Eternal Hunter (17 page)

She stepped forward. “I’m not. Just finishing up some old business.” True enough.

Judge Lance Harper. The judge with a reputation for playing with the ladies. The judge with three ex-wives. The judge with the giant house on Blakely Road.

The judge who’d let Donald Trent walk.

He was the judge she and a half dozen cops suspected was on the take. Because Harper let too many criminals walk from his court.

Too many bastards like Trent.

His handsome face turned solemn. “If you’re reviewing your files, then you know about…Sylvia.”

Her eyes narrowed. What was that? Regret? Did the guy feel
guilty
about what had happened?

She sure did. “Yes, I know.”

“Pity.” He sounded like he meant it. Where had his pity been when he’d let Trent walk? “I remember she had those two boys…”

Jude straightened his shoulders. He had at least three inches on the judge and a good forty pounds. “The boys are being taken care of.”

Harper blinked. “I’m sorry. Are you the new ADA?”

“No.” A growl. His gaze raked the older man. Harper was in his early fifties but the guy could have passed for forty. All those gym memberships she’d heard about.

Brown eyes narrowed. “Then who are you?”

Erin grabbed Jude’s hand. “He’s with me.” That was really all the judge needed to know.

Arrogant ass. She’d always hated going into his court. She’d made a point of wearing her longest skirts and her most concealing blouses.

Hot Harper
might have been a favorite with some of the other female lawyers, but no way had she ever wanted to be considered for wife position number four.

“Ah…I see.” Harper blinked. “Does Cartwright know you’re down here?”

District Attorney Kent Cartwright. “Yes. He knows.” Kent had been the one to help her get the job in Baton Rouge. He’d also been the guy Jude grilled for half an hour that morning. Kent swore he hadn’t told anyone where she went, and Erin was inclined to believe him. His responses had been too genuine.

“And why are you down here, Judge?” The demand came from Jude, but it was a question also on the tip of Erin’s tongue. Being in the basement was on par with slumming for Harper.

And on a Saturday?

His lips thinned. “I was…planning to meet an associate here. To discuss a private matter.”

Oh, yes. Right. Ten to one odds said the associate was a female.

A most likely
married
female if they were meeting in the basement, far away from prying eyes.

“Erin!” Cartwright’s sharp voice. He shouldered into the room, casting a quick, somewhat bemused stare at Harper. “Erin, I just got a call from the PD, thought you’d want to know…”

Not good. Couldn’t be good.

“A tip came in last night.” The tiny room was too crowded. “The caller said he knew where Donald Trent’s body was buried.”

The air seemed to leave her body in a hard rush.

Her eyes locked on Cartwright. The DA was just a few years older than she was. He had a politician’s open face. Light brown hair. Worried blue eyes.

Good old Kent.
He hadn’t given her secrets away
. No, not him.

“Where?” The question was soft.

His lips thinned. “According to the tapes from 911…the body is in the woods behind Katherine LaShaun’s place.”

Sonofabitch.

She slammed the files closed. Jude was already moving, shoving past the other two men. Clearing her way.

He was real good at clearing the way.

Erin hurried into the hall. Rounded a sharp corner behind Jude and—

Smacked right into Lacy Davis. A clerk in the DA’s office. Friendly, flirty,
married
Lacy.

The woman grunted and stumbled. “Erin?” Her eyes, dark green, widened. “When did you get back in town?” Her gaze drifted over Erin’s shoulders and a red flush stained her cheeks. “J-Judge H-Harper, what are you doing here? I thought you’d—”

She did not have time for this. Jude stood next to the elevator, holding the doors open and waiting for her. Great. “Got to go, Lacy, we’ll catch up”—not really, they’d never been close—“later.”

She hurried forward, heart racing. Donald Trent’s body? Oh, hell.

“Not so fast, Jerome.”

Kent’s voice. The hard and sharp tone that he usually just delivered in court.

She glanced back at him. She saw the judge reach for Lacy’s hand. He leaned in close and murmured something to her. Erin’s jaw locked and she gritted, “Kent, if they found his body—”

He slanted a quick glance over at the judge, then stalked to her side. “You don’t work for me anymore,” he said, softer now. Probably so the judge wouldn’t overhear. Like that guy was paying them any attention now. “You can’t go storming onto a crime scene.”

