her at John, his smile dwindling. “Why are you moving furniture from your apartment into the storage room?”
“Because until this stalker is caught, John is going to be staying there.”
“Does that mean we get to watch him stagger around half-naked every morning?”
Julia had always liked Jacob, but he had a difficult streak that ran a mile deep. She could see it in his eyes now. And even though they were friends, she was glad she’d never let him forget that this was a business and she was his boss.
“That means,” John cut in, “that you need to get your skinny ass moving and give me a hand.”
Folding his arms at his chest, Jacob rolled his eyes. “Oh brother.”
“None of us are happy about this stalker situation,” Julia said as she brushed past them and started toward the stairs at the back of the shop, “but I would appreciate it very much if you two didn’t act like a couple of surly teenagers.”
Julia heard the two men behind her as she ascended the stairs to her apartment. She unlocked the door and flipped on the light. She caught a hint of vanilla and the aroma of this morning’s hazelnut coffee and smiled. Crossing to her bedroom, she opened the door and motioned inside. “You can start with the recliner there in the corner.”
John stepped into her bedroom. Not for the first time Julia was aware of his size. He was at least six three and seemed to tower over her five-feet-four-inch frame.
“You sure you can get by without it?” he asked. “I don’t need it.”
“I rarely use the recliner or the lamp. And I think they’ll make your stay in the storage room a lot more comfortable.”
He crossed to the recliner, set
his hands on the back and frowned at Jacob. “Sometime today, Ace.”
Giving Julia a withering look, Jacob crossed to the chair and the two men lifted it and wrestled it through the door.
Julia chose a small table from her bedroom and a lamp from her office. She pulled a second blanket from the linen closet in the hall. She knew the storage room was poorly insulated and could get cold at night. She could hear the men arguing in the stairway and sighed. It was definitely going to be an interesting week.
She’d just finished emptying the single drawer in the table when she heard someone behind her and spun. John stood in the doorway, watching her with interest.
“You startled me,” she said.
“Probably good for you to be jumpy.”
She motioned toward the table and lamp. “You can take these, too.”
He didn’t even look at the table. “How long have you known Jacob?”
“Since college.” Realizing where he was going with that, she shook her head. “He’s not the stalker, John.”
“I’m sure you know friends and family are always the first suspects, don’t you?”
“Even so, Jacob is no stalker. For God’s sake, I see him here every day. He’s funny and kind—”
“He works here part-time?”
“Yes.”
“Is this his only job?”
“He is also working on a book.”
“What kind of book?”
“A thriller, I think.”
“Do you know what it’s about?”
“He doesn’t talk about it.”
John seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Uh . . . not exactly.”
His eyes sharpened on hers. “What does that mean?
“That means his significant other is . . . not female.”
He looked surprised for an instant, but quickly covered it with a frown. “Okay.”
“Jacob is a great guy, John. Be nice to him, okay?”
Bending slightly, he picked up the small table and lamp. “Nice isn’t part of my persona.”