Into the Darkness Read online

  IN TO THE DARKNESS

  DELILAH DEVLIN

  This book is for my sister and best friend,

  Myla Jackson,

  who began this journey with me

  and constantly inspires and challenges me

  to be a better person and writer.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  “Rene, you dirty bastard, put your tongue back in your…

  CHAPTER 2

  Rene raked a hand through his hair. “What the fuck…

  CHAPTER 3

  Natalie couldn’t sleep.

  CHAPTER 4

  A shocked gasp and muffled “Sonuvabitch!” jarred her fully awake…

  CHAPTER 5

  A crunch sounded outside—a crisp scrape like a footstep on…

  CHAPTER 6

  As soon as the van pulled to a halt, the…

  CHAPTER 7

  Her body warmed as she cuddled closer. This close and…

  CHAPTER 8

  You don’t want to kill him…yet.

  CHAPTER 9

  Natalie finished bathing him and pulled the sheet up over…

  CHAPTER 10

  Mercifully, Inanna veered the conversation another way. “Erika, what did…

  CHAPTER 11

  Chessa stared into the stormy sky as rain began to…

  CHAPTER 12

  “Damn!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Chessa sat on the edge of the bed when Rene…

  CHAPTER 14

  Chessa tracked Nic down to his quarters in the barracks.

  CHAPTER 15

  Silence stretched between Nicolas and Chessa as they each dressed.

  CHAPTER 16

  Rene dumped Natalie’s suitcase on the bed in the hotel…

  CHAPTER 17

  The raucous sound of a cheery accordion and electric guitars…

  CHAPTER 18

  Chessa strode into the station, waving to the desk sergeant…

  CHAPTER 19

  Rene opened the door. The light inside the bedroom was…

  CHAPTER 20

  “Let me help you,” he said, extending his hand, palm…

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY DELILAH DEVLIN

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  CHAPTER 1

  “Rene, you dirty bastard, put your tongue back in your mouth.”

  Rene Broussard lowered his binoculars to watch the enticing twitch of their subject’s ass beneath a pink sundress as she walked, carrying coffee and a sugarcoated beignet, toward a bench in front of Saint Louis Cathedral. That dress should have been outlawed—in the muggy New Orleans heat it stuck to her skin in all the right places. His body tightened with the purely involuntary reaction of a healthy male. He pressed the talk switch on the radio clipped to his jacket lapel. “You’re just jealous, chère, ’cause you have no ass.”

  The radio squawked. “Do, too,” his partner, Chessa Tomas, replied. “You just haven’t taken a good look ’cause you know you can’t have it.”

  “There is that.” He shifted his gaze upward to the woman’s face.

  Even watching through the iron spokes of the fence surrounding Jackson Square, Rene knew this was their girl—only the Tennessee DMV photo hadn’t done her justice. The other stats he’d pulled—Caucasian female, 25 yrs. old, 5'6", blonde hair, green eyes, 135 lbs.—also hadn’t hinted at the cuteness of her saucy behind, the length of her softly rounded legs, or the shape of her breasts, high and uptilted. Just like he liked them. “Mmmm-mmm.”

  “Yoo hoo!” Chessa’s voice broke in. “Are you gonna ogle her all afternoon, or are we pulling her in for questioning?”

  Rene looked up to the balcony over Muriel’s restaurant.

  Chessa gave him a little wave and tilted her head toward her radio. “It’s gonna rain, and I’d just as soon not get soaked.”

  Rene slid his small binoculars into a jacket pocket, and then glanced up at the sky. Gray clouds, heavy with rain, hovered just above the street lamps. The wind began to whip the colorful beach umbrellas above the street vendors’ carts. Mother Nature was giving a preview of the tropical storm the weathermen predicted might hit during the weekend. Time to bring in Natalie Lambert.

