Death of a Chorus Girl (The Delacroix Series Book 1) (16 page)

I envelop her in my arms, careful to do so in a way that doesn’t telegraph the distress she is in.  I press my chest to her back and slide an arm around her stomach.  “Is it that nasty headache again?” I ask, knowing Em won’t respond because she is still in the throes of the trance.

Fitzwallace fixates on her with a penetrating stare.  I have to do something to keep him from suspecting something isn’t right with her.  “I told her to stay home tonight; that everyone would understand, but she insisted on coming.  Didn’t want to disappoint anyone.  Sabene and I thought her bug might actually be pneumonia, not the flu.  Thanks for looking out for her, Fitzwallace.  I’ll take her from here.”

He seems to notice me for the first time.  “It appears more serious than a common illness.”  He pauses to scrutinize her again.  “Oh well, c’est la vie.  Seems you have it under control.”  He shrugs and walks away.

There is no time to reflect on his complete indifference.  The trembling from before is growing worse.  This is a bad vision, which means the probability of her suffering “death” is high.  That cannot happen in the middle of this room.  We are already drawing eyes.  I run through my options as Sabene appears by my side.

“Tom offered to take everyone home and I accepted because it’ll be the fastest get away we can make.  He’s got Teddy and is calling for his car now.  Em still hasn’t come to?”

“No,” I confirm.  Em’s breathing is growing fainter, and where before her heart was racing, now I can barely feel it.  The “death” or whatever it is, is going to happen soon.

“What did you tell Fitz?” Sabene asks.

“That this was residual from her illness last week,” I reply.  “What did you tell Tom?”

“Same thing.  Pick her up.  People will ask questions but at least all the key players are giving the same answers.”  I don’t hesitate and quickly have Em cradled in my arms.  Sabene leads the way out of the ballroom amidst constant concerned inquiries as to what is wrong with Em.  Sabene casually brushes them all off with the simple lie that Em isn’t feeling well and overdid it tonight.

Just as we breach the doors to the ballroom and enter the hotel’s hallway Em convulses, her eyes shoot open, unveiling the dead fog clouding her sight, and exhales her last breath.  I freeze, terrified when she falls limp in my arms.  Sabene runs to my side and puts her fingers to Em’s neck.  She closes her eyes as she concentrates on finding a pulse.  A lifetime passes before her head bobs as if to a steady, but slow, beat.  Then Em jolts and inhales, kick starting my heart, which I hadn’t realized had stopped.

Em clings to me, the feel of life emanating from her.  Her choked, weak voice is barely audible and constricts around my heart.  “Don’t let me go, Richard.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Em.”  I nod to Sabene and we resume our journey to Tom’s car.

Empathy Delacroix: Nightmares and Dreams

T
his is going to end horribly if I don’t do something.  I fight the darkness threatening to steal away my consciousness.  My strength dwindles.  In truth, I never stood a chance.  He is bigger and broader than I am.  Thinking I have succumbed to my fate, he looks over his shoulder.  This is my only opportunity at freedom, so I kick him in the groin as hard as I can and duck under his arms.

Unfortunately, he recovers quickly.  I only make it out of the room when his hand snaps around my wrist and swings me into a mirror.  The ringing in my head almost overshadows the pinch in my arm.  His arms hold me up when my legs give out, right before I surrender to the darkness.

I start upright, gulping in deep, wheezing breaths.  God, it was and wasn’t a nightmare!  That faceless figure will stalk me for many nights to come.  It seems ridiculous.  It isn’t the worst vision I have ever experienced but something about it sticks with me, and that is terrifying.  A sudden hand cups my bicep, scaring me to death and I leap from the bed screaming. 
How did I get home?
I wonder after collapsing from exhaustion.  There are no memories of leaving the after party.

Seconds later, a shadow manifests beside me on the floor.  “Em, shhhh.  It’s Richard.” 
Richard!
  “It was just a dream.  I brought you home.  You’re safe.  I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”  His touch brings me an instant calm and I curl into his comforting warmth to cry.  He strokes my hair as we rock back and forth.  “Was the dream the vision you had?”  Unable to speak through my sobs, my hands fist around his shirt.  “It was just a vision, just a dream.  I’m here and I’ll be here as long as you need.”  I don’t know how long we sit on the floor, with me crying in his lap, until sleep once again overtakes me.

The next time my eyes open they meet the sun.  I am in my bed with the unwanted company of a headache.  The irritating pain blinds my senses to the solid warmth at my back and the weight draped over my side, so when it moves I jump to a sitting position from surprise.  Richard’s eyes pop wide open immediately.  “I’m so sorry,” his morning voice apologizes.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Is he real?  A static shock stings us both when my hand touches his face and he flinches away.  “Sorry!” I offer which he responds to by laughing.

