Mass 555-496-4949
Doctor? He whistled. What the hell was cell line generation?
He glanced at her again. She was still grilling his customers.
Boy, was she out of her element. The frizzy chestnut hair and decades out of style clothing couldn’t have stood out more if she’d been dressed like a nun. All it would take was her asking the wrong person… Plus she was corrupting the vibe. Tourists came here to enter a different world, and the freaks and true believers came here to get their crazy on.
If he looked up the word sensible, there’d probably be a picture of this woman. And yet. She’d braved this place to look for her friend.
As he watched she stopped one of his regulars, a die-hard vamp who had the three blood drops tattooed down the corner of his mouth. The guy tried to brush her away, but she moved to block his path.
He scowled and shoved her into another dude Rafe didn’t recognize and her drink splashed down the front of his T-shirt. The fact he was wearing a collar with sharp metal spikes was not a good sign. Dog Collar Guy grabbed her by the throat, his face inches from hers, his teeth bared.
Her eyes widened and filled with fear.
Damn it. Rafe leaped around the bar, shoved his way to the altercation and inserted himself between the collar-man and the good doctor.
“What the—?”
Rafe got in his face. “You lay hands on a customer of mine again, you’ll leave in an ambulance,” he snarled. “Now get out.”
The psycho hesitated and Rafe signaled his bouncer, Bulldog.
Why the hell he hadn’t let Bulldog handle it from the beginning he had no clue. Collar-man saw Bulldog headed toward them and raised his hands. “Okay, okay.” He made a beeline for the door.
The woman began coughing when collar-man released her. “Thank y—”
Rafe gripped her arm and dragged her toward the door.
“What are you d-doing?” She struggled, but she was no match for him. “Let go of me.”
“You’re disturbing my customers.” Once outside, he whistled for a cab down the street and tugged her to the curb as it pulled up. “Les Chambres Royale,” he bent to inform the cabbie, and then opened the back door for her.
“I’m not l-leaving without some information.” She managed to fold her arms over nice-size curves that had been hidden before by her crocheted… whatever she called that thing. At the same time, she hitched her huge purse up onto her shoulder and pushed her eyeglasses higher on her nose. Why did he find that appealing?
“Look, this isn’t the kind of place you want to be hanging around.”
She rolled her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m staying here to find my friend.”
“It’s my bar and I say you’re not.”
“Hey, is someone getting in or what?” the cabbie yelled out the window.
Rafe leaned in the front window. “Start the meter.” When he looked back at the woman, she was biting her thumbnail and he could’ve sworn he saw the wheels and cogs turning as a plan formed.
“If you don’t let me inside, I swear I’ll come back every night, stand outside your d-door and ask everyone before they enter—”
“Okay, okay.” Damn it. “If I say I’ll see what I can find out, will you get in the damn cab?”
She smiled and Rafe blinked. When she smiled it changed her entire face. Softened it. Brightened it. “You promise? You want Julia’s picture? I can make copies. I’ll b-bring them tomorrow.”
He took her elbow and guided her into the backseat of the cab. “Don’t come here. I’ll call you if I learn anything.” He slammed the door and bent at the waist to look her in the eyes. “Just don’t get your hopes up.”
She scowled and might have responded, but the cab pulled away.
As Rafe watched the checkered cab disappear into the mist of the chilly night, the back of his neck itched. After a lifetime of getting into it, scheming to get out of it and learning to avoid it, he knew trouble when he saw it.
And that woman was going to be trouble.
2
THE NEXT NIGHT CLAIRE slipped unobtrusively onto a low red velvet sofa in the back of Once Bitten and scanned the crowd around her.
No sign of Julia tonight, either. Or the guy she’d taken off with.
Panic was invading Claire’s psyche like the bacteria she studied under a microscope. Experimenting with different cell lines for the production of recombinant molecules seemed like child’s play compared to dealing with this mess. In fact, she’d conference-called her team back in Boston this morning to check on their latest cell culture development, and it seemed they were doing just fine without her.
That had been somewhat… disconcerting.
Then she’d placed a call to her mother and father to update them on her progress in finding Julia. At least they took her concerns seriously. Unlike the police force here.
She’d waited around the French Quarter station almost two hours this morning before a detective finally spoke with her. Of course, he’d told her the same thing the officer had told her yesterday. It was Mardi Gras, lots of people go missing and show up a couple of days later, hung over, and with a great story to tell their grandkids, etc.
Officially, Julia wouldn’t be considered missing until tomorrow morning when she’d been gone for forty-eight hours. And Claire had looked up the statistics. The chances of finding someone after the first forty-eight hours lowered dramatically. Anything could’ve happened to her by now.
It was obvious Claire couldn’t wait for the police.
A familiar ball of frustration roiled in her stomach and she clenched her fists. If only she hadn’t agreed to go to Mardi Gras with Julia.
No. If she’d refused to accompany her friend on this trip, Julia would’ve just gone to New Orleans alone. And then no one would’ve even known she’d disappeared.
Julia was impulsive, and even sometimes foolish, but she would never just take off without eventually checking in. Something was wrong. And she had to find her friend before it was—statistically speaking—too late.
Worst case scenarios kept flashing through her mind. Julia robbed and beaten. Or maybe that guy she’d gone off with had drugged and raped her. Maybe she’d been left for dead in some alley. Or kidnapped and sold into white slavery—
Okay. Maybe that was just too far. The best way to help her best friend was to remain calm and breathe deeply. She resumed scanning the crowds for Julia.
“You the one caused the trouble here last night?”
Claire shifted on the sofa and her vision was blocked by a silky,
