Knight Errant Read online

  He set the paper aside and picked up the photographs. They measured five by seven inches and were poorly lit, but the subjects were easy to recognize: him and Lainie. One was a shot of them entering last night’s restaurant, another in Jackson Square at the moment when he had brought that hurt look into her eyes by saying that he would find another woman. The third one had been taken in the club when they were dancing. He remembered the flash and thinking that some foolish tourist was trying to capture nightlife in the Quarter. He’d been wrong.

  “Nicholas?” Lainie’s voice came from the stairs, accompanied by the solid thud of tennis shoes on bare wood. Quickly he shoved everything back into the envelope and slid it behind a stack of trays underneath the bar before turning to watch her approach.

  She was dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, tucked in snugly with the short sleeves rolled up a few times. No one could tell by looking at her that she’d gotten only a few hours’ sleep last night. She looked well rested. Energized. Beautiful. Oh, hell, yeah, she was beautiful. God help him, if anything happened to her...

  Nothing would. Jimmy wanted him. He had no interest in Lainie.

  “I’ve got to take the coffee with me. I’m running late.”

  “It’ll be ready in a minute.” Grateful that she was in a hurry, that she didn’t have time for a cup of coffee with him, time to notice that he was acting oddly, he reached out to stroke her hair, then slid his hand down to cup the back of her neck. Gently he pulled her to him, just holding her tight for a moment, then giving her a slow, leisurely kiss that stirred hunger and fire and incredible need.

  When he finally released her, for a moment she remained utterly motionless. Then, with a shiver, she gave a little laugh. “Who needs coffee? You just got my blood pumping.”

  He stroked her mouth with his thumb while issuing a command. “Come home for lunch.”

  The lightness disappeared, and she looked as serious, as intense, as he felt. “All right.” No questions about why, no excuses, just simple agreement.

  He gave her another, quicker kiss, then stepped around her and went to the kitchen. When he returned a moment later with coffee, his in a mug, hers in a foam cup, she was still standing in exactly the same place. He wrapped her hands around the cup, then turned her toward the doors. “You’re running late, remember?”

  “Right. Late. Lunch.” With a quavery smile for a goodbye, she crossed the room and let herself out. He stood where he could watch her cross the street, climb the-steps to Kathy’s House, then go in. He waited until the door closed behind her before he turned back to the bar and retrieved the envelope, carrying it and his coffee to a table, emptying it there.

  ...the name of the traitor hasn’t been forgotten...Sometimes Jimmy operated with exquisite subtlety. Sometimes his message couldn’t be clearer if it were printed in capital letters across the front page of the Times-Picayune. This little prayer was his reminder that he hadn’t forgotten Nicholas or his promise to kill him. A few years ago Nicholas had welcomed the idea of his death. As recently as a few weeks ago he had been ready for it. This morning he wasn’t. Give me-a reason to live, he had challenged Lainie, and she’d done it. This morning, for the first time in more years than he could remember, he wanted to live to die of old age.

  This morning he was afraid.

  Maybe he should call Smith Kendricks or Remy Sinclair Maybe he should rethink their offer of protection. But that would mean giving up the freedom to have a life. Submitting to having every move scrutinized by the feds. Subjecting the people in his life to their intrusion. It would be a quick and easy way to bring his relationship with Lainie to a premature end. Satisfying lust with an audience always nearby wouldn’t be easy. Anything more—like falling in love—would be damn near impossible.

  And it wouldn’t guarantee his safety. Jimmy was accomplished at getting his way. When Remy Sinclair’s investigation nearly six years ago had gotten too close for comfort, Jimmy had gone out and bought himself an FBI agent—Sinclair’s partner, no less, who had been more than happy to keep Falcone informed on the bureau’s case in exchange for having his gambling debts wiped clean. Travis Wilson had gone so far as to shoot Sinclair on a wharf during a bust and was now serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison, too afraid to implicate Jimmy in anything.

  If Nicholas had protection, Jimmy would find a way around it, or he would simply lay low until the government’s budget for protecting ex-con informants ran out. onsidering Nicholas’s reputation with the bureau, that wouldn’t take long. With the exception of Kendricks and Sinclair, most cops held him in as low esteem as Jimmy or lower. Jimmy was dirty, but at least he displayed some loyalty to the people who worked for him, while Nicholas was dirty and had shown none.

  The best thing he could do was keep Falcone’s latest message to himself. He would stay close to home and be more alert to what was going on around him when he did go out. He would maintain a profile so low that Jimmy would be forced either to forget that he existed or to be a hot more public—and therefore much more at risk—in exracting his vengeance.

  Jimmy didn’t like risk. He’d spent most of his adult life learning to minimize it, hiring people to do his dirty work for him, cultivating their loyalty and buying their silence, then hiring other people—like Nicholas—to try to keep them out of jail. He got his own hands dirty only in the most important instances, only when the betrayal was so personal that to allow someone else to avenge it for him would be an affront to his honor.

  . Nicholas was such a case. Jimmy wanted to take care of him himself. He wanted to look Nicholas in the eye when he killed him. He would probably do it at his own estate. The place was heavily guarded, and people were coming and going at all hours. There were no neighbors close by to observe the goings-on, and there was plenty of land to effectively dispose of a body or plenty of privacy for loading it into a vehicle for disposal.