“Not quite how I imagined our first morning together would go.” 
God, his voice is so sexy.
  His bright eyes and warm smile soothe me and actually act as a painkiller to my headache.  I sink back into the bed, snuggling into his waiting embrace.  He pulls me close and buries his face in my neck, peppering tender kisses along my flesh.  “This is more like it,” he admits between them.

The feel of his lips sends tickling shivers through my body and I soon find myself longing for more.  “If I didn’t know any better I would think you are trying to seduce me, detective,” I purr.

Everything about him halts; his kisses, his breathing, even his heartbeat is no longer hammering against my spine.  I shift onto my back while he remains on his side with his arm stretched across me.  His chagrined face greets me.  The only things that move are his eyes as they search mine.  When he finally finds his voice, the words are spoken with deliberate inflection.  “And if I am?”  The arm stretched across my body leads his hand down my side and I flinch as it tickles me.

I inhale sharply when he reaches my hip, which he takes as an invitation to kiss me, deeply.  There is no hesitation, no second thought.  His tongue gently slides between my parted lips to find mine.  My fingers comb through and tangle in his dark, silky hair.  He drops his head and nips at my neck while my fingertips float down his spine to the base of his shoulder blades before following the muscular contours of his back.  An internal burn pulsates through me and I have never wanted a man more.  “Kiss me, Richard,” the plea shakes with the pounding of my heart.

He chuckles against my collarbone, beginning a torturous slow pace in response.  The tip of his nose traces a line up my throat and under my chin.  His labored breaths fall heavy against my goose-pimpled flesh.  Then he finally takes the turn at my jawline and delivers his perfect, sumptuous lips to mine. The internal burn pulsates through me as a shock wave that grows in intensity from the indescribably sweet and sensual kiss.  This is the man worth waiting my twenty-eight years for, someone who is willing to take his time with me and not push me too fast.  Richard is a man I know, given time, I will fall head over heels in love with.

Richard Giordano: Em’s Bedroom

The feel of her steady breathing would have lulled me to sleep if she were anyone else.  Between last night’s vision, the details of which she still holds close, and this morning’s make-out session, I am more alert than any effects a person can get from multiple cups of coffee.  This morning was a dream; last night, a nightmare.

Once we reached Em’s apartment, Worthy stayed in his limousine with Frisco while Sabene and I brought Em upstairs.  I laid her on her bed, shivering and whimpering, and turned to leave.  “Call me in the morning and let me know how she’s doing,” I said weakly over my shoulder.  It killed me to leave her like that.

Sabene grabbed my arm and spun me around.  “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to see Frisco home and probably hold her hair most of the night.”  I made to pull my arm out of her hand, but her grip strengthened.

“You’re staying here with Em. I’ll take care of Teddy.”

This time I was successful in freeing my arm.  “Ah, no.  We are not so far in our relationship that I should be the surprise in her morning.  I’ve got Fris-”

“You know how to insert a line in case she needs to be hydrated?  If she drank Nine, that’s probably going to be what she needs.”

I was only half listening.  The intensity of Em’s vision side effects were increasing and the sight broke my heart.  “Fine, but get her out of that dress and into something comfortable for sleep.”  This time I successfully exited the room.

After Sabene left, I glanced around the apartment.  I say apartment, but truthfully, Em’s home is probably bigger than my house in Brooklyn.  The kitchen, dining, and living area are one enormous open space.  The furnishings are simple, sofas, chairs, tables, bookcases.  Nothing is overly ornate or looks like it should be in a museum instead of a home. There is art on the walls but I couldn’t see what the images were dark.  Sabene mentioned a guest room, but the hallway had three doors in it, all closed, not including the one to Em’s bedroom.  I removed my tux and settled down on her sofa, which is in front of her floor to ceiling windows overlooking Central Park, with a blanket I found thrown across a chair.  I wasn’t comfortable riffling through her home.

Except I didn’t sleep.  Em cried and whimpered for over an hour before I just couldn’t take it anymore.  Upon entering her room, I whispered her name only to have her bolt upright in the bed and scream, gulping for air.  I raced towards the bed and placed a hand on her arm.  She screamed again, in absolute terror, and leaped from the bed.

I get lost in my memories and miss her waking up.  “Care to tell me where you are, Richard?”  I pull my sight out of my head to see her smiling face gazing back at me with innocent mischief in those lavender eyes.

“Just thinking about everything from the last twelve hours.”  I don’t know how it is possible, but her smile widens as her eyes brighten just before her lips chastely meet my own.  The kiss ends as innocently as it began.  It takes a few moment before my mind catches up to reality and processes the shifting of her weight as she moves off the bed.  I gently grasp her wrist right as her feet hit the floor and spin her around. “And exactly where do you think
you
are going?”

