Be My Baby (23 page)

She faced him with cool composure. “I might be inclined to agree with you, Sergeant, if we were talking about someone who had a prayer of ever seeing me naked again.” Her rainwater eyes met his levelly. “But we’re talking about you.”

Denial reared up on its hind legs and roared like an enraged bear. He reached out and jerked her close, thrusting his face next hers. “God, such pretty, pretty composure,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Not for Ms. Astor Lowell the pesky, disorderly emotions that rule the rest of us. How does it feel to live in your world, I wonder?” He knew he was being unfair, but he didn’t care.
Never, never, never
chanted in his mind and he wanted to erase it, eradicate it from the English language. “Doesn’t it ever get lonely, Juliet Rose? Don’t you get tired of being Daddy’s good little girl all the time, of being too damn pristine to go after what you want?”

How dare he—oh, God, how
dare
he? Laser-white rage exploded in Juliet’s brain. Slapping her hands to his chest, she shoved as hard as she could and felt bitter satisfaction when his hold on her upper arms broke and he stumbled back a couple of paces.

“
Pristine
?” she demanded through her teeth. “It’s not enough that you dump me so you can have sex with every large-breasted woman in New Orleans—now you’re saying I didn’t get
down and
dirty
enough for you?” She thumped her fist hard on his chest.

“No…Juliet…dawlin’…that’s not what I—” He backed up step by step, his arms spread wide in entreaty.

“What’s the matter, Beauregard, too
emotional
for you?” She stalked forward with every step he took. “You hypocrite. You don’t want my emotions. It was my saying I loved you that sent you running in the first place.” She laughed bitterly. “God, the thought of getting trapped in a monogamous relationship must have struck terror to your very soul.”

His back hit the wall and she stabbed her finger in his sternum. “But it wasn’t sufficient that I gave you an out, was it? Oh, no, not for Loverboy Dupree.” She thrust her face up to his in a most unmannerly way. “Why? Didn’t it satisfy your lust for drama? Just out of curiosity, Beau, what exactly did you expect me to do—dog your footsteps? Cry?
Beg
for affection? Well, screw you, Dupree.”

He knocked her finger aside and cupped his long hands around her jaw, tilting it up and holding her in place while he rocked his mouth over hers.

And, oh. God. It felt so good. Juliet kissed him back, but desperately held a part of herself aloof. When he raised his head, she tamped down her screaming hormones and simply stared at him.

He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Rosebud, I was wrong. I—”

“No. I was.” She reached up and disengaged his hands, stepping back. “I’ve said it before, but clearly you weren’t listening. I—don’t—want—to
be—a rock—around—anyone’s—neck,” she said slowly and concisely. “And I refuse to spend my life trying to make amends for
loving
someone. So you go do whatever it is you’ve been dying to do. Run barefoot through a field of bare breasts, if that’s what makes you happy. Just stay the hell away from me.”

“Juliet, wait—”

“No.” She took one step back and then another, holding up a hand when he opened his mouth. “I have always come in a poor third with the people whose affection I most craved. Well, you know what? I’ll be damned if I’ll settle for that from you, too. I deserve better. It’s taken me a while to realize it, but I do. So do your job, and stay out of my way. And for the record, Beau, when
Daddy
insisted you weren’t our kind, I told him to butt out, too.” Stooping, she picked up her clipboard and swept across the room, making an exit that even Grandmother would have applauded.

And if her heart was breaking with every step she took, at least
he
would never know.

B
eau was riding the crest of a piss-poor attitude when he walked into the bar. Pulling out a chair at the first table he came to, he swung his leg over its seat, planted his butt, and tossed his case folder onto the minuscule tabletop.

This wasn’t the choicest spot in town to get any work done, and he knew it. The light was dim, the music loud, and the crowd who watched the stripper on stage full of raucous, mostly illegal suggestions. It was also from here that the Panty Snatcher had chosen three of his victims, including Josie Lee. Offhand, Beau could think of a dozen places better suited for studying the case he was struggling to build against Haynes.

