Viper Moon Read online

  When I headed down River Street, I passed the 1760 building. I didn’t think of it much these days, but Flynn in my bed last night stirred memories of lost love.

  “You smiled,” Flynn said. “Why?”

  “Just thought of something.”

  “An old boyfriend?”

  Oh, so he’d been thinking, too. “In a way.”

  “Tell me.”

  I chewed on my lip a moment. Traffic had us stopped like cookies lined up baking in an oven. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt. “When I first came to the Barrows, I was eighteen and I needed to know my way around. Abby could show me only so much. I came down here looking for a job. I figured that would give me a better picture. Not much money, so I had to ride the bus to her house and back.”

  My mind traveled back to my early days in Duivel. I couldn’t say I missed them. At eighteen, the world of the Barrows seemed much larger to me and I was still ignorant of so many evil things . . .

  Winter had settled in, and the bus was late. I’d tugged my jacket closer around me, but the wind from the Bog roared down River Street. It cut through cloth seams like frozen scissors. The plaid flannel shirt that had served me well on my family’s Southern farm seemed like sheer cotton here. I hunched my shoulders and endured. I’d walked twenty blocks, asking for work at any place that looked like they had something I could do. The guy at the pet store wanted to hire me because of my experience with animals, but he didn’t have the money.

  Then I noticed the sign in a second-floor window across the street: FILE CLERK NEEDED. I could do that. I’d taken business classes as electives in high school. I made a mad dash between the cars and trucks and crossed to the building.

  The aging wooden stairs rising to the second floor creaked under my feet. One groaned like it was going to give way. I grabbed the rail and the beast rewarded me with a splinter. It wasn’t much warmer than outside, either. The air carried an aged musty smell that told me my search in this place was as hopeless as the structure itself.

  Two doors at the top, one with a padlock on the outside and the other a sign.

  E. DURBIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

  I opened that door and walked in.

  The windowless outer office had a desk, a chair, and a sagging couch piled with boxes. A fine coat of dust skimmed the desk, and the tracks of a tiny four-footed creature made a wavy path across the surface. Cinnamoncolored water stains from a mighty roof leak bloomed like flowers across the ceiling. The smell . . . I drew shallow breaths.

  The floor still complained at my steps, in spite of a rug that looked like a million souls had wiped their feet on it on their way to heaven or hell.

  “Go away,” said a rough voice from another room.

  I walked to an open door. A man sat behind the desk. He looked lean and hard, like someone who spent hours at labor in the sun. He might have been forty, but it was hard to tell. Dark hair with a skim of gray, gray eyes, handsome in youth, still handsome now, but . . . worn. Worn as the shabby room around him. A half-full glass and halfempty bottle of bourbon graced the desk at his right hand.

  “I said . . .” His voice trailed off when he saw me. The frown, the obvious irritation on his face, faded. He raised an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth twitched like he felt like smiling but didn’t want to. “You come straight from the farm, Bo Peep?”

  “Don’t worry. I scraped the shit off my shoes.” Damn, I had to get some new clothes.

  “What do you want?” His deep voice sounded only slightly interested.

  “A job. I saw the sign. I can type and file.” I glanced at the window, but it was covered with stacked boxes. It had probably been covered for months. Maybe years.

  “Forget about that.” He eyed me, as if speculating. “You can do better than this place.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe later. I’m fresh off the farm, remember? No one wants to take a chance on me.” It was worse than that. Most of them laughed at me.

  He drew a breath, then hesitated. His mouth twitched in a half smile. “Okay. Part-time, twenty hours a week, minimum wage.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’s shit. Let me guess. You want to learn the trade. Be a PI like in the movies.”

  “You mean so I can be successful like you?” I gave him a rather superior grin. I liked this man.

  He laughed, but it sounded more like a bark. “You got a point, Bo. Listen, I don’t have time for the usual paperwork. Okay if I pay you cash?”

  “For now. Mr. Durbin, I—”

  “Eddie.”

  “Eddie. I’m Cass.”

  “Cass?”

