Knight Errant Read online

  Farther down the veranda she saw Remy Sinclair and Michael Bennett talking with the minister Karen was trying to woo. The FBI agent and the cop were the other half of the friendship shared by Kendricks and Karen’s first husband. Sinclair’s wife Susannah was one of the center’s two nurses, and Bennett’s wife Valery had begun showing up to help out whenever she had a few free hours.

  Her gaze lingered for a moment on Karen and Jamey—petite, red-haired with electrified curls, and tall, blond and handsome. Chubby one-year-old Sean sat on his father’s shoulders, gazing around with that serious look only small children and men like Carlucci managed to pull off. Come to think of it, with his dark coloring, Sean looked much more like Carlucci than he did either parent. Of course, neither O’Shea was actually related to the baby. Karen had explained matter-of-factly in their first meeting that Sean was the son of a beautiful, dark-haired angel named Alicia and a sad young man named Ryan, who had died the day Sean was born.

  She was much more generous toward Ryan Morgan than Lainie could have been. That sad young man had worked for Jimmy Falcone, and he had spent the last ten years of his life terrorizing the people of Serenity. He had made getting rid of Karen his personal mission—had vandalized her property, made threats and had even, one night, dragged her into the alley and beaten her. Only Reid’s intervention had saved her that night. Only Falcone’s decision to eliminate a problem out of control had removed the danger.

  Just as she’d expected, she found no sign of Carlucci. He was probably in his apartment, as she’d told Sam, probably brooding. She wondered if Jamey had told him yet that he’d offered the empty apartment to one of Karen’s staff, wondered how he felt about having a neighbor intruding on his solitude. If he didn’t like it, he could always move—which, of course, would solve the problem, because then she, too, would leave. He certainly had the money to live someplace else. All those years Falcone had paid him well for his services and his loyalty, and most of it had gone into investments. Some of those years had been very good ones for market funds. He had come out of prison much more financially secure than he’d gone in and much less emotionally so.

  Turning away from the festivities across the street, she found the multiple sets of French doors that stretched across the front of the bar open, the shutters folded back. There were no lights on inside, no customers at the tables, no one tending bar. The ceiling fans were on, making soft whooshing sounds and cooling the warm afternoon air, but everything else was quiet and still. There wasn’t so much as a creak from the apartment upstairs where Carlucci lived.

  Digging in her jeans pocket as she started across the room, she pulled out the key to the second apartment and folded her fingers around it. She had felt guilty three days ago when she’d given Karen her sad story—how she was having trouble making ends meet, how transportation was a problem, living so far away and with no money to spare for cab or bus fare. Karen knew better than anyone that Kathy’s House didn’t pay competitive wages. The majority of her staff was financially comfortable, either with money of their own or husbands who earned good salaries, which allowed them to work for her without worrying about money and bills.

  Her boss had suggested the apartment upstairs as a solution with equal measures of optimism and caution. The place was nothing fancy, she’d warned. It was on Serenity, far and away from the safest area in New Orleans to live. There was no air-conditioning to combat the hot, humid days that plagued the city off and on through fall and winter. And—what she clearly perceived to be the biggest negative of all—Nicholas Carlucci was living across the hall.

  On the plus side, the place was free. Lainie could consider it part of her wages.

  The true plus side was Carlucci, she thought with a grim smile. The rest of it didn’t matter.

  Turning the corner at the end of the bar, she came to an abrupt stop. Speak of the devil... Seated at the private table there, out of sight of the rest of the bar, was her new neighbor. His back was to the hallway behind him, and three empty beer bottles stood in a row in front of him. He held a fourth by its neck and fixed his gaze on her.

  For a time they both simply looked, neither speaking, neither moving. Other than her two previous brief, in-the-flesh sightings, she had seen only photographs of him, grainy, scowling shots from the newspapers and a clear black-and-white mug shot taken when he was arrested. The printed image didn’t do him justice. He was handsome in a dark, deadly, dangerous sort of way. His hair was black, longer than her own. His eyes were deep brown, his skin dark olive. He hadn’t shaved recently, giving him a decidedly disreputable look that his cigarette and well-worn scowl intensified.