The sight of her full form for the first time this morning almost forces me to yank her back into bed.  Sabene dressed her in a skimpy tank and these little shorts.  Her delicate, muscular figure calls for me to map the contours of her body with my hands, then my tongue.  I don’t,
yet
, but I can’t stop my eyes from roving along her beauty.  Her hair is still somewhat up in that intricate design she wore last night but loose strands fall all around and across her face, set free by sleep and our heated make-out session earlier.  Top all of that off with the extended length of her neck as she cocks her beautiful face to the side and I am a goner.  This is my Em, and I have to have her.

I no longer care about trying to hide my ultimate desires from her.  I sit up on the edge of the bed and pull her into the space between my legs, right where she belongs.  Her eyes glow with liquid excitement as my hands roam down her sides to her hips.  She jolts from my touch and giggles nervously.

A phone rings before our lips meet, stealing her attention from me.  “Odd, it’s Trevor.”  She has it pressed to her ear in the blink of an eye.  “Hello?”

I don’t hear whatever Trevor says on the other end, just Em’s response.  “Yeah, just schedule it for any day
but
today.” 
That’s right, today is for us
.

Outright agitation replaces the mild annoyance in her tone and carriage.  “I don’t care that today is the only time Fitz has free!  I am not available!” 
Son of a bitch!
  That name is the absolute last one I wanted to hear today, or ever.  “You tell Tom I
will not
be downstairs waiting for him in a half hour.”  Jealousy courses through me at the idea that I will lose some of my precious time with my girl to those two.  The only thing that keeps me from flying into a green-eyed rage is hearing her desperate efforts to keep it from happening.  “Fine!” she growls then hangs up the phone. “God damn it!”  Had her exclamation not confirmed it, the sag of her body and the anger coloring her cheeks did.  She lost.  “I have to go.”

I want to argue and remind her that she actually doesn’t have to do anything, but I also don’t want to fight or make her feel worse than she already does.  I press my lips to her temple and hold her in my arms. “How long will you be gone?”

I get the answer I expect. “I don’t know.  A couple of hours at most.  I swear I’ll do everything in my power to have it not be that long.  I understand if you wouldn’t want to but do you mind hanging out here until I get back?”

Do I mind?
  But rather than voicing that while jumping up and down like an excited schoolgirl, I manage to say calmly, “Not at all.”

Empathy Delacroix: The Offer

Tom’s car pulls up in front of my building and Walter opens the door for me.  I’ve barely taken my seat before Tom leans over to kiss my cheek.  The action is standard for us but now that I have Richard it makes me uncomfortable.  “That’s enough,” I say gently with a palm on his chest to keep him at bay.  I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but the new boundaries of our relationship need to be established.

“So the detective, huh?  I guess I can’t say I didn’t see that one coming.”  His tone speaks volumes about his opinions on my choice of boyfriend.  Not that I’m surprised by it.  Tom has never been a fan of any of the men I’ve casually dated over the years.  He has outlasted them all, as the ever-constant friend, and I’m aware that he expects to do so again.

“What does that mean?”

“It means it was obvious to anyone who knows you that he was more than a cop needing help on a case,” Tom explains with a furrowed brow.  “I’ve never seen you take to someone the way you’ve taken to him.”  I shrug off his comment.  Richard is none of his business.  “But I have to ask, Em.  You sure he’s not using you to get the access to us he can’t get because a judge won’t issue a warrant?”

That gets my attention and I give Tom every hateful bit of it.  How dare he even insinuate such a thing!  “Who says they can’t get a warrant and how would you know anyway?”

“
I
confer with my lawyer,” he counters.  “If
you would
call yours,
you would
know as well.  They’ve submitted for a number of search warrants and all have been denied due to lack of probable cause.  Everything they have surrounding Annie is speculation.”  My mouth falls open as he expounds on all of this.  “You seem stunned.  Your detective didn’t tell you?”

And there is the first crack Tom is trying to put in my trust in Richard.  Some would call me naïve; some would say I have on blinders, but Tom is who he is.  I accepted all of that years ago when I decided I found his friendship valuable, for more than just professional reasons.  Richard can’t talk to me about his cases, especially one that involves me.  Why would I be upset when he doesn’t give me details about Annie’s?

The car slows and Tom’s driver gets out and opens my door, ending the search for weak spots in my new relationship.  We are in front of the Mandarin Oriental, which means lunch is at Asiate, an upscale New York restaurant that overlooks Central Park.  It also means that I could have walked here had Tom just given Trevor the address.  Heaven forbid the man not monopolize as much of my time as he possibly can!

"Tom, good to see you.” Fitz stands to happily greet Tom and shake his hand after we are shown to our table.  “And my sweet Em, our time was cut short last night.  You’re feeling better, I hope?”  His arms open as if he expects me to joyfully walk into them.  I arch an eyebrow at him instead and he responds by reaching out to grab my arm.