Remembered by Moonlight (17 page)

His hand nocked beneath her chin to keep her parted lips available, whispering against them, “I feel as though I’ve loved you forever.”

Her soul trembled. “I feel the same, Savoie.”

“Good.”

He settled in for another kiss, this one long and deep and drenched with a desire that had her toes curling within her Jimmy Cho’s. Not because she was crazy with lust for him. Though she was. But because he’d spoken that one word that was sexier than anything he could do to her body. That L word that came from the heart instead of the heat rising between them.

When Max finally lifted away, she hung limp and emotionally melted within the support of his arm. His slight smile reduced her to a total puddle of bliss.

“This seems very familiar to me, Detective.”

“Not in a boring way, I hope.”

His smile took on a sly bend. “Far from it,
cher.”
When his thumb stroked the moisture from her lips, she nipped at it, kindling that blaze of heat and promise in his eyes. “I need something from you.”

“Oh, baby, I don’t believe there’s anything you couldn’t have for the asking.”

His rumbling chuckle had her thighs clenching tight in anticipation.

“Go talk to Susanna.”

“What?” She blinked, confused. “Now?”

“Right now. Do as I ask. No questions. We can continue this later. If you’re still of a mind, that is?”

“I think in that regard I am fairly single minded.”

“And I like that about you.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I have some meetings I can’t get out of. No rest for the formerly wicked. And I think it would be for the best if I cozy up to dear Aunt Genny for a little more conversation later this afternoon.”

The cynical way he spoke the familiar title had Cee Cee conflicted. It implied his distrust of a woman who’d given them no reason—yet—to suspect deceit. For all intents, Genevieve had done her best to save him during his capture, and was here to set him truly free. But ever the sceptic, she preferred he’d choose caution over blanket acceptance of all his aunt proclaimed to be.

“Would you like me to be there?”

He smiled and pinched her chin. “I think I can handle one dowager aunt.”

Cee Cee snorted at that description of the elegant Genevieve and eased out of his arms, her palms smoothing down the impeccable line of his jacket. “Then I guess I’ll see you later.”

“You can count on that the way you do the stars, Detective.”

Cee Cee drove to the Institute, a shameless quiver of raw emotions. Max’s assurance teased her body like the caress of his mouth and hands. She wriggled in her bucket seat, as anxious as a teenager, surprised the windows weren’t fogged by her unrelenting lust. Her thoughts spun ahead to what she’d wear, to what she’d say, to how she’d get them naked as quickly as possible on that big under-utilized mattress. And then, after a long bout of wild, sweaty sex, or two, or three, when they both were burned down to low embers of satisfaction, she’d tell him about their child.

At that point, they’d decide what to do about Genevieve Savorie’s request. And their future together would be on its unstoppable forward roll.

She was smiling as she entered Susanna’s gleaming lab. The doctor glanced up from her computer, where she’d been intently studying data.

“Max said we need to talk.”

And the subtle change in the other’s expression blew Cee Cee’s hopes to hell.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Over harsh brewed coffee and vending machine pastries, detective and doctor compared notes.

“So his bravado about invading the North was to get a rise out of whoever was remote viewing through his head?” Cee Cee summed up after taking in her friend’s rehash of her conversation with Max. She suppressed a shiver at Susanna’s nod. No wonder he’d kept her at arm’s length. They had no idea who listened on the other end. No talk about baby tonight. She’d never willingly place that vulnerable knowledge into their enemy’s hands.

“He wanted to keep them off balance so they’d hesitate before making a move. And as a bonus, I got to throw my lying mentor under the bus a second time. I hope their new suspicions have him stretched out on the same table he planned for my daughter.”

Cee Cee raised a brow. Who would have expected such viciousness from the reserved, intelligent doctor? But then Cee Cee hadn’t fully understood the nature of motherhood. Until now.

“It might delay a full scale attack,” Cee Cee mused, “but will certainly encourage them to send feelers down to check the information.” Another shiver, this time of dread. More Trackers. Or maybe something worse, if there was such a thing. “So it’s no coincidence that Genevieve Savorie is here.”

“Her kind don’t believe in coincidences. Or in taking chances.”

“But is she here on her own behalf, as she says, or on theirs?” Max would be devastated if it proved to be the latter. Despite his hard shell of caution, she knew he’d erected it to protect himself from his yearning to believe. “What do you know about her, Susanna?”

“Not much beyond her reputation. I’ve never met her, but she casts a big shadow over all of our implanting and control programs. She’s a pioneer in psychic exploration.”

“So she could easily be manipulating Max?” That notion sent a cold tremor to her bones.