  After a moment that seemed to last forever, he moved, knocking ash into an ashtray, taking a long swig from the bottle he held. “You must be the new neighbor.”

  She nodded. “I’m Lainie—”

  He interrupted with a gesture of the bottle. “I remember. You work at the women’s center. Why aren’t you over there at the party?”

  “I don’t know anyone, and I’d rather get unpacked.” At least the second excuse was accurate, even if the first wasn’t. Truth was, she knew too many of the wrong people over there. Kendricks, Sinclair and Bennett were people poor, down-on-her-luck, in-need-of-her-boss’s-charity Lainie Farrell shouldn’t know. Of course, she could pretend they were strangers, but she wasn’t up to it, not yet. “Why aren’t you over there?”

  “No booze allowed. Besides, I wouldn’t exactly be a welcome guest. Don’t you know I’m the sort of person they’re hoping to rid Serenity of?”

  “Friends of Jamey are always welcome.” The community had a great deal of respect for Jamey O’Shea. For years before Karen had come, Jamey had been their caretaker, their guardian, their only hope in a place that had lost hope. Now he shared that role with his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law.

  “Not this one.” He drained the last drink, then, with one foot under the table, nudged the opposite chair back. “Sit down. Have a drink.”

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to go upstairs, unpack and spend the rest of the day settling in. She wanted a little rest and a few hours to prepare herself before dealing with work. But, knowing it was best, she tugged the straps from her shoulders, laid the three bags on the floor against the far wall and slid into the ladder-back chair.

  He placed the empty bottle in the row of other empties, then rose easily to his feet. “Beer?”

  “Sure.” He disappeared behind her, then returned with two more bottles, icy cold from the cooler. Just holding the bottle seemed to lower her body temperature by a few degrees. “Is this how you spent your first two weeks of freedom?”

  “You don’t get cold beer in prison, you know. You don’t get a lot of stuff in prison. Beer. Decent food. Privacy.” Once again he fixed his deep, dark gaze on her. “Sex.”

  She took a small sip to ease the sudden dryness of her mouth. Sex. That was the prime topic of conversation among the all-female staff at the center. He was too handsome, too wickedly sexy, too darkly sensual, and for five years he had been locked up far from the nearest willing woman. How had he coped with his enforced celibacy? Had ending it been the first thing on his mind when he’d been released? Was that the reason he’d spent his first night of freedom in Montgomery instead of coming straight home?

  She hadn’t wondered—hadn’t allowed herself to—but now she couldn’t help it. Her thoughts were straying that way whether she wanted them to or not. Never one to dodge a logical, if unexpected response, she forced her voice to steady itself as she nonchalantly asked, “And have you gotten them now that you’re out of prison?”

  With a cynical smile, he opened his arms wide to encompass the building around them. “I’m living above a bar where there’s more booze than a thirsty man could ask for. I have enough privacy to make a hermit jealous, and while the food’s not great, since I’m the one cooking it, I have no one to blame but myself.”

  He forgot one. Forgot or deliberately left it for her to ask? Mayb
e he thought she wouldn’t. After all, the status of a stranger’s sex life was hardly proper conversation. Maybe that was why she asked. “And the sex?”

  “In good time.” His smile lost its cynicism and was replaced with a hint of wicked promise that sent a small shiver down her spine. “All in good time.”

  The sun was setting and O’Shea’s was filling with customers when Nicholas cleared his table and headed upstairs. In the hours of quiet before the party across the street had broken up, he’d smoked a half-dozen more cigarettes, finished off one more beer and a sandwich and listened to the soft sounds of his new neighbor as she unpacked.

  She hadn’t been very sociable, this Lainie Farrell. Maybe she just wasn’t a talkative person. Or maybe she figured an ex-con didn’t warrant expending much effort at friendliness. That was okay. He didn’t have much use for sociability, either, and he had no use at all for neighbors.

