Authors: Rebecca York
Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Urban Fantasy, #Suspense
At Risk
At Risk
A Decorah Security Series Novel
By Rebecca York
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
Rafe Gascon felt his stomach muscles knot as he loitered in the shadows, staring across the street at the restaurant called Chez Eugenia, the last place in the world he’d expected to find himself.
From his vantage point, he watched patrons enter and disappear behind the lace-curtained front window.
Others were already inside, eating dinner before the big show.
He snorted.
Show!
It wasn’t exactly a dinner theater performance. More like a very dangerous game that Eugenia Beaumont had no business playing.
He’d like to march across the street, clear everybody out of the restaurant and sit her down for a very pointed talk. But giving advice on how she ran her business wasn’t part of his job description. Using his special talents to protect her was.
He cast his gaze up and down Dunlop Street, on the lookout for the mugger who had recently assaulted a couple of her patrons.
There were a few people on the block. A man in sandals and a sports shirt. A woman in a business suit carrying a briefcase. A young couple holding hands. Nobody struck him as suspicious, particularly the two old ladies who had gotten out of a car a few doors down from the restaurant. He assumed from their descriptions that the short, portly women were Gertie DeLong and her sister Martha Wilson, both on his list of frequent Chez Eugenia patrons. Both were well off but always on the lookout for bargains. Probably they didn’t want to miss the tasty appetizers Eugenia served before the real fun started.
Rafe had kept a semblance of objectivity from his post across the street, but when he saw the restaurant owner step forward to greet them, his heart clunked inside his chest.
He hadn’t seen her in eight years. She was a big part of the reason he’d left New Orleans and had only come back for short visits with his dad before he’d passed. Now he would have to deal with Miss Beaumont again. He had pointedly avoided keeping track of her over the years since he’d left, but his briefing folder had filled in any blanks he’d wondered about. He knew she’d gotten married a few years after he’d left, to a guy named Richard Delaney—probably someone she’d met on the country-club circuit—then divorced after another few years. Too bad she still didn’t have the husband. That would have made it easier to work with her. There would be no question that she was off limits.
From the shadows, he watched her look left and right, probably scanning for the mugger who had been screwing with her customers.
Rafe’s throat tightened as he silently acknowledged that she was just as lovely as he remembered. Her pale blond hair was pulled back and secured at the base of her neck. And her oval face was flushed, probably from working in the kitchen before coming out to greet her patrons. She was wearing a beaded green flapper dress that she’d probably picked up at one of the retro shops that he knew she loved to patronize.
You wouldn’t think she was in trouble by looking at her, but she’d contacted the New Orleans office of Decorah Security for help with the mugger problem.
When Frank Decorah had offered Rafe the assignment, he had requested not to be sent there. But Frank had insisted, and here he was.
As Eugenia Beaumont turned and surveyed the dining room of her restaurant, she ordered herself to relax.
But there was simply too much riding on this evening. Until the mugging incidents last month, Chez Eugenia had been on the fast track to culinary success. Her catfish bisque and her sweet herb-flavored crème brûlée trio had been the must-eat dishes of the New Orleans foodie crowd. And reviewers had praised the restaurant’s decor, with its old brick walls, old-time photos and potted greenery.
Now she was the talk of the town for exactly the wrong reasons, and she was paying for ads on Facebook and in the local paper assuring everyone there was no danger in coming to Chez Eugenia.
Of course, you wouldn’t know there was a problem this evening. The restaurant was filled with customers—as it usually was for her monthly Voodoo Night, featuring one of the city’s up-and-coming voodoo priestesses, Calista Lacoste.
The arrangement had seemed like a good idea nine months ago.
Now it was adding to Eugenia’s anxiety. And to put the icing on the cake, so to speak, this evening she was doing two jobs. Jenny Princeton, who usually greeted guests, had called in sick. So Eugenia had done a lot of cooking early in the day and left her sous-chef, David, to finish up the meals. Lucky for her that he’d worked for some of the best restaurants in town and knew his way around a professional kitchen.
“So good to see you,” she said to Gertie and Martha as she collected the seventy-five-dollar admission fee which she would split with Calista.
The two sisters stopped to chat briefly, then bustled toward the back of the restaurant, heading for the food table set up along one of the side walls.
Eugenia watched them pick up plates from the antique sideboard she’d taken out of Mom’s attic when she’d started furnishing the restaurant.
She glanced over the group of people seated casually at her polished wood-topped tables, some with bases made from old sewing machines. Two more good customers, Martin Villars and his wife, Holly, were here. They always made a point of telling her how good her food was, and she also knew they’d recommended the restaurant to friends, because some new patrons had mentioned it. But most of the people here tonight had come to dally with the dark and dangerous—in a setting they knew was safe.
Although she’d grown to respect the religion, voodoo wasn’t Eugenia’s particular cup of tea, and before the muggings had started, she’d thought about discontinuing the monthly feature. Now she was glad to have the business.
At several tables were visitors to the Big Easy who must have read about the ceremony in the ad Eugenia had placed in a local entertainment guide. And in the back was Jillian Hargrave who had started coming to the Voodoo Night a few months ago. She was a blond in her late twenties, but she always dressed as if she wanted to play down her delicate good looks rather than enhance them. Tonight she was sitting alone, hardly eating anything.
When Eugenia heard someone clear his throat, her attention refocused to a middle-aged guy wearing dark slacks and an expensive knit shirt standing at the hostess station looking around like he wished he were somewhere else.
He scuffed a shoe against the floor as he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “Is . . . this the place where . . . uh . . . they’re having the voodoo ceremony?”
“Yes.”
