“Likewise,” I repeated. He released my hand, breaking the . . . whatever it was. The world crashed in, loud, boisterous. I took an onion ring and ate it, but the taste was now unpleasant, metallic, faintly bitter. I gulped beer. The odd taste washed away with the yeasty, peaty ale.

“Come anytime,” Antoine said. I looked back up, meeting his eyes. They seemed to be saying something more than his words. “We have at night de music and dancing, sometime.”

“Spills out in the street,” Rick said. “If you like to dance.”

I liked to dance. But maybe not here.

Except for the moments when he gripped my hand, Antoine had been working while chatting. He placed a bucket, like a gardening bucket, on the bar between Rick and me. Beer- and sea-flavored steam curled up, hot with pepper and spices. Rick reached, drew out a crawfish, its red shell curled. I was pretty sure the crustacean had been tossed alive into boiling beer.

I looked at Antoine, seeing nothing of the power that had tried to search through me. I had never felt anything like that before, and the man’s genial face seemed to imply that nothing had happened. If he could play innocent, I could certainly play stupid. But I wondered what he had picked up about Beast as he held my hand. Thoughtful, I ate another hush puppy. Rick had brought me here. He had wanted Antoine to read me. I tried to decide if that ticked me off.

Rick met my eyes in the dim mirror, holding up a four-inch-long crawfish as if in demonstration. His face held a hint of laughter and a warmth that claimed he was interested in me, if it was real. It had been some time since I’d seen that particular look in a man’s eyes. Maybe since I met Jack when I went into the security business. Not many men wanted to date a girl who could toss them into a corner and stomp them into the dirt. I didn’t need protecting and men seemed to sense that. It bothered a lot of them.

And . . . while I hadn’t been a nun, I hadn’t taken the dating world by storm either. I had friends who juggled several men, in and out of bed, at a time, but I was a one-man kinda woman. So far. And that man had been and gone a long time ago. I decided not to get mad about the reading. Not just yet, anyway.

To get the proper crawfish-eating protocol, I watched Rick as he broke the shell apart across the body, just above the tail, and pulled out the flesh. He ate the mouthful of seafood and then saluted me with the two pieces of mudbug shell. “Suck de head,” he said, like someone else might have said, “Cheers,” and he sucked the head part. I heard a liquid slurping. Rick smacked his lips and took another crawfish. I shrugged and broke apart the shellfish as he had, ate the meat, which turned out to be spicy with hot peppers, garlic, and onion, and beery. Good. Really good. Then I sucked the head as Rick had, and the spices exploded in my mouth.

He laughed at whatever was on my face, and said, “I forgot to tell you. The spices seem to concentrate in the head cavity.”

“No kidding,” I managed, half strangling on the potent stuff. “You forgot.”

Antoine laughed with Rick. “Dis boy been coming here for twenty year. He always done forget.”

CHAPTER 4

You scare the pants offa me

After lunch, my belly distended and my instincts about Antoine squashed beneath gourmand satisfaction, Rick and I walked along the river on a concrete boardwalk. A musician, sweating in the heat, swayed slowly in a patch of shade, playing a baritone saxophone. The jazz notes were low and rolling as the nearby Mississippi, the tune soulful and plaintive. I tossed a five in the open sax case at his feet and we stood to listen. After the melody, we moved on, the musician offering us a nod and starting another tune, the deep notes following us down the walk.

The air was hot and wet and my shirt stuck to my skin like it was glued on, my jeans damp with heat; yet it was an oddly comforting feeling, like a pelt after a swim and a lazy hour in the sun. I wasn’t good at social interaction; in fact, I totally sucked at it, but the presence of Rick made the afternoon feel sociable, companionable—a good-looking guy, a good meal . . . But work was work, and I figured it was an appropriate time to see if Rick LaFleur was going to be helpful in my investigation, or just a distraction. I wanted to use his local knowledge and contacts, and that superseded any interest in him in a nonbusiness way. Or so I told myself.Trying for a light tone, I said, “So, bad boy, blight on the family name. Want to tell me why you came to my house and introduced me to Antoine’s delicacies? I’m guessing it wasn’t because you saw me on the street and fell head over heels in love at first sight.”

He glanced at me through the dark lenses once, and I could almost feel him thinking things through. When he stuck his thumbs into his jeans pockets, I figured he had come to a conclusion. He slanted a look at me over the tops of his glasses, his head tilted down, eyes tilted up, considering. It was a well-rehearsed gesture and it set off my play dar. The Joe was a player. The realization was surprisingly disappointing.

“I asked you to lunch to see if we could work together.” He pursed his lips, considering his words. “But something about you bothers me.”