  So all he had to do was stay away from Jimmy’s estate, and he just might stay alive.

  Of course, if men with guns invited him to accompany them to visit his old boss, he would find it hard to turn them down, especially if anyone else was around when they offered the invitation.

  Leaving the table, he retrieved his cigarettes, lighter and ashtray where he’d left them last night, then came back and sat down. With the first draw from the cigarette bitter in his lungs, he picked up the photograph taken in the club. His arms were around Lainie, he was gazing down at her and she was looking up at him. She had asked about Rena and dancing. He had wondered about Lainie and love. The shot had been taken from the doorway, showing one side of his face, one side of hers. Even. in the bad light, even with the limited view, it was easy to see that they were looking at each other like two people who should be naked and alone.

  She was looking at him in a way Rena never had.

  Across the room the door opened, and he reached automatically for the pictures, dropping the one he held on top When he recognized Jamey, he drew back. He could trust his friend with the warning.

  Jamey detoured by the bar to fill a glass with water. In all their lives Nicholas had never seen him drink anything stronger than soda, not even as a teenager. Maybe it was because his old man had been a drunk, maybe because he’d seen so many lives on Serenity destroyed by liquor.

  He pulled out the chair opposite Nicholas. For a moment he simply looked at the items scattered across the table. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Father Francis would frown on rewriting the prayer to St. Jude.”

  “Father Francis frowned on everything.”

  “That he did.” There was another silence before Jamey asked, “What is this?”

  “A message from Jimmy.”

  “How did he deliver it?”

  “One of his people let himself in sometime during the night. He picked the lock on the door over there.”

  Jamey glanced at the eight glass doors that stretched across the front of the bar, then turned back. “Maybe you should close and lock the shutte
rs at night.”

  Each set of doors had its own wooden shutters. Though they had been installed back when the building was new to protect the glass doors from hurricane-force winds, they had been more useful in recent years for protection from vandals who roamed the streets. Lately Serenity had gotten safe enough that the shutters remained propped open. If he started closing them now, would Lainie wonder why?

  “You didn’t hear anything from your visitor?”

  “I was preoccupied.”

  Jamey picked up the top photo, the one Nicholas had been studying, and saw in a glance all he needed to see. “Uh-huh. You know, if he got in here unnoticed, he could have easily gone upstairs.”

  “You think that hasn’t occurred to me?” That had been another part of Jimmy’s message. Look how close we can come without being seen, without getting caught. We can come right into your buildings, right up to your apartment—hell, right into your bedroom—and no one would know.

  “Does Lainie know?”

  Nicholas shook his head.

  “Don’t you think she should?”

  “Jimmy won’t hurt her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I am about anything.” But what if he was wrong?

  He wasn’t. He knew Jimmy. Yes, innocent people sometimes got caught in his crossfire—like Rena—but this was a special case. Jimmy had had five years to plan Nicholas’s death, and those plans didn’t include enduring the heat of an investigation into an innocent woman’s death.

  “Look, whatever’s between you two is none of my business. But if there’s even a remote chance that her life is in danger, she has a right to know. If she chooses to stay, fine. If she chooses to end the relationship... It’s her decision, Nicky. You can’t make it for her.”

  If he were totally, one hundred percent positive, he could disagree. He could keep this threat to himself and keep Lainie from worrying unnecessarily. But he wasn’t one hundred percent positive. There was always the remote chance that Jimmy would tire of the game and simply order one of his men to take Nicholas out. There was always the chance that Lainie could die right alongside him. A minimal chance, too small to calculate, but a chance all the same.

  Jamey was right. He had to give her the chance to leave him... even though her leaving just might kill him and deny Jimmy his satisfaction.

  He shook out another cigarette, lit it from the one that had burned to the filter, then stubbed the first one out. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out in a long, thin stream that drifted up, turning blue when the sunlight hit it. Then, disliking the taste in his mouth—though he knew it had nothing to do with the cigarette and everything to do with fear—he laid the cigarette in the ashtray and didn’t reach for it again. “I’ll talk to her,” he said grimly.

  Lainie bent over the sink, splashed cool water over her face, then reached blindly for the towel hanging on a nearby hook. For a long time after she straightened, she kept the towel over her face, then finally let it slide away and stared wide-eyed at herself in the mirror. It was five minutes until twelve and Nicholas was expecting her any minute. At three on...clock it was Smith Kendricks who would be expecting her. She had called from Karen’s office this morning to arrange a meeting with him, and he had suggested the Moon Walk. Overlooking the Mississippi River just a short distance from Jackson Square, it would be easy for her to reach and yet she wasn’t likely to run into anyone she knew there.

  She was going to tell Smith everything. It was the best rule of unprofessional conduct: confess before you’re found out. Don’t wait until the case goes sour and they’re looking to lay blame. Whatever happened in the future, whether she tried to save her job or. tendered her resignation, she didn’t want her relationship with Nicholas hidden like a dark, shameful secret waiting to be discovered.

