Crescent Moon (7 page)

Juste kept silent as Michael tilted back his head and drank the last of his beer. He’d only taken a couple of gulps of his own, knowing he needed to keep his wits sharp this night. Mosquitoes buzzed. Crickets trilled. Frogs croaked. The cacophony somehow louder than the sounds of traffic passing on the street beyond the courtyard.

Michael let out a muffled belch and smiled. “Figured out how we’re both gonna keep our jobs?”

Juste squinted into the darkness. “We’re gonna follow Khepri. Maybe she’ll lead us to the robbers. Or maybe whoever broke into the museum’ll find her.”

“Don’t sound like much of a plan.” His gaze narrowed and he shook his head.

Didn’t he know it
. Juste gave him a one-sided smile. “Disappointed?”

“Guess I’ve been waitin’ to see a little of what made you such a name.”

“You mean besides my flyin’ tackle across Maines’s desk?” Juste muttered, a little stung by the younger cop’s honesty.

“Yeah, although I’d have given my left nut to see his face when you did that.”

“Man had both my balls on platters. If not for the fact his boss knows Maines deserved it, I wouldn’t still be pullin’ a city paycheck.” He shook his head, lips curling in self-directed disgust. “Khepri’s all we’ve got. Thought maybe when we question those guards, we might position her somewhere they can see her. Watch if any of them recognize her and give themselves away.”

“Think she won’t light up when she meets a co-conspirator? You don’t believe her story, do you?”

“That she woke up from the dead?” Juste snorted before lowering his voice. “More likely she scared herself crazy. When I cut her free, she asked if she was in the Land of the Dead. I thought she was askin’ me if she was in a cemetery.”

“Land of the Dead is somethin’ from Egyptian mythology. Their version of heaven and hell.”

“So maybe she snapped and thinks she’s livin’ in a story?” At the quirk of one of Mikey’s eyebrows, Juste felt heat creep up the back of his neck. Shit, he hated looking foolish in front of another officer. “This ain’t the first time a naked woman’s turned my head. But it is the first time I believe she’s innocent. Or at least innocent of whatever crime was perpetrated at that museum.”

“Will you be disappointed when you have her all figured out, and you discover she’s been lyin’ her ass off?”

A wince twisted his lips. “Might be less disappointin’ than findin’ out she’s crazy.”

The door opened and Denise stepped out on the lit porch, wearing a grin.

Juste narrowed his eyes. “You get her tricked out?”

“She has clothes,” Denise said, stopping beside him. “If she’s stayin’ a while, you might consider takin’ her shoppin’, but she’s covered head to foot.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry, ‘bout that.”

Good lord, was his attraction that transparent? Clothes might be a good thing; then maybe he wouldn’t be so tempted to touch her. He couldn’t seem to stop—not when he’d spotted crusty stuff stuck to the skin of her back, and not when she’d grown pale and grimaced, clutching the dirty linen rags. He’d had to hold her. Console her. Thank god, Mikey had interrupted, or he wasn’t sure how that embrace might have ended.

Justin grunted and then turned toward the door as it opened again, spilling light through the doorway. His breath caught.

Khepri’s borrowed clothing wasn’t fancy, but it lovingly hugged her slender frame. A flowing, hippy shirt with a wild gold, red, and black pattern hung loose from her shoulders, but the fabric was so thin every move molded it against her small, round breasts. Below, she wore jeans shorts, the hems rolled up well past mid-thigh. On her feet were narrow, wedge-heeled, beige sandals with laces that wound up her ankle and were tied in a bow at the side. She looked cute and young. And Denise must have applied a few cosmetics, because Khepri’s mouth shimmered. Her hair she’d left alone, but it was dry and looked soft as silk, falling past her shoulders to curve at the tops of her breasts.

“Cleans up nice,” Michael said, wry humor in his voice.

“She got more to wear?” Juste asked, his voice strangely hoarse.

“A nightgown and a pair of slacks. Two more tops.” Denise tilted her head way back to give Juste an innocent smile. “All loose-fittin’ and elasticized ’cause she has an itty-bitty waist—which I hear you know all about.”

