After the Storm Read online

  “No. I can’t. We just have to get out of here and we’ll be okay. Come on!”

  They hurried down the street for another three blocks until the crowd finally thinned out. Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping to give Eve a moment of rest before they continued.

  “We need to get a cab. Do you see one?” Kate asked as she looked up and down Canal Street.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Are you still stuck on that idea of hiding out at that flea bag motel tonight?”

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw that man in the black t-shirt again walking slowly down Chartres Street toward them. Why did he continue to follow them?

  Her body settled into flight mode, and she quickly said to Eve, “He’s coming for us. We need to run!”

  Jumping off the curb, she nearly got hit by a car, so she hurried back onto the sidewalk, but Eve couldn’t go any further. Tearing her hand from Kate’s hold, she pleaded with her to just talk to the cop a few blocks back.

  “That’s what he’s there for, honey. He’ll help us.”

  Panic raced through Kate. “No. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know if he can be trusted.”

  Eve opened her bag and took out her phone to dial 9-1-1. “The police can help you, honey. They’ll be here in just a few minutes and then you’ll be safe.”

  She couldn’t keep doing this with her. As much as she didn’t want to go alone to the Bayou Motel, she didn’t have a choice. Eve would only continue to slow her down, and with that man slowly coming toward them step after step, she didn’t have any more time to waste.

  “I can’t! I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you when I’m safe,” she said as she broke into a full run down Canal Street, unsure where she was going but just knowing she had to get the hell out of there.

  A police car sped past her toward where Eve stood, and the last thing she saw before she raced across Canal Street toward the Garden District was a cop getting out of the car to talk to her.

  For now, Kate believed she was safe, but the sooner she got to that motel and into hiding, the better she’d be able to figure out her next step. She didn’t know who had killed her boss, but she suspected she knew why.

  And they’d be coming for her next.

  Chapter Two

  Too many people in one house, even in a house the size of a small country like the Blackmore Estate, meant even when Roman closed the door to his bedroom to find some peace and quiet, he didn’t get what he wanted. If it wasn’t one of the other guys who lived there knocking on his door to ask him something, it was the construction crew working on the addition he kept hearing would make things much better.

  Highly unlikely. It hadn’t happened when they put on the last addition, so why would this time be any different?

  He’d spent time in close quarters with other men in his lifetime. His years in the military had meant living around dozens of other soldiers, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know what it would be like when he signed on to Project Artemis. He also knew how lucky he’d been to be recruited first, which meant he got his own bedroom. At least he could count his blessings for that. If he’d had to share with someone like Julian or Xavier, either they or he would have been dead by now.

  But something about being out there at the estate they all lived on had begun to make him stir crazy in the past few weeks. He hadn’t been out on an assignment in nearly a month. They went in rotation or based on ability, and since being an expert shot hadn’t been required, he wasn’t next in line.

  Not that he necessarily relished the idea of having to go out and work a case.

  No, that wasn’t it. He just needed to get away from the people he saw far too much of every day. No matter what time he ate meals, it seemed he couldn’t find time alone. If he ate breakfast before dawn, someone appeared in the kitchen with him. If he waited and didn’t eat until mid-morning, somehow at least one other man showed up to eat at the same time. It had gotten to the point that he almost accepted the fact that he’d never eat alone again.

  Added to that, the sound of hammers and saws from morning to night made him feel like if he didn’t get the hell away from that place sometime soon, he’d go mad.

  Closing his eyes, he laid his head on the pillow at the top of his bed and tried to push out the sounds of the house around him. He felt like a stranger in his own body. Never before had noise bothered him. He’d done two tours in Afghanistan, so he’d lived through the noise of war, for Christ’s sake. As he lay there wanting to be anywhere else in the world than that bedroom at the end of the house, he wondered why any of this was bothering him now.

  Maybe he just needed to keep himself busy. A few hours out at the shooting range might do him a world of good. With any luck, none of the others would be there too.

  Roman sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he looked around the room for his gun. He and Marius had gone to the range last week, and he thought he’d left it on his dresser.

  Nope. Not there.

  Had Xavier borrowed it again like the last time he noticed it missing?

  Standing, he marched over to the dresser and moved his comb and after shave for no good reason since the gun clearly wasn’t there.

  Damnit! This was another reason he’d grown to hate being around all of them.

  Roman stormed over to his bedroom door and nearly tore it off the hinges when he flung it open. It slammed off the wall as he headed into the hallway to go find Xavier and his gun. That he had to do this at all pissed him off.

  By the time he reached the game room, he wanted to punch something. Or someone. As usual, Xavier and Gideon sat in the leather recliners watching some game. No matter what the season, those two had a sport they watched religiously. It grated on his nerves now for some reason he couldn’t exactly put his finger on as he stood in the doorway looking at the two of them lounged out like two frat boys blowing off class.

  The Indians and some other team played on the big screen TV, large enough to make you feel like you were there at the ballpark. He said Xavier’s name loud enough that both men could hear him, but neither one responded.

