Read Online Bound by Moonlight by Nancy Gideon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nancy Gideon
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was met with a stunning contradiction in physics. Unable to go through, the other went up, bouncing from wall to wall off powerful legs to the roof three floors above.
Amazed, Max hesitated, losing the momentum needed to replicate the climb, forcing him to go around the building. He spotted the lithe figure coming down the fire escape—not taking the zigzagging steps, but swinging straight down from level to level like a child’s Slinky springing down a stairway.
Racing forward, Max was stunned when his target avoided interception by running onto a good-sized pond.
Onto.
Max stared, dumfounded, as his adversary ran across the surface, barely making a ripple.
How was it done? He had to know!
By the time he rounded the pond he’d lost sight of his opponent, who’d gone over a grassy knoll into a landscape of flowering bushes. Giving chase, Max burst through a tangle of rhododendrons to find himself on a collision course with two women and their baby strollers. He hurdled the first to the astonishment of the twin tots inside, then had to cut sharply to the right to avoid the second. By the time he recovered his balance, the mysterious Shifter was gone, leaving him to placate two outraged mamas.
And leaving him to wonder if the encounter hadbeen a coy getting-to-know-you ritual or a test of dominant strength that he’d just failed.
Alain Babineau was no longer the greatest threat to those he loved.
T HERE WAS NOTHING worse than watching a mother’s face as the sheet was pulled down from her child for identification.
Cee Cee threw down her Jack and water and signaled for another, wondering how many it would take to erase the bitter taste from her mouth, and pain from her soul.
It was more than a wailing Iowa housewife weighing on her thoughts.
Anger at Babineau was easier to handle than the guilt underneath it. She’d had no right to out Tina as one of Max’s kind. What she’d done was inexcusable. Babineau had blindsided her with the puppies crack, startling her into a vicious defense that shamed her as much as it wounded him.
Definitely not one of her finest moments.
As she started on her second glass, Hammond and Boucher entered the bar.
Newton’s, founded by former desk sergeant Isaiah Newton when an auto accident led to his early retirement, was always filled with off-duty cops and companions in the medical and emergency fields. Dark wood, dartboards, and honky-tonk and heavy metal in the jukebox created a haven to unwind in, to ease back into normal life.
The two men headed to her table at the wave of her hand. Boucher was all bright-eyed; Hammond sportedlipstick stains and had a feather boa looped about his neck.
“Have fun on your boys’ night out?”
Hammond grinned. “A good time was had by all.” The smug look on his face was faintly disgusting.
Cee Cee turned to the blushing Boucher as he took a seat. “Whatchu know, Joey?”
“Miss Cole worked there for about five months, waitressing at first, then moving to the stage.” Only the tenderhearted rookie would sound so respectful when recounting the life of a stripper and whore as if she were still that choir soloist. “The girls liked her. The clients liked her. The management wanted to keep her on, but she developed a pharmaceutical problem and they had to turn her out.”
“Turned her out doing tricks,” Hammond added.
“She was on the street for about a month and a half.”
“Who’s stable was she out of?” No one worked independently in that neighborhood. Too dangerous with all the predators, from customers to rival streetwalkers and their pimps.
“Manny Blu’s. That’s the unofficial word.”
Cee Cee leaned back in her chair. “Good old Manny,” she mused.
Her father in Homicide and the fellows in Vice had been after Blu for decades. But like Jimmy Legere, Carmen Blutafino had a nonstick coating. Jimmy had relied on shrewdness, Max, and damn good attorneys. Blutafino hid behind missing witnesses, payoffs, and brute
Amazed, Max hesitated, losing the momentum needed to replicate the climb, forcing him to go around the building. He spotted the lithe figure coming down the fire escape—not taking the zigzagging steps, but swinging straight down from level to level like a child’s Slinky springing down a stairway.
Racing forward, Max was stunned when his target avoided interception by running onto a good-sized pond.
Onto.
Max stared, dumfounded, as his adversary ran across the surface, barely making a ripple.
How was it done? He had to know!
By the time he rounded the pond he’d lost sight of his opponent, who’d gone over a grassy knoll into a landscape of flowering bushes. Giving chase, Max burst through a tangle of rhododendrons to find himself on a collision course with two women and their baby strollers. He hurdled the first to the astonishment of the twin tots inside, then had to cut sharply to the right to avoid the second. By the time he recovered his balance, the mysterious Shifter was gone, leaving him to placate two outraged mamas.
And leaving him to wonder if the encounter hadbeen a coy getting-to-know-you ritual or a test of dominant strength that he’d just failed.
Alain Babineau was no longer the greatest threat to those he loved.
T HERE WAS NOTHING worse than watching a mother’s face as the sheet was pulled down from her child for identification.
Cee Cee threw down her Jack and water and signaled for another, wondering how many it would take to erase the bitter taste from her mouth, and pain from her soul.
It was more than a wailing Iowa housewife weighing on her thoughts.
Anger at Babineau was easier to handle than the guilt underneath it. She’d had no right to out Tina as one of Max’s kind. What she’d done was inexcusable. Babineau had blindsided her with the puppies crack, startling her into a vicious defense that shamed her as much as it wounded him.
Definitely not one of her finest moments.
As she started on her second glass, Hammond and Boucher entered the bar.
Newton’s, founded by former desk sergeant Isaiah Newton when an auto accident led to his early retirement, was always filled with off-duty cops and companions in the medical and emergency fields. Dark wood, dartboards, and honky-tonk and heavy metal in the jukebox created a haven to unwind in, to ease back into normal life.
The two men headed to her table at the wave of her hand. Boucher was all bright-eyed; Hammond sportedlipstick stains and had a feather boa looped about his neck.
“Have fun on your boys’ night out?”
Hammond grinned. “A good time was had by all.” The smug look on his face was faintly disgusting.
Cee Cee turned to the blushing Boucher as he took a seat. “Whatchu know, Joey?”
“Miss Cole worked there for about five months, waitressing at first, then moving to the stage.” Only the tenderhearted rookie would sound so respectful when recounting the life of a stripper and whore as if she were still that choir soloist. “The girls liked her. The clients liked her. The management wanted to keep her on, but she developed a pharmaceutical problem and they had to turn her out.”
“Turned her out doing tricks,” Hammond added.
“She was on the street for about a month and a half.”
“Who’s stable was she out of?” No one worked independently in that neighborhood. Too dangerous with all the predators, from customers to rival streetwalkers and their pimps.
“Manny Blu’s. That’s the unofficial word.”
Cee Cee leaned back in her chair. “Good old Manny,” she mused.
Her father in Homicide and the fellows in Vice had been after Blu for decades. But like Jimmy Legere, Carmen Blutafino had a nonstick coating. Jimmy had relied on shrewdness, Max, and damn good attorneys. Blutafino hid behind missing witnesses, payoffs, and brute