I looked at Cordelia. Usually we’re locked in our own world, our own needs and desires. Cordelia had just let me into a place where she was small and scared. “I’m so afraid of you,” I admitted.

“Micky. Why?”

“Because of the…power you have over me.”

“You have power over me, too. That’s were trust comes in. I won’t make foolish promises like forever and always. But I will try to never intentionally hurt you.”

“I’m still terrified. I don’t think love has ever lasted for me.”

“Where does that leave us?” she asked.

“With my barricades still up, I guess.”

Cordelia reached for my hand. “I don’t want to cut my losses and run. Live with me. It can be at your place if you want. Maybe if we’re together, you’ll learn to trust me.”

“Maybe. Or at least we’ll find out fairly quickly that it’s not working,” I replied, then asked, “Do I have to answer right now?”

“No, of course not. As exhausted as we both are, now is probably not a good time to answer. Within a week? Can you give me that?”

“I think so,” I answered slowly.

She nodded, then said, “I’m exhausted. I think I need some sleep.”

“What time is it, anyway?”

She looked at her watch. “Three thirty. I’ve been up since eight yesterday morning.” She added, “You can stay, if you like.”

“I feel like my brain’s too dead to make any decisions.”

“I’m going to take a quick shower. I feel filthy. If you leave, let me know. But…it’s okay if you stay,” she added hesitantly.

I nodded noncommittally. Cordelia got up and went to the bathroom. Sitting alone, I realized that I didn’t want to leave. I went to her bedroom. After finding a T-shirt and panties to wear, I climbed into bed. Several minutes later, I heard the bathroom door open. Cordelia came out and called, “Micky?”

“I’m in here,” I answered.

She entered the bedroom, towel draped around her. She smiled at me and I knew that she thought I had left.

“I borrowed a T-shirt and some underwear,” I said.

“You’re allowed,” she answered as she got a shirt out of a drawer. She put on her T-shirt and rolled into bed. “Good night, good afternoon, whatever it is.” She reached out, took my hand, and held it for just a bare second before she turned away to go to sleep.

Cordelia usually didn’t wear anything to bed and she usually sleeps facing me. She seemed to understand the reassurance my fragility needed. There was not much more I could ask for.

I let the tension ease out of me and closed my eyes.

When I woke again, I was very disoriented. The vaguely familiar clock on the bedside said nine eighteen, but it was dark outside. It took me a minute to figure out that it was nine eighteen at night, which neatly explained the darkness. Then I realized that I was in bed with Cordelia and we were at her place. She stirred, bumping into me.

“Micky?” she asked sleepily.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I thought I dreamed you.” Cordelia half sat up. “I’m still exhausted and I’m still hungry.”

“Flip a coin. You can’t eat and sleep.”

“I can eat and then sleep.” She sat up all the way. “Pizza?”

“No, too heavy.”

“I presume I can talk you into an oyster po-boy.” Cordelia knew my weak spot. She got out of bed.

“You can.”

“Good,” she replied, picking up the phone. She placed our order, then headed for the bathroom.

Cordelia woke up slowly. She might be monosyllabic for the next half hour. I put her bathrobe back on and padded out to the living room. I curled up in an easy chair and picked up a magazine.

When she came out of the bathroom, she said, “I’m not going to be great company. I still feel tired and out of it.” She sat down on the couch and picked up the paper. “Will this be dinner? Or have we even made it to lunch yet?”

“I can’t keep track.”

“I’m going to eat and go back to bed. I think I’m into very basic functions right now.”

Cordelia read the paper and I glanced at the magazine until the food arrived. After eating, Cordelia fed Rook and I threw the few dishes we had used into the dishwasher. We brushed our teeth at the same time, a routine already established.

As we entered the bedroom, Cordelia said, “Thank you for staying.”

“I was too tired to leave.” I shrugged.

“As exhausted as I am, I don’t know if I could sleep if I were by myself. Too much…tension lately. I’m very glad you’re here.” Cordelia lay down and turned off the light.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

Suddenly, I wanted her, with a fierce longing. Sex would always be entwined with power, be it destruction or creation. Desire, at its best, held the promise of renewal. I wanted to touch that promise.

I reached for her, a tentative hug. She returned my embrace, her arms tightly around me, no hesitation or ambivalence. Emboldened by her holding me, I rolled on top of her, lifting up only long enough to pull off my shirt. I pushed hers up far enough to uncover her breasts.

“Micky, what’s…?” Cordelia started.

“Yes, just say yes,” I demanded, asking for what I wanted.

“Yes, of course,” she answered. “Of course.”

I wanted to be consumed by our lovemaking, to reach a place where it was all that mattered. Cordelia moaned as I kissed her, a deep kiss, our mouths open. I pressed my breasts, my hips into her, wanting to feel the heat of her skin. She moaned again as I spread her legs, my thighs hard against hers. I wanted this intensity, a hard passion that left no room for anything other than itself.

