Leopard's Prey

  That smoky velvet tone didn't go with the words at all. It took him a moment to assimilate what she'd actually said, he was too busy trying to tame his wild craving for her. He told himself she was a baby. A kid. He was a damned pervert even thinking about her, let alone losing control and nearly throwing her up against a wall.

  His cat had a vicious temper, a powerful, passionate animal he worked at keeping in check at all times. If his cat was influencing him sexually, it would be the first time--and it was a hell of a time to choose. He forced his chaotic mind to get a grip. Bijou would rather burn down a mansion than set foot in it again, and what did that say about her childhood? The sad part was, he was probably the only one who would ever understand.

  "Are you puttin' the estate on the market?" Reluctantly he allowed her hand to slip away. His heart ached for her. She was all woman on the outside, but there was still a small part of her that was that child who had never had a childhood.

  Bijou turned and moved away from him, a graceful sway of her hips, her long hair a waterfall of living silk tumbling past her waist, the ends caressing the curve of her buttocks. She crossed the floor to the counter where the coffeepot waited.

  "I don' know. Bodrie was so famous, and so loved by everyone."

  Her voice remained soft and sultry, without a hint of bitterness, but he noticed immediately she didn't call Bodrie Breaux dad or daddy.

  "Not everyone," Remy disputed as he tested his ability to walk. Sympathy for her helped ease the terrible need raging through him. He managed to make it over to the table where he toed a chair around, dropped into it and stretched his legs out in front of him to ease the pressure in his jeans.

  She turned her head to look at him through her long feathery lashes and clouds of black silk. "Be careful, Remy, you can get death threats if you don' give him his due adulation."

  Before he could read her expression, she'd turned back to pouring his coffee as if she hadn't just dropped a bomb in the room.

  He took a breath to calm the explosive reaction deep in his gut to her announcement. Swearing under his breath, he exhaled, and shifted again to ease the muscles coiling and the adrenaline flooding his body. "What threats, Blue? Have you been gettin' threats?" His nickname for her slipped out. He'd never called her Blue to her face, but mostly referred to her as Blue when he talked with Saria about her in the old days.

  For some reason the moment he was around her he heard the song, "Blue Bayou." More than that, when the sun shone on her thick, black hair, blue lights played through the strands, and then there were her striking blue eyes.

  "Do you take your coffee black?"

  "Of course." He sent her a little smirk. "I'm Cajun, honey."

  A brief flash of a smile lit her eyes for a moment. "A manly man. How could I have forgotten? You were always scary."

  "Was I?" Remy asked. His eyebrow shot up. He was quite certain he had the ability to scare the hell out of anyone.

  Bijou nodded slowly and took the chair across the table from him. She wasn't safe. She might think she was, but she was well within striking distance, and somewhere in the back of his mind, that same fantasy was playing--throwing her up against the wall and ripping her clothes away from all that beautiful, soft skin.

  "You still are," she conceded. She glanced toward the door, clearly hoping Saria would appear suddenly to rescue her.

  The sexual tension in the room was nearly as acute as their awareness of one another.

  "That's a good thing," he said with a small grin, trying to ease the rising tension between them. "You were about to tell me about death threats."

  She sighed and took a cautious sip of the coffee she'd poured for herself. "I suppose I did bring it up so I can't very well pretend I didn't." She ducked her head and thick strands of hair covered her face.

  Remy leaned across the table and tucked the wild cloud behind her ear. Startled, her lashes flew up and her gaze collided with his. The tip of her tongue moistened her lower lip. He caught the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her shirt. It was interesting to him that she hadn't turned on the lights.

  His leopard roared at him, rising like a tidal wave, fighting him for supremacy. His leopard was difficult, but not like this, savage and feral and so determined. Remy fought the cat into submission, although it snarled and prowled, not settling at all. All the while he studied Bijou's face. Never before had his cat responded to a woman. Was it possible she was leopard? Little was known about Bijou's mother. It was nearly impossible to tell if a woman was leopard. Only when the woman entered the Han Vol Dan--a period of time when the female cat came into heat at the same time a woman ovulated--did male cats react. Sometimes, the two periods of fertility never synced, and the cat never emerged.