“But it was
my
case.” Still was, if he only knew what was really happening.

“Was,”
he threw back at her. “It’s just mine now.” His shoulders straightened. “I always liked you, Erin.” A gentleness in his eyes. Flashed there so briefly. “You’re tough, smart, but my favors for you end here. You don’t work for me anymore,” he said again. “And I can’t let you interfere with an investigation.”

Hell. The damn thing was—he was right. No way should she be at a crime scene. But she
needed
to be at this one.

“Who is the detective on this?” Jude asked.

“Ben Greer. He’s coming in early to handle things.” Kent’s stare bored into her. “You know he’ll do this right.”

Yes, and she also knew he wouldn’t let her anywhere near the case, either. Erin gave a grudging nod.

Then the DA brushed by her. He caught the elevator Jude had kept for her and vanished behind the heavy metal doors.

Erin looked over her shoulder. The judge and Lacy were gone. They’d probably ducked into one of the rooms for a “meeting.”

“They won’t have anything for hours anyway,” Jude said. “The cops will have to search the woods with dogs.”

He was right.

“Then it’ll take ’em time to dig up the body.”

Her eyes closed. “What will it do to the boys?” They’d already been through enough.

A brief hesitation, then, “Call Katherine. Tell her to get the boys out of there—and to keep ‘em out until this mess is over.”

Erin’s lashes lifted. “But that’s against protocol—” She stopped. She didn’t work for the Lillian DA any more. He’d just said so himself.

“Call her,” Jude repeated, eyes intense. “Tell her to get the boys the hell out of there.”

The cops would be on their way over to her place now. There wouldn’t be much time.

“They don’t need to see their old man’s body dug up.”

No, and they didn’t need their only safe haven turned into hell right in front of their eyes.

Screw protocol. Not her case? Fuck it. Those boys were hers. She snatched out her cell phone. Dialed the number she’d memorized yesterday. When a woman’s soft voice answered, she said, “Katherine, it’s Erin Jerome. We don’t have much time, and I need you to listen carefully…”

A line of motorcycles blocked the entrance to Mort’s Bar. Pickups snaked and twisted, filling up the parking lot, and the blare of country music trembled in the air.

Erin slammed the door of Jude’s truck and stared at the bar. Night had fallen, bathing the city in darkness. The thick darkness hid the sagging sides and the dipping roof of Mort’s.

She’d been in this bar once before. A blind date that had gone to hell very fast.

Not her kind of place. Too loud. Too drunk. Too many men with free hands.

Gravel crunched beneath Jude’s shoes. She glanced at him when he rounded the front of the vehicle. “You think the vamp was telling the truth?” The guys in this place tended to run more toward the “good old boys” and not the paranormal predators.

Though she sure knew those good old boys could be predators, too.

“She was.” He sounded absolutely certain.

Erin raised a brow.

“She knows if she lied, I’ll just come back for her.” A barring of his fangs. Damn, he already had his fangs out. This wasn’t going to be a good night. “And if I do that, I won’t be so nice.”

Right. Because he’d been all goodness and light during that first showdown.

Her eyes darted back to the entrance. Smoke drifted lazily from the front door. Not a fire, just a shitload of folks with cigarettes, cigars, and who knew what else inside. Her hands balled into fists. “No sense standing around here all night. Let’s go.”

They started forward together. A loud wolf whistle split the air, and Jude froze. His gaze immediately tracked to the left, to the two men sitting on the back of a gray pickup truck. His growl vibrated in the air. “Don’t make me come over there and kick the shit out of you.”

The men jumped up and hurriedly ran into the shadows. Erin figured they weren’t in the mood to lose their shit.

Jude spared her a glance. “I don’t have time for assholes.”

“Neither do I.” But she smiled. Because Jude made her feel…aw, hell, he just made her
feel.

A burly bouncer blocked the bar’s door. “Twenty bucks.” He didn’t look up from his comic book.

