Hot and Irresistible (7 page)

Char pulled in a deep breath and forced a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Brie, honey, you’re all out of sorts because of Beau and you’ve been in this hotel a million times, so you just dreamed up this girl, is all. Let’s go in the bar. I truly think we need the bar.” She turned to Rutledge. “And I believe there are guests at the front desk who could use your expert touch.”

Rutledge took another look at the picture on the wall, then cut his eyes back to Brie. “Listen to Ms. Charlotte. You have had a troublesome day and it is likely you imagined this woman. Yes, that certainly must be it, and you can put the whole episode out of your mind.”

He hurried off, and Charlotte said to Brie in a hushed voice, “I’m not saying you didn’t see this woman, but I don’t want to be freaking out the other employees and customers around here.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Even by Savannah standards, this hotel is beyond strange. I bet Mr. Rutledge believes you, too; he’s just trying to smooth things over. He’s very good at that with the guests. You can’t imagine how many complaints Griff and I get about furniture moving around on the fourth floor…and there aren’t any rooms up there and hardly a day goes by that the elevator doesn’t get stuck and the lights flicker and alarms go off and that picture of Robert E. Lee on the stairway is always crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and cell phones ring in the middle of the night and—”

Brie put her hand over Charlotte’s mouth. “I get it, but you’ve got to stop talking about this right now or I’m going to have an aneurysm. But why would…whoever…or whatever…visit me? Why warn me?”

“It’s an apparition,” Char mumbled under the hand before Brie took it away. “Who knows what the rules are for them, but what you need right now is a little bourbon.”

“How about a lot of bourbon? I’ll call Prissy and Bebe and you get the hooch. It’s no fun to get hammered all by ourselves.” She glanced back at the photo and shivered. “Definitely hammered.”

With it being Saturday night, the bar was crowded to the rafters and Brie gave a couple at a table by the window fifty dollars to drink somewhere else. She’d never done anything like that before, but life had never been quite like this before…a lost boyfriend replaced by a fixed-up boyfriend and a visit from the friendly neighborhood apparition.

Elbowing her way through the throng, Charlotte plopped a bottle of whiskey and four glasses in the middle of the little table. Without saying a word, she splashed out the liquor and the two of them held up their glasses. “To sanity.”

Bebe walked up and took the glass right out of BrieAnn’s hand and downed the bourbon in one swallow.

“Hey,” BrieAnn groused. “That was mine. I’ve had a really rotten day. And you’re in jeans, least I think they’re jeans. They’re so baggy it’s hard to tell.”

“I’m packing heat and now I’m a little smashed.”

“Right,” Brie nodded. “Great jeans. Fit you like a glove. I want some.”

“No need to overdo.” Prissy sank into the fourth chair as Bebe smoothed her baggy sweater that no amount of smoothing would ever improve, though Brie thought it best to keep that to herself.

“I’ll tell you about rotten,” Bebe said. “Yesterday I put on those high heels like you all said I should and ended up doing the horizontal hula with McCabe in the mortuary kitchen on the table.”

“Holy Hannah,” Prissy said. Charlotte and Brie stared, their mouths gaping. “That’s some reaction to shoes and the table. How was the hula?”

“I haven’t done all that much hula-ing, you understand, but with McCabe…” Bebe grabbed two handfuls of her hair, her eyes wild.

Charlotte grinned. “That good, huh.”

“And now I can’t concentrate on anything but…dancing, and I couldn’t sleep, so I took the day off. McCabe’s been calling me every half hour and Ray Cleveland’s going to wind up in jail if I don’t get my act together quick and get rid of McCabe. The only good part about me and McCabe is that I’m not starved all the time and I’ve lost ten pounds.” She took a swallow of bourbon straight from the bottle and passed it to Prissy, even though the Magnolia House wasn’t exactly a pass-the-bottle kind of place.

“And I thought my life was crazy with the Italian brothers deciding to rehab the morgue themselves and the good sisters having a hissy. Have you ever seen a bunch of nuns running around having hissies? Let me tell you, they’re never going to get to heaven that way. They’re counting on this money to help with the runaway shelter and now we’ve lost the job and I think there’s something very strange going on with Anthony and Vincent. They can’t remodel for beans.”