The woman with him was short and redheaded, although it was clear the coloring was covering up a lot of gray. She was wearing a sundress and sandals, standard attire for tourists who weren’t used to the New Orleans heat.
When Eugenia confirmed that this was indeed the place, she giggled nervously.
Hopefully she wouldn’t do that during the main event. She might think voodoo was a New Orleans sideshow, but the priestess who would be performing the ceremony didn’t agree. If Eugenia knew anything about Calista Lacoste it was that the woman was serious about her religion.
“I want to tell my friends at home all about this.
Do you have zombies?” the redhead asked.
Eugenia fought not to roll her eyes.
“Are you referring to an animated corpse?” she asked politely.
The woman drew in a quick breath.
“A what?”
“An undead being—like in a horror movie.”
“I don’t know exactly what I meant. I thought . . .” she raised one shoulder. “You know. That zombies might be part of the goings on.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“No, no. I’m sure it will be fine. Can we take pictures?”
“No flash,” Eugenia said, pretty sure that the pictures wouldn’t come out well in the dimly lit restaurant.
“And the seventy-five-dollar cover charge is for hors d'oeuvres, wine and extra personnel,” Eugenia said, gesturing toward the table at the side of the room where she’d set out a selection of finger foods, including some of her Cajun specialties. Splitting the fee with Calista meant Eugenia wasn’t making a lot on the evening, but the cover charge would more than pay for the food and wine.
The woman glanced at her husband.
“Is that all right?”
“Anything for you, honey.”
Eugenia collected a hundred and fifty dollars in cash. Turning back to the door, she tensed as she spotted another man who had obviously been listening to the conversation.
He had entered so unobtrusively that she hadn’t even noticed him; but when she saw his face, she went very still.
Even as she told herself it couldn’t be him, she knew Rafe Gascon was standing in front of her, as tall, dark and even better looking than she remembered. And totally at ease, she noted, with the part of her brain that was still capable of drawing conclusions. A far cry from the teenage boy who’d been unsure of himself in the Garden District house where her mother still lived.
He took a couple of steps forward, and they stood facing each other for the first time in eight years. Momentarily disoriented, she clamped her fingers over the edge of the nearest table.
Up close, his features were the same, although harder and a lot more worldly. And probably the crinkled lines at the edges of his eyes weren’t from laughter.
“Rafe?” she asked, speaking a name she hadn’t uttered in years.
“Yeah.”
She fought the sense of disorientation that threatened to swamp her.
“I thought you were in the army.”
Rafe was struggling with his own problems, like the sudden inability to draw a full breath.
Since arriving in town the day before, he’d been putting off the moment when he was going to have to face Eugenia Beaumont.
Swallowing to ease the sudden dryness in his throat, he answered, “I’ve been out of the army for a couple of years.
I’m with Decorah Security. You hired us to investigate the muggings around here”
“Oh.
You’re a private detective?”
“Yeah.”
Of course, when she’d hired Decorah, she couldn’t have been thinking that her old boyfriend would show up. Did he sound like he was daring her to ask for someone else? If she said she didn’t want him, he could report back to Frank Decorah—and get out of this assignment that was making his skin prickle.
Instead, she said, “That’s fine,” even when he suspected it wasn’t true.
Probably she’d be on the phone to Frank in the morning. But right now she needed the security she’d hired—and the investigative skills Rafe had acquired, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
He’d gotten into the MP’s in the army and made Captain in the investigative unit before meeting Frank Decorah.
The man had been very persuasive about recruiting him and had been willing to wait until Rafe’s enlistment was up.
Standing a few feet away from Eugenia Beaumont, Rafe struggled to maintain the professional demeanor that had never failed him before.
This woman had meant more to him than almost anyone else in his life. Too bad she hadn’t gotten fat and ugly and ill-tempered since their teenage days. Instead she had matured into a lovely woman—and one with determination. She was out on her own, with none of her rich family members roping in their society friends to patronize her restaurant. And when she’d seen an unorthodox opportunity to bring in more business, she’d taken it.
He’d thought she might be better off with another Decorah agent.
Now he understood that he wanted to get her out of trouble. And really, the moment Frank had sent him the computer file on her and he’d read about the mugging, his heart had started to pound. Even though he hadn’t been sure how he was going to deal with her on a personal level, he’d taken the job because if someone was hurting her, he wanted to stop them cold.
Which didn’t make it any easier to work with her, considering all the baggage they shared, although he realized he had gained an advantage in the relationship, at least temporarily.
He’d known about the assignment for a couple of days. She was just finding out she’d be dealing with her old—what? He couldn’t exactly say lover because they’d never gone all the way. But they’d done just about everything else.
She was speaking again, and he snapped his attention back to the present.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked, falling back on the manners that were second nature to her. Her mother might be determined to make sure everybody knew the family was New Orleans gentry. Eugenia was a lot more down-to-earth. She’d never been a snob. She’d even let herself . . . get involved with the handyman’s son.
He thrust that last thought from his mind and answered, “Not while I’m working.
I want to keep my full attention on the crowd.”
A look of alarm crossed her features. “You’re not expecting any trouble in here, are you?”
“No, not specifically,” he reassured her.
“Good.”
She turned away, and he looked over the people at the tables, some of whom had arrived before he’d taken up his position across the street. When he spotted Martin Villars leaning over to say something to his wife, Rafe fought to keep from clenching his fists as he confronted another piece of his past—one of his all-time least favorite memories, in fact.
Villars had owned a couple of antique shops in town, as well as some other businesses. When Rafe had been in high school, he had made some extra money on one of Villars’ furniture moving crews—until a garnet brooch had gone missing, and the man had accused him of taking it.