  Jamey had asked if he objected to one of the center’s employees moving in, and Nicholas had said no. Truth was, he objected a lot. He had come to Serenity looking for privacy, for solitude of the kind that had been denied him the past five years by the Bureau of Prisons and for ten years before that by Jimmy Falcone. He didn’t want to know that someone else was sharing his space or to be aware of anyone else’s presence. He didn’t want a neighborly neighbor.

  If their brief exchange was anything to judge by, he had no reason to worry. Lainie Farrell seemed a number of things, but neighborly wasn’t one of them. She might be no trouble at all.

  Almost immediately he scoffed at that conclusion. She was a woman, pretty, with eyes of the color that had long been his one weakness, and he was a man whose life had lacked intimacy of the physical variety for more than five years, of the emotional sort for three times longer. She was going to be trouble.

  Inside his apartment he went to one of the two windows that overlooked Serenity. All the cars were gone from the street, all the guests gone from Kathy’s House. Except for the inexpensive lawn chairs stacked on the porch and the trash bags near the driveway, there was no sign that a party had taken place. It was just a quiet evening for the family, sharing a quilt on the grass, while Jamey tended bar downstairs.

  In a very real sense, both he and Jamey had been without family since they were born. Nicholas’s mother had walked away not long after his sixth birthday, and he’d never seen her again. As for his father, if she had even known who he was, she’d never told. Jamey’s parents had been alive, married and living together until he was grown, but they had required more parenting and support from him than they’d ever given to him.

  Now he had a real, honest-to-God family—a pretty little wife who clearly adored him, an adopted son who had wrapped both parents around his finger, another son with whom he’d finally come to terms and a daughter-in-law.

  And Nicholas was still alone. Always alone.

  There had been a time when he had wanted marriage, children, a home—all the things he’d never had. A time when he had believed that he was going to get it. Now he knew better. Now all he wanted was to be left alone.

  Right on cue a knock sounded at the door. He didn’t turn away from the window but called loud enough to be heard. “Yeah?”

  The door swung open with a creak, but his visitor didn’t speak right away. He knew who it was—felt it in the atmosphere that suddenly seemed charged with a tension that hadn’t been there two seconds ago. She had brought it with her—this awareness, this edginess.

  “What do you want?” he asked, not caring that the question was blunt, the tone less than friendly.

  There was the soft whisper of footsteps coming closer, but not too close, then a response. “Nice place.”

  He didn’t mean to grin. The comment was just too ridiculous to do otherwise. “Thanks. I like it.” Finally he turned from the window, leaned against the sill and subjected the apartment to the same study she was giving it. The room was about twelve by twelve, spacious by Serenity standards, with a nine-foot ceiling that was water-stained and sagging. The walls were institution green and hadn’t seen fresh paint in at least thirty-five years, and the drapes at the windows were gold, at least as old as the paint and in just as sorry shape. As for furniture, there wasn’t any. Except for the bed and one wobbly night table, the apartment was empty.

  Jamey had offered him the place across the hall when he’d arrived nearly two weeks ago. The layout was identical to this one, but Cassie, who’d lived there before her marriage to Reid, had invested a lot of hard work in making it livable. It compared favorably to most apartments in the city. For Serenity, it was downright luxurious.

  Nicholas wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this one instead. Maybe because, drab as it was, it was a definite improvement over the eight-by-twelve-foot cell where he’d spent the last five years. Or because the other apartment, with its vivid yellow and salmon walls, reminded him too much of the house he’d left behind. Maybe he’d felt he hadn’t deserved someplace pretty and nice to live, not after everything he’d done. Whatever the reason, he was comfortable with the ugly green walls and the rotting drapes.

  At last his gaze settled on the woman. He had already noticed that she was pretty, but he’d based that on vague impressions—pleasant features, brown hair, hazel eyes. Now he noted the specifics, like the fact that her hair was about as short as he’d ever seen on a woman, sleek and a deep, rich brown. Her nose was just the slightest bit crooked, and her cheekbones were high. A cupid’s bow shaped her mouth, and her eyes were hazel.