  Besides, telling was the right thing to do. There was a problem with Smith’s case—she was the problem—and he had a right to know. If, God forbid, they failed and Falcone got to Nicholas anyway, it wasn’t fair to Smith or Remy Sinclair or to the bureau itself to find out too late that their agent had been romantically involved with their subject. They were responsible for this case, responsible for Nicholas’s life, and they had a right to know everything, even the personal little details about lovers.

  So this afternoon she would confess her sins. But right now it was time to indulge them again.

  She ran a comb through her hair, spritzed on cologne, then left the bathroom and went down the hall to Nicholas’s apartment. She started to knock but froze when she saw that the door was ajar. With a sudden case of nerves and a wish for the gun locked up across the hall, she hesitantly pushed the door open, then relief swept over her.

  Nicholas was standing at the window, watching her. The quilt from his bed was spread on the floor, and lunch was waiting—a bowl of fruit, a round loaf of bread and chilled bottles of flavored water. Beside the water was a small cardboard box, a little the worse for wear after last night’s careless handling.

  With a smile, she closed and locked the door, kicked off her shoes, and began pulling her T-shirt free of her jeans as she walked toward the quilt. With a faint smile of his own, he met her there, his own shirt hitting the floor the same time hers did. His kiss was demanding and possessive, his caresses less than gentle, as the fever began burning. Her arousal grew sharp, raw, with a desperate edge, as if all the relief of last night had never happened, as if this need could never be satisfied.

  They struggled with their clothes and each other, sinking together to the floor, tugging, resisting, caressing, tormenting. She gave him a moment to deal with his protection before she pulled him achingly closer. He gave her a moment to adjust to his presence within her before he began moving, thrusting deeper, harder, faster. It ended too soon, but not before she shattered, not before he did, too.

  Minutes. Mere minutes, and they lay exhausted, their bodies slick, their breathing ragged. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, forcing slow, deep breaths into her lungs. He lay on his stomach beside her, his forehead resting on her shoulder, his thick black hair damp where it circled his face and rested on his neck. She stroked it, tangled her fingers in it, then used a handful to gently lift his head. “Hi.”

  He slowly smiled, such a simple act to send such pleasure through her. It warmed her all the way through, made her feel happy and hopeful and right. It convinced her that she’d made the right decision, that any future worth living was worth living with this man. She could lose her job, her income, her comfortable life. She could lose everything, but as long as she still had Nicholas, she would be all right.

  He kissed her, a sweet, gentle taste, then returned her greeting. “I missed you.”

  “I’ve only been gone four and a half hours.”

  “Four and a half hours that you could have been with me.”

  “One of us has to work for a living.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a job, too. I’ll be starting this evening at six.”

  “And I’ll miss you while you’re working and be waiting when you come upstairs.”

  He moved over her again, worked his way inside her again, even though her body was tight, even though his was starting to soften. The first few strokes put an end to that. She could feel him swell to fill her. Once he was hard, once she could take no more, he became still, supporting himself on his elbows, looking down at her with an intensity that made her quiver. “For how long, Lainie? How long will you wait for me?”

  The question was too serious. She answered it with a bit of a laugh anyway. “Hey, neither of us is planning on going anywhere, right? At least, I’m not.”

  He stared at her a moment longer, then abruptly lowered his head to kiss her while his body quickly, uncontrollably finished inside her. For a long time he was still, then he pulled away. He left the room, scooping up his jeans as he went, and came back half dressed to sit beside her. He was carrying an envelope. “Last night, sometime during the night, one of Jimmy’s people came into O’Shea�
�s and left this on the bar. I found it when I went down to make coffee this morning.”

  She stared at him, a lack of understanding making her feel dull. When he offered the envelope, she slowly sat up, looked around for her clothes and settled on his shirt. She pulled it over her head and down past her hips before taking the envelope. It was a plain manila envelope, the kind sold by hundreds of outlets in the area, and was addressed simply with his first name in block printing that was devoid of any identifying characteristics. As for fingerprints, they would find Nicholas’s and now her own, maybe Jamey’s, but probably not anyone else’s.

  Before she opened it, she looked at Nicholas. “What do you mean, one of them came into the bar? You mean before closing?”

  He shook his head.

  “You mean he broke in?”

  A grim nod.

  “While we were up here...?”

  He nodded again, and she swallowed hard. She had felt an overall sense of well-being and safety last night, while danger had crept closer than it ever had before. She’d heard nothing, felt nothing, sensed nothing, out of place. A fine protector she’d been. His life and maybe her own had been in danger, and she’d been too lost in their lovemaking or sleeping too soundly in his arms to hear a thing.

  But even if she hadn’t been with him, even if she’d been alone in her own apartment, she comforted herself, she still wouldn’t have heard anything. She still would have been sound asleep.

  Opening the flap, she looked inside the envelope before sticking her hand in. Trying to ignore the foreboding sending chills down her spine, she pulled out the thin sheaf of papers, read the prayer and its revisions, looked at the photographs and silently whispered a prayer of her own. “Can I give this to Smith Kendricks?”

  “I’m not accepting their protection. For the first time in fifteen years, my life is my own. I can’t turn it over to them.”