KILLING ME SOFTLY Page 6

  "I don't owe you any explanations."

  "Is that what you'll say when I have a camera trained on you?" she asked with equal directness, sounding exactly like the reporter he now knew her to be.

  "Rest assured," he said. "There will be no cameras."

  They stood that way a long moment, locked in a fierce battle neither wanted to lose. Now, at last, he understood why she'd disturbed him upon sight, why he'd been unable to quit thinking about her.

  "Was it all a lie?" he asked harshly. "Did you even know Savannah?"

  Her mouth trembled slightly before she answered. "I would never lie about that." Emotion flooded her expression. "That's why I'm here," she said in an oddly thick voice. "Because of Savannah—I know enough to make me want to know more."

  He stepped closer. "Reporters aren't welcome in my town."

  Finally she backed away from him, but the massive mahogany armoire stopped her retreat. "I'm not a reporter."

  He reached toward her, his hands framing, but not touching, her flushed cheeks. "Then what would you call it?"

  "A researcher."

  "And just what, goddamn it, is the difference?"

  "A reporter reports the news. A researcher explores the unknown."

  The heat radiating from her robe seared through him, bringing the unwanted temptation to press her against the armoire and teach her firsthand about exploring the unknown.

  "So somebody else can report it," he said instead, his hands settling against the warmth of her cheeks.

  She flinched, didn't twist away. "Not report. Share. Milton Leonard is a respected journalist. He treats each story with care and respect."

  "Care and respect?" He almost choked on the words. "I've seen the show, cher. The more sex, violence and scandal, the better."

  Her eyes flared. "Like you said, your life."

  The burn started low, spread fast. "And I intend to keep it that way—my life is not for public consumption."

  "I don't want to consume anything, Cain. I just want the truth. Does that really frighten you so much?"

  He stared at her a long moment before answering. He should be furious. This woman wanted to tear apart his life, and yet there was something about the way she stared at him, that ridiculous glint in her eyes and the slight part to her lips, that overrode the darker emotions, replaced them with something even more dangerous.

  "You really want to know what frightens me?" he asked with a slow, lethal smile.

  "Yes."

  The spurt of enjoyment was so damn wrong. "You," he said in a rough, quiet voice. "You frighten me." The shock on her face felt better than it should have. "The fact that despite everything you've told me, all I can think about is what it would feel like to put my mouth to yours." He leaned closer, until just a fraction of an inch separated them.

  "Would you taste like lies?" he murmured, "or like sin?"

  She sucked in a sharp little breath and lifted her eyes to his. "The truth," she whispered, then stunned him by lifting her hands to his chest and giving him a good solid shove. "I would taste like the truth."

  God help him, he laughed. "We'll see about that," he drawled. Then because he didn't trust himself to stay, he turned and walked to the door, pivoting before leaving. She stood with her back against the armoire, its dark finish highlighting the lack of color in her cheeks. A swing of dark hair curtained her face.

  Cain steeled himself against the stirring deep within. "A word to the wise. Little girls who play with fire get burned."

  She didn't so much as flinch. "I haven't been a little girl for a long time."

  He refused to let himself smile. "Touché" was all he said, then he walked away.

  Renee stood that way for a long time, with her back to the armoire, staring at the empty hallway. Her heart thrummed a painful rhythm. Shock seared her throat. Cain had been gone for fifteen minutes, but she could still feel the heat radiating from his body, like the first blast of summer air after a long cold winter.

  She had to be more careful. She could not let the man realize how deeply she responded to him. Falling under Cain's spell invited consequences more dangerous than she was willing to risk.

  Swallowing hard, she turned toward the armoire and looked into the mirror, searching for any trace of the woman she'd once been. The woman who'd loved blindly, foolishly, without reason or caution. The woman who'd been confronted with evidence that shattered her world.

  The woman whose life had ended one hot, sticky night eighteen months before.

  Shaking, she crossed the room and slammed the door, then grabbed the phone from her purse and punched a familiar number.