Prissy rummaged around in her purse. “I’m not sure what to do with my rehab problems, but I do have a cure for Bebe in here somewhere. Wait till you see.” She pulled out a spiral book. “Here it is, Casillero del Espiritu, this is the Cave of the Spirits. I’ve learned some fine new spells from grandma Minerva and—”

“No,” they all said at once, Charlotte snatching the book from Prissy’s fingertips and holding it out of her reach. “Remember the morgue and the casket room when you spelled last week. You nearly burned the place down with us in it. No Casillero del Espiritu.”

Bebe passed the bottle the other way, and Prissy grabbed back the book. “Look what you went and did, you tainted my notes with spilled booze. Bad mojo.” She turned the damp pages. “Let’s see…potions, charms, tarot, spells. Here we are, a spell for nonfraternization.”

Charlotte hiccupped. “Sounds more like a legal document than some spell.”

“Don’t argue with the book.” Prissy hooked her finger at Bebe. “Give me something from your purse.”

“This is crazy. I don’t believe in any of this hocus-pocus, and besides I don’t trust you.”

“Like you have a choice. Are you willing to take the chance of falling for McCabe for real, of Ray Cleveland ending up in jail or you winding up in Boston? Honey, are you truly willing to take a chance on being a Yankee, because if you get it on with that man and you get all serious…it’s Yankee time for you and the land of beans and Sox.”

They all made the sign of the cross and Bebe slid her cell phone to the middle of the table.

“Got anything of McCabe’s?”

“No.” Bebe did an eye roll. “Well, maybe, sort of.” She pulled a condom wrapper from her purse and four pair of eyes zeroed in on the torn blue foil next to the phone.

“Dang. A hula trophy. I guess that will work,” Prissy said. “Now I need some jewelry.” Rings, necklaces, and bracelets littered the table. No one wanted to see Bebe a Yank. “Too bad we don’t have that missing necklace to add to this pile. Bet that would conjure up some serious mojo for this spell.” Prissy eyed Bebe. “Do you have any clues at all where the necklace might be?”

“Just thinking of that thing gives me the shivers.” Charlotte took a sip of bourbon. “It’s probably pretty with all those diamonds, but my parents were killed for it, Otis Parish had to marry Camilla because of it being gone, Ray Cleveland lost his baby daughter over it, and it was the reason Prissy’s mama left her on the nunnery doorstep. I hope I never see that necklace as long as I live.”

Bebe stared at the pile of jewelry, her eyes going a little crossed. “Not that I believe in such things,” she said in a low voice. “But with all the evil that surrounds that necklace and with me being three sheets to the wind at the moment, I’m thinking the dang thing’s cursed; there’s no other explanation for all that’s going on with it. Not one good thing has come from it, only bad. If I found that necklace I swear I wouldn’t tell a soul about it. I’d split the diamonds, sell them off bit by bit, and drop the cash on the nunnery doorstep for their shelter.”

“Amen.” Prissy nodded. “But you can’t be doing that if you’re far off in Boston doing whatever things Yankees do.” She cleared her throat, stared intently at the pile in the middle of the table and read,

Bebe rubbed her eyes and tried to focus. “That didn’t sound right at all.”

“We’re zonked. Nothing sounds right.” Prissy tapped the book. “Trust me, it’s all there, just like I read it, word for word I wrote it down from Minerva so there’d be no more screwups.” She grinned. “I ran it though spell check. A little soothsayer humor.”

They all groaned and Bebe burped. “I’ve got a really weird feeling.” She stood and put her hand to her head. “I’ve got to go.”

“See,” Prissy purred as Bebe headed for the door. “The spell’s working already. She’s forgetting about McCabe.”

BrieAnn idly flipped through the book, then stopped. She peeled apart two wet stuck-together pages. “Oh…dear…heaven. You might want to rethink the working part.”

