A Whisper in the Dark (15 page)

The door closed with a resonant click.

John stood there a moment longer, telling himself he wasn’t ashamed. Goddamn it, he didn’t care enough to be ashamed. But deep inside he was a hell of a lot more than ashamed.

The problem was he didn’t know what to do about it.

 
Julia sat at her desk, her right hand flying over the calculator
keypad, her left flipping through the month’s invoices as she tallied them. Claudia perched a hip on the corner of her desk, sipping a tall café au lait from the coffee shop across the street. A few feet away Jacob rolled a cart down the nearest aisle, shelving the books Julia had bought at auction last week in Shreveport.

“My God, you could have been killed,” Jacob said, shoving a Steinbeck first edition onto the top shelf.

“I was mostly just . . . shaken up,” Julia said.

Turning to her, the clerk put his hands on his hips. “Honey, that turtleneck only goes so far to hide those bruises that bastard put on your neck.”

She’d done her best to hide the bruises, but the smudges had deepened overnight and makeup only covered so much. In the end she’d opted for a turtleneck, but it didn’t cover the bruises high on her throat. It sure didn’t do much for the pain. The night before the adrenaline had anesthetized her to a degree. This morning, she felt every bruise with an intensity that told her just how violent the attack had been.

“At the very least you should have called me,” Jacob said, looking perturbed.

“It was late,” Julia said. “Claudia was here. So was John.”

“You mean the guy passed out in the storage room?” His voice was incredulous. “A lot of good he would have done. From the look of him, you’d be lucky to wake him up. What was your dad thinking, hiring a guy like that to protect you?”

“Maybe he was thinking John was once a good cop,” Claudia put in.

“If super cop is so damn good,” Jacob motioned toward Julia, “where was he last night when that maniac was trying to strangle her?”

“I was in the back room getting shit-faced and planning my next fuckup,” came a gravelly voice from the storage room doorway.

Jacob spun at the sound of John’s voice, nearly dropping the book he was shelving. Claudia slid from the desk, looking like a teenager who’d just been caught smoking.

Julia leaned back in her desk chair and watched John approach. He looked rumpled in the same jeans and flannel shirt he’d been wearing the night before. His hair was sticking up on one side. The pale cast to his face combined with bloodshot eyes told her his night had probably been every bit as bad as hers. Maybe even worse. She could tell by his dark expression that he’d heard every word of their conversation.

He walked to the coffeemaker and poured. His hand shook as he raised the cup to his lips. When he turned around, his eyes were hostile and landed on Jacob. “While we’re on the subject of last night, where were you?”

Jacob choked out a sound of incredulity. “You can’t be serious.”

John’s gaze didn’t falter. “As a heart attack.”

Jacob shot a look at Julia. “Do I have to answer that?”

John didn’t give her time to respond. “Unless maybe you have something to hide.”

Jacob snorted. “I was home all evening. Reading.”

“Alone?”

“I live alone.”

“That’s convenient.”

“That’s the truth.” Jacob turned to Julia. “This is ridiculous.”

Knowing the situation was a nanosecond away from getting out of hand, Julia opened her desk drawer for the bottle of aspirin she kept on hand. Tapping three into her palm, she carried them to John. “Be nice,” she said, shoving the pills at him.

John scowled, but took the aspirin. “Thanks.”

Julia smiled sweetly. “I don’t think you two have been formally introduced.”

Jacob snorted.

Claudia ducked her head and pretended to be interested in the invoices on Julia’s desk.

Julia made the introductions, but the two men only sneered at each other. Terrific, she thought, and tapped out two aspirin for herself.

The bell on the door jingled.

“Saved by the bell.” Claudia rose.

Julia looked up to see John’s brother Mitch walk in flanked by a second, bald-headed man in an ill-fitting suit. She knew it was an overreaction, but her heart began to pound.

“Hi, Mitch,” she heard herself say. “Is everything all right?”