  He had been known to go to bed with a woman for no reason other than her eyes were hazel.

  Definite trouble.

  “Jamey asked me to tell you that there are leftovers from the party in the refrigerator.” she said at last.

  He nodded once in acknowledgment and waited to see what else she had to say. Jamey could have delivered the message himself, or he could have said nothing at all, knowing that sooner or later Nicholas would head down to the kitchen to find something for dinner.

  She gave the room another long look, then said, “This place could use some work. Karen keeps a supply of paints and supplies across the street for people who want to do a little remodeling.”

  “It suits me the way it is.”

  Now he was the recipient of one of those long looks. “I don’t think so,” she murmured.

  “And what, in your opinion, does suit me?”

  “Antiques. Persian rugs. Exotic woods.”

  She had just summed up his quarters on Jimmy’s estate in five neat words. Antiques worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, one-of-a-kind Southern originals coveted by every serious collector in the country. Imported rugs, also antique, also worth thousands. Furniture, cabinetry and trim of teak, ebony, rosewood and mahogany. It had been the most beautiful, most elegant place he’d ever seen. He had lived there six years, and he had hated it.

  “That was Jimmy’s house, not mine,” he said, hearing the odd emptiness in his voice. For years he had never spoken the man’s name without the proper respect and deference expected from a loyal employee, with his hatred and obsessive need for revenge carefully hidden. The first year in prison, when he had thought he’d won, he had taken a great deal of pleasure in speaking the name and knowing that he had accomplished what no one else—not Falcone’s enemies, not the local police, not even the United States government—could do. Now he felt nothing. Jimmy had won. Nicholas had lost. Again. For the last time.

  “Jimmy Falcone, the gangster.”

  His gaze narrowed just slightly. “For someone new to New Orleans, you certainly seem to know a lot about ancient history.”

  “What makes you think I’m new to New Orleans?”

  “Because I’ve never met a native or even anyone who’s been here a while who talks the way you do.” Her accent was definitely of the South, just as definitely not of Louisiana. It. was pleasant, though—soft, sweet, like honey on a warm day. Rounded sounds in a voice too feminine for his own good.

  With a fa
int smile and a nod, she acknowledged that he was correct. “I came here about a month ago.”

  “Why?”

  A hint of uneasiness crept into her shrug. “I was looking for someplace different.”

  “Different from what?”

  “From where I used to be. I thought...” Another shrug, more uneasiness. “I thought things would be better here.”

  Better than what? he wanted to ask, but he already knew her answer. Than the way they used to be. How bad could things have been that moving to a new city and taking a job that, according to Jamey, couldn’t pay a living wage was better?

  Stupid question. He knew from his own experience just how bad things could be. He knew how it felt to be abandoned, alone, unwanted and unloved. He’d been hungry, homeless and utterly hopeless. He’d lived half his life with the sort of grief that ate into a man’s soul. Lainie Farrell could have been trying to escape grief, poverty, loneliness or emptiness, trouble with the law, with her family, with a man. Working on Serenity for poverty-level wages wasn’t much, but it was an improvement over being homeless and on the hand-out lines or playing punching bag to some drunken bastard’s temper. It was better than a great many situations.

  Whatever her particular situation was, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t have the energy to care. “You’ve learned a lot in a month.”

  “When someone’s the subject of as much gossip as you are, it’s easy to learn.”

  “People talk about me a lot?” He wasn’t comfortable with the idea, although he’d expected it. For a time he’d been Serenity’s biggest success story. He’d lived in a beautiful house on one of the area’s most impressive estates. He’d earned a six-figure income, worn custom-tailored suits and driven cars that cost enough to support two or three families down here for a year. Almost as important, he’d had power. People on Serenity lived their lives knowing they didn’t matter. Poverty had left them with no voice. No politician or city official cared about their needs. The people here didn’t pay enough in taxes to make their complaints worth listening to. They didn’t contribute money to election campaigns or even exercise their right to vote. They were invisible to the government that was supposed to help them.