“Not easily, but she’s clever and he’s susceptible.”

“But he can resist. He knows when they’re . . . inside.”

A slight smile. “Oh, yes. They’re not as clever or careful as they think they are. There are always signs to look for.”

More worry quickly overcame a moment of relief. “What does she want? Is she after him? Or you?”

Susanna smiled tightly, obviously more shaken than she betrayed upon learning that Genevieve knew she resided in New Orleans. “Or both. I wish I knew. I warned him that he played a reckless game with creatures who know no mercy.”

But a worthwhile game, Cee Cee concluded. “They don’t know that we know. We can be the manipulators.”

Susanna fidgeted uncomfortably, obviously weighing the risk to her own family.

“We’ll increase the security here and at the Towers.”

The doctor nodded. “Jacques’ already seen to that. He refuses to let Pearl out of his sight. I had a difficult enough time convincing him to let me come to work.”

“Listen to him. Don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

“If we don’t take chances, we can’t learn anything. I refuse to live like a lab rat in a cage for the rest of my life. I will not be terrorized in my own home.”

Though Cee Cee cheered her bravery, she quickly cautioned, “Better a cage than a coffin.”

“No,” Susanna replied flatly, her dark eyes fierce. “I’ve been in the cage. I’ll never return there, and neither will my child. I’ll sacrifice our lives before our freedom.”

Cee Cee squeezed her cold fingers beneath her own. “It won’t come to that. They underestimate us. That’s their weakness. They see Max and his clan as simple, easily spooked animals who’ll scatter at the first sign of threat.”

Susanna’s lips twisted bitterly, thinking just as Cee Cee was, of Jacques’s friends’ cowardly retreat when the doctor and Max had been taken. “Are they wrong?”

“Yes.” Cee Cee refused to believe otherwise. She didn’t dare. They had too much at stake. “Silas thinks it’s more than a plan to undermine our community by stealing its leader.”

Susanna quickly followed. “The drug.”

Cee Cee relayed what Cale had told her about Kick, then asked, “What have you found out? Are they right to be worried?”

Just how bad could it get?

Apparently very bad.

While Pearl did schoolwork at the empty bar, ever in her father’s view, Cee Cee relayed all she’d learned to Jacques, Silas and Nica.

The herbal remedy Martine Terriot had concocted to heal their clan’s leader had been harmless in and of itself. Until she began supplementing the formula with strong chemical components to fuel rage and crippling dependency. But that didn’t alarm Susanna Duchamps. The scenario she suggested terrified.

Take an addictive drug that altered physical and mental faculties. Market it attractively using a popular figure, say a dynamic and wealthy clan prince, to endorse its enviable effectiveness in a bloody cage match to the death in Reno. Distribute it by casting a wide net over a susceptible populace as a means to artificially increase confidence and prowess where there’d been only subjugating fear. Then use that doorway as a means to slip in any number of additives to toy with brain chemistry, enslaving and controlling the unsuspecting.

“They don’t have to send an army,” Silas murmured with a soft fatalism. “They’re making one right in the middle of our territory out of our own people.”

“That’s the worst case, yes,” Cee Cee agreed. “In theory, they’d be able to tune the drug to deliver any number of surprises. Sterilization. Death. Or just mindless compliance.”

“So who is James Terriot’s supplier? Martine may know her way around the herb garden, but she’s no chemist. I can’t see the two of them on the run setting up a Kick lab in a Winnebago out on the bayou. Where are they getting the chemicals to lace the Kick? They couldn’t be foolish enough to deal directly with the Chosen and think they’d have any control over the situation.”

“My guess is they’re using Tibideaux’s Patrol to pipeline it,” Jacques mumbled unhappily.

Cee Cee shook her head, eager to relieve that fear. “We don’t think he’s involved.”

“If that’s the case,” Silas offered to test his theory, “they won’t trust him enough to slip any useful information his way. We need someone on the inside at the docks.”

“That didn’t work out so well for Boze Reading,” Cee Cee reminded him.

Silas shrugged. “Just saying.”

“So it’s not just Carmen Blutafino going for an underground illegals trade and a disgruntled Terriot prince trying to steal a new kingdom,” Cee Cee mused. “Now we’re dealing with a potential invasion from the North?”

“Looks that way.”

And never had Cee Cee wished more fervently for Max Savoie’s council, for his shrewdness and underworld connections. But those things were mostly lost to her now, and might never be recovered if they couldn’t turn this situation to their advantage.

“Well fuck us sideways,” she muttered. “Any ideas?”

“A few,” her partner offered, “that won’t be very popular.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The door opened a tiny crack, just far enough for an anxious once over.