Jude tossed him the cash and sauntered inside.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, the smoke got five times thicker. It flooded her nostrils, seeming to burn her nasal passages. What
was
that? Not cigarettes. This was stronger. Almost like incense but—

“Got us someone smart in here,” Jude whispered, reaching for her hand and pulling her close as he surveyed the crowd. “Bastard’s blocking all the scents with the kymine.”

“What? Ky-kymine? What’s—”

“A scent that fucks up a shifter’s nose, that’s what.” His eyes swept the crowd again. “Vamps in the west came up with it a few years back. They use it to even up the hunting field.”

Erin felt like she had to sneeze. She rubbed her nose, trying to stop the itch.

“Won’t do you any good.” He glanced up at the air vents. “Bet they’re pumping it in from there.”

Great. “So…they knew we were coming?” Not a good thought. Hell, she didn’t even know who “they” were. The good old boys? The not so good old boys?

She inched a bit closer to Jude and felt the sting of her claws as they began to stretch beneath her skin. If they were in for a fight, she wanted to be ready. “You think the vamp sold us out?”

“Could be.” He didn’t sound particularly concerned. “Or maybe this isn’t for us.”

The wolf.

“If the bastard has been hunting here, the kymine could be for him.” A man in an oversized cowboy hat and his giggling girlfriend staggered past them. “It’d explain how the vamp knew he was here.”

Yes, it would. Erin breathed slowly through her mouth. If she didn’t use her nose, didn’t move it at all, she’d be fine.

Maybe.

“So what do we do next?”

“Well…” He steered her away from the door.
So much for not moving.
Jude didn’t stop advancing until his back was against the wall and he had a good view of the crowd. “We can march up to the bar and announce that we’re here for the wolf.”

She eyed the bar. It was surrounded by men with thick stomachs and big arms, and the women with them—short skirts and give-em-hell grins.

How would that conversation go?
Hi. We’re looking for a werewolf.
Um, no. “What else can we do?”

He turned to her. Winked. “Got a little voyeur in you?”

“What?”

“I can’t hunt in here, and neither can he. But outside…that’s fair game.” He pointed to an exit in the back. A rounded ceiling led the way to darkness. A couple, kissing, groping, headed for the thick door.

Voyeur.
“Watching’s not so much my thing.” But she had a feeling choice wasn’t going to be a big option right then. “I’m more for doing.”

His teeth were a brilliant white flash. “I’ll remember that.”

Then he stalked toward the back exit.

Dammit.

And she followed him.

No choice.

The kymine was driving him crazy. Jude shoved open the back door and sucked in a sharp breath of clean air.

Vampires.
One day, he’d pay them back for the kymine. That crap was being sent all over the U.S., funneled by the undead freaks.

Sometimes, he really hated vamps.

“Jude? You okay?” Erin’s voice. He glanced back at her. She hadn’t been hit as hard. He’d noticed that right off. So he hadn’t told her that the kymine was blistering the inside of his nostrils. Hadn’t told her that if they hadn’t gotten the hell out of that stinking bar, blood would have started pouring from his nose in another two minutes.

But now that they were out, he’d start healing. Unfortunately, even for the strong shifters, it took some time to get kymine out of the system.

Admitting weakness with so many others around hadn’t been an option. Better to just suck up the pain and move on.

Story of his life.

Whispers floated to his ears.

“Jude?” A thread of worry thickened her voice. “Are you sure you’re—” “

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

But her brows were drawn low and she crept closer to him. “You don’t look so good.”

The door swung shut behind her.

Moans teased his ears. Pants. The couple he’d followed outside were already busy. Judging by the man’s groans, they sure seemed to be having one great time in the dark.

“I’m
fine
,” he said again and turned away to scan the thicket of woods around the bar. The perfect place for sex. Groping in the dark. Fucking in the wild.

The man and woman were completely oblivious to everything but their need. Great prey for a wolf, one who wouldn’t have to bother going inside the bar—
damn hole in the wall
—and dealing with the kymine.

The vamp hadn’t told him about the kymine. Probably because she’d been the one to sell it to the bar owner. No wonder she’d known about the wolf.

This really was the perfect place to hunt. Pity he wouldn’t be able to smell the beast coming. It would take at least an hour for the kymine’s side effects to clear up, but if the wolf came hunting, he’d be able to hear the bastard.