  "Has your life been threatened?" Remy pursued. He wasn't about to let it go, not even with his body screaming at him. He let his hand fall away from all that silky hair and satin skin.

  Bijou shrugged. "Just about every day. There's been so many it's impossible to take them seriously. Fans of my father don' believe I have the right to his money; after all, I wasn't there when he died. It was no secret that we didn't get along. The tabloids had a field day. Bodrie liked to read about himself so he fed the stories and kept our so-called feud goin' in the magazines."

  Remy drummed his fingers on the table beside his coffee cup. His leopard was more agitated than ever and he needed an outlet for the restless energy. She was sitting across the table from him, but damn it all, he wasn't that big of a pervert. He had to stop thinking of her as a woman and think of her as a victim. Someone in need of a policeman. There were threats against her life, of course he'd be upset on her behalf. As an officer of the law, it was his duty to make inquiries and ask her questions. She was his sister's friend, staying at Saria's Inn. If Bijou was in danger, so was Saria. He had every reason to be disturbed over the threats.

  Sadly, he was too damn old to listen to anyone's bullshit--especially his own. "This has been goin' on since Bodrie's death?"

  Bijou nodded. "Yes. Apparently his home should be made into a sacred shrine to him."

  "If you didn't inherit, who would have?"

  "I'm his only proven heir and he named me specifically. There were plenty of children who came forward to claim they were his, but DNA disputed it."

  "How much money are we talkin'?"

  Bijou's gaze met his. "You don' listen to the news, do you?"

  "Too depressin'. All those murders. Gives me a bad outlook on life."

  Her answering smile was faint. "Hundreds of millions and growing every day."

  He went still inside. She dismissed death threats she received, and she was worth hundreds of millions of dollars? People killed for a pair of shoes, let alone that kind of money. "Did the threats come in the form of letters?"

  Bijou shook her head. "Remy, you've got a real murder to solve. This is silly stuff. Some of Bodrie's fans were crazy. They worshipped him and apparently still do. I've lived with it all of my life. I've come home, bought a club and intend to live out my life in the place I love. Bodrie isn't goin' to dictate my life to me, not anymore."

  She had all the money in the world and she wanted to come home to the bayous. Something wild and feral deep inside him settled. He could breathe again, his body once more his own, his cat relaxing, stretching lazily. He took another long, satisfying drink of coffee, regarding her over the rim of the mug.

  "Nevertheless, I want to see those letters, Bijou. If you don' have them, give me the name of your lawyer, or your contact at the FBI and I'll take it from there." He wasn't a man who took no for an answer and his tone said it all.

  "If you insist."

  Now that he knew he was getting his way, he relaxed even more. "How long have you been home?" Because if it was longer than a couple of days, he was going to drown his sister.

  Bijou looked around the large, homey kitchen. "Isn't it funny what makes a place a home? Miss Pauline was so good to me. I used to come here or go to Saria when I coul
dn't stand bein' in that house. Neither ever ratted me out, no matter how much money Bodrie offered around the bayous and swamps for my location."

  She was painfully beautiful, with her skin and tumbling hair, that drawling, sexy voice and perfectly kissable lips, and hearing her use the term ratted out made him want to come across the table and find out just how kissable her lips really were.

  "I traveled for several years," Remy said, deciding it would be far more prudent to converse with her rather than assault her. "And I knew this would always be my home. The heat, the mosquitoes, all of it--is home."

  "I agree." She leaned her chin into her palm, her gaze steady on his. "Why did you call me Blue? You did that once before, a long time ago."

  "I did? I think I have a good memory, and I don' recall makin' that mistake when you were a child." And he'd better start convincing himself she was still a child. Her eyes were too old, held too much knowledge for her age.

  "I didn't mind," she admitted. "You were one of the few people who ever seemed to give a damn about me. Callin' me Blue just meant you'd given me a nickname. People do that when they care, at least that's what I thought at the time."