“May I come in?”

For a moment, the space didn’t widen. A whispery voice offered, “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“I might say the same, Sister.”

The barrier closed and after the rattle of the chain opened wide. Mary Kate Malone stepped back to wave him in, her quiet welcome underlined with contention. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

Max surveyed the tidy rooms and then the figure before him. He couldn’t argue her claim because he only remembered her as the ghostlike visitor in white robes who’d come to place a cool hand upon his brow while fever raged beneath it. This female, in her dainty floral dress and bare feet, her wispy blonde hair pulled back on the sides with tortoise shell clips, wearing an expression both combative and painfully fragile was not her. “So tell me,” he invited. “Who are you now?”

“Someone who doesn’t want to be pulled into whatever brought you to this door.”

He smiled slightly at her warning. “Does that mean we can’t talk as the friends we once were?”

“We were never friends, Max. Whoever told you that, lied.”

“Colleagues, then. Is that a more accurate term?”

She hesitated then reluctantly agreed. “I suppose.” She gestured to the living area. “You might as well sit down.”

Settling onto crisp new sofa cushions, Max picked up a definitive Shifter signature. Philo Tibideaux, he assumed from what Cee Cee had told him. His scent was confined to the common areas, not the bedroom beyond. Her guardian, for the time being.

“Did Lottie send you to argue her case? If so,” she told him, taking an adjacent chair, “you’re wasting your time.”

“She doesn’t know I’m here. I came because I think we’re alike, you and I. The world where we felt safe no longer exists, and now we have to decide how to start over and who to trust.”

“And you want me to trust you?”

His sudden loud laugh made her flinch and frown. He quickly explained to soothe her uncertainty. “I wouldn’t ask that. Not when I can’t trust myself. We’ve both been broken by things that were done to us through no fault of our own. I thought maybe if we pieced together the things we know to be true, we’d have a better idea of where we stood, together and alone. I’m not here to make judgments about our past or our choices or to assume to know what’s best for you. Can you believe that much, at least?”

She studied him carefully, the hard glint of suspicion leaving her stare in lieu of a tender hopefulness. “Yes.”

Another smile. “Good. I want you to believe the one thing that I know to be true above all others. I believe in Charlotte Caissie, that she loves us and cares more for our happiness and safety than for her own. That she would make any sacrifice necessary to protect us, even from ourselves, even if it meant letting us go. Do you believe that as well?”

Emotion shimmered in her eyes and trembled on her lips until she finally said, “Yes, I do.”

“Then we need to trust her to help us find the right path to follow. Agreed?”

More strongly this time, “Yes.”

“Excellent. So, Mary Kate, what do you know to be true?”

She didn’t hesitate. “That Philo Tibideaux is a man of honor who wants what’s best for those close to him and those in this community. Can you believe that and move forward having the same faith in him that I do?”

Her answer surprised Max and was harder to accept than he expected. He hadn’t gotten the same impression of the cocky militant leader. Yet he’d asked her for her trust and promised his in return, so what could he say except, “Yes, I will.”

His words brought a relaxation to her tightly-strung posture and finally, a smile to her face. She drew strength from their new alliance. But he couldn’t leave things at that tentative truce. He had to push just a bit farther.

“Susanna Duchamps. Can we agree, despite our differences, to leave our future in her hands?”

“Yes,” Mary Kate said without reluctance. “She’s a woman of science and compassion, a mother who knows what it feels like to suffer loss and fight for what’s right. I might not like the position she’s put me in by bringing me back to life through unnatural means, but I don’t believe there’s any malice behind what she’s done. I don’t know if I can say the same for Father Mike. I don’t know if there’s any forgiveness in my heart for the things he’s done or allowed to happen because of his lies. If you disagree with that, I don’t know that we have anything more to say to each other.”

Max reached beyond the brittle surface of that claim to take her small hand between his own. He pitched his voice low and smooth.

“Let’s talk some more.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Cale Terriot stretched out on the parlor sofa, eyes closed, nodding to whatever hammered through his headphones. His glance rolled toward the door when he sensed he wasn’t alone. He reached for his iPod and cut the sound but didn’t get up.

“Hey.”

Silas returned his greeting, adding, “Get your coat. We’re going out.”

“Out where?”

“On the town.”

“With you?” He didn’t move, assessing his cousin’s guise of thick rimmed glasses, slicked back hair and boringly uptight clothes with a disparaging, “Sounds like fun.”

“As my date,” Cee Cee amended, stepping from behind the tall Shifter.