She yanked her cell phone from her purse and hit number two speed dial for Bebe. “Pick up, pick up, pick up. I positively forbid you to send me to voice mail,” she pleaded till a phone rang and rang and rang from under the pile of jewelry in the middle of the table.

D
onovan parked his Jeep in front of the morgue. Streetlights cast a yellow glow on the sidewalk and cars. Joggers, families, and couples walking hand in hand meandered through Forsythe Park, and Donovan couldn’t remember the last time he meandered or felt anything romantic. Hell, since Sly died he couldn’t remember feeling period.

For the last ten months he’d been in a fog, doing the next thing that came along. He’d kept busy, and if life slowed down and he started to think about Sly, he came up with more stuff to do, like putting together the task force on organized crime, going to Atlanta for that conference, and saying yes to that abysmal congressman and winding up in Savannah. Donovan felt as if he were blood and bones held together by skin…until…until…ah, shit…until yesterday in the kitchen in this morgue on the table.

He stopped at the wrought-iron fence in front of the morgue and gazed up at the kitchen window remembering Bebe, her head in the fridge and gnawing on drumsticks. And he remembered the sex. Like he’d ever forget. Mind-blowing, all-consuming sex. Had sex ever been like that before? It was always good, but with Bebe Fitzgerald, sex was out of this freaking world. Maybe because sex wasn’t casual with her. Friends with benefits was a term Bebe Fitzgerald would never use. Sex with Bebe counted.

And…added the voice of sanity under all that freaking…Bebe Fitzgerald was the very last person he should get involved with because there was a little matter of Ray Cleveland sitting right between them. And the Ray Cleveland situation was not going to get any better, because Donovan had decided to take Joe Earl up on his suggestion of finding evidence to connect Cleveland with the murder. In fact, that’s one of the reasons he was here at the morgue now. The other reason was the thought of going back to a hotel room alone sucked.

The morgue was dark, the only light spilling from the partially open third-floor window. Donovan banged on the front door and yelled, “Hey, anybody home in there?”

A man who looked like an older George Clooney covered in sawdust stuck his head out the third story. “Buon giorno. Can I be of help to you this fine evening?”

Donovan flashed his badge upward. “I’m Detective McCabe. I’d like to take another look at the room where that fire was.”

“At this hour of the night?”

“Things look different in the dark. I won’t be long.” It wasn’t hard to tell the guy didn’t want any part of a cop snooping in his place, but he faked a smile, probably because pissing off the police was never a good idea.

“Of course, that would be okay. I am Anthony Biscotti.”

“Biscotti like the cookie?”

“Yes, the cookie. Why the cookie? Always the cookie.” The man sighed as if bored to his toes by the comparison he’d probably heard all his life. “My brother Vincent and I are working up here to…to restore. If you find anything…I mean if you are in need of anything we will be pleased to be of help to you. The side door is open. There is a post light.”

Donovan gave a little salute and headed for the rear of the stone building to get to the other side. Sounds of hammering and sawing drifted from the third floor and then a light flickered across the window on the second floor. A flashlight? Donovan stopped and gazed at the window. Someone was up there, shadows moving in the dark rooms. If it was the brothers, they’d turn on the light. Wanting to see the other windows to maybe catch a distinguishing silhouette, Donovan retraced his steps. He rounded the corner and ran into Bebe.

“What in the heck are you doing here?”

Donovan put his hand over her mouth and drew her against the building. He whispered in her ear, “There’s someone on the second floor. I want to find out who it is, and that’s not going to happen if they see us first.”

She yanked his hand away and glared. “Vince and Anthony live here, second floor and all.” That’s what her delicious mouth said, but her eyes were lit with fire in the early moonlight, her body pressing closer to his instead of pulling away. Her breasts rose and fell against his chest, turning him on, making his dick hard as the stone they huddled against and his brain put any thoughts of an intruder someplace far away for the moment. “What the hell are we doing?”

“Nothing. We’re not supposed to be doing anything at all. Zip. Nada. Zilch. I have a spell on me to prove it, though I don’t think it worked. Does anything of Prissy’s ever work? You think I’d know better.”

