Read Online Black Dust Mambo by Adrian Phoenix - Free Book Online

her expression uncertain, a wad of towels clutched in her hands. She looked up at Kallie.
    “Get away! Don’t touch him!” Kallie yelled.
    The maid scooted away from the man, her dark eyes shifting from uncertain to fearful. Across the hall and a few doors down, another maid with toffee-colored skin and blond curls stood in an open doorway, her hand on the handle of a vacuum, her eyes wide with shock.
    Kallie burned rubber down the hall and dropped to her knees beside the man, then realized with a shock that she knew him. “Dallas?” she said.
    Good God, couldn’t the man go anywhere without someone trying to kill him?
    This was the man she’d idolized ever since he’d sat down beside her on Gabrielle’s porch steps her first night there and had spoken to her like she was an adult and not a wounded kid who needed to be surrounded with emotional packing peanuts before conversation.
    “I hear your mama killed your papa and tried to kill you. That’s fucked up, for true. But in no way was it your fault. I don’t care if you were the worst brat on earth or not. Don’t make a difference. I’ll teach ya how to fix some tricks to keep people from messing with you—if you wanna learn.”
    And she’d very much wanted to learn. Idolized Dallas, yeah. Crushed on, ditto. But often he deliberately made caring for him difficult. And for the last couple of years, he’d made it damned near impossible as he eased his wounded heart with booze and women. Now she thought of him as more of an older brother or young uncle. One who was always in goddamned trouble.
    At the sound of Kallie’s voice, Dallas looked at her; tendrils of wet red hair clung to his temples and forehead. Water spilled from his gasping mouth, and panic glimmered deep in his blue eyes.
    Belladonna whistled. “Holy . . . Is that who I think it is? Wonder who he pissed off this time?”
    “No telling. Hold on, Dallas,” Kallie said, wrapping her arms around his cold, wet shoulders and trying to lift him up into a sitting position. “Just hold on, cher .”
    “Get him on his side.” Belladonna’s voice was calm and practical. “He’s drowning.”
    Kallie struggled to roll Dallas onto his side, but he felt as heavy as a pile of steel crossbeams and, without a freaking crane, just as immovable. An alarm triggered inside of her. Sure, Dallas stood over six feet, lean-muscled and athletic, but she should be able to roll him over. This was all wrong.
    “Help me, Bell. He’s too heavy.” With Belladonna’s help, Kallie managed to roll Dallas onto his side. But that didn’t help. Water still streamed from his mouth and nose. His struggles for air grew weaker.
    The maid said, “I’ll get help.”
    “No! No outside help,” Kallie insisted.
    But, perhaps deciding that Kallie was confused, the maid jumped to her feet, and raced down the hall, so eager to be gone she left behind her cart, the linens she’d dropped, and even her bucket of water. The mingled odors of wormwood and pine drifted up from the bucket’s interior.
    Wormwood? Not your usual cleanser.
    Releasing her hold on Dallas, Kallie leaned over and peered into the water-filled bucket. Her heart hammered against her ribs when she saw the doll with red yarn hair anchored to the bucket’s bottom with chains.
    Kallie grabbed the bucket and dumped it out on the carpet. “Goddammit, Bell, more black work.”
    Belladonna glanced over her shoulder. “What do you wanna bet it’s a gift from an unhappy husband or boyfriend?”
    “Could also be connected with the hex in my room,” Kallie said.
    “Oh. Well. Could be, yeah.”
    Dallas choked, then coughed, before sucking in a ragged breath of air. Then he coughed some more, the sound sandpaper raw.
    “That’s it,” Belladonna said. “Just stay on your side. Water out, air in.”
    Kallie snatched up the doll and unwrapped what looked like a bike chain from around its cloth body. She dropped the chain. It landed on the carpet with a soft squelch.