No Hero (8 page)

He looked at the number display. Givens. A cold, sick certainty settled under his breastbone. “What is it?” he barked as his brain queued up a slideshow of all his kids, and did its best to place the last time he’d seen each one.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Givens said. “I just got a report of a body floating in the Canal up around Chef Menteur Highway.”

“Chef Menteur? Wh—?” His mouth started forming the word before he could stop it. He knew there was only one reason the police out there would call the Eighth District station.

No. Not another of my kids.

“Yeah. Black male, late teens to early twenties. Throat’s slit.” Givens’ voice held the careful detachment that law officers learned to draw upon so that they could do their jobs.

For the past week and a half Dev had been losing that ability. Right now, the slideshow in his head was whirling out of control. There were nine boys who regularly slept at the center, another five or six who hung around for meals or to use the free-access computer Dev had set up, or just to have a place to crash for a few hours. More than half of them were black.

He pushed the grief and rage as far back as he could, which wasn’t very far. He had to stay focused or he was going to fall apart. Swallowing against a swelling lump in his throat, he got the pertinent information and dropped the cell phone back into his pocket. It wasn’t until then that he realized Connor had gotten out of the passenger seat and was searching his face, her eyes filled with a mixture of dread and curiosity.

“Get in,” he said shortly. It was all he could do to keep from smashing a dent into the hood of his car. He had to get out to Chef Menteur as fast as he could. As he rounded the front of the car, the slideshow kept stopping on the same face.
Oh, hell no
.

“That phone call,” she said, “surely, it wasn’t—?”

He ignored her. He didn’t want to talk—wasn’t sure he could. It had been a long, long time since he’d let himself cry. Hell,
Devereux Gautier
had never cried. But the stinging behind his eyes belied his attempt at control. Because he was dreadfully, terrifyingly sure he knew who this body was.

“Dev?”

Shut up, Connor. He glanced in the rearview mirror, then over his shoulder, before pulling out onto the street. His face must have given him away.

“Oh Dev. Where?”

“Out Chef Menteur. I’ll take you home first,” he said, starting the engine.

“No. It’s too far,” she returned. “You’d be backtracking. You need to get over there.”

The rage was fighting its way up to the forefront of his brain. “Got an urge to see another crime scene, Connor? I guess you’ll have a front row seat for this one.” He knew he was being mean, but damn it. If the body was Jimmy Treacher’s, his next Safefutures Scholarship recipient, he wasn’t sure he could bear it.
Please don’t let it be Jimmy
.

He realized Connor was talking. He clenched his jaw and concentrated on what she was saying.

“—promise I won’t compromise your case, Detective,” she said evenly.

He looked at her long and hard. His mouth twisted wryly. “That is a damn guarantee.”

…

At the crime scene, Reghan stood on the sidelines near Dev’s car while he talked with Detective Givens. She didn’t understand a lot about police procedure, but she did know that Givens, a detective in the Eighth District, wouldn’t have been called to a crime scene out on Chef Menteur unless it was pretty definite that the body was connected with one of his cases.

The scene was like watching a rerun of last night’s events. She even thought she saw some of the same people in the crowd. And yet, Chef Menteur was miles away from the Port of New Orleans.

She squinted at a couple of young men hanging back in the shadows. Had she seen them before? Her eyes burned, and her head hurt. She was obviously too tired to see, or to think. Hunching her shoulders and burying her hands in the pockets of her WACT windbreaker, she leaned against Dev’s ancient Chevy and waited.

It was more than an hour before he returned to the car. He was quiet and grim. After wrenching open the passenger door for her and then shutting it after she was inside, he climbed in on the driver’s side. He sat there for a minute, then arched his neck and cleared his throat.

“Who was it? One of the kids from the center?”

He sent her a look designed to quell any more questions. “Can we still get into your office to get that disk?” he asked.

So that was how he was going to play it. He had no reason to answer her. She was only there because he hadn’t wanted to waste the time to take her home. She knew how much he resented her. She’d felt the cutting edge of his contempt often enough. Still, when he’d first gotten into the car and let his head fall back against the headrest, she’d had the urge to reach out to him. It had been an odd feeling, odd and uncomfortable.