  So he said it even louder a second time. Same response.

  “Xavier, where the fuck is my gun?” he bellowed from the doorway.

  Both men turned their heads, their expressions showing their shock that someone had dared to interrupt their lounging around. When Xavier recovered from his surprise, he muted the TV and returned the leather recliner to its usual position, letting his feet fall to the floor.

  “What? Can’t you see we’re trying to watch the game? What’s with coming in here and scaring the hell out of us like that?” he asked, irritated but nowhere close to how pissed Roman felt.

  Taking a step into the room, he stopped and asked his original question again. “Where the fuck is my gun?”

  Xavier looked up toward the ceiling to think about it for a moment and then shrugged. “How the hell would I know?”

  Roman took another step closer to where he sat. “Because you were the last person around it, other than me, and it’s not in my room. Did you borrow it again?”

  The word borrow was the nice way of describing how Xavier had a habit of taking things he liked and not returning them. It made Roman want to beat the hell out of the guy. Often.

  Once again, he looked up toward the ceiling, like someone had written the answer up there. Nodding, he looked over at Roman. “Oh yeah. Remember I asked you to borrow it because I wanted to decide if I should get a Ruger and wanted to get a feel for it?”

  Sometimes this guy made him want to lose his shit. As if a grown man needed to try on a gun like some shirt or pants he wanted to buy.

  “Whatever. Where is it? I want to go to the range, so just go get it.”

  Xavier threw him a disgusted look to tell him he felt put out by his demand and stormed out past him. A few moments later, he reappeared and stuck the gun into his hands. “Here.”


  Roman looked down at his gun and tightened his fingers around the grip as Xavier sat back down in the recliner and turned the sound back up on the baseball game. Gideon looked over at him one last time before focusing his attention back on the TV.

  Disgusted, Roman turned on his heels and walked out, fed up with those two and their frat boy bullshit. He made it two steps into the hallway before Tess nearly ran into him. Persephone and Nick’s very attractive assistant, she was a welcome change to the constant stream of men who seemed to fill his days.

  “Roman, Nick wants to see you,” she said, catching her breath from rushing down the hall.

  He eyed up the beautiful woman who seemed more a gopher than anything else for Nick and Persephone, the two leaders of Project Artemis. Petite with big green eyes and short brown hair, Tess never failed to brighten up the place with her warm smile, and Roman appreciated the interjection of a female in the overwhelming sausagefest the estate had become.

  “Any idea what he wants?” he asked as they began to walk down the hallway toward the other side of the main house.

  She flashed him that gorgeous smile of hers and shook her head. “You know I’m not privy to those kinds of things. I’m merely an assistant.”

  The way she said that told him she knew full well what Nick wanted him for and knew everything that went on at the estate. Merely an assistant. Right.

  “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it,” he said with a chuckle.

  They walked along in silence, neither one of them having anything to say. He didn’t mind, though. Never much of a talker, he preferred quiet more often than not anyway.

  As they began walking up the stairs to the main level of the house, she finally broke the silence. “It might be nice if he gave you an assignment, though. You’ve been stuck here for a few weeks now, haven’t you? He’s given the last five cases to Marius and Dax. Those guys have been out nearly constantly for almost a month.”

  Looking down at her, he smiled. “For being merely an assistant, you seem to know a lot about all of us and our comings and goings.”

  Tess stopped on the second to last stair and screwed her face into a grimace. “You have a bad effect on me, Roman. Do you know that? You say so little that I end up filling the space with things I shouldn’t be saying.”

  He looked back at her but kept walking into the main entryway. “Don’t blame me. I was just walking along and you started talking.”

  She stepped up into the foyer and huffed at him. “You strong silent types are the worst. Now I hope he keeps you here and forces you to spend all your time with Xavier and Gideon. How’s that sound?”

  Turning to look at her in horror at the very idea of being confined with those two sports obsessed frat boys, he shook his head. “You went too far with that, Tess. I’m going to blame you if that happens.”

  Giggling, she nudged him in the side with her elbow as they continued toward Nick and Persephone’s office. “I was just kidding. Don’t freak out. Nick wouldn’t do that to you. He likes you. Plus, I think he promised Persephone when they started this that he wouldn’t do anything to cause anyone’s death in the house, and I’m pretty sure you or one of those two would end up dead if he stuck you together.”

  “You should assume it would be one of them. They’d be easy targets since they never leave that damn game room,” he said, not trying to hide his disgust for the two men.

  Tess didn’t respond and remained silent until just before they reached the office. She touched him on the forearm, and he looked down to see her frowning.

  “You might be happier here if you spent some time with any of the other men, Roman. They’re really not bad guys once you get to know them.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not unhappy, Tess. I just like to keep to myself. Doesn’t mean that I’m miserable.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Nobody uses the word miserable unless they are, Roman. Give someone here a chance.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, wishing for more of the silence from a few moments ago.

  “You might find out you like them,” she said quietly before giving him one of her sweet smiles.