  Just as he rounded the corner of the fence, a devil wind picked up dirt from the street and swirled toward the row of benches, carrying with it an odd sulfurous odor. “Merde, I wonder if I remembered to latch my balcony doors?”

  “That must be one helluva doughnut,” Chessa murmured. “The lady seems pretty popular with the pigeons.”

  Weaving in and out of the psychics’ fabric-draped tables and the street artists’ booths, Rene kept an eye on his target as she tossed crumbs at the birds gathering around her feet. The little black whirlwind whipped through the crowding pigeons, ruffling their feathers and lifting a few off the ground. “Don’t she know we have ordinances against feedin’ those birds?”

  “Breaking that particular law’s the least of her worries.”

  He paused in front of an artist’s stand, pretending to admire the watercolors. “My gut says she’s the target, not the perp.”

  “Sure you’re thinking with your brain?” Chessa asked, in her usual smart-ass tone. “Just ’cause she looks pretty in pink doesn’t mean she’s not a murderer. Why else would she run?”

  The lady in question glanced toward the darkening sky and pitched the rest of her meal to the birds.

  “Wouldn’t you, if everyone around you was droppin’ like flies?” Rene nodded to the seller and continued on his way toward the woman who looked like a tasty sherbet.

  “I don’t know—and right now, I don’t care. Let’s just pull her in before all hell breaks loose.”

  “All right,” Rene said, injecting false irritation into his voice. “You’re just bein’ a bitch ’cause I woke you early.”

  “I don’t want the sun peeking out from behind any clouds before we’re done.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to melt, sugar. Get your ass down here now. Let’s do it.”

  “What the hell?”

  Rene saw what caught his partner’s attention at the same time. More birds arrived with an audible flutter of wings, settling onto the pavement and closing in on the woman who now yelled and kicked at the pigeons crowding around her ankles.

  Frowning, he realized what had started as a small flock of birds, now numbered hundreds. Some hopped onto the bench beside the woman, while others surrounded her feet. They all appeared to be pecking at bare skin.

  People nearby scattered, vendors abandoned their carts and tables and ran while the pavement quickly filled like an undulating gray sea.

  Rene cursed and ran toward her, kicking away pigeons as more arrived in a dark, fluttering cloud to surround the woman who shielded her face and head with her arms, whimpering, while rivulets of blood streaked her ankles and hands.

  He plucked her from the bench into his arms.

  She swatted blindly, landing glancing blows on his nose and chin, her body arching in his arms, but he clamped her body tight to his and sped toward the unmarked sedan parked along Chartres Street. The beating of hundreds of flapping wings and the birds’ harsh, screaming caws pursued them to the vehicle.

  Chessa rushed from the entrance of the restaurant and matched his stride.

  “The doors, Cheech!” he shouted.

  She sprinted past him and flung open the back door.

  Rene dove into the backseat, the woman clutched close to his chest, and yanked the door closed. Wings flapped in his face.

  The woman on his lap whimpered and pressed her face into his chest.

  Rene swung his fist at the kamikaze bird until he smashed it against th
e rear windshield. Panting, he didn’t relax until Chessa slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  “Du Monde’s beignets aren’t that good,” Chessa said, tearing off her sunglasses. Her green gaze met his in the rearview mirror as she put the car into gear and careened away from the curb. Tires crunched the bones of birds. Two, three, four more slammed into the windshield. Others thudded dully against the metal exterior of the car, until at last they left the menacing flock behind.

  Rene dragged air into his lungs, adrenaline still pumping through his body. He squeezed the woman too tight, but he couldn’t let go. Not yet. “Goddamn!”

  “Where to?” Chessa asked, one eyebrow quirked upward in the mirror.

  Rene shook his head. Not the station. He took another deep breath and looked down at the woman who shivered in his arms, her head tucked against his chest like a child. Her scent, reminiscent of lemons and sweet apples, and the soft curves pressing on his thighs affected him more than he cared to admit. He cleared his throat, fighting for objectivity. A first for him. “Miss, can we take you home?”