What self-sabotaging impulse had motivated her to want to comfort him? If she tried, he’d probably level her with a sarcastic comment or worse, laugh at her.

“Of course,” she answered, looking at her watch. “I can get into the building any time. The night guard knows me. I work late a lot.”

He cranked the car and pulled out onto the street, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his jaw set and his eyes dark as the night.

She was becoming an unwilling expert on Devereux Gautier’s body language. She’d seen the grief in his slumped shoulders as he’d bent down to get a good look at the latest victim’s face. She’d recognized the same anger in his clenched fists that she’d seen the night before, when he’d been examining Darnell.

Dread and regret settled like a heavy weight on her breastbone. Why hadn’t she taken the time to give Stevens the disk? Why hadn’t she taken a few minutes at lunchtime to run the copy of Fontenot’s DVD from her office to the Eighth District building? Now she had another young man’s blood on her hands. “If this body is another one of your kids—”

“I’m done talking with you about this,” he said, his ragged voice dripping with scorn. “I’m sick of seeing you sensationalize people’s tragedies on your show.”

She’d deserved that, she supposed. She accepted the glancing blow, not even resenting him. It was obvious he was so exhausted that he wasn’t editing himself at all. She couldn’t blame him. This was the third of his kids in a week and a half to be found dead—the second in less than twenty-four hours.

So she ignored his insult. “I came to you with the information about Fontenot. Why would I compromise your investigation by revealing confidential information on my show?”

He sent her a sidelong look. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. She heard his thoughts as clearly as if he’d spoken.
You had no trouble compromising my life. My job.

She dropped her gaze to her hands. She couldn’t deny the reality of what she’d done to him. She’d attacked him, flayed him in front of the cameras, and she’d done it gleefully, self-righteously. Her exposé had very nearly cost him his job.

Wait a minute
. Her brain seized upon that thought. Why hadn’t it? She looked up.

“Why didn’t you lose your job?” she asked, then winced. Obviously, Dev wasn’t the only one too tired to watch what he said. “Sorry. Never mind. None of my business.”

She stole a glance at him. An onlooker might have thought he hadn’t reacted to her question, but she saw the infinitesimal hardening of his jaw muscle. The silence was deafening as he drove through the darkened streets toward the WACT building.

“Thibaud had my name changed legally, using my real social security number.”

Her mouth dropped open. He’d actually answered her. She pushed past the shock and replayed what he’d revealed. So the beat cop who’d taken him in all those years ago, Thibaud Johnson, had protected him. He’d made sure Dev didn’t have to live his life under the shadow of an assumed identity. She shifted uncomfortably at the unexpected insight. The fact that she’d missed that detail didn’t paint her journalistic skills in a very flattering light. Or her, either.

He couldn’t possibly resent her any more than he already did. And she did want to know how he’d managed to come out smelling like a hero.
In for a penny, in for a pound
. “What about the charges that were pending against you in Washington state, for your stepfather’s death?” she asked.

He scorched her with a look. “Come on, Connor. Are you trying to tell me you didn’t follow the case?”

“From here?” She’d kept up with it as best she could—while pretending it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a high-profile case, even locally in Seattle, so the few details she’d collected were sketchy. “I heard your stepfather’s death was ruled self-defense. Plus, weren’t you a juvenile at the time of his death? That must have helped.”

“The pending charges were dropped,” he ground out. “The advantage of having a good lawyer.”

The harsh words bit her like a blistering winter wind. Somehow, she doubted a good lawyer was all there was to it. Her heart squeezed painfully. She didn’t like the uncertainty creeping into her mind about him.

My God. Had she gotten it all terribly wrong?

