The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 109
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
“There can’t be that many around New Orleans,” Bart said. “Is she bringing them in from out of state?”
He slowly shook his head. “If she had, I’d have noticed a lot sooner.”
Sere got up and stretched out her free hand. When Fisher extended his for a handshake, she lifted it to her lips and kissed it. “I honestly couldn’t do this without you.”
He took his hand back and smiled. “Where are you crazy kids off to next?”
She blushed, realizing she and Bart hadn’t let go of each other’s hands since they’d sat down. “To snoop around in an old friend’s secrets.”
Back outside again, near the Ducati, Sere paced alongside the crumbling brick wall. “If Marjory is using local mercenaries, those are people Joe would have known. They might even be from his squad.”
Bart pulled out the key to the motorcycle. “His closest cache isn’t far.”
The prospect of heading to the bungalow in the Ninth Ward aroused her lust but not her intellect. “Joe wouldn’t have written down their names. You remember how hard it was to reach Gerald the first time?”
Bart leaned against the seat and crossed his arms. “So, where do we start looking?”
She mentally raced through every hidden location her old mentor had divulged. Only one of them had involved someone else. “Do you remember the name of that lady up in Myers—the one whose garage Joe rented?”
Bart bit his lip. “Madeline, wasn’t it?”
“Use your military sixth sense. Did she ever seem to be more than she appeared? I never could wrap my head around why Joe would trust someone so obviously civilian.”
He nodded slowly. “Unless she wasn’t a civilian. Every operation needs a central contract to disseminate information, and any good warrior needs someone to keep their secrets. Using her garage to pick up the superbikes might have been as much about you two meeting as having a secret parking space.” He stood up and grabbed his helmet. “If we leave now, we can get up there before the morning commute gets into full swing.”
As she got on behind Bart, she reconsidered aiming him toward the much closer quiet retreat with its large bare mattress. “The moment we get this nightmare over with, I’m ripping these leathers to shreds with my teeth.”
105
Chapter 20
Once again, the high-vibration rumbling between Sere’s legs as she pressed fully and firmly against Bart’s luscious body distracted her from thoughts of Marjory Laroque. With miles to go instead of blocks, she had too much time and not enough restraint. As they zoomed past the freeway interchange, she lifted the bottom of his muscle-stretched T-shirt with one hand and ran the other under the fabric. His rippling abs flexed like the undulations of a snake.
She didn’t mean to slip her hand under the belt buckle of his leather pants, but once it was there, she couldn’t deny her fingers the joy of playing about the elastic band of his shorts. He didn’t make any attempt to stop her. With her middle finger she drew tight circles on his skin, inciting the familiar male reaction only fractions of an inch from her touch.
“You’re going to get us into a wreck,” he said matter-of-factly without suggesting that she stop.
“You just focus on driving and let me do the rest.”
“I’m just trying to make sure you’re not toying with me like you did on our race down from the swamp.”
She slipped her hand fully under his shorts. His length, girth, and rigidity had her wondering if she’d grabbed the handle of his knife by mistake. Then it started throbbing. “I’m not interested in competing this time.” She ground her feet against the foot pegs, edging her hips up the seat and harder against his butt and forcing his crotch onto the hard metal of the gas tank. With the solid vibration from the 150-horsepower sex toy torturing his testicles, she cradled his shaft against her palm. Her fingertips just reached his clenching balls as the head of his erection projected beyond her hand to the sensitive center of her wrist.
“If you keep that up, I’m going to have to take a different route.”
Sere had been so fixated on what her hand was up to that she’d barely noticed the pickup truck that was keeping pace with them in the next lane. When she finally made eye contact with the driver, instead of speeding off, the woman dropped one of her hands from the steering wheel and maintained her position only three feet away.
“I swear I can feel her lust for you. How strange is that?” The zipper above her hand seemed to be dropping all on its own.
He squirmed his leg up to keep the pants from flapping open. “It’s a human reaction but one I’d really rather not explore while I’m trying not to get us killed.”
She wasn’t about to let go of her prize. “You mean like how I get even more turned on when you get excited… It’s like a feedback loop.” The wind that whipped around his body made her breathe more heavily. Though she already commanded more than half of the motorcycle seat, she danced her hips over his, making her miniature version of his rock-hard cock nearly as demanding of attention.
The motorcycle shuddered as his shaft took on the sudden stillness indicating impending release. With her hand still in command of the man, she let go of his abdomen then reached under her leg to his saddlebag. She whipped out a worn T-shirt without unlatching the cover. While the woman in the truck continued to play voyeur, Sere pressed the white cotton under Bart’s pants and over the head of his erection. With both hands on his cock she practically climbed his back in desire.
Though Bart maintained control of the motorcycle, he wasn’t as successful at keeping his cock pointed straight ahead. With a couple of quick sliding motions over the rough fabric, Sere convinced his quivering balls to discharge their load. Every muscle in the big man’s body flexed so hard she feared he’d lose the subtlety needed to keep the motorcycle upright. But as always, his ability to multitask in impossible situations astounded her. With the section of shirt under her palm saturated with his desire, she settled her butt back against the seat—this time leaving him enough room to relax his ass back onto cushioned leather instead of vibrating metal. She gave the woman in the truck a quick show of the soiled cloth before stashing it back into the saddlebag.