  Her bloodied hands clutched at his shirt, and she raised a clear blue gaze to meet his. “I’m not stupid enough to think your being here is a coincidence. Why don’t you just take me to the station?”

  Rene blinked. Her words were gutsy, even defiant, but he heard the underlying quaver in her voice. “Yeah, so we know who you are, Natalie. Maybe we’re just keepin’ an eye out to make sure you’re safe.”

  “No one can keep me safe.” Her lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “Even the birds know I’m toxic.”

  Natalie sat on a metal chair while Detective Broussard daubed sterile gauze at the small punctures marring her arms and hands. She glanced at his partner, who flipped closed the blinds, plunging the interrogation room further into gloom. The dense gray light seemed to match the woman’s mood. Detective Tomas had paced the room since they’d first entered.

  Natalie guessed she was pretty annoyed with her partner, intercepting more than one pointed glare, and wondered if there might be something between the pair. Detective Tomas was surely his match physically. Black hair, green eyes, and with a slim, wiry build Natalie could only envy.

  “So, you wanna tell us what brought you back to N’Awlins?” Detective Broussard pulled a fresh square of gauze from the first aid kit and scooted back his chair. “Gimme one of your legs.”

  Natalie couldn’t help but shiver at his command and lifted her left leg. Aware his steady stare fell to a broad expanse of exposed skin, she barely resisted the urge to tug the hem of her skirt lower. She almost wished his interest wasn’t due to the crusty streaks of blood feathering her ankles.

  Until recently, she’d never considered herself a very sexual creature, had never felt the compulsion to dabble in flirtation. But something about this man’s Cajun drawl, husky build, and liquid brown eyes tugged a dormant femininity, newly discovered and yearning, into full flower.

  Was this lust at first sight?

  He pulled her leg across his thigh, and then dampened the gauze with antiseptic and wiped at the blood staining her skin. “Natalie?” His glance came back up to hers.

  “Why am I in New Orleans?” she repeated his question, feeling flustered. Good Lord, her whole world had shattered, and here she was falling into this cop’s brown eyes. Even the sting of the antiseptic didn’t stop her body from reacting to his proximity.

  She shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “I don’t know. I used to live here.” Her words were unconvincing even to her own ears. Besides foiling a killer, she had her birth mother to find—something that had no bearing on the murders of her adopted family. Somehow, keeping that secret gave her a small measure of power.

  His attention returned to her leg.

  How easily he distracted her. She imagined what his hand would feel like caressing the back of her ankle as opposed to the impersonal grip he used to turn her leg. Her mouth went dry as he methodically cleaned her small wounds. Despite this unexpected and heady attraction, she reminded herself he was a cop—something she hadn’t much use for lately.

  “We’ve read through the reports from the Memphis PD, right after your parents were killed,” he said, his voice uninflected with suspicion or emotion. “They didn’t consider you a suspect.” He rolled her leg outward and swabbed upward. The scratchy gauze grazed the inside of her knee.

  Growing more uncomfortable by the moment beneath his tender care, Natalie felt her cheeks warm. The oddest urge to reach out and touch the dark brown hair that curved around his ears washed over her. She forced her attention back to the conversation. “And now they do…believe I killed them?”

  He gently cleaned another puncture and reached for ointment, which he applied with one finger to the wound. “First your parents, then your roommate…it’s not looking good to them.” His glance came up, pinning her—almost as if he were trying to see inside her soul.

  He probably just wanted to see whether she’d squirm. “Tough. I didn’t do it. I would never hurt them,” she said, her voice growing thick, her gaze never wavering beneath his.

  “We should have taken her to the emergency room,” the woman detective said, flopping down into the seat across the metal table from Natalie. She leaned forward. “Although, you seem to heal pretty fast.”