But he was hot, tired, and frustrated, and without thinking he’d found himself in the Goat driving out of his way to get here. For the past two days he’d knocked himself out trying to put together something substantive in this case, but the results were skimpy, to say the least. So, the hell with it.
This joint was an armpit, a dive—and
just
the sort of low brow establishment to suit his mood.

A coaster landed on the table next to his folder, and a dulcet voice inquired, “What can I getcha, hawt?”

Beau looked up to see a wet dream in spike heels and a sequined G-string hovering at his side. She was blond, she was built, and she had an expression that said she was no better than she oughtta be. She was, in short, exactly the kind of woman he’d fantasized about for the past decade—and it made him extremely nervous to realize he didn’t feel the slightest bit stirred. To compensate, he flashed her his most killing smile. “Give me a bottle of Dixie, sugar.”

When she inhaled a deep breath, her abbreviated crop top wasn’t equal to the task of containing the lush bottom curves of a truly spectacular set of breasts. Thrusting them close to his face and returning a carnivorous smile of her own, she said, “Why don’tcha pick up your whatchacallit, there, shoog, and I’ll clean off that sticky ol’ table for you.”

Obediently he lifted the folder. The waitress leaned over him to wash off the table, and her left breast swayed into teasing contact with the side of his face with every swipe of her arm. To his disgust, what popped into his head was not that old primeval male desire for a little horizontal boogaloo with a brand-new partner. Rather, it was the look on Juliet’s face when she’d said,
I have always come in a poor third with the people whose affection I most craved
.

Damn her. Blinking the apparition away, he straightened in his seat. In defiance of the ghost that simply would not leave him be, he raised his hand and curved it around the indentation where the barmaid’s waist flowed into bare, lush hip. “So. I bet you dance here, too, huh?”

“That I do, shoog. You wanna see my stuff, I’d be happy to give you a private table dance right now.”

Beau felt a sudden weariness. “Maybe later.” He slid his hand off her hip and tapped the folder in front of him. “Much as I’d love that, I’ve got a mess of work here that needs lookin’ over.”

The look she gave him cast doubts upon his sexuality, as if the heterosexual who could pass up her abundantly displayed charms for the sake of a slim manila folder had yet to be born. But she merely shrugged and said, “You think about it, shoog. I’ll be back with your beer in a minute.”

She ceased to exist for him the moment she walked away. Opening the folder, he spread the contents across the table. He set aside the forensics reports, having nearly memorized them. He lined up the black and white proofs he’d picked up from the photographer half an hour ago, knowing that it was highly debatable they’d have anything new to teach him at this late date.

It was nevertheless a disappointment to be proved right. He studied the garden party shots first. They were stamped with a date and time, and while he was able to locate Edward in two of them, neither photo placed the man anywhere near the sweet olive trees at the time of the shooting. Beau
moved on to the cocktail party photos.

He separated out a nice clear shot of Edward and Celeste and thumbed through the rest to see if he’d missed anything. When he found himself lingering over a shot of himself and Juliet, tracing his thumb over her two-dimensional, black-and-white features, he impatiently shuffled it to the back of the stack. He studied the rest and then put them back in the folder, leaving out only the three photos in which Edward was featured.

“Here’s your Dixie, hawt.” The barmaid gave the pictures on the table a brief, disinterested glance as she set the bottle on the coaster next to them. “That’ll be…” Her voice trailed off as she leaned forward to give the photographs a closer look. “Hey, that’s Dapper Dan.” She turned her head to look at Beau. “What are you doin’ with his picture, hon? You a whatchamacallit? A photographer?”

Beau’s blood started to thrum hot and heavy through his veins, and he said, “You know this guy?”

“Well, not
know
him know him, shoog. But he comes in here sometimes.” She straightened. “That’ll be four-fifty for the beer.”

Beau fished his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out a twenty. He handed it to her. “And his name is Dan, you say?”

