At Risk (12 page)

She heard Rafe’s calm answer.
Deceptively calm. “She went around the corner to get something.”

“What?”

“She didn’t say.”

“I’m going inside the restaurant,” the detective said.

Chapter Ten

Rafe was screaming inside his mind, warning Eugenia to get the hell out of there, as he watched Cumberland use a key to unlock the door.
But where could she go? Not out the front door, because then her nosy neighbor, Mrs. Houston, would likely see her—and report that she’d ignored the crime-scene tape.

Cumberland stepped into the kitchen and Rafe followed.
The detective didn’t stop him, perhaps because he was sure Eugenia was in here, and he wanted to confront the two of them together.

He took a quick look around the kitchen, then crossed to a large cupboard and pulled the door open.
Eugenia wasn’t inside.

Cumberland opened a few more cupboards before proceeding into the dining room.
Rafe winced when he saw it, imagining Eugenia’s reaction.

The detective strode to the front of the room and whipped aside the curtains, but Eugenia wasn’t behind them.
He turned in a circle, searching for hiding places, obviously puzzled that he hadn’t found what he was looking for.

Rafe followed his gaze, wondering where she’d gone.
Hopefully not out the front. More likely she was still in here, if she’d figured out where to hide.

Cumberland strode confidently around the room, looking under tables and even getting down on his knees to inspect the radiator.

He snarled and pulled his hand back.

“What?”

“I cut myself on a piece of broken glass.”

“Gee, that’s too bad.”

“I don’t need any comments from you,” he said, snatching up a napkin and wrapping it around his hand.

Rafe didn’t point out that this fishing expedition had been Cumberland’s idea, and now he was disturbing the scene.

Rafe started to relax a little as he watched the detective run out of places to look. Finally he said something under his breath that Rafe couldn’t catch, strode back to the kitchen, and went through more cupboards. When he struck out again, he gave Rafe a dark look and returned to the parking area, where he was apparently having trouble not kicking the wall in frustration.

“Maybe I’ll wait until Ms. Beaumont comes back.”

“Did you have something specific to say to her? Like did the autopsy report come back?”

“No,” the detective snapped.

No it hadn’t come back? Or no he wasn’t going to share the information with her? Rafe decided it was better not to ask.

They both waited for several minutes, neither of them speaking as Rafe ordered himself not to let his tension get the better of him.
Finally Cumberland silently strode through the patio to the unmarked car he’d left out at the curb.

Rafe stayed where he was, watching for Mrs. Houston or Cumberland to pop back around the corner and catch him conferring with Eugenia at the back door.

A few moments later, the door did open a sliver, and Eugenia peeked out. “All clear?”

“Yeah.”

She stepped into the alley, then closed the door behind her. Without waiting for him to follow, she crossed quickly to the courtyard and unlocked the door to her apartment. Not until she was upstairs did she face him and breathe out a sigh.

“I heard him searching the place.”

“I kept expecting him to whoop for joy. Where were you?”

“You know the wainscoting in the front room?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s built so there’s a panel that I can open.
I keep some supplies behind it.”

“I’m glad the bastard didn’t find you.
He really thought he was going to catch us at something illegal.”

She laughed.
“Sorry to disappoint him.”

“You have the knife?”

“Yes.” She pulled the napkin from the waistband of her slacks and unwrapped it.

“Thanks.
I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“It worked out. What do you think you’re going to find out?”

“I’m not sure. But I want to be sitting down when I touch it.”

“Okay.”
She set the knife on the coffee table.

Rafe sat down on the sofa and looked at the ornate handle of the weapon.
Last time the experience with it had taken him by surprise. This time he had a better idea of what to expect, and he hoped he could exercise more control.

Might as well get it over with. He reached out and pressed his fingers to the handle of the knife, thinking that he could pull away if he needed to.
But he was wrong.

An invisible force grabbed him, melding his flesh to the cold metal.

He heard Eugenia gasp and wondered what she saw. But that was the last conscious thought of the man sitting in her living room.

