Deadly Night by Heather Graham
“The card smiled at you?”
“Worse. It laughed.”
He fought to keep his composure. Crazy as it seemed, it was clear that she believed what she was telling him.
And crazy as it seemed, he felt he had to try to understand.
“Okay. So…?”
“I need you to help me find her, the girl I was giving the reading to. I want to make sure this girl, Ann, gets on that cruise ship tomorrow.”
“What did she look like?”
“Blond. She was wearing a halter top and slim-fitting jeans. She had green eyes, she was young, and she was with a girl in a Saints shirt.”
They were interrupted when the bartender stopped in front of them. “Last call.”
“We’re good, thanks,” Aidan said.
The man went on; the band announced the last number. It was one o’clock. It seemed early for a place on what was known as the street in Sin City, U.S.A., to be closing.
But at least a few other places would still be open. The strip clubs often hung on the longest.
He glanced over at the table. Jeremy nodded to him, arched a brow, then stood and started walking toward them.
“This isn’t a ploy to keep me off Vinnie’s tail, is it?” he asked.
Her eyes remained even on his. “Your brother is following Vinnie, right?” she asked sweetly.
“My brother likes Vinnie,” Aidan said. “They’re friends.”
“What’s this about your brother?” Jeremy asked pleasantly.
Aidan kept his eyes on Kendall. “Describe the girl you’re talking about to Jeremy.”
Kendall did so.
“Yeah, she was in here. There were a lot of people in here from the ship,” he said.
“They were all together?” Aidan asked.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Most of them left about an hour and a half ago. Excuse me. I’m going to go help the band pack it up.”
As Jeremy walked away, Aidan felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned. The black man he’d noticed the night before was standing next to him. “Don’t go lettin’ that gal out on her own, you hear?” he said gravely.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Aidan said. “I’m Aidan Flynn, by the way, and this—” he turned back to Kendall “—is Kendall Montgomery, though you two may know each other already.” He turned back to the other side.
So much for introductions. The man was gone.
“Who are you talking to?” Kendall asked him, frowning.
“No one. He’s gone,” Aidan said, and set money on the bar.
“But—” Kendall began to protest.
“Forget it. Let’s go find your girl,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
They started off on Bourbon at Canal; despite the hour, Kendall was determined to try as hard as she could to keep trying to find Ann, even though she’d struck out in all the places she’d tried on her way to the Hideaway. The streets had grown quieter, though plenty of places were still open, a number of them the strip clubs.
They were thorough. In one place, Aidan saw a number of the men wearing the badges that identified them as the cruise-ship crowd, but there were no women with them, and when he chatted with them, he discovered they were a group of CPAs out of Salem, Oregon, and they had been on their own all night.
As they continued on, he realized Kendall was deeply anxious. He didn’t believe a tarot card meant anything, but she definitely did. Block by block, they made their way from bar to club to bar. At one point Kendall saw a friend, a tall, good-looking black man with a smile that was pure friendship. Kendall gave him a hug, introduced Aidan so quickly that he didn’t catch the man’s name, and then described Ann.
“Yeah, I saw her. Pretty, bouncy little thing. Couldn’t sing worth a damn, but she and her friends had a good time doing karaoke anyway. They wanted to keep going, but we had to close. Someone suggested they check up the street.”
“Thanks.”
“How long ago?” Aidan asked.
“No more than half an hour.”
The man waved. “Hope you find your friend!”
There was no crowd at all anymore as they walked along the street. Aidan felt a strange sensation creeping down his neck. He stopped and spun around.
Someone was just slipping into an alleyway that led to a strip club that was missing several of its blinking neon lights.
“What is it?” Kendall asked nervously.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
One more block and they would be just about out of clubs. But there was an open one on the next corner. Again Aidan turned to look around. The street was empty. But there had been someone following them; he was certain. He wanted to double back.
“Aidan, come on, please,” Kendall insisted.
They went into the bar. There were several pool tables, and a few people playing at one of them. At the bar, laughing and talking loudly, were the remnants of the cruise group.
“Is she here?” Aidan asked.
“Yes!” Kendall cried triumphantly. “Over there.”
“Now what?” he demanded.
“I try to talk to her.”
“Go right ahead.”
Aidan perched on the edge of an unused pool table, watching as Kendall straightened her shoulders, then walked up to the group at the bar. The girl, Ann, recognized her immediately and started introducing her around.
The girl looked pretty drunk. Aidan had to wonder how much success Kendall was going to have getting her to agree to anything. And what was Kendall going to do, anyway? Try to talk her out of taking the cruise? Or just ask her to not fool around with any unknown men?
Once again, he had that feeling at the back of his neck.