She smelled of herbal shampoo and expensive bourbon and he tangled his fingers into her silky hair, the strands running over his palm. He kissed her, the taste of warm alcohol in her mouth and lingering on her tongue as it mated with his. “I’d say the spell worked damn fine.”

“It was supposed to keep us
from
doing…this, not
to
doing this,” Bebe whispered, looking as confused as he felt.

“Tell Prissy not to give up her day job.”

Bebe slid her arms around his neck, and her fingertips dug into his shoulders. Her pelvis pressed intimately against his erection and he nearly lost consciousness. God, he wanted her! He had never wanted a woman this much before. The quiet whimpers of desire deep in Bebe’s throat as he kissed her again and again assured him the feeling was mutual.

Her sweater was soft under his hands and he pushed aside the material, connecting with bare skin, then full lush breasts. Nipples strained against a thin bra and he released them, the delicate weight resting in his palm. His thumb stroked the tips and she moaned and sank against him.

His muscles tensing, his hands stroked her back, then cupped the sweet mounds of her tight ass. He slid his right hand over her slim hip; his fingers then trailed through soft pubic hair and slipped into her wet heat ready and wanting him. She gasped once, then again at her unexpected climax, her mouth opening wide, and he kissed her harder, longer, deeper as she shuddered, another orgasm taking her again. Her reaction to his impromptu lovemaking was an incredible turn-on and he grabbed at every ounce of self-control he possessed to not take her here on the driveway. Gazing up at him, her eyes cloudy from her orgasm, he said. “Why are you here?”

“Why are you?”

“I was taking a walk and saw your car.” She nibbled his chin.

“You’re not going to like my answer.”

“I really like the result.” She kissed him slowly, her lips warm and soft and mesmerizing. His dick was about to explode. He took a big breath to calm down…yeah, like that would work. “I’m never going to get that warrant for Cleveland.”

“Oh, I like that part a lot, sounding better the more I think about it.” Her tongue slid into his mouth, suggesting exactly what he wanted to do. “And I like this part. I think I want more of this part.”

“Since the warrant idea is out, I’m here to find evidence to link Cleveland to the murder that happened thirty years ago. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

She blinked a few times, the words slowly sinking in through the whiskey. “Cleveland? Murder?”

“I’ll get Cleveland any way I can, Bebe.”

“You bastard!” She pushed him away, and he tripped on a rock and landed flat on his ass. That was one painful way to kill a hard-on.

“I never want to see you again as long as I live, and the way my head is starting to pound, that may not be all that long.” She stormed off, but he caught up with her.

“We work together. We need to get through this.”

“If I don’t die, maybe you should. I know the islands; they’d never find your pitiful carcass anywhere.”

An SUV pulled out from an adjoining alleyway and headed up Drayton. Bebe’s eyes widened, her gaze following the car. Even in the darkness he could see her pale.

“Who was that?”

“It’s just a car, McCabe. There are lots of them in Savannah.”

“Black, tinted windows and you weren’t happy to see it. In fact you were shocked. It was Cleveland, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t be this defensive otherwise. And what better time for him to snoop around the morgue than on Saturday night, the busiest night at the Cove, when he won’t be missed for an hour or two? The man’s looking for something, Bebe. He was here for a reason. To find the necklace that went missing because there’s more, something that will connect him as the murderer. He’s the one behind the hauntings that have kept people away from the morgue all these years. I’d bet on it.”

“Then you’d lose.”

He held her shoulders so she’d have to look him in the eyes. “Ray Cleveland’s into this murder up to his neck. You’ve got to see that. The evidence keeps growing. You can’t protect this guy forever and why the hell are you doing it anyway? What’s he to you?”

“Because one night Dara did leave me in the marsh. Ray Cleveland found me and cleaned me up and fed me. He took me back to Dara, but he must have said something to her because she never did that to me again. Cleveland was a friend when I needed a friend really bad and now he needs me and I’m not letting him down and I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you say and I can tell you’ve never had a real friend or you’d get it. You don’t trust anyone and that’s a sad way to live, Donovan McCabe. Fact is, I feel sorry for you.”