What the hell?
“She wasn’t wearin’ anything but a bunch o’ gauze strips when we met.”

“And you gave her a bath.”

Juste winced because Michael jerked beside him and then started chuckling.

“Not sayin’ as I blame you.” Denise waved a hand. “She’s gorgeous, Juste. Bobby woulda shook his head in shame if you hadn’t noticed, too.”

Juste shook his head, watching Denise whose eyes were wrinkled up with laughter. Seeing her smile felt good. To hear her tease him made him grin. “Thanks, hon, for your help.”

“No problem. My sister’s with the kids. Wouldn’t ha’ missed this for anything. She’s …
different
. Hope you know what you’re doin’.”

“So do I,
cher
. So do I.” He bent and kissed Denise’s cheek, then held her car door while she climbed behind the wheel.

As she drove off, he walked toward the steps, eyeing Khepri who stood still on the stoop, gazing at him with her big doe eyes. He hadn’t told her how lovely she looked. Was she waiting for a verdict? “You look nice.”

Michael cleared his throat. “You get much practice talkin’ to girls?” he murmured under his breath.

Juste stiffened. “She’s not a girl. She’s a …”

“A suspect?” Michael shook his head and shoved upward to his feet. “That thought went out the window the minute you hustled her through the back door of the museum. I’m gonna go look at the charms she has lined up on the table. Get an inventory before they walk off.”

Michael slid past her, pausing to say something to Khepri that had one side of her mouth lifting in a small smile. Then she turned back to Juste.

He wished he could reach down and adjust himself, but then she’d know his body heartily approved of her clothing. To mask the bulge at the front of his trousers, he stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled toward her. As he stepped up, he grimaced.

Her brows drew together. “Am I not dressed appropriately?”

“You are,” he said, maybe a little too much growl in his voice.

A frown dug a line between her dark brows. “You can’t complain of my immodesty now. Everything is covered that matters, or so Denise said.”

As though to mock her and him, his glance dropped instinctively to her long, bare legs.

“My chest and groin are cloaked.”

He noted a hint of defensiveness in her tone and decided to set her at ease. “If I can’t give you the words you want, it’s because you’re so pretty. Does somethin’ to my head. Makes it damn near impossible to think.”

Her liquid eyes studied him, and she drew one side of her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry I’ve brought you so many problems. Michael isn’t happy you took me from the box.”

“We have procedures we’re supposed to follow when investigatin’ crimes. I broke the rules.”

“And now you’re in trouble,” she said softly. “Because of me.”

Juste sighed. “So’s he now. If anyone discovers what I did and the fact he didn’t report it …” His head dropped and he shook it. He didn’t like the fact she’d taken all the responsibility on her own shoulders. She’d been the victim. But how could he set her at ease? Fact was, he and Michael would be in a heap of shit if anyone found out about her.

“So it’s best I don’t mention the fact you helped me to escape to anyone?”

Grateful for her understanding, he nodded. “Yes.”

Instead of her face falling even more, a mischievous glint sparkled in her eyes. “We have a secret we share.” She smiled.

“Why the smile?”

“I’ve never shared a secret. Always I’ve kept my own.”

“This is not a good thing, Khepri. Keepin’ secrets. It’s not how I like to operate.”

“Because you are an honest man?”

He liked to think he was, but today had shot the hell out of that belief. “What kinds of secrets have you kept?” he asked, wanting a little less introspection.

Her gaze fell away. Her mobile mouth pursed. “I kept secret my doubts about my station.”

Juste leaned an elbow against the porch rail. He didn’t understand what she meant, and something of his confusion must have shown on his face because she smiled.

“I grew restless. Being exalted from afar does nothing to stem the loneliness. I dreamed of adventures …” She wrinkled her nose, and then glanced up shyly from beneath her eyelashes. “Adventures with inappropriate men.”

A smile tugged at his mouth, but he suppressed it, not wanting to embarrass her. Still, Juste couldn’t help leaning closer, not after she’d mentioned illicit attractions. He was pulled in by the shy, cringing smile she gave him. “Thinkin’ about it’s such a great sin?”