I allowed a smile to start, letting him see a hint of derision in it, but not enough to decide if I was deriding him, or myself.

“I got to tell you, lady, you scare the pants offa me and I don’t know why. And you scared Antoine. I saw it in his eyes.” He pushed his glasses back in place, hiding his expression. “Nothing scares Antoine.”

I kept my light tone. “Your pants are still on. Antoine’s still alive. I’m unarmed. I haven’t killed and eaten anyone. Around here.” I let my smile twist a bit and added, “Yet.” Rick chuckled. “So why am I scary?” I finished.

“I wish I knew. You witchy?”

“Not a witch,” I said, “no.”

“Didn’t think so. You don’t ”—he considered and discarded several words—“you don’t feel like that. But lady, you’re not human.” It wasn’t a question. It was more in the nature of an accusation. And it hit too close to the truth.

I turned on my heel and headed back downriver. “Thanks for the invitation and for the introduction to Antoine.” I didn’t thank him for the lunch because I had paid for my own.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t run away mad.”

I turned around, walking backward down the concrete boardwalk, and pulled off my glasses so he could see my eyes. “I’m not running away. And I’m not mad. I’m just not the kinda gal who likes to play games. You watched my house last night, smoking a cigar, hiding on the stoop across the street.” His brows rose and he pulled off his glasses too. Which was only polite and made me see him in a slightly kinder manner. Only slightly. “You make semiaccusations and dance around questions, but you don’t ask, you just prod and poke to see what I’ll do. You take me to a friend who just happens to have some kinda witch magic and get him to read me”—I let some of the anger I felt about that show—“which just ticks me off. So, you see, I’m not mad. I just got better things to do with my time.”

“And that right there”—he raised an index finger as if making a point—“is what scares me about you.” When I stopped and cocked a brow, hands on my hips, sweating in the heat, he said, “Any other woman would have spent the next ten minutes trying to convince me she wasn’t mad. Even if she was. You? You just tell me off. While you walk away. Calm and cool as all get-out. And lady, gals don’t usually just walk away from me.”

My smile twisted hard and I started walking again, backward, aware of a couple sitting on a bench in the sweaty heat, close enough to hear us had they not been necking like teenagers. Not that I cared. “Macho pride?” I asked, louder, over the distance.

“Fact.”

I figured that was true. Women likely flocked to him, hovering like hummingbirds. I had noticed the glances he got at Antoine’s, even from the lady cop, interested, willing. He was pretty and smooth. But I preferred up-front to a smooth player. Any day.

“I’m not most women,” I said, louder, to cover the distance now separating us.

“I know that. You kill rogue vamps for a living. Took down an entire blood-family, you and a witch and a cop. And the cop died.” I stopped walking backward. The couple looked up at the word “died” and focused on me. Blinked. Went back to business.

Rick started walking toward me, lowering his voice. “You and the witch walked out, you half dead, with that scar on your neck. But back then it was four inches wide, red and ridged, brand-new. I’ve seen the video. But you didn’t have it when you went into the mine. I asked people who knew you.”

Damn Internet. A college kid, camping in the mountains, had spotted Molly and me coming out of the mine, into the dawn light, both blood covered, me carrying Brax, Paul Braxton, over my shoulder. Or what was left of him. A young rogue vamp had killed him.

Rick moved toward me, his steps measured, careful, as if he were approaching a wild animal. I tensed and took another step back before stopping. He slowed. Deliberately, I relaxed my fists, took a calming breath, knowing Beast was awake. She always woke when I faced any kind of threat, and I could feel her staring out through my eyes, intense and tightly gathered, ready for danger. I took a slow breath, not wanting to bring her to a killing alertness. But she had gone deadly quiet. Rick stopped directly in front of me, his eyes steady and calm. Studying me. Beast studied him back.

The camper kid had taken a short video with his digital camera when he saw two blood-saturated females walk out of the mine. He had zoomed in on my face, my peculiar amber-colored eyes seeming to glow, an effect that had been blamed on the golden sunrise. What else could it be, right? But it was Beast. And I knew she was staring through my eyes right now.

When word went out that the rogue vamp’s entire blood-family had been taken down at the mine, the videographer had realized he had a moneymaker and posted the footage on YouTube. And Molly and I were famous. Yippee.

His voice a murmured burr, Rick said, “After only six months, that four-inch-wide scar is nearly gone.” His finger lifted and I watched it rise to me, not a threat, not really. Yet I tensed. He traced the scar above my collarbone, thin white lines with thinner crosshatching, evidence of claws and vamp teeth, his finger slow and delicate, as if he traced the wing feathers of a wild bird. “It travels,” he said, stepping so close I could smell the musk of the man, “more than halfway around your neck.”