Stranger, Seducer, Protector Read online

  “And the sickening odor?”

  “The exterminator used some kind of expensive chemical to subdue it. It took three treatments.”

  Nick settled on his haunches for a better look at the head. He couldn’t tell how long it had been rotting in the walls, but his educated guess was no more than eighteen months.

  “How long have you lived in the house?” he asked.

  “Just under a year, but our first visit was immediately after my grandmother’s will was probated. That was fourteen months ago.”

  Old murder tales went with the house like crawfish and étouffée, but it rattled Nick to think this atrocity might have taken place after Jacinth and her sister had moved in.

  “Where’s your sister?” he asked.

  “On her honeymoon.”

  He hadn’t realized she’d gotten married, though he’d thoroughly researched both sisters. Caitlyn was the drama queen who made a living by giving tours of the ghostly and sometimes dangerous Cities of the Dead that housed the Quarter’s famed crypts and tombs. She’d nearly gotten herself killed in that capacity.

  Jacinth was the quiet and studious type, a graduate student with a teaching assistantship at Tulane. Brainy and sophisticated. Unquestionably, not his type.

  Too bad she was so damned attractive. And that was without a trace of makeup and with her silky, dark hair disheveled and powdered with grayish, flaky plaster.

  Best not to even glance at the cotton nightshirt that skimmed her perky breasts and danced about her shapely legs.

  “I’m calling the cops,” Jacinth announced, “though I doubt they’ll rush right over to examine a decayed body that may have been entombed in the wall for years.”

  Bringing in the cops at this stage of the game might complicate his mission, but there was little he could do about that now. He waited as she made the call, his mind dealing with ways to handle the new layers of intricacies.

  “They’re sending a uniformed officer to deal with the situation,” Jacinth said once she’d broken the connection. “They said we shouldn’t touch anything before he arrives—as if I would willingly touch that head. But I guess I should get Sin out of here.”

  Jacinth reached up to a shelf just over her head where Sin had settled, looking as if she were poised for an ambush. Jacinth’s nightshirt inched up her thighs.

  Nick grew instantly hard. Sin avoided Jacinth’s grasping hands and pounced on Nick’s back, letting her claws scrape the skin at the back of his neck before it leaped from his shoulders to the top of the clothes hamper.

  Jacinth scolded the cat. The feline demonstrated the stare that had earned her name. Nick was undaunted. He figured he’d had the scratch and the stare coming to him for the thoughts he’d had about the cat’s owner.

  “Maybe we should go back downstairs and wait for the cop,” Nick said.

  “I appreciate you coming to my rescue tonight, Nick, but there’s really no reason for you to stay. I’ll be fine now that I’ve calmed down—unless the house decides to hurl the rest of the corpse at me.”

  “I wouldn’t rule that out.”

  She looked back to the freakish head. “Good point. But it’s late and you probably still have boxes to carry inside.”

  “Only a couple. And I’m a night owl. I’d be happy to stay.”

  “In that case, I wouldn’t mind the company.” Jacinth covered her mouth and coughed. “My throat feels as if I’ve been eating grit.”

  “More reason we should get out of here and close the door.” In truth, he’d like nothing better than to explore behind the walls and see what other gruesome surprises might be skulking there. Only he’d prefer to do that without Jacinth looking over his shoulder or even being in the house.

  Jacinth stepped over to make another stab at retrieving Sin. The cat jumped from her reach and slunk out the door.

  “She’s not the most cooperative of creatures,” Jacinth said.

  “Have you had her long?”

  “She came with the house. Mrs. Findley said she’d just shown up at the back door one day, and my grandmother had taken her in. She said the cat and Marie were equally cantankerous so they got along well.”

  “Did your grandmother live in this house right up until she died?”

  “All but the last six months of her life when she moved into a nursing/retirement center.”

  “Who took care of Sin during that time?”