The grim-faced bald man hung back near the door. Julia thought he resembled a Mafioso. Mitch was all business this morning. His scowl lingered on John, then landed on Julia. “Is there a place where we can talk?” He shot a pointed look at Claudia and Jacob. “In private?”

“Yes, of course.” She motioned toward the storage room at the back of the shop. “Has something happened?”

“What’s this about, bro?” John asked.

Both Mitch and Julia turned to him. Mitch paused, sighed. “You need to hear this, too.”

Julia led John and Mitch into the storage room. John had folded the cot and stacked the pillow and single blanket neatly on top, but the small room was still crowded with three people inside.

“Close the door,” Mitch said.

Julia pulled the door closed behind them. The instant the door was closed, Mitch glared first at Julia, then John. “Why didn’t you tell me about the goddamn book?”

Arms folded on his chest, John leaned against a shelf, unimpressed by his brother’s wrath. “She wanted it kept confidential.”

“That’s a bullshit answer. I’m your brother. A cop. I’m trying to help and you have me out breaking my ass without bothering to show me the respect of giving me all the information I need.”

“It’s my fault,” Julia said. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

He frowned at John. “You knew I’d find out.”

“We didn’t think it was relevant,” John said.

Mitch glared at him. “You’re a cop and you didn’t think it was relevant?”

“Ex-cop,” John said easily. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“The big deal, bro, is that some sick bastard murdered a woman last night.”

Julia felt the words like a punch, so hard that for an instant she couldn’t catch her breath. A hundred questions descended at once. And suddenly she had a very bad feeling about Mitch’s being here. That somehow the murder was connected to her.

She could see that Mitch now had John’s full attention. “What does that have to do with Julia?”

Mitch pulled a notepad from his jacket. “A city worker found a woman’s body this morning at the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. She’d been strangled and stabbed. We’ll know more when the ME does the autopsy.” His grim gaze swept to Julia. “There was a book found at the scene with some weird shit written inside.”

Her heart stumbled, began to race. “Oh, no.”

Mitch looked down at his note. “
A Gentleman’s Touch
by Elisabeth de Haviland. Sound familiar?”

“Yes,” Julia mumbled.

“No thanks to either of you.” Mitch jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Detective McBride called the publishing house in New York and got the surprise of his life when he learned Elisabeth de Havilland is no other than Julia Wainwright.” He glared at John. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, bro, especially when I have a dead body on my hands. You want to explain to me what the hell is going on?”

John scraped a hand over his face.

Julia figured it was her responsibility to explain. “I asked him to keep this information confidential,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because my father is about to be voted in as director of the Eternal Springs Ministry. He’s worked hard to get where he is, Mitch, and I think if the members or the board found out I was writing . . . erotica it could hurt his chances.”

Mitch looked uncomfortable for a moment. “What exactly is erotica, Julia?”

Heat suffused her face. “It’s sensual writing. About emotional love and a physical relationship between a man and a woman.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that John was hanging onto her every word.

“There’s a lot of sex in the book?” Mitch asked bluntly.

Julia nodded. “Yes.”

“We think that’s what set this guy off, got him interested in Julia,” John put in.

Mitch’s gaze sharpened on her brother. “What makes you think that?”

“The notes. Some of the things he said to her when he assaulted her last night.” He shrugged. “It’s an assumption, but it fits.”

Mitch appeared to digest that for a moment. “Do you think he finds her work offensive or is he turned on by it?”

“Offensive,” Julia said.

“Both,” John said simultaneously.

“Shit.” Mitch scrubbed a hand over his face, his gaze meeting John’s.

“He’s turned on, but he doesn’t like it,” John finished.

Julia didn’t miss the silent communication that passed between the two men, and a chill crept up her spine. “What do we do now?” she asked.

“You let the cops do their job.” Mitch met her gaze. “I’ll need a copy of your book, Julia.”

She hesitated. “Will you be able to keep my identity in confidence?”

“I’ll do my best, but I can tell you the investigation will take precedence over your privacy.”

Now that someone had been killed, her privacy—her father’s fast-track career—didn’t seem as important.