There was nothing drab about the shiny black tights skinning long legs or tank top of pale floaty material that displayed her toned physique. When Cale blinked at the sight of her bright red wig, pale makeup and diva sunglasses, she added, “On the job. Chili Pepper and,” she gestured to Silas, “Mac Creed. We’ve been invited by one of the local mobsters’ leg breakers to join him for the evening. There’ll be drinking, dancing and groping.”

Cale’s brows soared. “I’ll get my coat.”

As he swung off the couch and stood, Cee Cee assessed his new look. He wore black jeans, boots and a charcoal gray vee-neck sweater that poured sleekly over his muscular chest and arms. His telltale Terriot red-blond hair had been dyed black and cut in an aggressive bristle. The fair shadow of his facial hair had also been darkened and ruthlessly trimmed into a thin mustache and chin-hugging goatee that made him look decidedly dangerous. Perfect for what they had in mind.

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” they could hear Brigit saying as she and a displeased Giles approached. “He’s my brother-in-law. And a human. Nothing to tempt bad behavior.”

“That dress is made for bad behavior,” Giles growled unhappily. She wore a black bra top and micro mini overlaid with a sheath of black lace that accentuated her every curve. He stabbed a finger at Cale. “You. Keep an eye on her.”

Brigit chuckled. “That’s kind of like the coyote guarding the fox at a chicken coop. Silas can babysit me. Like always.”

“But I like MacCreedy. If anything happens and I need to break someone’s knees, I’d prefer them to be your cousin’s.”

Brigit stroked her irritable fiancé’s chest. “It’s just for show, not go. I’m saving all that bad behavior for when I get home. I might be tipsy and easy to take advantage of.”

“Well,” he grumbled, “that’s something to look forward to.”

They all moved together into the hall where Nica waited wearing a mostly unbuttoned man’s white shirt over her skinny black jeans. She caught Cale’s arm and put out her hand, demanding, “Earring.”

Cale frowned, eyes narrowing. “No. It stays. I won’t be the only guy wearing a stud.”

“Big enough to be mistaken for a lighthouse beacon? Only a Terriot prince has that much compensating to do,
Stud
.”

Cale went rigid. Nica beckoned impatiently with her fingers. Sensing things were about to get contentious, Cee Cee reached up to slip the back off the earring. Cale gave a start but didn’t object, allowing her to withdraw the diamond and affix it in the second hole in her own ear.

“There. Safe keeping. All right?”

He regarded her stubbornly but finally nodded.

Crisis averted. Cee Cee took his arm and put herself between him and Nica the way she would two animals squaring off, neck hair lifted. “Behave or be left behind,” she warned.

Cale gave the assassin a narrowed glare and escorted Cee Cee to the door where he put on his leather jacket and growled, “Bitch,” under his breath without looking back.

Cee Cee dragged him outside, hearing the scuffle of heels on the marble tiles that could only be Silas wrestling Nica into submission.

The start to an interesting evening.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

With Silas driving Legere’s mammoth Escalade, they swung by to pick up Alain Babineau at his tidy little cul-de-sac home.

Cale beat Brigit to comment, “Dear God. Are the fashion police off duty?” when they got a look at his neon purple and lime green silky shirt and silver skinny jeans. Babineau just grinned and explained, “Raided Vice’s undercover wardrobe. Pimp enough?”

Brigit winced and averted her eyes as he sat down beside her. “All you need is a feather boa and snakeskin boots.”

“I knew I forgot something.”

As the detective started to get up from the back bench seat, she grabbed his arm firmly and ordered, “Drive!”

“Let him wear that gaudy earring,” Nica suggested from the front.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

They rendezvoused with Blutafino’s bouncer, Todd, and his vacuous blow-up doll date—Mitzy, Bitsy or Trixy—at a lively downtown hotspot. After introductions all around, they found a table just off the dance floor. Talking over the pounding beat was impossible but conversation wasn’t their purpose. Being seen in Todd’s company was.

Silas scanned the room and nodded to a corner of the bar. Cee Cee followed his lead, spotting Casper Lee’s blindingly white hair. He was seated where he had a clear view of the action, his hand on the knee of a barely legal club boy.

Over the infectious Island beat the DJ was spinning, Cee Cee leaned close to Cale to shout, “Can you dance to this kind of music?”

“Mama, I can dance to any kind of music.” He dropped his jacket over his chair and put out his hand for hers. Pushing their way out onto the strobing floor, Cale bumped up against her to mouth at her ear, “Detective, any warm-blooded male with a pulse would have his hand on your glorious ass. May I?”

“Knock yourself out.”

His fingertips sketched over that tight sheen of Lycra before cupping a taut globe for a squeeze. “What kind of workout do you do to get that kind of muscle tone?”