  "Gran," she said when the cherished voice answered, the voice of the woman who had loved and protected and healed her. Slowly, she sucked in a deep breath, then let it out. "It's me … Savannah."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  New Orleans, Two years earlier

  He warned me to leave him alone. He warned me to mind my own business. He warned me to stay away.

  The good detective might as well have thrown open his doors and invited me in, spread out his secrets like gourmet chocolates on a fine silver serving tray.

  I, in turn, warned him to watch his back. Savannah Trahan doesn't run scared, I informed him, and I don't take no for an answer. Unless, of course, no is the answer I want.

  There is no faster way to lure me in, than to try to shut me out. My brother calls me nosy. My editor calls me a Pulitzer prize in the waiting. The police detective who thinks I'm trying to sabotage his investigation calls me dangerous.

  They're all right.

  With the hour pushing toward midnight, I work my way down Royal Street

  , toward an antique shop where an informant waits. I dressed with care, making sure I look neither like the reporter I am, nor the call girls who come out to play after the sun goes down. In jeans, a black turtleneck and my brother's old bomber jacket, I blend in perfectly.

  Of course, in a town like New Orleans, that's easy to do. Anything goes here, and usually does. Sometimes being here, working for one of the local affiliates, still feels like a dream.

  And to think it all started because of my fascination with urban legends.

  At first the wild claims that kept appearing in my e-mail box seemed about as likely as syringes found in movie theater seats or identity theft through hotel key-cards. God knows every time I opened e-mail, my inbox overflowed with scams and hoaxes.

  The Russian Mafia in New Orleans? As if.

  But the e-mails kept coming, and along with them details. Very, very specific details.

  Reporters love details.

  Organized crime targeting the Big Easy is nothing all that startling. This is Louisiana, after all. Greased palms are practically a way of life here.

  What caught my attention—and my imagination—were the references to the gaming industry, an electronic device, code named the Goose, small enough to fit into the palm of a child's hand. Slap it to the side of a random slot machine, and ta-da! Payoff city.

  Once I started digging, rumors had come out of the woodwork like cockroaches—more often than not dismissed as propaganda—of unusually large payouts at local casinos, sometimes as many as twenty per night.

  The allegations of extortion are different. No one wants to talk about those. At least not in public and on record.

  But I'd found notes in the strangest places, claims of casino owners being backed against the wall, demands of huge sums of blackmail money in exchange for never using the device again.

  That's why I'm here. A note. From an informant. He's ready to talk.

  And I'm ready to listen.

  It's the part of my job I thrive on, gathering facts, sifting through the pieces, seeing how they fit together. And, when necessary, butting heads with those who try to block my path, even cops. Make that especially cops, particularly one who gets off playing games with—

  Footsteps. Someone less trained would never notice them. They're not that loud. Not heavy. But they
are in perfect cadence with my own.

  Heart hammering, I slow my steps.

  The soft thudding behind me slows, as well.

  On a nasty rush of adrenaline, I pick up my pace.

  The rhythm behind me increases.

  Two blocks from my target, I slip my hand inside my purse and curl my fingers around the butt of my .22. My station manager would be furious if he knew I'd defied his orders and carry a gun instead of Mace, but self-protection isn't something I take lightly. Neither are risks.

  I am so not ending up a statistic.

  My heart races so hard it hurts to breathe, but with the determination that comes from growing up a little sister, I slide my finger onto the trigger. And spin.

  Nothing. Just Royal Street

  , its sleepy collection of antique shops and restaurants. On the opposite sidewalk, a young couple is walking away from me hand in hand, so lost in each other I doubt they're aware the rest of the world exists. Farther down, two well-dressed older women stand in front of a shop window, pointing at something inside.

  But no one is on my side of the street.

  The rush of relief is intense. But so is the frustration. I'm not crazy. Someone is following me.

  Frowning, I turn back toward my destination.