He turned quickly toward the door. Nothing. But he was convinced someone had just been there, looking in.
He checked and saw that Kendall was speaking earnestly with Ann and gambled that she would be there a while and hurried toward the door.
Outside, the street was dead quiet. But down the block, he just caught a glimpse of someone rounding the corner.
He ran and turned the corner himself.
He came out on Royal Street, not far from Kendall’s apartment. The whole block was houses. There were a half-dozen narrow alleys and twice as many doors.
He stayed where he was for a long time, watching the street. Waiting. Finally he admitted he had lost whoever he had seen and was probably being a damned fool, besides. Anyone could have walked down the street; there was nothing illegal in that. For all he knew, he might have been following an underage drinker who thought he was a cop.
But Kendall lived on the next block.
The breeze shifted. He heard laughter from Canal Street and hurried back, afraid he might have missed Kendall. He didn’t want her walking home alone.
Back at the bar, Kendall had managed to extricate the girl from her friends. She was trying to be light and assertive at the same time.
The girl was giggling. “I met so many cute guys tonight. And lots of them asked to see me later.”
“Did you tell them where you were staying?” Kendall asked. “Are you alone?”
“No, I’m sharing a room with my friend.” Ann giggled again. “She went back early, but she’ll leave if I need her to. We have an agreement when it comes to men, you know?”
Kendall sighed. One of the men from the group walked over from the bar.
“Annie? Anything wrong?”
He was older than the girl. Maybe thirty.
After Aidan returned, he had been keeping his distance, but he decided to move in. “How do you know Ann?” he asked.
“We work together,” the man said.
“We’re just worried,” Aidan explained. “There’s a guy going around hitting on women and robbing them. Ann fits the look of the girls he goes after.” Not true, but it didn’t matter. “We’re just trying to make sure she’s safe tonight.”
The man frowned at Ann, then looked up at the two
“I—”
“She’s with me, and I’m a private investigator working the case,” Aidan explained, and produced one of his business cards.
“I’m Joe Zimmer, and like I said, I’ll have my eye on her all night.”
Ann was pouting. Something flashed in her eyes.
She had made arrangements to meet someone, Aidan thought. But who?
Whoever had disappeared when he had looked toward the door?
He took a deep breath. At worst, the girl just wasn’t going to get lucky tonight.
At best, her life had just been saved.
Aidan set an arm on Kendall’s shoulders. “Well, have a great cruise. All of you. Good night.”
He steered Kendall out of the bar.
In the street, she drew away and faced him. “Thank you,” she said.
“Sure. Not a problem.”
“Are you going to lay off Vinnie now?” she asked, but there was no real venom in her tone. She just sounded tired.
“I need Vinnie to show me where Jenny Trent was staying,” he said.
“And if you’re nice, Vinnie won’t have a problem in the world with showing you,” she said.
“Glad to hear it. And now it’s late and time to go home.”
“Okay. Thanks again. I, uh, just live a couple of blocks away.”
“I know. I’ll walk you.”
“Please, you’ve walked around enough already on my behalf.”
“You know I’m going to walk you home.”
She actually offered him a weak smile. “Okay.”
He was annoyed with himself when he realized he was expecting to feel that sensation at the back of his neck that warned him they were being followed again.
Simple instinct, he told himself.
But the feeling didn’t come. If there had been a danger on the streets before, it was gone now.
When they arrived at her place, she opened the outer door, and he walked with her into the hallway.
She opened the door to her apartment, then leaned against the door frame and slipped off her sandals. Her smile was rueful as she said, “Thank you again. I know you think I’m crazy.”
“You think I’m a jerk,” he replied with a shrug.
“But you do come through in a crunch,” she told him.
“And you may be a little insane, but you’re also absolutely gorgeous.”
He thought she might stiffen up again, retreat. Slam the door in his face.
But she lowered her head, her smile deepening. “And you’re not bad-looking yourself—for a jerk,” she told him, and her eyes met his again. “Look, I’m not making a pass or anything, but…would you mind looking around my place?”
“Are you nervous?” he asked her.
“Silly, huh?”
“No. And I don’t mind at all.”
He stepped past her, gave the parlor a quick glance, then stepped into the first bedroom, and then the second. He checked in closets, under the bed, and all around. He went through the kitchen, and the family room, and moved on to the French doors. They were locked. The drapes across the windows were drawn. Everything appeared to be just fine.
She was behind him, barefoot, rich dark hair with its glimmers of red and gold sweeping sleekly over her shoulders. Her eyes were expectant and focused on him.
“Looks like you’re safe and sound,” he said.