He was someone else. He wasn’t sure who, but he was standing in the bayou clearing that he’d seen before. Last time he’d come back to himself pretty quickly because he’d thought he was only caught in a side trip. This time the vision had sucked him in, and he had more time to take in his surroundings. Even though he was in someone else’s body, he did have some control of his observations. He heard the call of birds and the splash of something slithering into the water. He saw a great egret flap away as he approached.

He was in another person’s body, but he hung on to enough of Rafe Gascon’s consciousness to be aware of what he was supposed to be doing.

He looked around at the thick vegetation surrounded him on three sides. Towering above him were cypress and tupelo trees, dripping with Spanish moss. Closer to the ground were dwarf palmettos and flowers he couldn’t name. Thirty yards away he could see brown water moving sluggishly between low banks where cypress roots held the soil in place. A pier jutted out into the water, and he saw a boat tied up. Not a traditional Cajun pirogue, but what looked like a very modern speedboat. The name on the side was. . . .

Had he stepped into a scene in the not-too-distant past?
Or was this something that had taken place months or years ago?

He looked down at his legs.
He was wearing jeans and heavy boots suitable for tramping around in the backcountry.

When he held up a hand, he saw that he was wearing leather gloves.

He opened his mind to the person whose body he shared and felt a jolt of shock. They were thinking about a slave rebellion more than two hundred years ago, when a group of brave and desperate black men rose up against their cruel masters. Three ringleaders gathered a force of five hundred slaves who stole military uniforms and weapons from a federal arsenal and marched on New Orleans. When they ran out of ammunition, they were slaughtered by a force of planters supported by the U.S. Military.

Although they were ultimately defeated, it was the best-organized slave rebellion in the history of the country.

The gory details of what the slaves had done and what had been done to them sickened Rafe, yet the person thinking about the uprising admired the courage of the rebels. You had to be bold enough to seize the moment and change your destiny—even if you were taking a terrible risk.

Rafe didn’t understand the context, but he felt the determination of the person in the bayou as they strode toward a small building that might have been a wooden toolshed.

They threw open double doors, and he goggled at what he saw inside.

There was a raised platform made from two wide boards resting on bricks.
The board was covered with a wooden tray. Various objects were placed on the shelf. There were a couple of small candles, a naked voodoo doll with a pin sticking in its chest and a bundle of straw next to it. At the side was a photograph, probably of a man, although someone had scratched back and forth across the face so that the features were unrecognizable.

He saw it all through a red haze.
Was that real, or was it generated by the anger of the person who had set up this altar?

When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he whirled, not sure what he was going to face.

Chapter Eleven

It was Eugenia that he saw.
Her touch had pulled him back into her living room, his ears ringing and his vision still tinged with red.

“Are you all right?” she asked urgently.

He took a quick inventory. “I think so. Why did you yank me out of there?”

“You looked horrible.
I mean kind of sick.”

“There was a lot of yucky stuff.”

“Do you want some water?”

“Yeah, that would be good.”

She went to the refrigerator, got out a bottle of cold water and brought it back to him, sitting in an easy chair opposite him so that they could see each other.

“Can you tell me about it?”

He nodded, wishing he didn’t have to share the information with her. But he had no right to hold it back. “Have you heard of a slave rebellion in New Orleans in the early eighteen hundreds?”

“No.”

“I think it was hushed up at the time, but there was a book written about it not too long ago.

“How do you know?”

“The person . . . I shared consciousness with was thinking about it. A group of slaves who lived on a plantation with a particularly cruel master killed his son and tried to kill him, but he got away and went for help. The slaves got a bunch of others to join them in them in a rebellion. They got weapons and uniforms from a federal arsenal and marched on New Orleans. They thought they could take over the city, but a force of desperate plantation owners plus the U.S. Army caught up with them in a cane field.”

When he stopped speaking, Eugenia asked, “What happened?”

“Well, obviously the slaves didn’t win. They killed some of the plantation owners, but in the end they ran out of ammunition, and some awful stuff was done to them. Like putting their heads on pikes and hanging up their dismembered bodies. And that’s just a rough idea of the brutality.”