Cordelia’s arms were around me, one hand in my hair, urging my tongue deeper into her mouth. I didn’t bother with foreplay beyond the press of her body against mine. I entered her, my fingers plunging inside. Not even waiting for her to respond, I pushed her legs open, spreading her across the bed.

I broke off our kissing, sliding down to free my arm. I thrust deeply into her, my fingers sliding in and out, my pace increasing with her rapid breathing.

“Yes, yes,” Cordelia gasped as my fingers plunged into her.

For a few moments, that was all there was, my fingers probing and sliding in her, her short gasps of breath and the heat and sweat of our skin where we touched. I was aware of nothing beyond that. The arch of her hips, the tightening of her muscles around my fingers, a breath that held longer, I sensed each increment in our escalating desire. My fingers felt her as she reached the edge of orgasm. I knew she was coming before she cried out, before the spasm clutched my hand, then spread through her body. I kept her riding my fingers, kept her coming until a final shudder told me that she was through.

We lay still for a few minutes. I kissed her softly on the neck, her breasts, my fingers resting inside her.

Finally, she said, “What do you want?”

“This. Not to think or worry about anything beyond these doors.”

“Just us. Yes,” Cordelia answered.

“Go down on me.”

She kissed my neck, then moved to my breasts.

“No,” I told her. “I’m ready. Do it hard. I want to feel you everywhere.”

Cordelia glanced at me for a moment, acknowledging the change, my desire pushing beyond its former boundaries. Then I felt her warm breath on my stomach, my hips, her hands pushing my legs open. Cordelia made love to me, intense, hard, as I had asked her to.

It wasn’t bright and new, the excitement of the unknown that I had felt with Lindsey. Cordelia and I had gone beyond the exploration of the merely physical. I knew her body and her responses, and she knew mine. This is what had so frightened me, being touched in a place that was beyond physical, reaching into areas where trust, and its shadowed twin, fear, were hidden. As I lay on the bed, I knew that it might not last, or remain beyond the night, but I trusted Cordelia, trusted her with my fears and my demons.

She entered me first with her tongue, then when it couldn’t probe deeply enough, used her fingers. Cordelia thrust in me and sucked on me, a wall of sensation. Release came quickly, I think I had been ready for a long time, a shuddering climax that made me cry out.

We said nothing, lying in each other’s arms. The perfect moment of trust still unbroken. In a few moments, I heard her deep, rhythmic breathing.

I awoke again and the clock on the bedside said three fifty. Cordelia was still asleep beside me. I lay in the dark for a moment. Suddenly, I knew something and, if I didn’t move, I would catch it.

First I felt chilled, then exhilarated. I had learned something on that boat. If I could get a few questions answered, I would be able to put together who was behind it all. Not wanting to disturb Cordelia, I carefully got out of bed. I went to the kitchen where my clothes were folded on the dryer.

It was four o’clock in the morning, but some monsters never sleep. I left a note for Cordelia. “My obsession isn’t quite finished. Just one more rock to kick over and see what crawls out. I think I can end this.” Then, hastily I added, “I love you. Micky.”

I got dressed and let myself out of her apartment. I drove back to my place first. For where I was going, my wrinkled clothes wouldn’t do.

Chapter 36

Hepplewhite reminded me that I hadn’t yet fed her today, early as it was, so I dumped some food in her bowl. I searched in the far reaches of my closet and found my good black wool pants and a winter white raw silk sweater. It would have to do.

I couldn’t do much about my car, but I planned to use the servants’ entrance.

Traffic was light as I drove uptown, the night misty and opaque. I turned into the gates of the Sans Pareil Club, nosing up its curving drive until I came to the turn that would take me the back way.

A gun or a wire would do me no good here. One of the things a man like Colombé had to wrap around himself was layers and layers of protection. While even his money had limits, none of them applied to me. He could kill me, here or far away, and find out anything he wanted to know about me, including every inch of my past. He could even have someone look up the appropriate quote from Faust.

I drove slowly into the garage, not wanting to do anything that would cause his protection to overreact, letting the video cameras see who I was. Colombé was a man who played games. He could afford to set the stakes very, very high. At least for his opponents. I had to know if I was one of those opponents, or if we both had been caught in someone else’s game.

The door opened and Francois came out. “Ms. Knight,” he said in his perfect neutral servant’s voice.

“Francois.”

“What can I do for you?” Nothing was out of place, no hint of curiosity at my being here at this hour.

“I need to see Mr. Colombé. Tell him,” I said loudly enough for the microphone I knew had to be about, “that I know something that he’s going to want to know, too.”

“Why don’t you tell me? If it’s worth something, I’ll give you the money.”

“This isn’t about money. I have to talk to Colombé.”

Francois sighed, a huge emotion for him. “I’ll see if Mr. Colombé is interested. It may take a while.” The door closed.