“Exit is coming up.” He shot in front of their voyeur nearly as quickly as he’d ejaculated, then he swung the motorcycle away from traffic and down to the city streets.
With the motorcycle parked on the suburban driveway, Bart remained seated while Sere climbed off. “That was quite the ride, big boy.” She let her hand linger on his shoulder.
“Next time, I’ll let you drive—the motorcycle, that is.” Stiff legged, he finally got off of the Ducati. “Do I look presentable?”
She gave him a quick once-over to make sure she’d rezipped his pants and hadn’t left any sign of their adventure. “No messier than normal. How do we convince Madeline to divulge her secrets?”
“Carefully. If she thinks we’re trying to trick her into betraying her boys, she’ll shut down tighter than the baron’s vault.”
She held his hand, not wanting to be out of physical contact. “I’ll let you take the lead.”
He stopped well before the door. “No, you need to be the one to talk to her. Joe’s connection was with you. Madeline saw the two of you together. If she’ll trust anyone, it will be you.”
Sere nodded and stepped toward the door. It opened before she had a chance to knock.
“Oh, hello, sweetie. I didn’t expect to see you. I’m afraid Mr. Gerald isn’t here, and most of Joseph’s stuff was sent to storage.”
Sere tried to imagine the woman as some badass mercenary matron devoted to keeping her militia boys safe. She failed. The gray-haired woman with the flour-covered apron and twinkling blue eyes looked like everyone’s ideal grandmother. “Actually, I came to talk to you.”
The woman’s eyes darted from one end of the street to the other so fast that Sere nearly missed it. “I’ve got some tea brewing and some freshly made biscuits if you’re hungry.”
“That sounds delightful.” Bart headed in first as if Sere wouldn’t be able to take the hint that front porches were no place for sharing dark secrets.
She wanted to start pumping the old woman for information the moment the door closed, but with Bart’s grip on her hand and at-the-ready body language, she knew better than to press too soon. “You have a beautiful house.” With the single comment, Sere exhausted her repertoire of small talk.
“It’s home.” The old woman started humming as she poured the tea. She set the ornately painted porcelain cups with their matching saucers on the coffee table then switched the TV station before taking a seat. “I never could stand silence.”
The daytime soap opera made Sere flinch. “How well did you know Joe?” Though she agreed with Bart about gaining Madeline’s trust, Sere didn’t see any point in drawing out the reason for their visit.
“He simply rented my garage, but he was always so helpful if there was a problem.” In spite of the woman’s words, her penetrating stare confirmed that they’d found the right person. Madeline turned up the volume on the television, pulled the chair cushion from behind her back, and removed an electronic pad. Before handing it over, she put her finger to her mouth.
Bart sampled the tea. “This is wonderful. Do I taste a hint of cinnamon?”
Sere nodded as she accepted the device. The damn thing wasn’t going to work. Other than the ones modified by the team, they never worked. All the same, she hit the on button. The old woman certainly wasn’t going to accept Sere’s word about her electronic-messing aura.
“An old family recipe,” the woman said to Bart. “It helps mellow the honey and lemon.”
To Sere’s surprise, the screen lit up. She put in the earbuds before pressing the box marked Joseph.
The video of Joe Cazenave sitting at the workbench in the woman’s garage with the high-performance motorcycles gleaming behind him made Sere’s heart skip a beat. “Hi, Sere. If you’re watching this, then I’m not around to help you. I won’t speculate about why. You will have also guessed that my friend here isn’t the kindly grandmother she appears to be. I’m not going to divulge her credentials except to say that you can trust her every bit as much as you do me. I have a lot to tell you, and if you’re holding this pad, that means Miss Maddie thinks you’re ready to hear what I have to say. The most likely current scenario, however, is that you’re in trouble. This information can be viewed later. Keep it as our little secret.” The screen went black.
Caring son of a bitch, weren’t you? Sere had never really realized how Joe could compartmentalize his emotions. She held the pad up and looked at Madeline, who was refreshing Bart’s tea.
Madeline took the device back and typed out, What do you need?
Sere quickly wrote, Joe’s mercenary contacts. We think Marjory Laroque might be using them for her personal protection. If they’re the ones guarding the World Trade Center, we need them to stand down.
Madeline looked over the writing, smiled, nodded once, then deleted the texts. “Well, as I was saying, there’s not much left in the garage, but Joseph paid up through the end of the year, so if you’d like to have a look, I’d be happy to show you.”
Bart shook his head. “There’s no need to worry yourself. If you’ve sent everything to storage, I’m sure what we’re looking for went along with it. I’ll check with the inventory log.”
Madeline pulled a key from the end table and handed it to Bart. “You might want to have a look anyway. After all, you did drive all the way out here. These old eyes miss things.” She looked from Bart to Sere then back. “If nothing else, it makes for a private place to talk. Just leave the key on the workbench when you leave.”
He inspected the piece of metal as if expecting some secret complex lock. “I suppose we’re not in that big of a hurry for a change. It couldn’t hurt to take a look.”
