“You’re a prince,” Willow said and kissed his cheek. “What’s Fabio afraid of?” she whispered while their faces were close.
“Rabid bats? Voodoo? Disappearing like Chris did? Getting sucked into the case at all? Who knows? He’s a good guy.”
Willow liked him even more for his defense of Fabio. “Sure he is. It’s natural to be nervous around all this.”
“Well, you people have had plenty of practice,” he said with a smile that sent friendly crinkles from the corners of his eyes. “Me, I never could stay away from the action—any action. Er, we do have an audience, kid. They don’t look happy to see me. Who’s the dangerous-looking guy?”
“Which one?”
Rock U. raised one corner of his mouth. “The one sitting on the desk. I already know Ben Fortune when I see him.”
“The other one is my brother, Sykes. And he is dangerous, but only if he’s got a reason not to like you.”
“Uh-huh. Okay then, I’m fine. I am so likable it hurts sometimes.”
Willow led him to Pascal’s office and ushered him inside. “This is my friend, Rock U. He’s a tattoo artist.”
“Really?” Sykes said, and Willow admired how straight he kept his face.
“His shop is in the building with my offices.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “We walked through it to get to you, remember?”
In fact, she had completely forgotten. “That’s right. Rock’s taking Chris’s place on a job for me this morning.”
Rock said, “Yes.”
Willow looked sideways at him. “I’m really sorry, folks, but I’ll have to leave now. I’ll try to get back as early as possible.”
Marley stood up. “Have they said what they want you to do—exactly?”
“No.” And Willow didn’t appreciate Marley opening the door to questions, not that Marley did so deliberately.
Willow couldn’t avoid looking at Sykes’s deep blue, very suspicious eyes. “What is this job that’s so important you have to leave in the middle of everything?” He looked significantly at the delicate key on its white velvet bed.
“As much as anything else, it’s duty,” Willow said. “For some reason, Chloe Brandt trusted me. She wanted me to take over running her home and that isn’t a decision you make lightly.”
“She seemed to,” Ben said neutrally.
Willow ignored him. “Her best friend, Vanity, called Zinnia and asked to get hold of me. Vanity’s the model. Zinnia thinks fast so she put her off and contacted me directly herself. Evidently, Vanity was even closer to Chloe than I knew. She’s going to pieces and begging me to go over there to manage things in the coming days.”
“So now you’re a funeral director?” Sykes said.
Willow stared at him, and he had the grace to pull in one corner of his mouth in a rueful way.
“If anyone can help them, you can,” Ben said, surprising Willow. “You’ll stay with her, Marley?”
“Of course. And no one’s talking about arranging a funeral, Sykes—that won’t happen anytime soon, will it?”
“Probably not,” Sykes said, already back to being cynical.
Ben glanced at Rock U. as if he wished the man would disappear. “We’ll be around,” he told Willow, with emphasis on
“You’re kidding me,” Sykes said. “You’re going to let her go back into that house?”
“I can’t stop her if she wants to go,” Ben said, although Willow wasn’t fooled by his innocent expression. She wanted to know his angle.
Pascal had been silent to this point. He stirred. “You really think this is a good idea, Ben? I don’t believe you like it any more than I do. If that’s true, put your foot down.”
Rock U. whistled tunelessly and Ben laughed. “If that means you’d like to see me try stopping Willow from doing what she wants to,” Ben said to the man, “I can’t oblige. I pick my battles. And I always avoid sure losers.”
“Yes,” Rock U. said, catching Willow’s narrow stare.
“I don’t like it that I’ve got something to prove,” Willow said. “It’s not the only reason to go in there and do the best job I can, but I’m a pragmatist. Nothing will convince people I’m not part of some sort of killing campaign faster than if it gets around that I am in the Brandt house at Vanity’s and Val’s request. People don’t ask murderers into their homes.”
“Mrs. Brandt was killed in that house,” Pascal said. He folded his arms over his broad chest. “You may not be allowed back there. Have you thought of that? It’s a crime scene. Do you want to be filmed for the news being turned away by the police?”
Willow had already thought of this slant. The risk was worth taking. “Got to go now, folks. Keep a TV on so you don’t miss any action.” They deserved better from her than sarcasm. “That wasn’t funny. Sorry. Please don’t worry about us.”
Walking away from them wasn’t easy. Willow and Marley did it anyway.
Rock didn’t interrupt their thoughts, but drove quietly Uptown.
Willow turned the pieces of information they had over, tried to fit them together from different directions.
“Embran,” Marley said from behind her. “They aren’t giving up.”
“How many of them are here?” Willow thought aloud. She remembered Rock was listening and didn’t say any more.
“That’s what Gray was talking about last night,” Marley said. “It’s not knowing that makes us vulnerable.”
Willow nodded. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to be part—”
“You’re with us now,” Marley said. “And remember, none of this is your fault.”
“I’m being used.”
“We’ll find out why,” Marley said.
Willow swallowed, sickened by her next thought: would they find out why she had been singled out before the Embran got what they wanted?
Chapter 25
“You’re sure Marley and Willow are okay?” Gray asked Ben. “I’ve seen what those things are capable of, and it isn’t pretty.”
Gray was a very unhappy man at the thought of Marley being closer to any danger than she had to be.
It was lunchtime and they’d just arrived at Café du Monde in the French Market.
“Sykes is on it,” Ben said, repeating what Gray already knew. “Nat asked for you and me to come. If we made an excuse to stay away, he’d ask too many questions.”
“Let him ask,” Gray said belligerently. “Marley’s my wife, not his.”
“You think this is easier for me?”
Gray sighed and shook his head.
Ben slid his arms forward on the table, picking up powdered sugar as he did so. “I didn’t know Café du Monde was a cop hangout,” he said, watching tourists laughing and snorting the white sugar from platters of hot beignets all over their clothes. The more they brushed at the powder, the more it spread, and not all of them kept laughing.
“It’s not,” Gray said. In this light, with one side of his face in sunlight, if Ben concentrated, partially using his third eye, he could see faint signs of the vicious scars showing through from the inside of his cheek, scars from wounds that had all but slashed their way to the outside. “Nat’s decided he’s invisible here because people he
