Rita Herron - Say You Love Me

Jean-Paul Dubois would not understand her childhood. Or what she had done later that had marked her for life.

He flicked his hand toward a man at the door. “That’s my partner, Carson Graves.”

She nodded, not bothering to try to speak above the noise. Jean-Paul shouldered his way through the mob, then up to the counter. A beefy man reached out and pinched her ass, and she flipped around and nearly swung at him. “Keep your hands off, buddy,” Britta snapped.

Jean-Paul gave the man a lethal look, then slipped his arm around her waist, keeping her pressed close to him as they sidled up to the counter. Heat emanated from his hands and broad chest, and they were so close his breath brushed her neck. His protective gesture was subtle yet comforting, but after his comment Britta refused to allow herself to enjoy the feel of his hard chest against her back. She could stand on her own. She always had and always would.

He introduced her to his partner, who seemed to assess her the way the drunks in the room had when she’d entered. He was shorter than Jean-Paul, but still close to six feet, and handsome with short dark brown hair. When he shook her hand, she noticed an odd tattoo.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Berger. And that—” He indicated the three-ringed marking on his hand. “Was a gang tattoo,” he explained without seeming offended. “I came up through the trenches but I finally got my head on straight.”

She felt an immediate connection with him personally.

“Britta,” she said automatically.

“I heard you’ve had a rough day, Britta,” he said in a Southern drawl.

She shrugged. “Not as rough as the poor girl in that picture.”

He conceded with a nod. Jean-Paul cleared his throat, his voice gruff when he spoke. “You have information on our victim?”

Carson pivoted toward Jean-Paul. “Yeah, this bartender says he’s seen her. His name’s Moe Leery.”

Carson waved the thin, thirtysomething bartender over and Moe leaned across the bar and wiped the counter.

“What can you tell us about this woman?” Jean-Paul flashed the picture again.

The guy winced and pushed the photo away. “Her real name is Elvira Erickson. But she went by Pooky.”

“She was a stripper?” Jean-Paul asked.

“Yeah, but she’d only been working here a couple of weeks. Told me she needed tuition money for school. Said she was planning to go to Tulane.”

A muscle ticked in Jean-Paul’s jaw and Britta saw the wheels turning in his mind. He was thinking about his sisters.

“Do you have an address?”

Moe scribbled on a napkin. “I think she lived in an apartment near the university.”

“We’ll check it out,” Carson said. “Did she have a boyfriend?”

Moe smirked and grabbed two mugs to fill an order. “If she did, she sure as hell didn’t bring him in here. Wouldn’t be good for business or her tips.”

Jean-Paul gave him a clipped nod. “Did you notice any guy hanging with her? Say two nights ago?”

Moe shook his head. “Naw, man. The girls come and go. I try to keep my head down. I don’t want their pimps’ wrath on me.”

“How about any strange men who might have been watching her?” Jean-Paul asked. “A stalker maybe?”

Moe indicated the crowd. “Half the guys in here fit in that category.”

Jean-Paul grimaced and Britta searched the mob of lust-starved, dollar-holding men, remembering similar scenes with her mother. More than once, a customer had jumped on stage and tried to drag her off with him.

Across the room, a man in a gray suit and wire-rims caught her attention. He seemed familiar, so she tilted her head to study him, then remembered that she’d seen him in the market. She’d thought he was watching her.

Always looking for ghosts from her past. In New Orleans, they were all around her….

He flashed some money at the black dancer, then spotted her and his eyes widened as if he was a deer trapped in a set of headlights.

Britta tapped Jean-Paul on the shoulder to get his attention, but by the time he turned around the man had disappeared back into the crowd again as if he’d never existed.

JEAN-PAUL INCHED CLOSER to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I recognized a man in the crowd,” she said in a shaky voice.

Jean-Paul immediately scanned the smoky room. “Who? What does he look like?”

“He’s gone now. But I saw him in the market earlier.” A strand of her red hair fell across her cheek. “I guess it was nothing.”

“Was it that photographer?”

“No, another man. It’s probably my imagination.”

“You’re smart to stay alert,” he said, itching to touch her hair and tuck it back into place. “We don’t know that he wasn’t the man who broke into your place. Or the killer.”

“If he was after me, why not just approach me?”

Jean-Paul lifted an eyebrow. “In a crowded bar? No way.” He stroked her arm gently, and a small tremor rippled through his body, stirring protective instincts. Dammit, the Dubois men were always suckers for a woman in trouble. “If he made me for a cop, he’d definitely run.”

His logic made sense but only heightened her anxiety level.

“Come on,” Jean-Paul said. “I’ll take you home, then I need to see what information I can dig up on Elvira Erickson.”

“You have to locate her family and tell them, don’t you?” Britta asked.

Detective Dubois’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, I might as well get it over with.”

“I’ll meet you at the station,” his partner said. “Nice to meet you, Britta.”

Jean-Paul glared at his partner. Carson was notorious for flirting and he seemed intrigued by Britta.

He shook off the disturbing thought as he took her home, instead concentrating on the call he needed to make to Elvira’s parents. He hated like hell to tell them the details of her death, especially when he had no suspect or leads in the case to offer them.

His gaze shot to Britta. Was there a connection in her past that she hadn’t told him about?

If there was and she’d been lying, he’d damn well make her confess her secrets.

A FEELING OF TREPIDATION overcame Britta as the detective walked her back to her apartment. The tension between them had been palpable since they’d left the bar.

He scowled at a wino lying near the garbage can next to her building, then at the poster of the magazine cover on the front window as she unlocked the door.

“You don’t approve of the magazine I work for, do you?”

His dark eyes met hers as they entered the hallway, climbed the steps and stopped at her door. But he didn’t reply until the locksmith left and they’d stepped inside.

“No.” The short word was filled with disapproval. “You seem like a smart woman, but you live on Bourbon Street and you work with sickos. You put yourself in danger.”

Her temper flared and she folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose you think that the way women dress invites rapists, so it’s the victim’s fault if she’s attacked.”

He leaned closer and braced his arm on the wall behind her. “That’s not what I said.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s obvious that you want your woman in an apron—tied to the kitchen, waiting with a martini in one hand and your slippers in the other when you arrive home.”

His look darkened. “Tied to the kitchen?” A ghost of a smile played on his mouth. “Only if she’s naked beneath the apron.” His husky voice sent a tingle through her. “And I prefer a beer over a martini.”

She lifted her brow at that remark. “One of your fantasies, Detective Dubois?”

“Jean-Paul.”

His masculine odor made her dizzy. And that smile…his killer smile, mixed with that sexy rumbling voice was about to hack through her defenses. Dare she call him by his first name or was that too personal?