“A great honor was given me. I was raised from humble origins. That I was unhappy, well … I was ungrateful.”

Juste lifted her face with a finger under her chin. “Wanting to and thinking about it are as natural as breathin’. You didn’t act on your wish, did you?”

Eyes wide, she shook her head.

“Then your … husband can have no complaints.”

“Would you have been as satisfied, if your wife dreamed of other men?”

“I hope, if I ever have a wife, I’ll keep her so busy she won’t have time to dream of other guys.” He tapped her nose. “We still need to go over some things—compare notes. And we’ll all need rest.”

She nodded. “I forget that you haven’t just slept for centuries.

He grunted.
Neither did you, sweetheart.
Maybe she hit her head and had some exotic case of amnesia where she couldn’t remember who she really was and thought she was this god’s wife. And maybe he just didn’t want her to turn out to be a liar. With a hand against her lower back, he guided her through the door into his home.

Inside, Michael was flicking through screens on his iPhone. “Forensics is done. Tons of fingerprints. They’ll be sorting through those forever, unless they’re lucky enough to get a quick hit on someone in AFIS.”

“We couldn’t get that lucky.” Juste scratched the back of his head, irritated he didn’t have a direction to plunge. He looked at Khepri, leaning over the table, her mouth moving as she read the hieroglyphs on the wrappings. His belly tightened. “You can read that?”

Her lips stilled and she gave him a quick glance. “Yes.”

“What does this mean?” he said, pointing at the symbol that looked like a bird with a man’s head.

“It represents the
ba
, the soul. This line says that my soul will sleep until I am needed.”

Maybe she was guessing. Then he remembered part of the inscription he’d heard that morning. “And this up here?” he asked, pointing at the symbols Haddara had read.

“The spell begins, ‘Khepri,
ushabti
to the nameless one, beloved of Amun, hear this prayer and arise.’”

Juste stared hard, trying to see whether she’d flinch and betray herself, but she held firm. So she could read the symbols. He didn’t know what that proved. Certainly not that she’d been “resurrected.” He’d make damn sure both Dorman and Haddara saw her in the morning, too. See whether either of the men showed any reaction.

He glanced at Mikey. “Ever find that missin’ guard?”

“No, but I have an address. Wanna hit his place?”

Juste glanced at his watch. The evening was still young, but he didn’t like the thought of leaving Khepri alone.

Maybe she read his doubt, because she waved a hand. “I have this to decipher. Prayers yet to say. I won’t be afraid if you leave me alone.”

Juste almost felt ashamed at his relief. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of her curling up in his bed, not when he was still wired. He’d never get any rest. “I won’t be long. Don’t answer the door to anyone. I have my own key to let me in. If you get tired, go curl up in my bed. I’ll be takin’ the couch anyway.”

Her gaze moved to the hallway and back before she nodded. “I’ll be here when you return.”

Juste had the odd urge to kiss her before he left, but knew better than to try. Especially not with Michael watching them both so closely. He tightened his tie, gathered his jacket from where it lay on the countertop, and grabbed his keys. “Don’t set foot outside this door.”

“Is New Orleans such a scary place?”

“You’re not from ’round here.”

Her eyes warmed. “I’m not afraid, Justin Henry Boucher. Not in your home. Do you mind if I explore it?”

He shook his head. “Help yourself to anything. I’ll bring us both back some dinner.”

With a quick flash of a smile, her face turned back to the table, her brows lowering as she began sounding out the symbols again.

Juste closed the door and followed Mikey down the steps. He drew in a deep breath of muggy night air and almost changed his mind about leaving her alone.

“Take my car?” his partner asked.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his partner they’d handle the stop in the morning, but he couldn’t keep Khepri covered 24/7—not unless she was in lockup. Something Mikey might suggest if he tried to wiggle out of going. “You really wanna drop me back here later?”

“I wouldn’t mind catchin’ a bite with your new honey.”

Irritation ran through him. Juste gritted his jaw at Mikey’s easy grin. “Huh.”