  “Mrs. Findley, and sometimes her husband. My grandmother had left cases of food and given them a key to the house. She was here before us so now Sin thinks Caitlyn and I are the strays and she’s not too keen on letting us share the premises.”

  “Too bad she can’t talk. She might be able to tell us who the head belonged to.”

  Jacinth ran her fingers through her hair and a new shower of dust rained down on her shoulders. “Would you excuse me while I go wash up in some of the water I saved and put on something a bit more appropriate?”

  “Not at all. Take your time. If the cop shows up before you’re ready, I’ll let him in.” And hopefully the officer would be someone new on the force who didn’t know Nick. The less Jacinth learned about him the better, at least until he’d had time to win her trust.

  “You can wait in the den,” Jacinth called. “It’s to the left of the staircase, just opposite the Louis XIV style parlor. We veered away a tad from our adherence to strict historical accuracy of design in the small den and included a comfortable couch and chair along with the antique lamps and antebellum paintings.”

  “I’m sure my back will appreciate that.” Nick enjoyed the view as Jacinth walked away. Images of her slipping out of the nightshirt plagued his mind. A menacing yowl jerked him back to reality.

  He turned to stare at Sin who was glaring at him from the bottom step. “Got it, Sin. Jacinth is off-limits for reasons even you can’t fathom.”

  JACINTH HAD RINSED her long hair over the sink with a pan of cool water. It was still dripping when she caught sight of flashing blue lights in her driveway.

  She toweled it quickly and made a mostly unsuccessful attempt to smooth it back into place. She needed a shower so badly right now that she’d have paid triple overtime for a plumber.

  A quick check in the mirror assured her she looked as ill put together as she felt. But the cream-colored sweater she’d pulled on over a pair of worn jeans was at least better than talking to a cop in her nightshirt.

  She reached the top of the staircase as Nick ushered two police officers inside the door. One was tall and thin, his face ruddy and his sandy blond hair short and neatly combed. The other was probably a good ten years older than his partner. In his early forties, she’d guess, with a receding hairline and a slightly crooked nose.

  She motioned for them to join her upstairs. Nick led the way, his confident swagger making him look perfectly at home in this house that still made Jacinth feel like a trespasser from time to time.

  The cops flashed their badges and identified themselves. The young one was Jordon Sims. The older one was Mike Jones. His expression held a tinge of aggravation as if he expected this was some kind of teenage hoax.

  She introduced herself and got what sounded more like a grunt than a greeting in return. Mike immediately turned his attention to Nick.

  “You never get too far from trouble, do you?” Mike snapped.

  Nick smirked. “I’m lucky that way.”

  “I take it you two know each other,” Jacinth said, as the tension between them spiked.

  “Too well.” Mike let it go at that and scanned the area. “Where’s this body part that you claim fell from the wall.”

  Claim, as if her version were in doubt. “On the floor in the guest bathroom where it fell. Follow me.”

  She opened the door, pointed at the head and immediately started coughing. The dust had settled in the room like a milky cloud of poisonous smoke. Both Mike and Jordon stepped over the worst of the debris to reach the decomposing body part. Neither she nor Nick crowded into the spa
ce with them.

  Mike stooped for a closer look. “You have any idea how this got in the walls?”

  “Not a clue,” Jacinth answered. “The house has been standing since the Civil War.”

  “The head hasn’t been hanging around for nearly that long,” Mike quipped.

  “How long has it been hanging around?” Jacinth asked.

  “Can’t say for sure, but my guess is that the victim was living and breathing this time a year ago. We’ll get a more accurate estimate from the forensics team.”

  If the officer was even close to right, the decapitation took place after her grandmother had died or at least after she’d gone to live in the nursing home. It was a relief to know she couldn’t have been involved in any way.

  The frightening part was that the victim could have been killed in this very house after Jacinth and Caitlyn had inherited it.

  “Are you the current owner of the house?” Jordon asked.

  “Yes. Well, my sister and I own it together. We inherited it from my grandmother.”