  He's on me so fast there's no time to scream. I pull my hand from my purse, but he's faster, stronger, and the gun slips from my fingers. His hand clamps around my wrist. His pelvis bumps up against mine. And in a lightning-quick move he's backed me into an alley and up against a wall of damp bricks.

  "Well, well, well," he murmurs, and my heart, beating hard and fast only seconds before, slams to a cruel halt. "Isn't it past your bedtime, cher?"

  Viciously I lift my eyes to his. "Detective." The word bursts out of me. "You have precisely five seconds to take your hands off me before I scream."

  He doesn't move. "Rule number one," he says in that slow, black-molasses voice of his, the one I want to despise but don't. "When issuing a threat, make sure it's something the other party fears." His eyes go dark. "Not something they've been craving for weeks."

  The words sear through me like a shot of bourbon. "I've always heard rule number one is to keep your cards close to your chest, not splay them on the table for the world to see."

  His mouth, normally a hard, uncompromising line, curves into a carnal smile. "That depends upon what it is you want," he says, leaning closer.

  My throat goes dry. "And what is it you want?" I ask against every scrap of better judgment I possess. The draw is too strong. The curiosity.

  Detective Cain Robichaud still has my wrist in his hand. He draws it higher, positions it against the wall near my face. All the while his eyes smolder. "You," he says, and I feel the hardness of his body push into mine.

  Then, with an abruptness that stuns me, he pulls back and looks me dead in the eye. "Out of my town."

  It's a bald-faced lie and we both know it.

  "I suppose that's why you can't keep your hands off me?" We've been playing this game for weeks, shadow-dancing around each other, baiting, taunting, stepping close then pulling away. He doesn't like me stepping too close to his investigation—which makes me wonder why. What is he afraid of? What does he not want me to find?

  "Just what is it you're trying to do, Detective? Scare me off … or seduce me?"

  "Whatever works," he murmurs. "I'd enjoy both just fine."

  The ache starts low, spreads fast. "How about answering a few questions?"

  "Isn't that what I'm doing?"

  "About Oncle—and the Goose—"

  The gleam in his eyes is the only warning I get. "You sure you want to play this game?" he asks, stepping closer.

  I smile. My heart rate surges. "Quite."

  "Let her go or you're a dead man." A different voice. Eerily quiet. Wholly lethal. It rips through the intimacy and jars me back into reality.

  "Adrian—"

  My brother emerges from the right and plows into Detective Robichaud, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

  "You son of a bitch!" he shouts, rolling on top of the detective and rearing back with his right fist.

  Robichaud catches it. "Be very sure, Trahan." Despite the darkness, I can see the lethal glint to his eyes. My brother isn't a small man, but the detective has a good five inches and fifty pounds on him. He could crush Adrian without breaking a sweat. "Assaulting an officer carries jail time."

  Adrian glares down at him. "What about assaulting a woman? Police brutality? What do they carry?"

  Robichaud glances at me through those hypnotic eyes of his. "Did I hurt you, sugar?"

  Something as simple as a voice shouldn't be able to heat my blood.

  "Did I touch you in any way that you found offensive or inappropriate?"

  Slowly, I take the wrist he held into my other hand, and gently caress the flesh. "Adrian, it wasn't what it looked like." But even as I say the words, uncertainty nags at me. "We were just—" I stop mid-sentence and stare at the two of them.

  New Orleans isn't a huge city, but big enough that I should be able to walk down a street without running into the cop trying to halt my investigation and my brother, unless—

  "There was no informant," I breathe, and the truth twists deep. One of these two men arranged the midnight meeting for God only knows what reason. "This was all some kind of twisted test."

  A shadow crosses my brother's face, and I have my answer—and my culprit. "Vannah—"

  "Don't bother." Adrian, general manager of New Orleans's biggest and newest casino, has been trying to derail my investigation for weeks. There's nothing going on, he insists. Everything's fine. The rumors about a new breed of organized crime are just that. Rumors. Stories.

  There's no such thing as a Goose.

  There haven't been payoffs.