  She was breaking his heart and clearly she wasn't trying to. She gave him her little smile that never quite reached her eyes and spoke in that smoky, matter-of-fact tone. She wasn't looking for sympathy and would be upset if she got it.

  He forced a casual shrug, resisting the urge to yank her into his arms and hold her close to his heart. She certainly brought out the white knight in him. He had a protective streak a mile wide when she was around. "That song, 'Blue Bayou.'" He wasn't going to tell her that every time he heard it instead of "bayou," he heard "bijou."

  "Since I love the bayou," Bijou said, sweeping her hair back over her shoulder in an unintentional sexy gesture, "I'm fine with your nickname for me."

  How old was Saria? Maybe she was older than he thought. "What the hell were you doin' runnin' the swamp at night with my crazy sister?"

  He looked up as Saria came through the doorway, grinning at him. He had known she was there. She was leopard and moved in silence, but he was leopard and he'd scented her the moment she'd come out of her darkroom and entered the main part of the house.

  Saria laughed at him. "You're not goin' to think I'm crazy when you see these pictures, Remy. I had Bijou write down everythin' she could remember, her impressions and even sounds she heard, and I did the same. We didn't discuss the crime scene so we wouldn't taint each other's memory."

  "Good thinkin', Saria," Remy admitted.

  "Comes from havin' brothers in law enforcement," she said cheerfully.

  Saria set the pictures she'd developed on the table in front of him. For the first time she seemed to notice the lights were off. "What are you two doin' sittin' in the dark?"

  "Visitin'," Remy answered. "Waitin' for you to get out of that room so I could give you a lecture on safety, which you clearly won't listen to, and drinkin' your very fine coffee."

  Saria put her arm around Remy's neck and dropped a kiss on his cheek, a rare gesture of affection for his younger sister, and one that told him she'd been shaken by finding the murdered man. He patted her arm gently.

  "It was Pete Morgan, wasn't it?" Saria asked, stepping back.

  She wasn't fast enough. Remy caught the faint scent of fear and felt her body tremble. His sister was a tough little thing, but finding the body of a friend, one murdered in such a vicious, gruesome way, had to have been distressing. She flipped on the light and crossed to the counter to get a glass of water.

  "Yes. I'm sorry, Saria. It must have been horrible for you."

  She turned and faced him, leaning back against the counter. "How do you do it? Gage and the others break up fights most of the time and go after idiots, but you have to look at murders all the time."

  He was very aware of Bijou across from him blinking rapidly as if the light bothered her. He knew better. She'd always acted tough, as if she didn't care, but she had a soft heart. "Most murders around here are pretty straightforward. Stupid arguments, revenge. That sort of thing, not a serial killer who rips apart people I know."

  "I don' think I'll get that image out of my head for a long time, if ever," Bijou admitted.

  Remy's gaze jumped to her face. He didn't need the light on to see that her eyes were haunted. He cursed his sister silently. "What exactly were you doing in the swamp tonight?"

  "I was showing Bijou a nest I've been taking a series of photographs of. I landed a really big contract with a company that provides stock photos and they wanted the swamp at all hours along with the wildlife and plants," Saria answered. "I'm supposed to capture the feel of the swamp throughout all seasons."

  Remy swallowed his sarcastic reply. Sending in the pictures of the murder would certainly show the company that gave his baby sister the contract what kind of danger they put her in, but Saria would ignore his bad humor and good advice. She went her own way and made her own decisions. He couldn't blame her. Maybe it was guilt that made him so overprotective of her now. When she was a child running wild and free in the swamp, he hadn't paid attention. Like Bijou, she hadn't had supervision and she'd been the adult in the home, not her drunken father.

  "Remy." Saria sounded loving.

  He looked up at her. She looked so young, but so adult. Just like Bijou. Of course they'd gravitated toward one another and been secretive about it. For good reason. He sighed.

  "I had a good childhood," she said. "Stop beating yourself up. I love that you want to protect me, but I'm all grown up now. You can't take care of all of us."

  "I can damn well try," Remy replied. His gaze jumped to Bijou's face.