“You got me, shoog. That’s just what we call him—Dapper Dan. Well, look here, you can see for yourself.” She reached out to tap one long, blood-red fingernail against the photograph of Edward wearing a tuxedo at the Garden Crown’s pre-opening. “On account of the way he dresses, ya
know? And his manners. He’s got really nice manners.” Pulling back, she deposited the twenty in a box on her tray and made change, which she extended to Beau.

He gave her a huge grin. He could
kiss
the woman. Damn, were his instincts hot, or what—how else to explain what had driven him to this dive at this moment?
Edward was the friggin’ Panty Snatcher
. He waved away the change. “Keep it.”

“Hey, thanks, hawt.” She put the change in a separate envelope in the back of her money box.

“Don’t mention it, sugar—you’re gonna earn it. Here.” He pulled out the chair next to him. “Have a seat. I’ve got a lot of questions for you.”

Roxanne looked up and eyed him with cold disfavor when he walked through her office door a couple hours later. “What do you want, Dupree?” There wasn’t so much as a token pretense of civility in her tone.

Good question. If he could think of any other way to get the information he sought, you wouldn’t see him within ten miles of this joint. “I need to talk to Juliet. She in?”

“Not for you.”

Defensiveness settled hot and heavy in his gut, and it made him resentful. “You’ll have to excuse the hell outta me if I don’t just take your word for it.” He gestured peremptorily at the intercom button on her phone. “Ask her. I’m here on business.”

Roxanne curled her upper lip at him, but picked up the receiver and punched the intercom button. “Juliet? Sergeant Dupree is here to see you. He says
it’s about business.” She listened for a moment, then said in a noncommittal tone, “Will do,” and reseated the receiver. She looked up at Beau, but made him sweat it out for several heartbeats before she said, “You can go in.”

It surprised him to feel his heart thud heavily against the wall of his chest. Crossing the anteroom, he paused at the door to the inner office and glanced back at Roxanne. She met his gaze head-on, and if contempt were lethal, he would have dropped in his tracks. Since he was still standing, he turned the knob and opened the door.

Juliet looked up when he walked in, but she neither pushed back from her desk nor rose. She folded her hands atop a stack of papers on the desk and regarded him with aloof, polite patience, as if he were a stranger who had wandered into the wrong place.

He hadn’t known it would bother him this much to see her look at him so dispassionately. He licked his bottom lip. “Uh, you look good.” And she did. She’d clearly tried to button herself back into her prim and proper Ms. Astor Lowell persona, but New Orleans heat had a way of softening her best efforts. She was damp and rumpled, and with the renegade lock of hair that wrapped its wavy strands around her throat, she looked altogether touchable.

“Thank you,” she said coolly. “But I’m sure that’s not what you’re here to discuss. And since we’re both busy…?”

“Okay.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. She wanted professional—he could be professional. “I
believe I’m making progress in the investigation.”

“Congratulations.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks. But I could use your help.”

One golden brown eyebrow rose. “What possible help could I provide?”

“Information. You can tell me if Edward Haynes has a favorite spot in the hotel where he hangs out…or if he spends all his time up in his apartment.” In which case, Beau’s case would go straight down the tubes.

For just a second her impenetrable composure cracked and she shot him a look that clearly questioned his sanity. “
Excuse
me?”

“You heard me, dawlin.’”

“Why in heaven’s name would you want to know where Edward spends his spare time?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.” He would have sworn it wasn’t possible for her back to get any straighter, but it did.

“Fine. Then you know where the door is.”

“Dammit, Juliet!”

“Don’t you swear at me, Beauregard Dupree.” She rose to her feet, every inch of her radiating a lifetime of good breeding. “If you want information from me, you’ll explain why. If you’re unwilling to do that, then you can just trot your arrogant carcass out of my office and quit wasting my time. I have work to do.”

Beau wasn’t accustomed to having his authority challenged. Under ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t tell a civilian squat, and he’d let his fingernails be ripped from their beds before he’d al
low anyone to dictate terms where a case of his was concerned.