  “Cassandra.”

  “Unusual name.” He wrapped his hand around the glass of amber liquid on the desk.

  “Actually, I’m blessed. My aunt’s name is Cassiopeia. They call her Pete.”

  Eddie shifted in his chair. In what had to be a wellpracticed move, he lifted and drained the glass.

  I reminded myself I really needed a job.

  Eddie plunked the glass down and stared at me for a moment. Then he smiled. Oh, that was nice. Made him look ten years younger. “Be here at eight in the morning. I’ll find you a key. You can use the desk out front.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. A pile of stuff—scraps of cloth, bits of stuffing from an upholstered couch—formed a football-sized wad on the chair. I knew a rat’s nest when I saw one. “You going to fumigate, or shall I bring my own supplies?”

  Eddie picked up the bottle to pour another drink. “Don’t talk about fumigation. You’ll upset my clients.”

  “Both of them?”

  The traffic started moving again. “And that’s how I wound up as a PI. I learned the Barrows and made him the money to keep the place going. Eddie . . .” Ah, may as well say it. “He’d had bad things happen in his life. His son died, wife left him. Eddie was my first lover. I was a virgin and I fell really hard. I loved him so much. He even cut down on the drinking. We were great together. But when he was killed—” I choked.

  “Killed?”

  “He came in one morning and surprised a thief. Just a kid, but he ran and knocked Eddie down the stairs.”

  It occurred to me that Flynn looked a little like Eddie. A younger, healthier version, but his smile was just as warm.

  “What about you? No lost love?”

  “One. When I was eighteen.” Flynn left it at that. Of course, getting a man to talk about a lost love wasn’t easy—it was next to impossible.

  We didn’t talk much after that, and I shoved the memories to the back of my mind and locked them in a box. I drove on down to River Street and parked in a public lot not far from Holey Joe’s. I jumped the curb to beat a truck to the last spot left under a tree. I’d just turned the engine off when my cell phone rang. Before I could get it, Flynn picked it up and flipped it open.

  “Flynn.” He sat silent for a moment, then asked softly, “When you say ‘bitch,’ are you referring to the owner of this phone?”

  Uh-oh. I had a good idea who it was. I held out my hand. “Gimme.”

  He handed me the phone. I kept my eyes on the road so I wouldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “What do you want, Dacardi?”

  “What the fuck are you doing screwing around—?”

  “Screwing? I wish. Did you get what I asked you for?”

  “Said I would, didn’t I? Still working on bronze ammo.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t wanted to ask him, but I knew he had resources I couldn’t touch. “Need you to find someone. Carefully. Don’t run him underground. Name’s Hammer. Sometimes they call him—”

  “Sledge. Yeah, yeah. Does runner work for me occasionally. He know something?”

  “Maybe. Do not let your goons hurt him. I need to talk to him.” Abby could supply me with some nice drugs to encourage more stimulating conversation.

  “He’ll talk to me.” Dacardi wasn’t interested in stimulating conversation.

  “That’ll depend.”

  “On what?”r />
  “On what he’s most afraid of. You or what’s in the Barrows. Remember, Dacardi, I get him first.”

  Dacardi grunted.

  I flipped the phone shut and laid it on the console. “Carlos Dacardi.” Flynn’s voice sounded so cold it made me ache. All the warmth of last night froze in me.

  “The boy in the other picture is his son.”

  “Cass, Carlos Dacardi is—”

  “A man who loves his kid. Loves him as much as you and your mother love Selene. Flynn, I’ve given my life to finding kids in the Barrows and I use whatever tools the Mother gives me. Carlos Dacardi is a criminal son of a bitch, probably no better than a Bastinado. He doesn’t want to rely on me any more than you do. But I will find his son. I will find Selene. Sorry. That’s the way it has to be.”

  Oh, Mother, I shouldn’t have made love to him. Things were getting complicated. I knew better. Why did I want him so much?