…

Dev grimaced as he pulled into the WACT parking lot, wanting to kick himself. He hadn’t meant to give her the satisfaction of responding to her questions. He never talked about his past.
Ever
. Not to anybody. But he’d been preoccupied with Jimmy’s death. Three of his scholarship kids in ten days. There was no way these homicides weren’t linked. Someone had targeted the boys because of their connections—to the center, to the scholarships…or to him.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered as an awful thought occurred to him. He retrieved his cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Penn,” he said when she answered. “Have you seen Nicky today?”

“No. Why?”

“Jimmy’s dead.” He spoke in a low tone, hoping Connor wouldn’t hear.

“Jimmy? Oh my God, poor Jimmy.” He heard her voice thicken with emotion. “Oh, Dev, three of your four scholarship nominees. Nicky is—”

“Yeah, I know.” He cut her off. “Is he there?”

“No, but Tracy’s been helping him study. She’s here now, helping Katie learn her lines for the play. I’ll ask her…see if she can find him.”

“Good. Call me back right away and let me know. I don’t want another phone call about a dead kid tonight.” He hung up.

“Another dead kid?” Connor said. “So it was one of your teens.”

Dev groaned inwardly. “Is this how you research all your stories—by eavesdropping? No wonder you have trouble keeping your damn facts straight.” He threw the driver’s door open and vaulted out.

He slammed the door, cutting off her murmured retort, and stalked around the car. Just as well. He didn’t want to hear it. He glanced through the windshield. Sure enough, she had her mouth open and he knew as soon as he opened the door she’d be spouting another question. Well, he’d had it with her questions. And he figured he knew one surefire way to shut her up. He wrenched open the mangled passenger door and waited for her to get out.

When she did, he didn’t move aside like the perfect gentleman. He told himself he was doing this to make her back off. That it had nothing to do with her spicy scent. It definitely had nothing to do with the battle he’d waged ever since he’d seen her that morning, to ignore the chemistry between them and forget just how good her lips had tasted the one time he’d kissed her. He told himself she’d really hate it if he gathered up that mad tangle of red hair and angled her head just the way he liked when he made a move on a woman.

So he did, and the silken strands caught his fingers like spider webs.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her mouth opening in a little O. Was she scared—or was she about to say something? He didn’t wait to find out. He lowered his head and touched her parted lips with his. To his surprise, her head tilted slightly backward, and she sighed.

Oh hell. The soft warmth of her breath against his mouth sent desire shooting through him like a spear, straight to his groin. He pulled back to look at her, searching for something that would tell him he was wrong—that she wasn’t feeling the same desire he felt spilling through his veins.

Her eyes drifted closed. Her sigh fanned his lips. He finally admitted to himself that he’d always wanted her, not just since he’d kissed her that night five months ago, but since forever. Since his first glimpse of that damn television show, since he’d first shaken her hand flirtatiously and asked her out, since before he’d discovered that her goal was to unearth all his darkest secrets and feed them to the world—or at least to the whole city of New Orleans.

“Damn it, Connor,” he rasped, pulling her closer. He felt her arms come around his neck, felt her yield, willingly, and he knew, just as he’d known that night, that he could have her if he wanted to. Hot and naked. She wouldn’t say no. Waves of lust wracked him, banishing the haze of exhaustion and grief from his brain. His body hardened in anticipation of—

Hell. He was doing this to scare her away, not take her to bed.

At his hesitation, she tensed, but before she could pull away, he did. He lifted his head and gazed at her through lowered lids, then deliberately cocked one brow. To his surprise, a small moan escaped her lips.

He swore, and set her away from him. “This—” he growled, “—is a really bad idea.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Speechless? Join the club.

He let her go and grabbed the edge of the passenger door. She scooted out of the way as he slammed it shut. He stood there waiting to follow her across the parking lot and into the lobby of the WACT building. She didn’t move. After a couple of seconds, he said. “The disk, Connor?”

She started. Then, with a frustrated glance, she said, “You know, I have a first name. It’s Reghan.”

He let the corner of his mouth drift upward. “Oh, I know,” he drawled. “And a middle one too. Maria.”

Her eyes flashed, then she turned and wordlessly stalked toward the large glass front doors. They went through the lobby to the elevators, where she punched the button for the eleventh floor.