But he was in desperate need of probable cause, or Edward Haynes was going to get off scot-free. Moreover, he realized that he trusted Juliet’s judgment.

He didn’t know why that should catch him by surprise. Idiot that he was, hadn’t he told her about his decade-long fantasy to bed every able-bodied woman in New Orleans? He’d never entrusted that to a soul but Luke. Besides—and he had to swallow back a snort—God knew her discretion was reliable. To see her facing him down now, one would never guess that she had ever lain in his arms panting and whispering dark, raw demands in his ear. So, she sure as hell wasn’t likely to give anything away to Haynes before Beau was ready to make his move.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ve got several leads that implicate Edward not only in the attempts on your life, but in the Panty Snatcher case as well.”

Juliet felt the shock clear down to her toes. Sweet, gentle Edward? She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

“He’s connected to a set of antique pistols that are consistent with the one used to take a shot at you.”

“
Consistent
with?”

“My sister also identified it as the type used to force her to take off her clothes.”

“And this gun is one of a kind?”

“No, but how many antique guns do you think
are out there being used in the commission of
two
separate crimes?”

“He’s a
collector
. It isn’t necessarily the same gun.”

“A barmaid in a place we’ve established as the common denominator in several of the Panty Snatcher incidents identified his picture, Juliet.”

“For heaven’s sake—he dropped by for a drink in a bar. Does that make him a criminal?”

“Dammit, do you think I’m just stringing this crap together for the fun of it?” He was suddenly standing much too close, his dark eyes glaring down at her. “I’ve been a cop for a long time—give me some friggin’ credit for my instincts.”

Resentment boiled in her veins. “I’ve been on the receiving end of your instincts,” she snapped. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not impressed.”

His face was suddenly bent so near to hers she felt his breath hot against her mouth. “I’m talking
professional
instincts, not…” Backing up a step, he shoved a hand through his hair. Kneading the back of his neck, he exhaled and said quietly, “I showed his photo at three other places where a victim had either worked or been to, and he was positively identified at them, too. And these four places are dives, Juliet. Bottom-of-the-barrel strip joints. Can you honestly picture Edward patronizing such places under ordinary circumstances?”

His unemotional professionalism in the face of his frustration with her was frighteningly convincing. “It all sounds so circumstantial.” She hated that her tone practically pleaded with him to say it was a mistake.

“Right now that’s exactly what it is. Which is why I need to know if there’s a place in the hotel besides his living quarters where he spends a great deal of time.”

She knew by his sudden alertness that her face must have given her away. “Show me,” he said. “And I’ll need your permission to search it.”

“You’re wrong, Beau.”

“Then prove it to me and I’ll drop the whole line of inquiry. You might consider, though, that your corporation displaced Edward and his wife from a home they’d lived in for more than twenty-five years—which would have been helpful to have known before this week. And that it was shortly thereafter the threats began on your life.”

“This is crazy.”

“Like I said, prove me wrong.”

“Fine. I will.” She stalked past him and stopped by Roxanne’s desk on their way through her office. “Do we have keys for the Blue Room?”

“Let me look.” Sparing them a covert glance, Roxanne bent to her bottom drawer. “Celeste handed all this stuff over the day we arrived.” She sorted through tangled sets of tagged keys. “Ah, here we go.” Straightening, she extended a ring containing two skeleton keys.

Juliet waited until they were out of Roxanne’s hearing before she turned to Beau. “Edward actually spends most of his time in two places. The gardening shed and the Blue Room.”

Beau was silent for a moment. “He collects souvenirs,” he finally said. “And he’d want to keep them in a fairly immaculate state. The Blue Room.”

They headed off, and Juliet was aware of him beside her every step of the way. There was a tension about him, an energetic anticipation that she could only assume was part of being a cop on the hunt.
Her
stomach was tied up in knots, and only half of that had to do with being forced to be this near Beau when their relationship was such a screwed-up mess.