This time her eyes were clouded with tears she probably didn’t know were there and it damn-near broke his heart. He let her go and she ran off, her long legs eating up the sidewalk as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough, her blond hair dancing across her shoulders in the moonlight. “Ah, fuck a duck.”

“Bet you can come up with something a hell of a lot better to fuck than a damn duck.”

The voice sounded like…Impossible! He spun around and faced…“S—Sly? Sly! Holy shit, Sly!”

Donovan blinked a few times to clear his vision, but his partner was still there, leaning against the side of the building, smoking a cigarette, the red tip glowing in the dark. His craggy face looked younger than Donovan remembered, but did anyone look good in a casket? He had on his usual attire of worn jeans, beat-up black leather jacket that he was probably born in, and his Sox baseball cap that Donovan had given him for Christmas years ago. “You look good. I can’t believe I said that.”

“A morgue is the last place I want to be.” He laughed. “Hell, I guess it really was the last place for me. But the timing’s right, so here I am.” He nodded after Bebe. “And knowing you, I bet that’s where the fucking part comes in. She is some hot babe.” Sly gave a soft whistle, then laughed again. “And she’s a cop. Now that’s got to be damn interesting.”

Donovan sat, mostly because seeing Sly was damn unnerving. “Christ, I miss you.”

“Yeah, I figured as much. How are Mom and Pop doing?”

Donovan felt his chest tighten into a painful knot. Their only son was dead and they were old. Shit. “They’re doing okay. They started the Sly Monroe Memorial Fund down at the station. That helps a lot, gives them focus.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Working the case like always, except this one happens to be here where some gal named Paula Deen is queen and the city has roaches the size of small dogs.”

“I mean, what are you doing with your whole goddamn life? You’re wasting it, that’s what you’re doing. Where do you live, kid?”

Donovan shrugged. “Still got my place down on Dorchester and—”

“Not there. Here.” Sly pointed to Donovan’s heart. “Don’t do what I did…work, eat, sleep, get in the way of one too many bullets. There’s more than getting the bad guys. There’s the girl.”

“Yeah, well, that’s never going to happen, especially this time around.”

Sly laughed long and low, pulling drags off the cigarette. “When you’re standing where I am, never’s one hell of a long time. Don’t waste what you got right in front of you. Sure beats cuddling up with your badge every night and coming home to nothing but a gun in your pocket and a six-pack in your hand. She’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

“You came here to tell me that?”

“Can you think of a better reason for me to show up on your doorstep?”

“What about the case? I’m drawing a blank here. There’s a bad guy who’s not all that bad, and I’m going to send him to prison and there’s the reason I’ll lose the girl. I could do with a little help. What am I missing?”

“Forget the case, take the girl. You always were the brains of our little duo, but you’re acting like you have shit for gray matter now.” Sly grinned, this one more big-brother than cop. “Sure good to see you, kid. Keep an eye on Mom and Pop, okay?”

Sly exhaled, and as the smoke from the cigarette dissipated, he faded into the night, leaving Donovan on the bench with chirping crickets and frogs for company. Staring at the empty bench, he felt more alone than ever. He would have sworn on a stack of Bibles he’d dreamed this whole damn thing except for the cigarette on the ground, red tip glowing, and the hollow feeling in his belly.

Was Bebe worth the fight? He could screw anyone who was willing, but being with Bebe was always more. Women came and went, but when Bebe did the leaving, he felt the absence. He didn’t want her to go, even if they were arguing. And as much as he hated that she wouldn’t give up Cleveland, it was the thing he admired most about her. Bebe was for real. Bebe was from the heart. Loyalty counted more than anything and no one felt loyalty like a cop.

Why couldn’t he fall for that cute little waitress at the Pirate House or that blonde who brought him extra towels every night at Magnolia House and made it clear she’d be willing to give him a lot more than fresh linens? No, he had the hots for someone who’d like nothing more than to see his taillights heading off to Boston or have his hide stuffed and mounted over her fireplace.