  As she walked away to go to her desk, he thought about what she said and immediately pushed the idea out of his mind. He didn’t want to spend time with anyone at the estate. Letting people get close only ended up hurting everyone involved. He’d had enough of that in his lifetime to know things were better if he kept to himself.

  Pushing open the office door, he walked in to see Persephone sitting at her desk on the left side of the room talking on the phone and Nick sitting on the other side at his desk looking at his laptop. Focused on something, he didn’t see him until he tapped on the edge of his desk.

  Nick looked up, surprised, and smiled. Extending his arm, he said, “Roman, good to see you. Take a seat. I want to talk to you about an assignment.”

  As he sat down, he wondered why he always said that when he had a case for him, even though it wasn’t like any of them could turn down an assignment. Unless they were on death’s doorstep with some kind of disease, each of them was expected to do their job. But Nick always made it sound like they’d discuss the possibility and then decide if he wanted to go.

  Roman sat down and waited to hear what his next case would be. The last one had involved a schoolteacher being terrorized by some rich teenager’s parents. It wasn’t exactly full of danger for him, but that mother and father had been pretty nasty to that poor teacher. All she’d done was given the kid detention for mooning her. She hadn’t deserved to have her brake lines cut or to be stalked like prey just because his parents worried he’d be shunned by a good school for the blemish on his high school record. Roman had been happy to see them taken away in handcuffs at the end of things.

  Leaning back in his office chair, Nick folded his arms across his chest. “So that woman you helped out in Ohio couldn’t say enough nice things about how you handled her case. I guess those parents were a little crazy.”

  “I’d say they passed crazy going about one hundred and ten miles an hour. They tried to kill her, for God’s sake. And over what? One detention because their punk ass kid likes to show his ass to schoolteachers.”

  The leader of the Project Artemis team chuckled at his remark. “Yeah. I guess that’s the definition of overzealous. Well, this one I have for you today is a little different. No teenage boys showing their asses on this case.”

  Since his last three cases hadn’t exactly challenged him much, Roman sat up straighter in his chair, immediately interested in this new assignment that sounded far more like something he could sink his teeth into. “Oh yeah? I’m all ears.”

  Nick leaned forward and began tapping on his keyboard. “You’re going to be heading to The Big Easy. I don’t have many details, but let me bring up what we know.”

  New Orleans? He had never had a chance to see the city, although he’d served with someone from there who had claimed it was the greatest city on the planet. Even better than New York and Paris, according to him.

  He’d always thought that to be a pretty dubious claim since he’d spent time in a lot of great cities around the world and none topped those two. Now he’d see if Butcher had been telling the truth or just bullshitting like usual.

  Once he found what he’d been looking for, Nick began to give him the information he’d need to start the case. “The client’s name is Kate Sheridan. She’s a legal assistant to an attorney named Jonas Flynn. Mr. Flynn was found murdered a few hours ago, along with one of his clients. This woman believes she’s in danger and can’t go to the police.”

  “Then how did we find out about her?” Roman asked, confused how Project Artemis was sniffing out these assignments if not by the usual way of through the cops.

  Looking up from reading the information on his laptop screen, Nick answered his question. “Her friend told the police down there what I just told you. One of them called Persephone about twenty minutes ago. From what he said, she might be in real
danger because they’re considering the possibility that her boss’s and his client’s deaths as mob hits.”

  “Mob hits,” Roman repeated. “That’s definitely not some teenager flashing his teacher.”

  A slow smile spread across Nick’s face. “No, it’s not. You might be walking into something pretty serious and not overzealous parents bad either.”

  “I’ll start with the friend, so I’m going to need her name and where I can find her.”

  “Gotcha covered. Her name is Eve Devereux and I’ll text you her address,” Nick said, nodding as he grabbed his phone.

  “Anything else I need to know?” Roman asked, his mind already working on what the cops down in New Orleans thought about the lawyer’s death.

  “Other than it’s a possible mob hit and it’s in New Orleans? That’s pretty much all the officer told Persephone. He got the feeling this Kate Sheridan’s friend knew where she’s hiding out, but she wouldn’t tell the cops. All she said was Kate didn’t trust anyone but her.”

  “Any chance there’s an estranged husband or an ex involved?” Roman wondered aloud.

  Something about this case smacked of someone close to her being part of it.

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have any information about her boss being anything other than that, her boss. No romantic entanglement mentioned.”

  “And the client? Any idea what kind of case he and the lawyer were working on? I’m thinking maybe he’s well-known for mob cases since the cops down there are pinning this on the mob not twenty-four hours in.”

  Once again, Nick turned back to his laptop and began typing away. “I don’t know. Let’s see what kind of law Attorney Jonas Flynn practiced.”

  As he searched for that information online, Roman thought about how good it would be to get away from the estate. Even if just for a few days until the New Orleans police could find Flynn and his client’s killer, it would be just what the doctor ordered. Tess may have thought getting chummy with the sports lovers would help, but he knew better.