  No one has gone missing.

  The airline pilot who committed suicide after being arrested had a drinking problem—not one with organized crime.

  Right. Math may not be my thing, but I can add two and two. I know when four smells like trouble.

  "Kill each other if you want," I say, glaring down at the two of them. "But know this. I'll have the truth one way or another." I pause, look Cain Robichaud dead in the eye. "You can play big bad wolf all you want, Detective. You can try to scare me off, run me off, even seduce me if that's how you get off. But in the end—you … will … fail."

  With that I turn and walk away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bayou de Foi, present day

  Renee closed her eyes, refused to yield to the emotion searing her throat. Her past with Cain seemed like another lifetime, an intense story she'd read long, long ago. But with every minute she spent in Bayou de Foi, every scorching look Cain sent her way, every touch, every threat, the memories rushed back, hotter and deeper than before.

  Opening her eyes, she looked into the mirror and lifted a hand to her face, traced the line of her reconstructed cheekbone.

  He didn't recognize her. The realization should not have stung. Anonymity was what she wanted, after all, what she'd planned. What she needed. But nothing had prepared her for the gleam of raw desire in Cain's eyes … a gleam that had haunted her during the months spent recovering from a brutal attack.

  A gleam now directed at a woman he'd just met.

  The twist of jealousy was ridiculous, but the want in Cain's eyes felt like a betrayal of everything they'd once shared.

  But then, if the arrest reports were accurate, they'd never shared anything more than mind-blowing sex.

  It galled her that she no longer knew. It wasn't that she didn't remember. She did. In excruciating detail. But everything she'd once believed, everything she'd valued, died that steamy night eighteen months before. The doctors may have restored her physical body, but no one could touch the damage inside.

  No one.

  That's why she was here, despite her grandmother's pleadings to leave well enough alone. She couldn't do that. Couldn't waltz forward wi
th her life while so many loose ends dangled. The only way to get on with the business of living was to return to the town, the night, where everything had ended.

  Answers. That's what she needed, once and for all.

  Justice.

  Sometimes she felt like a ghost, walking anonymously among the living, knowing their secrets while they knew nothing of her. To the people of Bayou de Foi, she was a stranger. But she knew them intimately. She knew their wants, hopes and dreams. Their desires. She knew Millie had gotten married when she was sixteen and that Lem and Travis fancied themselves amateur detectives. She knew the reason for the sadness in Lena Mae's eyes.

  And she knew why Cain didn't want her asking questions.

  It shouldn't scrape that no one, in turn, recognized her.

  The people of Bayou de Foi thought she was dead. Their lives had gone on. During the year and a half she'd spent recovering, her friends had lived and laughed and loved. Seasons had come and gone. Babies had been born. Couples married. Dreams pursued.

  And all the while, a murderer walked among them.

  The reality, the memory, turned everything inside Renee stone cold. She glanced at a picture from her research file, a snapshot taken days before her investigation blew up in her face. Cain stared up at her, his eyes secretive, his mouth an uncompromising line. He had his arm around her, holding her close. Val had always said they made a stunning couple, her fair, Germanic complexion the perfect complement to Cain's dark Cajun features. Her brightness the perfect balm to offset his shadows.

  Val.

  What had happened to her in the ensuing months? Renee didn't think Val and Gabe had married, but she didn't know why. The night before Savannah went missing, Gabe had asked her opinion about engagement rings. He'd wanted something special…

  Savannah had brought him to a small jeweler in the Quarter and straight to a stunning emerald-cut diamond flanked by two tapered baguettes in an exquisite platinum setting.

  Frowning at the memory, she lifted her eyes to the mirror. It still jarred her to find a stranger looking back at her, but she recognized the rare opportunity she'd been given. She'd worked hard to create her alibi, had sold True Crime on the proposed segment and constructed an elaborate, albeit phony, professional Web site. Now, courtesy of a new face and a new voice, a borrowed name, she was poised to undertake the ultimate undercover assignment—solve her own murder.