  Natalie heard a note of suspicion in the other woman’s voice and looked down at the dozen or so little punctures, already covered with scabs, and the blue bruises where the birds’ beaks hadn’t broken the skin. “I’ve always been a quick healer.”

  The two officers shared a charged glance.

  “We might have jumped to the same conclusions the Memphis PD did,” Detective Broussard said, releasing her leg, “but the murders bear a striking resemblance to a string of unsolved crimes we’ve been investigating for a while here.”

  “It just seemed a little too coincidental that your parents and Ms. Masters were killed in Memphis,” the female cop said, “and now, you’ve shown up on our killer’s home ground.”

  Natalie slipped her foot into her pink slide, glad to be free of the big detective’s disturbing touch. “I don’t know anything about other murders. I came to New Orleans because I know the city. I’m comfortable here.” That was only part of the truth. She hated feeling defensive and lifted her chin. “But you already know that.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Detective Broussard said. “You went to Tulane. But moving back into your old neighborhood probably wasn’t too smart. If you wanted to disappear—”

  “Who said I wanted to disappear?”

  Neither police officer blinked or moved.

  Natalie felt a strange satisfaction…she’d surprised them. “Do you really think I’d take a walk around Jackson Square if I were hiding?”

  A frown darkened his handsome face. “Are you telling us you deliberately stayed in the open with a killer on the loose? One who might be targeting you?”

  Natalie didn’t reply. If they were so smart, they could figure it out for themselves.

  “Why?” the female cop asked, the single word coming fast and blunt as a bullet.

  Natalie kept her expression shuttered for a long moment, but the two appeared ready to out wait her little show of defiance. She blew out a breath in irritation. “Maybe I’m just tired of looking over my shoulder all the time. It’s not like I expected him to follow me.”

  “Him?” Again, Miss Quick Draw fired the question.

  Natalie shrugged. “Him, it, them. Does it matter?”

  “You think you were followed?” Detective Broussard asked, his voice soft and disarmingly low.

  How’d he guess? She shrugged, unwilling to open her mouth and give them any more clues to pounce on.

  “Why do you think you were followed?”

  He wasn’t going to leave it alone. Why was she resisting him? He wasn’t the bad guy. “My next door neighbor said a plumber tried to get into my apartment last night while I was out getting a bite. But I don’t have a leak or a
backed up toilet.”

  He picked up more clean gauze and indicated with a curl of his fingers that she should give him her other leg.

  Natalie didn’t know if she could bear his touch again. The temperature in the room escalated each time she gave herself into his care. She held out her hand for the gauze. “I can do it.”

  He lifted a brow in challenge, a small smile curving his lips, drawing her attention to his mouth.

  God, she wished she hadn’t looked! Her body tightened, the skin across her chest flushing with heat.

  His hand curled again.

  Sighing, Natalie slid her right leg over his thighs and resigned herself to more sensual torture.

  “Your super didn’t order the work?” His tone remained casual as once again he scraped dried blood from her leg.

  “At ten o’clock at night?” She regretted the sarcasm bleeding into her voice. The two of them didn’t really deserve the brunt of her frustration and fear. “It’s him…I just know. I’m not paranoid,” she said, hating the hint of hysteria entering her voice. She drew a calming breath and continued. “It’s happening again. I can feel it.”

  “What do you mean you can feel it?” Detective Tomas’s eyes narrowed.

  Damn! Would she get off her back? “It’s just a feeling I get…” she ground out, “…when something’s not quite right. A smell. Something not in its place.”

  “Your intuition didn’t give you a warning before your parents were killed?”

  A stab of guilt left Natalie breathless. Her angry defiance crumpled. “I had only just started having these prickling sensations…like someone was watching me. But I wasn’t home when it happened…when they were murdered. I’d gone to the store to pick up groceries for my mom. I took her keys…” For a moment, she was standing in the doorway of her home, looking at the carnage that had been her parents, their throats laid bare. Her gut twisted at the remembered horror.