  “How long have you lived in the house?”

  “Eleven months. We’d planned to fix it up and sell it, but then we fell in love with it and decided to stay.”

  Of course they didn’t realize then that it came with spare body parts. Or that the constant repairs needed to keep it livable would drive them to the edge of bankruptcy.

  She went over the facts about the inheritance from her grandmother, Marie Villaré.

  Jordon made notes. “Did your grandmother live alone prior to moving into the Sunnydale Retirement Center?”

  “As far as I know,” Jacinth said. “We weren’t close. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since I was small child.”

  Mike used the cuff of his shirtsleeve to wipe a smear of dust from the tip of his nose. “Why is that?”

  “My mother had issues with my father’s family and had severed all ties with them when I was just a toddler.”

  “Maybe for good reason,” Jordon said. “What about your father?”

  “He was murdered here in New Orleans over twenty years ago. I don’t really remember him.”

  “How old was Marie Villaré when she died?”

  “Seventy.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “She had a heart attack. She’d been diagnosed with coronary problems and diabetes just before moving to the Sunnydale Center.”

  Jordon continued to stare at the head as Mike stood and stepped away from it.

  “Helen Fizelle will have a field day with this one,” Jordon said. “Decapitation and missing body parts in a crumbling mansion on the edge of the French Quarter. Right up her alley.”

  “Who’s Helen Fizelle?” Jacinth asked.

  “She heads up the skeletal recovery team. Worked with the FBI’s Body Farm up in Knoxville a few years back. Nothing she likes better than a case like this.”

  “You won’t have to leave the head here until she can see it, will you?”

  “Nah,” Mike said, scrunching his mouth into a bizarre shape. “We’ll take pictures and then deliver the skeletal remains to Forensic Sciences. The CSU investigation can wait until morning to take a look around, seeing as how the crime scene is already polluted and not how the killer left it.”

  “But we’ll tape off the bathroom,” Jordon added. “You’ll need to stay out of it and leave things exactly as they are until the detective gives you the okay to clean it up. I’m sure a house this size has plenty of other bathrooms.”

  “Yes.” Unfortunately, none of the other four had been completely remodeled as this one had. One step forward, ten steps back.

  “You’ll need to close the door and keep that cat out of here, too,” Mike added, turning and scowling at Sin, who had crept into the room and scooted beneath the antique claw-foot tub.

  “And, of course, the homicide detective assigned to the case will want to question you further.”

  “Question me about what? I’ve told you all I know.”

  Mike ignored the question and avoided eye contact with her, instead studying the ceiling as if he expected a new rain of additional body parts at any moment.

  “Why not have the CSU team come out and investigate tonight?” Nick asked. “They might be able to locate the rest of the body inside the crumbling cavity and hand over all the remains to Helen at once.”

  “Anything they’ll find has been here for months,” Mike said. “I don’t reckon it’s going to deteriorate that more much by morning.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  “If I need your help, Bruno, I’ll ask for it. Wouldn’t stand around waiting if I was you.”

  Hostility fired like flint between the two men.

  Mike pulled a small camera from his shirt pocket.

  “Let’s give them work room,” Jacinth offered in an attempt to keep the peace. She swooped up Sin and she and Nick left the two men alone to take their pictures.

  Sin cuddled in her arms for all of a minute before she squirmed her way free and pranced to the door of Marie’s old bedroom. Without a look back, the silver-gray Persian disappeared into the dark, antique-filled room that still held the lingering fragrance of lavender.

  “What’s with you and Officer Friendly?” Jacinth asked as soon as they were out of Mike and Jordon’s earshot.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “How about the condensed version?”

  “We had a run-in a while back.”

  “About what?”

  “His failure to adequately protect the integrity of the evidence in a case I was hired to investigate.”

  So the conflict between them was at the professional level. That relieved her mind a bit.

  “Whatever he does tonight is fine with me,” Jacinth said, “as long as the decapitated head leaves with him.”

