Jenna Ryan - Eden's Shadow

Setting a hand on the door frame, Eden glanced back. Mary was right, Lucille did look like hell. “She doesn’t control Lisa, Lucille. Plays on her emotions, yes, and there’s no question she loves money, but I think she also cares deep down.”

Lucille’s gaze strayed to the river. “Mary is Maxwell’s daughter, his blood by birth. Circumstances fashion much of who and what we ultimately become, but sometimes bad blood just plain wins out. I’ll leave it at that. Good night, chère.”

Eden hesitated a moment longer, but couldn’t think of anything to say. She did marvel, though, at how quickly a person’s life could go from simple to complicated. One incomplete dinner, one man dead, one nightmare commenced.

She only wished that a large part of that nightmare didn’t involve a dark-eyed police detective.

THIRTY MINUTES PASSED before Lucille did anything more than stare at the flashes of lightning still visible on the river. The club would be empty now except for the tables behind the back rooms. Mary didn’t know about those. None of them did.

There were other things they didn’t know, some important, some not.

She shifted her attention to the wall safe, the most cleverly hidden of the three she’d installed when the club opened. There were bankbooks inside, as well as stock certificates and money. There was also an unmarked envelope.

“No!” She shook her head. “No.”

Touching a sore patch in the crook of her elbow, she moved to her desk. It was late to be phoning people, but then again, not everyone who lived and breathed could be called people. Some were vultures. Others were vermin. And at least one person she knew of—the only one still alive—could more appropriately be called a serpent.

Eden hadn’t made it through dental college without a great deal of self-discipline. She regrouped on the drive home and told herself she would hold together until the investigation into Maxwell Burgoyne’s death was behind her.

She spied bluish headlights twice in her rearview mirror before she dropped Mary and Lisa off, but not again after that. Determined, she put the sightings down to imagination and tried to concentrate on molar extractions until she reached her apartment.

Someone close by was humming a song. The voice slid through the darkness like a vapor. Listening was almost as effective as yoga for mental relaxation.

Armand LaMorte’s face hovered on the edge of her mind. It was 2:30 a.m. If she went straight to bed, she could squeeze in six hours of sleep. A good dentist could drill and fill just fine with six hours under her belt. Of course, that precluded any worry time for Lisa, and she absolutely could not let herself delve into the paradox that was Maxwell Burgoyne.

He was an X chromosome, she reminded herself as she unlocked the gate, nothing more. Well, except he was also dead, and that was both unfortunate and problematic.

With the exception of the distant singer, the complex was silent. If she listened hard, she could hear remnants of thunder, but the rain had long since departed. Only the humidity remained, air so heavy with moisture she might have been walking underwater.

Street lamps guided her. Her neighbors were either asleep or out. Two of them had left New Orleans for the summer.

Eden gave the front door a bump with her hip while she twisted on the key. To her surprise, it opened. She switched on the table lamp and, picking up her mail, headed for the kitchen to check Amorin’s food dish.

“Bills and junk. What else is new?” She tossed the envelopes on the staircase and called, “I’m home, Ammie.”

The sound of shattering glass halted her.

Before she could call Amorin again, a man hurtled out of the darkness. He knocked her sideways with his shoulder and kept running. In his haste, he slipped on the wooden floor, collided with the hall table and sent her lamp crashing to the ground.

Once the initial jolt subsided, Eden scrambled to her feet and rushed after him.

He couldn’t open the door. The knob kept slipping out of his hands. He resorted to kicking it and grunting like a pig.

Eden caught him easily—at least she caught his shirt. “You broke my lamp…” she began, but got no further. The door burst open and both of them were flung backward into the wall.

The intruder’s elbow plunged into her ribs. Panicked, he took off in search of an alternate exit. Eden knew he hadn’t found one when she heard a thump followed by a howl of pain.

Careful not to get kicked by flailing feet, she eased her arm up the wall and located the light switch. When she saw the man pinned on his stomach, she breathed out a disbelieving, “This night can’t be happening,” and sank back to the floor. “What,” she demanded with as much energy as she could muster, “are you doing here, Detective LaMorte?”

Armand had his right knee lodged in the intruder’s back, and his wrists held fast. He didn’t answer right away, and she didn’t repeat the question. “You’re an idiot, Kenny,” she said instead. “One of these days, someone’s going to forget how nice your mother is and press charges.”

In the process of handcuffing his prisoner, Armand stared at her. “You know this guy?”

“I know his mother. She lives across the courtyard. I only know Kenny in passing.”

Armand flipped the intruder over and studied his face. “How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

The young man swore at him.

“He looks sixteen,” Eden agreed. “He acts five. He’s really twenty-one.”

“Drugs?”

“For some reason he’s convinced I keep a supply of painkillers here. This is the fourth time in two months he’s broken in while I’ve been out. Before that, he was…” She stopped as the reality of the situation struck her. “Wait a minute, it’s two-thirty in the morning. What are you doing in my home, or anywhere near it for that matter?”

Wincing, she climbed to her feet.

Armand immediately abandoned his prisoner. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She didn’t want him to touch her. However, he did, and in doing so, pinned her as effectively as he had Kenny.

“Don’t move,” he said. His fingers slid over her ribs with aggravating thoroughness. “You might have broken something.”

“I’m fine.” It took a huge effort not to grind her teeth. “Really.” She stopped his probing hands with her own. “I’d know if anything was broken. But thank you.”

“Going blind here,” Kenny wailed from the floor. “Light’s too bright.”

“Close your eyes,” Eden suggested. She concentrated on her own breathing. Why did sexy cops always have stubble? She nodded at the floor. “Worry about him, Armand. He’s photosensitive.”

He didn’t back off. “You could have a fracture and not know it.”

“Doctor first thing tomorrow—today—whatever. I promise.” When he ran his hands along her rib cage one last time and made her shiver, Eden finally took the initiative and stepped out of reach. “You haven’t answered my question, Detective.”

A smile curved his lips. “You called me Armand a minute ago.”

“I was in shock.” Because Kenny was whimpering, she took pity on him and dimmed the lights. Big mistake, she realized. It bathed the hallway in shadows and gave Armand back that air of mystery she’d been endeavoring to block out all evening.

He was taller than her and very lean. His hair fell past the collar of his shirt, curling just enough to make her fingers long to run through it.

Not going there, she promised herself and, tucking her hands behind her back, leaned against the stairwell wall.

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

He crouched to inspect Kenny’s eyes. “I had questions. When I realized you weren’t home, I waited.”