  She sent him a faint smile. "I see why you were so insistent on me explainin' the threats. You have a strong protective instinct, but really, Remy, you have enough family to look after without addin' me to the mix."

  He wished that was all it was. "Don' kid yourself, Blue," he snapped without thinking.

  Color swept into her face and she frowned at him. The hell with it. Let her figure it out on her own. Clearly, no matter how often he told himself she was a baby, his body said other things. He was leopard enough to know there was more going on than he could see. Instincts were strong in leopards and never once had he found himself in such a predicament.

  Saria stared at him in shock. She looked from Bijou to Remy and shook her head, dropping into a chair.

  "Tell me about your mother, Bijou," Remy ordered, slipping the photographs into an envelope without more than a cursory inspection. He had no doubt they were excellent. Saria's skills were known throughout the country, her reputation building fast. He didn't want to distress Bijou any further.

  "My mother?" she echoed, her voice even softer, taking on more of that smoky, sultry flavor. "I don' know anythin' at all about her. Well, just what Bodrie told me. He met her backstage at a concert and she was strikin'. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. But honestly, Bodrie couldn't take his eyes off of most women."

  Remy was aware of Saria's sharp glance from him to Bijou and back. She was smart, and she knew Remy didn't bother with small talk. He interrogated people for a reason. He was good at it, sounding conversational and interested, putting whoever he was interrogating at ease and slipping in questions so easily no one knew how much information they actually gave up. If he was bringing up the uncomfortable question of Bijou's mother, he was doing it for a reason.

  He flicked one look at his sister, and she pressed her lips together, getting the message to keep her mouth closed.

  "Did he ever talk about her family? Where she was from?"

  Bijou shrugged. "He mentioned they came from someplace near Borneo. He always said she was exotic, but he never talked about her family. I got the impression they were dead."

  "You have a lot of money, Blue," Remy pointed out. "Hire a PI and find out."

  "Why?" Bijou regarded him steadily over the rim of her coffee mug. "Why would I want to do that now? It isn't as if Bod
rie wasn't known around the world. He went on world tours all the time. I ought to know. He dragged me along on most of them." She took another drink of the aromatic coffee and gave another shrug. "I needed them when I was a child. Even knowing someone was out there fightin' for me would have helped, but they didn'. They left me with him."

  Again, he couldn't detect bitterness in her voice. Just resignation. She accepted that most people loved, even revered her father and thought he could do no wrong. She went her own way, made her life and made no apologies for it.

  "I think it would be difficult," Saria said to Remy, "if I was Bijou and I inherited all that money, to trust anyone comin' out of the woodwork and claimin' they were related. Money makes people do crazy things."

  "It comes with the territory, Saria," Bijou said. "I learned that in school. Real friendship is a treasure and that's why I always appreciated you. I knew if I came home, nothin' would have changed between us."

  Remy was prouder in that moment of Saria than he'd ever been, and she was pretty extraordinary in his book. The fact that someone as wary as Bijou would have complete confidence in his sister when they hadn't seen one another in several years, made him respect Saria all the more.

  Saria laughed, dispelling some of the tension. "I'm definitely that wild girl runnin' the swamps. I love it here. I don' need a lot of money to be happy here, Bijou."

  Bijou's smile was faint. "I bought my little club with the hopes that I can draw a crowd. I'm renovatin' the little apartment above it."

  "You're planning on livin' above the club?" Remy nearly came out of his chair, but managed to force himself to stay outwardly calm. Was she insane? Bijou had more money than most in the world, in her own right she was huge in the entertainment business, she'd admitted to death threats and she was going to reside with no security right above the club where she sang.

  "I thought it was a good idea," Saria said, a little frown forming. She knew her brother's tone. His voice went low and soft and drawled more than ever. "What's wrong?" She looked from Bijou to Remy for an explanation.

  "It's nothin', Remy," Bijou said. "I told you."

  "Just a little matter of death threats," Remy explained to Saria. "You know, nothin' serious at all."

  "I don' appreciate the sarcasm," Bijou said, her eyes widening. "I don' recall you bein' so sarcastic."