Turning away, she left the two men to get a copy of the book—and for the first time since she’d begun
A Gentleman’s Touch
, she wished to God she’d never written it.

TWELVE

“You look like you got caught in a meat grinder,” Mitch
said after Julia had left the room.

John figured a meat grinder would have been a hell of a lot kinder than the abuse he’d put his body through last night. “Thanks,” he muttered.

Mitch looked him up and down, then sniffed. “You smell like a goddamn bar.”

Because he didn’t know how to respond to that, John walked over to the door, closed it and asked the question that had been burning in the back of his mind since his brother had walked into the shop. “So what aren’t you telling us about this murder?”

“It’s bad shit, John.”

“Yeah, well, murder is always bad shit.”

Mitch shot a pointed look to the flask on the floor next to the folded cot. “Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut?”

That his brother would even ask irked. But John figured better men than him had succumbed to the mouth loosening effects of alcohol. “You know you can.”

Mitch grimaced. “I talked to the ME while I was at the scene this morning. NOPD isn’t going to make it public, but the son of a bitch that killed the woman inscribed something on her abdomen. Carved some weird bullshit into her flesh.”

“Jesus.” John thought about the possibility of the man who’d accosted Julia in the alley and the murderer being one and the same, and shuddered inwardly. “Was the inscription legible? What did it say?”

“CSI took a bunch of photos.” Glancing once toward the door, he pulled a few laser prints from his jacket pocket. “It’s some sick shit, that’s for sure.”

John had seen plenty of crime scenes in the years he’d been a cop. He’d seen the vicious things one man could do to another, and he’d long since stopped letting any of it bother him. But he’d never seen anything like the sight that accosted him when he looked at the photo.

John stared at the crude words. Blood red against pasty white flesh. The dried blood that had streamed from the cuts told him the words had been carved into her flesh while she’d been alive . . .

“That’s the same as one of the letters Julia received.”

“I’ll need a copy.”

“You got it.” John sighed. “What else?”

“We won’t know exactly what happened to her until the ME finishes. Looks like he tied her up, cut her, then strangled her. There was a bloody crucifix inside her body. Prelim exam says she was raped and sodomized with it. She was torn up pretty bad, like he was in a frenzy.” Mitch’s gaze met John’s. “I don’t have to remind you that there was a crucifix found in the alley where Julia was accosted.”

“I made the connection.” The hairs on the back of John’s neck prickled. “They the same?”

“Similar enough for me to drop by and tell you this.”

“Shit,” John said.

“Any idea who the wacko is?”

John shook his head. “No idea, but I’m working it. I’m running backgrounds on her employees. Skinny guy out front, Jacob Brooks, doesn’t have an alibi.”

Mitch scribbled something in his notepad. “I’ll plug him into the database and see if anything pops.”

“Thanks.”

Mitch motioned toward the flask lying on the floor a few feet away. “This might be a good time for you to clean up your act, bro.”

Because he wasn’t sure if he was up to that task, either, John frowned. “I’d rather you assign her an officer.”

“NOPD doesn’t have the manpower for that. You know how it works.”

“Maybe you could pull some strings.”

“I’m sick of pulling strings for you. For chrissake pull yourself together.” Mitch shook his head as if in disgust. “The NOPD is recruiting. I added your name to the list.”

“Mitch, I’m in no shape to be taking on a job . . .”

“Instead of wallowing in all that self-pity, maybe you ought to be thankful you walked out of that warehouse that night. You’re alive, man. For God’s sake, it could have been you who’d taken a bullet. Do you ever stop to think about that?”

John stared hard at his brother, his heart pounding. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about it, goddamn it.”

What he didn’t say was that for the last two months he’d wished it
had
been him who hadn’t walked away.

 
“You’re going to
what
?” Julia wasn’t one to raise her
voice—not much anyway—but she couldn’t keep the incredulity out of it.

John didn’t look the least bit fazed. “I said I’m going to move into the storage room.”