He cut his eyes sharply to the side. “And its significance?”
“I didn’t propose, if that’s what you’re asking. But I did think about it, although the ring wasn’t expensive. I bought it from one of those artists on the streets.” He cleared his throat. Hesitated. Looked almost sheepish. Then a frown pulled at his mouth. “Later that night, she disappeared.”
“You reported her missing?”
“No. I thought she’d just left. Me.” His eyes darkened with hurt. “Figured I’d scared her off, or the ring wasn’t expensive enough.”
Damon contemplated his brother’s declaration. He sounded serious.
“I’ve never known you to fall for a woman, Antwaun.”
Antwaun shrugged his blue denim-clad shoulders. “Never thought I would either.”
Damon’s neck tightened as he parked the black FBI-issued sedan in the drive of his parents’ antebellum home. Since his last visit, they’d painted the house a pale yellow, the trim white. Huge ferns swung from the awning, and his dad had built a porch swing at one end and staged rocking chairs between pots of geraniums. Such a domestic setting.
So at odds with the Dubois men and their jobs. And now this trouble…
His mind spun back to Antwaun’s admission. If his little brother had actually fallen in love with Kendra Yates, she must have been pretty damn special.
But now the woman was dead. Murdered—and they both knew that Antwaun’s relationship with her meant he would be interrogated.
“All right, Antwaun. Now tell me the truth. Do you know why someone would kill her?”
“No. Like I told you, I have no idea what happened to her.” His brother shifted, chewed the inside of his cheek, then stared at the woods that backed his parents’ property. A shadow caught Damon’s eye, and he watched a gator slither up onto the bank and settle in the dark bed of weeds, hidden.
Damon’s gut churned. The cops called Antwaun a chameleon. When undercover, he could change colors to blend in with any background. Like the gator who hid in the spiny shadows of the weeping willow.
But Antwaun also had a temper, and a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also liked to break the rules and push the limits. And sometimes he played the role of undercover bad guy a little too convincingly. His hotheaded temper had landed him in jail a few times when he was younger, and Damon and Jean-Paul had bailed out his ass, although they hadn’t been happy about it. And even in the service, he’d walked a fine line between fighting the enemy on the field and ending up in the brig for insubordinate conduct.
Damon studied the rigid set to his jaw as Antwaun climbed out. There was more to the story than he was telling. Something Antwaun didn’t want him to know. Something about Kendra Yates? Or was it about himself and their relationship? What else had happened between them?
LEX VAN WORMER WATCHED her sleep.
Crystal, he called her, because she had no name. Not that she knew of anyway.
Still, in spite of the way she had come into his life, she was an innocent angel shining light on his darkest hour. Like a rare piece of cut glass or a precious gem he’d discovered buried in graveyard dust.
At a time when he hung in limbo, he’d found a kindred soul.
Restless, tortured sounds erupted from her throat, drawing his aching eyes to the pale column of her neck. Whispers of fear echoed in her cries. Moments of reliving such horrid pain that even he felt like weeping from the misery.
He had known misery himself.
He had also caused it some, for which God would never forgive him.
He tucked the sheet gently around her slender, quivering form, then laid a hand against the silky hair that fanned across the hospital pillow. His breath caught in his throat as he waited for her to turn and scream, then jerk away from his touch. Yet she nestled farther into the bedding and turned to press her cheek against his scaly hand.
Tears of joy dampened his eyes. She trusted him. Needed him. And had accepted that he was grotesque from the disease that chewed away at his flesh. And not with his birth as a dark soul. One that had allowed him to push aside his conscience. One that had allowed the seeds of wrong to fester inside him. His diseased body now bore witness.
And so he lived in a world between heaven and hell, fighting the demons that wanted to take his soul.
Crystal was his salvation. If he could hang on long enough to save her, he just might escape the wrath of Satan….
Yet, even as regrets for the evil he had done burned his throat, the thrill of the blood hunt still seized his soul.
CHAPTER TWO
ANTWAUN DUBOIS HATED THE way his brother was looking at him. As if he didn’t trust him enough to confide the truth.
Dammit, trust had nothing to do with his silence.
If anything, Antwaun had to keep his secrets to himself to protect his brother. Every aspect of undercover police work involved putting up fronts. Pretending to be something you weren’t. Lying.
Sometimes he told so many lies he didn’t know the truth himself.
As the Chameleon, he could change his appearance to blend in anywhere. No job was too dangerous or too edgy for him to tackle. The risks be damned.
Unfortunately, the fact that he melded with the dregs and crooks of society meant it would be easy for him to cross the line, and almost as easy for him to hide his indiscretions. His poker face kept him alive. It could keep him from revealing his motives if needed.
He silently cursed as sweat trickled down the side of his face. He’d been warned how enticing the other side of the law could be, and he had been tempted more than once….
Hell.
How could he blame his big brother for scrutinizing him when Antwaun had a reputation as a troublemaker?
Anger churned in his belly as he and Damon walked up the clamshell-lined entry to his parents’ house. How the fuck could he ever live up to his older brothers?
“Bon à rien, toi, ’tit souris,” Jean-Paul had said to him when he was younger, meaning “good for nothing, you, little mouse.”
It had been true. But he’d tried to change that reputation since he’d been on the force.
Jean-Paul and Damon had always been good. As a detective, Jean-Paul had been decorated for bravery and saving lives during Katrina. Damon, the special agent in the mix, had received commendations from the military and goddamn president for bravery and heroism.
Antwaun…he was the screwup.
A rookie on the police force, and now that position might be in jeopardy.
The door swung open, and his mother squealed as if she hadn’t