Madeline got up and extended her hands to Sere. “I do hope you’ll stop by again when you have more time.” She flashed her old eyes over Bart’s body. “And please bring this hunk of man meat with you. With Joseph gone, I no longer get many opportunities to admire the male form.”
The garage was so clean that Sere wondered if anyone other than Joe had ever used it. “I guess Madeline isn’t the fix-it-yourself kind of person.”
With no one else around, Bart didn’t bother conducting his inspection in secret. “I’d be willing to bet that woman has skills you couldn’t imagine.”
She supposed he was right. If the woman had been involved in Joe’s secret missions, she would have to be a lot more than she appeared. “Why do you think she had us check out this garage? I don’t see a single bolt that’s out of place.”
He turned the key in his hand. “Could be a test to see if we’re as clever as we think we are. No one joined our SEAL team until we knew they were up to our standards, and that had nothing to do with who vouched for them.”
“She thinks we want to join the team?” Though Bart would fit right in, Sere had never been the joining type.
He ran his hand along the workbench then bent down to inspect the underside. “I only said it was an option, but even if it’s not an initiation test, they would want to know we’re worthy of their assistance. No elite corps wants to haul dead weight on a mission. How did you use to sneak into Joe’s caches?”
It had been some time since she’d subverted one of her mentor’s security systems. “When I borrowed the Triton, I had to break into an old freight container. He’d devised a DNA lock. I had to cut my finger and fill the slot of a screw head with the blood. It was a bear to figure out.”
“Clever.” He had worked his way to a corner of the garage and stood against it like a security camera sweeping the room.
Though Bart was the expert, she couldn’t let him figure out the puzzle alone. “Joe liked leaving something innocent slightly out of place. I think he figured it would attract my computerized brain.”
“So, what’s the first thing that catches your eye?”
The garage had been a mystery from the day Joe revealed the souped-up motorcycles. “The room is too empty. Every one of Joe’s caches was filled with weapons, vehicles—really, anything a well-equipped militia would need. This garage has always been conspicuous in its lack of anything out of the ordinary.”
Bart slammed the sole of his boot against the concrete floor. “You think there’s a hidden room somewhere?”
Sere never could read her mentor’s mind. “That doesn’t feel right. He had plenty of places to stash what he needed. What other use would he have for a big space?”
“It might be useful for meetings. Planning strategy often requires everyone to be in the same place.”
Sere couldn’t make the idea work. “Not in a suburban neighborhood. Joe was very careful to keep suspicion away from Madeline.”
“So he doesn’t need it often, has it watched over by one of his most trusted allies, and does all he can to make it as ordinary as possible. Sounds like a safe house to me, but he only rented the garage. Madeline sent us out here for a reason.”
“We did meet Gerald out here. Maybe neutral ground for negotiations?”
Bart’s hunched stance and tensed muscles reminded Sere of a coon dog that had picked up a scent. “Secret meetings that were likely recorded, but it would have to be with equipment that couldn’t be detected.”
“You’re the expert on such things.”
“Yes, I am.” He studied the walls with such intensity that his eyes seemed to be penetrating them as he ran his hand over the painted cinderblocks. “How did the professor explain how he captured people’s activities for broadcasting to hell?”
The mere mention of the paranormal system gave Sere a headache. “Something about how walls and objects record the energy vibrations around them in their atoms. He found some way of amplifying the effect by spiking people’s drinks so their energy broadcast was more intense. In hell, those same buildings were used as projectors instead of cameras. Please don’t ask me to explain any better than that.”
He seemed completely fixated on the painted wall. “And Joe had a direct line down to the professor’s equipment.”
“Of course.”
He turned away from the wall. “We’re not looking for something hidden. It’s right here in front of us. Come here and run your hand over this wall.”
She wondered if giving him a hand job on the road had short-circuited his brain, but she walked to him anyway and slapped her palm to the white wall. As if she’d put her finger in a light socket, she fell to her knees from the sudden rush of information.
“Are you okay?” Bart kept his arm around Sere as if she’d busted her leg. The action was so close to how Henry had cared for Jennifer so many years ago that Sere was able to disengage her mind from the rush of holographic images.
The outside air from the open side door also helped. “You could have warned me about the paint.”
“That was complete speculation on my part. Can you explain what you saw?”
She let her hand hover above her head. “It was like a huge file of information downloaded into my brain.”
“So now you have the answers to every question you’ve ever had?”
She gave him her half squint and frown of annoyance. “This is a garage, not a library. I saw every meeting Joe conducted in the room. He also sat at the workbench, talking to himself while he worked. Except that he was actually talking to me. I’ve got enough information on the militia dudes to get us into the World Trade Center. Right now, that’s all we need. I’ll sift through the recordings later.”
“Back to the mission, then.” He stood and helped her up.
It would take weeks for her to watch every one-sided conversation Joe had recorded, but one thing hit her right between the ribs; the paint hadn’t just recorded sounds and images. Joe’s love for her—the daughter he’d never had—had hit her like a sword between the ribs. She ran her hand over the computer pad on the workbench but didn’t pick it up. “Time to go.”