  Flynn locked his fingers together and misery radiated from him as he stared out the window. A good man, a good cop, stuck with a woman who bent the law to serve her own ends. Granted, a woman who’d actually found a single lead on his sister, something the entire Duivel Police Department hadn’t been able to do. He could ignore a couple of downed Bastinados, vicious animals, but the cold, calculated nature of crime boss Dacardi moved events to a different level. Unfortunately, it was a new game for me, too. Using Dacardi and his weapons might be like using nitroglycerine to solve a termite problem.

  “I’m with you, Cass,” he said suddenly. “I don’t care anymore. Do what you need to do. Just find her.” He did care, though; I could hear it in his voice.

  I drove down River Street, trying the usual places. The bars where they’d let me in—I’m considered a troublemaker—the Abundant Savior homeless shelter near the docks, and the few street people who would talk to me with Flynn around. I’ve always worked alone, and my search slowed to a crawl with him along. Many of my sources wouldn’t show their criminal faces to a cop. Worse than that was the hope I saw in Flynn’s eyes when someone hesitated over the photos. Hope crushed in an instant with a shake of a head. At one o’clock, I finally located one of my best sources sitting in the shade of an oak tree in the trash-littered area that had once been a city park.

  Wheelchair Harry is generally a happy man. He rolls up and down River Street’s sidewalks like a graybearded, indigent Santa Claus. I liked him, but I always tried to stand upwind because he rarely bathed, never shaved, and had tiny, unidentifiable things living in his beard. People often gave him money to go away.

  I discovered his secret one night when I came on him robbing one of his homeless brothers as the man slept. Harry can walk. When I confronted him, he told me he used the wheelchair because he had a college degree and people kept telling him to get a job.

  Harry gave me a grin as I approached. He wore a T-shirt with the sleeves torn out, and when he wiped his hand over his sweaty forehead, he flashed underarm hair long, thick, and curly as a poodle’s coat.

  Flynn wrinkled his nose and gave me a You have to be kidding look.

  “How’s it going, Harry?”

  “Wheels keep turning, Cass. Looks like you got someone to keep yours greased.” He winked at me.

  “Oh, yeah.” I laughed at his crude joke.

  Flynn’s jaw tightened as he clamped his teeth shut. I drew out the pictures of Selene and Richard. Harry suddenly wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “What’s wrong, Harry? You’ve seen them? Give me a name. No one will know.”

  Harry grumbled. “It isn’t fair.”

  “What’s not fair?”

  Harry sighed. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. I don’t have a rat’s chance with everyone searching.” He dug in his pocket, drew out a sheet of paper, and handed it to me. A photocopy of Richard’s and Selene’s photos.

  “What in the hell? Where’d you get this?”

  “That pretty man who drives the Jag went around handing them out late last night. Bastinado, street whores, we all got one.”

  The words printed below the photos said everything. A promise of a hundred thousand dollars for information on their location, and two hundred if both kids were delivered unharmed to the Archangel. People would keep information close in hopes of collecting mega dollars. I would get nothing in the Barrows.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I screamed as I climbed into the car. Flynn slumped in his seat and wouldn’t look at me. He understood the situation. I cranked the engine and headed for the Archangel.

  chapter 16

  At least we didn’t have to fight for a parking place at one p.m. Good thing, because I was pissed enough to crash through the glass doors and into the lobby. I parked by the building, directly under the neon angel still beating its electric wings, even though the brilliant summer sun had reduced it to a feeble flash and hum.

  The receptionist sitting behind the desk inside the door stood when we entered. She gave Flynn a dazzling smile. “Mr. Michael sent word he was in his office,” she said, her eyes never leaving him. Michael was expecting me. He had to know I’d learn about the flyers sooner or later.

  Flynn muttered something under his breath as we marched up the stairs.

  Michael opened the door before I reached it. With a graceful sweep of his hand, he invited us to enter. He closed the door behind us.

  I fought for calm, but my voice sounded ragged. “What the fuck have you done?”

  Michael, not at all disturbed by my rage, said, “I’m trying to save your life, Cass. That’s why I took you to the Goblin Den myself. You can’t—”

  “Son of a bitch!” I shouted. My body brimmed with fury racing along my nerves, ready to spill out and cut down anything in its path. I did my damnedest to rein in all emotion.