  “Not a chance he’ll leave that behind,” Nick assured her. “The chief would have his head.”

  “Do you think he’s right about the approximate date of death?”

  “Close. Temperature variances and humidity make it difficult to estimate, but forensics will get a handle on it.”

  Jacinth stopped on the bottom stair and leaned against the polished mahogany banister. “I really appreciate your coming to my rescue tonight. But I’ve taken enough of your time. You should get back to your boxes.”

  “If you’re still nervous, I could hang around, have a beer and keep you company until Jordon and Mike are finished.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. And she didn’t have a beer in the house.

  She walked him to the door. Nick lingered, leaning against the door frame, his gaze locked with hers. Awareness slithered through her, warm and a tad unsettling.

  “Thanks again,” she whispered, hating that her voice held a throaty rasp. Just the dust, she told herself.

  Yet when he leaned in closer, a tingling sensation danced up her spine. Instead of a kiss, he trailed a rough finger down her cheek. “I’m not quite through moving in, but I’m staying in the carriage house tonight. If you need anything at all, just call.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She closed and locked the door behind him, leaning against it to regain the equilibrium his touch had destroyed. Seconds later, she stepped to the front window in the stuffy parlor, pulled back the heavy drapes and watched Nick swagger back to his truck.

  When he turned toward the house, she stepped away quickly, feeling a bit like she used to when her mother had caught her reading under the sheet with a flashlight long after her bedtime.

  The imagery evolved and instead of a book cuddled beneath her sheets, she imagined Nick there. She closed her eyes and willed it away. She had just inherited a whole new set of problems and the last thing she needed was a sexy neighbor she knew absolutely nothing about to complicate matters.

  Chapter Three

  Nick shucked his jeans and hung them on the back of the antique rocker in his new bedroom. The bedroom was larger than what he was used to, more windows, higher
ceilings, newer carpet. And neater. He hadn’t had time to litter the place with his newspapers, shoes and dirty clothes yet.

  The bed looked comfortable, not that he ever slept soundly or long. He’d be lucky if he got more than a few hours’ sleep tonight.

  Nothing wrong with the Findleys’ carriage house, except that he hated the strangeness, especially when he had a perfectly good house on the Westbank.

  But when he’d spotted the Furnished Apartment for Rent sign on the Findleys’ front yard, he’d jumped at the chance to rent it. It was perfect for what he needed.

  Jacinth’s leaky pipe couldn’t have fit better with his plans if he’d taken a monkey wrench to it and released the deluge himself. The decapitated head he could have done without.

  The last thing he’d expected or needed was a new murder to intersect with the old one. The situation would complicate matters, but at least it had gotten him inside the crumbling mansion and closer to Jacinth. It was a start.

  Which was why he couldn’t let Jacinth get to him on a personal level.

  He just had to remember she was a Villaré. That should be enough to quell any lustful vibes she inspired, as long as he didn’t look into those bewitching dark-chocolate eyes of hers.

  He shook his head as he threw back the sheet and collapsed onto the bed. Thinking of Jacinth’s eyes—or any other of her body parts for that matter—would not help him get to sleep. And he’d have to be up at dawn for the one date he always kept.

  A date that would serve as a bitter reminder that Nick was running out of time.

  JACINTH WOKE WITH A START as the piercing ring of her cell phone broke through the layers of sleep. She’d lain awake until after four. That seemed only minutes ago, but already slanted rays of sunshine pushed through the half-closed blinds.

  Jacinth fumbled for the phone, knocking her paperback novel to the floor. She cringed at the thud. Her head hurt. Her sinuses were clogged. Her mouth was so dry it was difficult to swallow.

  She mumbled a hello.

  “Jacinth?”

  Caitlyn. Jacinth took a deep breath and tried to sound enthusiastic. “What are you doing calling this time of the morning? Don’t tell me the honeymoon’s grown boring.”