“I know it’s ridiculous to feel worried. I’ve lived here so long, and I’ve never been uneasy about anything before,” she told him.
“I didn’t think you frightened easily. You stayed out at a lonely plantation with just an elderly dying woman, and you never ran, no matter what she thought she saw.”
“I thought I was still sane myself then,” she said softly.
He found himself walking across the room to her. He really meant just to give her comfort, even though he wasn’t sure it was comfort she wanted.
He lifted her chin, the pad of his thumb moving gently across her cheek. “Hey, I’m sure you’re sane.”
She stared into his eyes. “I thought you just admitted that you think I’m crazy.”
He shrugged. “Crazy beautiful.”
He never meant to kiss her. He meant to keep a careful distance.
But he was there, and she was there, and suddenly kissing her was something he had to do or go completely mad. His lips met hers, and his free hand cupped her nape. It wasn’t a comforting peck; it was a kiss that quickly intensified. She tasted of the sweet fruit nectar she’d been drinking, and her lips seemed to mold to his naturally, without thought. Her lips parted easily, and it quickly escalated into one of those deep, arousing kisses that sent lightning-swift desire down to his groin and through his limbs. A voice in his head shouted it was time to pull back, time to apologize, but his hand started moving through her hair and down her back. He drew her flush against him, and the intense flashes the kiss had ignited grew into a sweeping inferno of desire.
Crazy. This was crazy.
He felt her hands on him, on his shoulders, then streaking down his back, clutching his hips. When he drew his lips from hers and looked into her eyes, he was still expecting indignation, a protest, anger.
But her eyes were on his with an expression of glazed confusion, and she quickly told him, “I didn’t…I didn’t ask you to look through the house to…to…”
“I never thought you did,” he assured her.
Then he kissed her again, and she kissed him back. Passionately, her tongue entering his mouth with sweet provocation, her body pressing against his again as if of its own accord, fitting against him as if she had been created only for that purpose. As their mouths connected with hot, wet urgency, he found his hand moving, covering her breast, and she pressed even more tightly against him. Something moved against his leg suddenly, and he jumped. She broke away from him, gasping.
“Jezebel!” she cried.
They both looked down, and the cat looked back and meowed. Then they looked at one another again, smiled and burst into laughter.
She was tousled and beautiful, and she whispered, “I’m still not sure I like you.”
“Fair enough. Do you want me to go?”
She shook her head. “No.”
So he went to her again and kissed her, gently this time. With her face cupped in his hands, he asked softly, “You’re sure?”
She nodded. And when he kissed her next, they both went for each other’s clothes. They shed their clothing across the hallway floor as she drew him backwards to her bedroom, where they fell naked onto the bed.
Somewhere, from a distant bar, the sound of music was carried to their ears. A drumbeat seemed to throb through ground and space. The room was lit only by the glow of the hall light, but even that was enough to catch the brilliance of her eyes and the luster of her hair, the satin of her flesh. He kissed her lips again and caught her eyes, then slowly pressed his mouth to her throat, between her breasts and upon each nipple. Her nails raked lightly down his back, teased his buttocks. He felt his erection hardening painfully, felt the mindlessness of need sweeping over him.
But he knew her name. Knew her.
It didn’t matter.
He moved against her carefully. He made love to her. There had been other women, but he hadn’t made love in a long time.
He kissed her flesh as if it were fragile, and when she pressed against him, he teased her with his teeth and tongue. He meant to create the same maddened desire in her, but he found he was savoring every torturous moment. Her breasts were firm and beautiful, he loved the feel of his face against her ribs and belly. The taste of her was intoxicating, the feel of her supple flesh writhing beneath him exquisite and damning. He moved against her, settling his body between her thighs, his fingers teasing the sensitive skin beneath her knees, her inner thighs, the heart of her sex, aware of the heat
She spoke first. “All right. I guess I like you,” she said softly.
He laughed. “I know I like you,” he told her.
Then she fell silent, but after a moment—and he could tell she found it hard to ask—she said, “Can you stay…the night?”
Was she afraid?
“I’m all right. Honestly,” she said, as if reading his mind. And then she moved, rising on an elbow to look down into his eyes. “I’m not afraid.”
Was she a mind reader?
“And I really didn’t ask you in for…this.” She gave him a little smile. Her hair was a complete mess, and her eyes had that brilliant green-gold quality that tugged at his heart.
He pulled her against him. “Too bad. I wouldn’t have minded,” he told her.
She didn’t answer, just rested easily against him. They were silent, and it was okay.
In a while, they made love again. He didn’t know who initiated it. Maybe they just moved together simultaneously. She was bolder this time, playing with his body in a way that all but turned his blood into liquid fire.