  No need to overreact.

  But damn him. I had a right to overreact.

  Flynn faced Michael. “This is insane.” His arms hung at his sides, but his hands clenched into fists so rigid his fingernails might slice into his palms.

  Michael shrugged. “I want Cass alive. Money is nothing. She’s important. If she keeps digging around in the Barrows . . .”

  Flynn’s body relaxed slightly as he, too, regained control. The sharp-eyed cop returned. “So money buys lives. Children’s lives.” His voice stripped the words down to a naked truth.

  Michael nodded. “As anywhere else, greed and perversion are powerful in the Barrows.”

  An emotional war suddenly flashed across Flynn’s face. Torn with conflicting desires, the brother wanted his sister at any cost; the cop didn’t want to owe anything to anyone, especially a criminal like Michael. The brother won. “I can’t ever pay you back, not that much money.”

  Flynn had more faith in Michael’s money than in me. Not surprising, but it hurt. I hid it with a sneer and a warning. “He isn’t doing it for you, Flynn.”

  Flynn must have heard the pain and anger in my voice. Did he know me so well, so soon? “No, he’s doing it for you. Cass, what have we done the last two days? Visit an asylum? Beat up a couple of Bastinados? How are we closer to finding her?”

  I kept my voice low and even, in spite of my churning insides. “Ten years. Ten years digging around in the Barrows and—” I’d never convince him with words. I started for the door. “Okay, Flynn, you and Michael can have this fucking hunt and be damned.”

  Flynn reached for me, but I jerked away.

  I couldn’t dodge Michael. He grabbed me by the shoulders.

  I snarled like an attack dog. I couldn’t twist out of his hands.

  “Listen to me.” Michael gave me a mild shake like a parent trying to force his will on a child.

  I kicked at his balls. He jumped back and released me, so I missed.

  Flynn stepped between us. “Stop it, Cass. Please.” He held his hands out, but didn’t touch me. His troubled eyes and grim face held all of his desperation. So frayed, so uncertain of what to do next.

  “You don’t know the Barrows, Flynn. You don’t know me. But you’v
e already decided I’m incompetent and some rich asshole’s money is a better way.” I stared straight into Michael’s eyes. I cocked my head and put as much contempt as I could in my voice. “You’ve bought my hunt. And that’s all you’ll get.”

  Michael turned his face away.

  Over the years, I’d seen so much. Alone, always alone. No matter how painful for me, I understood Flynn’s faith in money, a real and tangible power. He barely knew me. Obviously what we shared last night didn’t matter. Nothing new—men have always felt that way when they start getting to know me, but it felt so different this time. I had hoped—

  “I have faith in you, Cass,” Michael spoke from across the room. His voice carried a plea. “I’ve seen what you can do. But this dark moon . . . Time’s running out.” He came closer, but kept Flynn between us. “Let me do what I told you I would do. Find your children.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No. And furious as you are, that is my intention. Tell me, what are you planning? Lead Flynn into the Barrows one night, yell Surprise! and hope nothing eats him? He’s carrying a gun. Does it have bronze? Can you protect him and yourself?” He glanced at Flynn. “Has he ever seen what lives there?”

  I hated it, but he was right. Perhaps I’d deliberately held back. Flynn had drawn me in from our first meeting. I didn’t want him to bolt when he saw what I dealt with every day. He watched me with intense and unhappy eyes. What was he thinking? I went to him and laid my hand on his cheek.

  “He’s right. You need a lesson in Barrows 101,” I said softly. “If he finds Selene, fine. I swear to you, though, I’m not finished yet.” I might lose whatever personal relationship we had by giving him the grand tour, but there was no other way. Flynn had to know what he faced.

  Michael had seen my intimate gesture toward Flynn and understood. For the briefest moment, a look of dismay passed across his face. It quickly returned to its usual slightly amused expression.

  “So you’ll show him?” Michael suddenly asked.