She gagged. “What does that have to do with a knife that was going to be used at a voodoo ceremony?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I went into the mind of a person out in the bayou. They were thinking about the rebellion as they went to the voodoo shrine they’d set up. They were thinking that the slaves were heroes for what they’d tried to do.”

“Who was it?
I mean, the person in the bayou.”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s all you got. Someone thinking about a slave rebellion?”

“They were comparing themselves to the slaves, thinking that they were going up against a superior force.
Only they were going to be the winner. And they weren’t going to use a gun. They were going to use voodoo.”

She looked at the knife.
“Calista was going to use that in the ceremony? Was it her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because in that vision, she would have been smoother and more practiced about the voodoo part.”

“So someone might have wanted her to have that particular knife—for a reason we don’t know about.’”

“Maybe it’s symbolic, like the slave rebellion.”

“Back to—why do you think the shrine wasn’t Calista’s?”

“It looked like it belonged to someone starting out.
They’d built an altar out in a bayou clearing, in an old shed. It had a raised platform inside.” He described the contents as best he could.

“The doll and the picture must have been of someone they hated.”

“Could you tell who it was?”

“In the picture, his face had been scratched out, but I’m guessing it was Villars—since he was the one who ended up dead.”

“Because this person killed him?”

“Yeah.
I’d like to see the autopsy report. Did they hex him to death?”

“You think that’s possible?”

“If the victim believes it’s possible.”

“But the photo in the shrine could have just as well been Cumberland, because he’s conducting the investigation.”

“I don’t think so. Villars was only killed yesterday. And I don’t see the future. Only the past.” He thought about the angle of the sun. “I’m guessing it was days ago, in the morning. Maybe the person was getting ready for the ceremony at the restaurant. Maybe asking for the blessing of the gods.”

She shuddered. “Do you think you could find the altar?”

He considered the question. “I wish I could. It was in a bayou clearing, and there were no landmarks that I recognized.” He stopped, thinking there was something that might have been a clue. But he couldn’t recall it now.

Eugenia interrupted his thoughts.

“And what do you make of the whole scene?”

“Someone is out for revenge. Like those slaves.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t know.” She thought for a moment. “You say you were in someone’s body. Couldn’t you see yourself?”

“I saw legs covered in jeans and shoes with hiking boots.
And hands covered with leather gloves.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“I don’t know.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, sitting there for a few moments until the cushion shifted.
He opened his eyes and saw Eugenia leaning over him.

“That was hard on you. And that blow on the head the other night didn’t help. I think you’ve done all you can for the moment.”

“Maybe not. There’s something I should be remembering.”

“Sometimes the best way to remember is not to focus on the thing.”

He could have asked, “And do what?”

But he didn’t have to when she brought her lips to his, pressing and then withdrawing in silent invitation.
He had ached to get back to where they’d been in the car, but he’d set his own feelings aside. Now she was telling him to stop backing away from her.

He shouldn’t succumb.
She was a client. But there was a lot of history between them, urging both of them not to deny their feelings.

He’d gone away thinking that she’d broken off with him.
She’d told him it wasn’t true, which still left the question of what had happened. But he couldn’t focus on that now.

She moved her lips against his, nibbling, brushing back and forth, urging a response from him—and he gave it gladly.

His hand stroked up and down her ribs, inching toward the sides of her breasts, waiting for her to stop him, but she didn’t.

Her body was familiar to him.
Back when they’d been teenagers, they’d done everything together except have intercourse. She’d set the rules, and he’d followed them. Because he would take anything he could have with her. Now he knew fooling around wouldn’t satisfy him. And he hoped she felt the same way.

Their eyes locked as she knitted her fingers with his and led him to the bed they’d shared for a few hours the night before—when he hadn’t been in any kind of shape for messing around.

There was no hesitation or uncertainty about what they were going to do. After taking his gun from the waistband of his pants, he set it on the dresser. Turning, he wrapped his arms around her, and they exchanged hot kisses, swaying together as they stroked each other.