For the first few minutes, the drive was spent in silence. Something Justin appreciated while he gathered his thoughts and decided what he’d tell his partner about the woman they’d just left. City lights glittered through the windshield, giving way to a darker, quieter part of the city as they left the Quarter.

“I found her in a crate at the back of the storage area. It was nailed shut. Only reason I took a closer look was there wasn’t any dust on it, different from everything else around it. Like it had just been moved there. When I knocked on the top to see if it sounded hollow, I heard her. She musta just woken up.” His hands fisted on his thighs. “She was inside goddamn garbage bags and wrapped up just like that picture they showed us of the mummy with the symbols painted on it. Exactly like it.”

Mikey shot him a quick, sideways glance. “You think Haddara and Dorman know about her? That they wrapped her up?”

“If they did, why report missing mummies? Doesn’t make sense.”

“She reads Egyptian hieroglyphs. Think we should have left her with all those artifacts?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sure she won’t just hightail it out of town soon as she can arrange a ride?”

His very thoughts
.
Maybe the kid did know his job
. Juste rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know, Mikey.”

“Wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Mikey shook his head, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

“If she’s gone when we get back, I don’t give a crap what she takes with her.” His chest pinched as he said the words.

His partner shot him another glance, his gaze narrowing on Juste’s face. “All right.”

Juste was fine letting his partner think whatever it was he was thinking about him and the girl. He’d probably already figured out he was enamored. Crazy with lust, for sure. Perhaps even a little bit in love. Not something Juste had ever felt before, if he didn’t count Sheila back in high school—but then, she had the magical hoo-hah the whole football team wanted, and she wanted him. He’d been willing to be her date through prom and beyond, but she’d dumped him the summer she started working as a receptionist for a lawyer and ended up married to the old man. When he’d cheerfully boxed up her things and left them on the front porch, Juste had figured out he wasn’t in really in love.

If Khepri wasn’t there when he got home, he’d be worried. Might even call in a BOLO and risk getting laughed all the way to the unemployment line, because he’d be worried sick someone else had taken advantage of her in her present state of mind.

Mikey signaled and made a turn onto a road with no shoulders—unless you counted the drainage ditches running up to the edges on both sides of the road. A trailer park with little postage stamp–sized squares of grass next to small white trailers was lined up neatly in military precision down a long lot. The overflowing trash cans beside each of the trailers either meant trash was due for pickup in the morning or the person who’d set up the lot was dead.

His musings were cut short when Mikey stopped beside a trailer, all windows darkened. “Thought you sent a squad car here earlier,” Justin murmured, peering through the darkness.

“Uniforms said no one was home.”

“Doesn’t look like anything’s changed.” He made the statement, but already he felt the hairs on his arms rising. He unclipped his seatbelt and quietly opened his door, stepping onto the small square of grass beside the uneven concrete patio squares leading to the stairs and the front door.

Juste glanced around the lot and moved toward the steps. Up and down the line, lights were on, shining dully through dirty windows. The muffled sounds of a dozen televisions running at the same time, some in stereo as they broadcast the same reality show, warred with the racket of crickets.

Mikey waited at the bottom of the stairs and drew his weapon, giving Juste a nod that he was ready for whatever Juste decided to do next.

Juste knocked, but not a single sound came from inside. He gently pulled down on the lever door handle, and it opened. Shooting Mikey a glance, he stood to the side and opened the door, darting a glance around the edge, but the room was dead quiet and stunk of decay. “Shit.”

He reached around for the light switch and flipped it, and then darted another glance inside. The museum guard was dead all right. Lying on his face in his underwear in the middle of a small cramped hallway. The side of his face was purple, his lips obscenely swollen. Flies buzzed, one crawling up a nostril and disappearing.

Juste wrinkled his nose and stepped back, reaching into a pocket for his “Vicks in a stick” and shoving it up his nose. “Let’s clear it—make sure there’s no surprises—then call it in.”

Together, they searched the small trailer. A task that took all of three minutes before they both darted through the door to draw in deep breaths of fresh air.

“Never get used to that,” Mikey said, coughing and gagging.

“Vicks. No one ever tell you it’s part of the tool kit?”