Francois made me wait over an hour. He opened the door, gave me the barest glance, and said, “Mr. Colombé will see you now.”

He kept his back to me, making it clear that he was leading and I was following.

“Seen Joey lately?” I asked him, just to see his reaction.

“Joey?” he said, without turning toward me so I could see his face. “No, I haven’t.”

Francois was lying. I wondered if he realized I knew. It didn’t really matter. Francois hadn’t been a faithful enough servant to any of his masters. He would find out how paltry the rewards of unctuous servitude were.

He silently led me upstairs to the Blue Room and beyond that to the door of Colombé’s inner sanctum. He motioned me to enter, then closed the door behind me.

Colombé was sitting behind a massive desk, its rich polished wood offset with gold inlays. He wore a deep crimson velvet jacket, the smoke of his cigar wafting around his head, an ephemeral crown of air and ash. Spread across the desk were piles of coins, old and rare. He swept them casually aside to turn his attention to me.

“Miss Knight, welcome to my late-night sanctuary. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Some twenty young girls and a dead man.”

“What an intriguing opening. Who is the dead man?”

“You don’t know?”

“Should I?”

“Joey Boudreaux.”

Colombé blinked as if trying to remember who Joey was. Then he replied, “How inconvenient.”

“For you or for him?”

“I suppose you think for him. But Joey Boudreaux was a gnat buzzing around the face of the world. He had as much consequence.”

“His life was as important to him as yours is to you.”

“Thousands of people depend on me. And thousands more depend on them. I’m too old to feign sorrow for a man I barely knew, and, in what little I did know, could find nothing interesting or redeeming.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Is that why you came to see me? To ask that question?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Why do you care?”

“The twenty girls. They were scared and they were abused. The person who did that to them was the person who killed Joey Boudreaux.”

“So this is a quest for you?”

“You may call it that. You may mock me for it, but I don’t think children should live in terror.”

“I shan’t mock you. You’re the first person in several decades who has dared to question me. Much more interesting than old coins.” His wrinkled eyes glittered at me as if I were some new prize to inspect for purchase. “But no, I did not kill Joey Boudreaux.”

“The truth? Or just part of your game?”

Colombé’s eyes narrowed, perhaps his prize was asking too many questions. “You think I play games?”

“You buy men and women, barely adults, off the street, seducing them with money. You watch to see how far their desperation will twist and bend them. Isn’t that a game?”

“I treat my guests well. If it is a game, it is one they choose to play. No one leaves here with less than they came with.”

“Unless you count dignity and self-respect.”

“I don’t take that from them. They sell it.”

“What about children? What game is it for an eight-year-old to sell her dignity?”

“Not one I care to play. It is no challenge and therefore of no interest to me. I like winning. But I like winning through my skill, not the weakness of my opponent. Men who play with children are weak men.”

“Even if they make a good deal of money?”

“Is that what you think I’ve done?”

“O lente, lente, currite noctis equi.”

“Don’t speak in riddles, Miss Knight. My time is more valuable than yours.” His voice was querulous, that of an old man. Nothing would slow the horses of the night for him.

“‘Run slowly, slowly, horses of the night,’” I translated. “It’s from a play by Marlowe. Faustus says it as the last few minutes of his life tick away.”

“Great literature has little place in Joey’s pathetic life.”

I considered telling Colombé that I hadn’t thought of Joey, that he was the man who had sold his soul and should fear the horses of the night. His price had been very high, riches and power most men would never touch. As if that made a difference.

“Did you kill Joey?” I asked. Colombé’s soul was no concern of mine.

“It was inconvenient for me to have Joey Boudreaux killed when he was. I don’t inconvenience myself.”

“Why was it inconvenient for you?” I had to force myself to use the word.

“Joey took money that didn’t belong to him. I might have killed him after he paid it back, but certainly not before.”

“How much did he take?”

“Seventy-five thousand,” Colombé said distastefully.

“That’s nothing to you.”

“Not now. But there was a time when that much money meant the world to me. That’s not something I shall forget.”

Colombé had not killed Joey. He had his sins, but they were not the ones I wanted to avenge. My questions were answered. And now I knew who was to blame, the man who had less of a soul than Colombé.

“He made a fool of you,” I said.

“Who did?” Colombé sharply questioned.

“I’m sure your money can buy you that answer. If you spend a lot of it, you might even get to him before I do.”

“You mock me, Miss Knight.”

“No, I take you very seriously. That’s why I’m issuing you this challenge. There’s a person who cheated and used both of us. Let’s see who gets there first. But because I’ve been chasing him longer than you have, I’m going to give you a hint. You might want to talk to Francois.”

“Francois? Why?”

“That’s the problem with being rich. Your servants become so close to what you have that they begin to want it. Three days ago, I gave Joey fifty thousand. He was desperate for it. If he stole seventy-five from you, why did he need only fifty from me?”

Colombé’s eyes gleamed with the chill malice of an iceberg, silent, hidden in the night.