“I don’t think I can stand up much longer,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

He brought her down to the mattress, struggling to catch his breath.
He was ready to make love with her. More than ready, but he knew he had to slow down. With his eyes closed, he worked his hands under her shirt, running his fingers over the silky skin of her back. She was so familiar to him. Dear to him. That realization sent a shock wave through him.

“What?”

“I’m having trouble believing this is real.”

“It is, chérie,” he said.

They held each other for long moments, until she said, “Help me get undressed.”

Glad to oblige, he unhooked her bra, and she pulled it off, along with her shirt.

With a deep sigh, he buried his face between her breasts, feeling like he had finally come home after a long, lonely trip. She clasped him to her, stroking her fingers through his hair. He turned his head, swirling his tongue around one hardened nipple. When he sucked it into his mouth, she gasped his name.

“I’ve longed for you to do that again.”

He’d longed for it, too, but he hadn’t been able to admit it, even to himself.

He had a problem now.
He didn’t want to break the contact with her, but that was the only to get undressed. He kissed her breast, then sat up and pulled his shirt over his head.

Coming back to her, he clasped her to him, sighing at the skin-to-skin contact.

She was warm and pliant in his arms, and he swayed her breasts against his chest, making them both murmur in pleasure. Yet he had to ask, “Are you sure about this?”

“Very sure.
I want everything we can give each other.”

She lay back on the bed, smiling up at him as she unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, doing a kind of striptease lying down.
Lifting her hips, she pulled the jeans down and kicked them away. When she wore only her bikini panties, she slipped a finger under the top edge and ran it around the elastic.

He heard himself make a strangled sound as he watched her.
Unable to help himself, he reached under the elastic, slowly easing down the panties, uncovering the triangle of blond hair at the top of her legs.

“Lord, I’m glad you didn’t shave down there.”

“Why?”

“It’s not the way I pictured you.”
Had he given too much away with that comment? She only nodded, then raised her hips again so that she could slip off the panties.

When she was naked, she reached for the button at the top of his jeans, opening it and lowering his zipper.

Her gaze never left him as she slipped her hand inside, below his briefs, closing her fingers around his cock. Her familiar touch threatened to send him up in flames.

“Better not do too much of that,” he gasped.

He got rid of his jeans and briefs, kicking them off onto the floor before pulling her back into his embrace, his breath catching at the way her naked body fit against his.

He held her in his arms, sliding his lips against her cheek, before coming back to her mouth for a kiss that made his head spin. He had dreamed of this.
So many times. Eugenia naked with him on a real bed.

He teased her nipples with one hand, tugging and twisting them, while the other hand drifted slowly down her body, pausing at her abdomen before dipping lower into the hot, wet folds of her most intimate flesh.

He had touched her like this, and he knew what she liked. One finger dipped inside her, then slid up to her clit, before traveling downward again. Her hips moved against his hand, as she silently told him how good it felt.

“Don’t make me come like this,” she whispered.

Reaching for his shoulder, she urged him on top of her. He looked into her eyes as she clasped his penis, doing what she had never done before, guiding him inside her.

His heart lurched in his chest, as her sheath closed around him.

“Rafe,” she gasped.

“Right here.”

He had thought about this moment for so long, but he hadn’t known the reality would stun him.

They were both still for long moments, both of them overcome by what they had finally accomplished.
Then she cupped his buttocks, urging him to move.

“Ah, God, Eugenia,” he gasped as he did what they both wanted.

He started off with something approaching control. But the pace quickly become more urgent, more demanding as he took them both higher and higher.

“Oh Rafe, Rafe,” she cried out, her movements becoming frantic under him as she sought her release.

Then she cried out, and he felt her contracting around him. He let go then, joining her in a climax that seized his whole body.

He collapsed against her.
When he tried to move, she clasped him tightly.

He stroked his hand down her arm and knitted his fingers with hers.
He wanted to tell her what making love with her had meant to him. But he’d never been great with words, so he turned his head, kissing her gently on the cheek.

He eased off of her, and gathered her in his arms, still hardly able to believe the reality of making love with her.

After long moments, he sensed she wanted to say something.

“What?” he murmured.