Mikey laughed. “Just thought you had balls of steel.”

Juste shuddered. “I’m gonna duck inside and try and see what killed him.” He shoved the stick back up his nose, one nostril at a time and inhaled, and then walked quickly inside, stepping over the corpse while being careful not to touch anything and queer the crime scene. In the guard’s bedroom, he found what looked like evidence of a battle. A TV shattered on the floor, one wall showing the deep indent of a shoulder—and the man’s missing trousers tossed at the base of a wall. Juste drew out his pen and lifted the pants by a belt loop. The guy had been in a hurry to remove them—the button at the waist was hanging by a thread and teeth were missing in the zipper.

The moment he lowered his hand to drop the trousers, something crawled out of the vee of the opening, a fat knobbed tail waving above its compact little body.

For an instant, Juste froze then he quickly dropped the pants and backed away. “Fucking scorpion!” he shouted. Then jumped up when another scorpion crawled from a corner and up the wall in front of him.

He backed out of the room, slowly, because everywhere he looked, large black scorpions crept—from beneath a newspaper folded on the nightstand, from behind a lamp upended on the floor, from the recess of the closet. Once out the room, he shut the door and then stuffed a towel underneath it to keep the creepy crawlers from escaping, then gingerly made his way out of the trailer. As he passed the guard, he noted a raised, welted area on his ankle. He’d bet anything the guard had died of anaphylactic shock. Damn strange, but a natural death—if they hadn’t already been hearing all about scorpions from the men at the museum.

Outside, he shuddered and patted down his body to make sure he hadn’t acquired any new friends.

“Did you say scorpions?”

“Yeah, dozens of the fuckers.”

Mikey grimaced. “We should capture one before they all crawl away.”

Juste raised his head and speared Mikey with a fierce frown.

Mikey raised both hands and shrugged. “I’d volunteer, but I’m allergic to bee stings.”

“They’re not fuckin’ bees.”

Shaking his head, Mikey grimaced. “Still …”

Juste growled and stomped back up the steps. In the kitchen, he grabbed a plastic dish from a cupboard then whipped his tie over his shoulder before he headed toward the bedroom. He’d get himself proof something completely unnatural had occurred inside this trailer. And maybe something a little extra to set free inside Mikey’s car—just for fun.

But once he started stalking one of the bastards, he decided he wouldn’t release one on his worst enemy, much less his smart-ass partner. They were fast, and tossed their tails back and forth like tiny maces. Once he lowered the dish over a particularly fat specimen and inched the lid beneath it to trap the poisonous critter, he got out again as fast as he could.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Mikey held up his phone. “I told them to bring Terminix.”

Justin handed the container to Mikey, who squinted at the lid and made a face but manfully accepted it, then quickly dropped it on the hood of his car with a plop.

About to turn away, Juste noted a scratch mark beneath one of the windows in the front of the trailer. A window that opened into the guard’s bedroom. The latch had been tampered with. Had someone broken it to drop scorpions inside the bedroom? How could they have been sure the venom would kill the guard?

Juste didn’t mention his questions to his partner. “Think she’ll like fried chicken?”

“Do girls built like her even eat fried chicken?”

“Guess I’ll find out. I’m starvin’.” He picked up the plastic container containing the scorpion and gave it a shake.

“That lid on tight?” Mikey asked, eying the container.

“Worried it might get loose?” He did his best to hide a chuckle.

“I’m the one drivin’. You don’t want to end up in a canal, you better stop playin’ around.”

“You afraid of bugs, Prejean?”

A shiver shook Mikey’s shoulders. “I’m not afraid. Just don’t like ’em.”

“Wonder how many people knew the guard had an issue with scorpion venom.”

He shuffled his feet. “Someone who worked at the museum?”

Thinking around the scene in the bedroom, Juste repressed a shudder. “These scorpions look like something that even lives around here?”

“I’ve seen little brown ones, but nothing that effin’ big before.”

“Wanna lay bets they live in Egypt, that you can find ’em in the millions near Thebes?”

Mikey’s mouth pursed. “Maybe you should ask your girlfriend about ’em.”