Crux. Part 2

Blissful silence filled the office for a full five seconds before Alec snorted in exasperation. "Jesus. You've got the hots for her, don't you?"

Jackson shot him an exasperated look of his own and put down the phone. "Not everything in my life is about s.e.x, Jacobson. I just figure it's none of your d.a.m.n business, that's all."

"If you're doing a job, it's my business. You were supposed to be sleeping last night so one of us would be ready to deal with the fallout on the Smith case this morning. Now your personal business is s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my professional business."

"Is there fallout to deal with?"

Alec pulled a slim camera from his jacket pocket and held it up. "As soon as Kat pulls the pictures off of here, you can see how much. The man's not subtle. I'm not surprised his wife figured out exactly what he was up to."

Jackson was glad he'd already called Nick to update her on Mackenzie's status and whereabouts. "Let me guess. c.o.c.ktail waitress? Exotic dancer?"

"Secretary. It's always the secretary." Alec turned his dark gaze on Kat and flashed her a wicked smile. "Why is that, Kat?"

Jackson watched in amus.e.m.e.nt as Kat s.n.a.t.c.hed the camera from Alec's hand with a dangerous look. "Don't ask me. I wouldn't get mixed up with you if you paid me. Oh wait, you do." She handled the camera with speed and familiarity, her fingers flying over the b.u.t.tons. She plugged a cord from her computer into the side of the camera and pulled her keyboard toward her. "Now, Jackson, on the other hand... I'd get mixed up with him for sure. Especially if he made me Italian food."

Alec scowled. "You are too popular with the ladies for your own d.a.m.n good, Holt."

"Don't I know it." He thought about Mackenzie and how she hadn't seemed the slightest bit interested in him. "Then again, maybe not."

Alec looked like he was going to say something, but Kat let out a sudden choked noise and pushed her chair back from her desk. "Holy c.r.a.p, Alec. I'm never giving you the camera with the good zoom lens again."

The pictures on her computer were gritty and explicit enough to leave no doubt about their client's husband's extramarital activities. His lurid affair with his secretary was splashed over Kat's flat-screen monitor. In detail. Maybe too much detail.

Alec laughed. "Didn't have to zoom much. They were right next to the window, and I can move pretty quietly when I want to."

Jackson leaned over Kat's shoulder. "Looks like our society matron could have been absolutely right to be concerned about that huge life-insurance policy." He whistled and accidentally nudged Kat's purse aside, revealing a copy of the Delta Examiner, a regional tabloid newspaper. "Oh, Kat. Alec, look what Kat's reading."

She tried to s.n.a.t.c.h away the tabloid, but Alec's shapeshifter reflexes made him impossibly fast, even when he was exhausted. He grabbed the paper and frowned. "Oh, h.e.l.l. You'd better have a good excuse for this, Katherine Gabriel, or I may fire your a.s.s."

"It's funny," she retorted, her cheeks bright red. "I like reading the stories about the so-called supernatural conspiracy. This one has an article about a secret cabal of psychics who control the government." She sniffed. "No one invited me to join."

Jackson laughed. "Maybe they don't need any soft-hearted empaths." He looked at the paper over Alec's shoulder. "Yep, there's your nemesis. C.E. Miller, the great paranormal whistle-blower."

Alec's scowl deepened as he flipped open the tabloid to the page listed and skimmed the article. "It's not funny. We survive by flying beneath the radar. Whoever this clown is, he's f.u.c.king s.h.i.t up for everyone. Every d.a.m.n week he manages to latch on to the latest gossip in the supernatural world and spew it over the pages of this rag. He has to be one of us, or he wouldn't always know what's going on."

"Right." Jackson walked over to the table and opened a bag of beignets. "'Cause everyone believes that stuff. Especially the thing about that secret cabal of psychics." He took a bite of the fried dough, careful not to inhale any powdered sugar. "Someone get this guy a Pulitzer, already."

Looking disgusted, Alec tossed the paper back on Kat's desk. "Some day, when I've got some free time, I'm going to track that man down and have words with him. If he just wants money, he could write the same UFO and Bigfoot s.h.i.t as everyone else. He doesn't have to publish stuff that's real."

Jackson brought Kat a beignet on a napkin. "Suppose you're right, Alec, and he's one of us. He could belong to one of the factions that wants exposure, even if it's dangerous."

"All the more reason for me to track him down," Alec said darkly. He sank into his chair with a glance at Jackson. "Is this job we're doing for Nick going to keep you busy today? I can go talk to the husband, but I'll need to bring Kat with me to work her mojo."

Jackson almost told him that, technically, he was finished with his favor for Nick. "Actually, yeah. I'm going to check some things out. Why don't you give me a call when you're done with the husband? I need you and Kat to take a gander at Nick's new employee, if that's all right."

Kat made a face. "G.o.d, just promise me it's the last time I have to see that slimeball husband. I always feel like I need a shower after reading him."

Jackson started flipping through a stack of mail. "Alec won't make you go back, Kat," he promised absently. "No more gold-digging, slimeball husbands for at least a week."

She shuddered. "I am never getting married. Never."

Though the sentiment wasn't far from his own feelings on the subject, Jackson thought about his parents and their nearly thirty-five years of wedded bliss. "Find the right guy, Kat, and you won't have to worry about him wanting to b.u.mp you off for money."

"Plus I'd have to actually have a lot of money first," She pulled her chair back to her desk. The phone rang, and she wrinkled her nose as she slipped on her headset. "Holt and Jacobson Investigations. How can I help you?"

Jackson threw away half the stack of mail and tossed some of the remaining correspondence on Alec's desk. "Will you be finished with the husband by around two this afternoon?"

Alec scratched at the side of his beard as he stared past Jackson in thought. "Should be. Depends on what Kat gets from him, though. You want us to swing by Mahalia's when we get done?"

"That'd work. I can't quite figure this one out."

"Yeah, me either," Alec commiserated. "Of course, that could be because you haven't told me a d.a.m.n thing aside from the fact that Nick hired some hot chick who was staying in a c.r.a.p motel."

Jackson blinked and flushed. How could he have forgotten to share with Alec the most important fact of all? "Nick thinks she's a shapeshifter, but not a wolf. I can't get a bead on her."

"Apparently," Alec drawled dryly. "She's scrambled your brains but good, man. I can come by and take a look, and Kat will be able to give you an idea of what shape she's in emotionally."

Jackson focused on his planner. "I've got to meet an informant in about fifteen minutes. Give me a call when you're headed to Mahalia's." He grabbed his cell phone and coffee. "Be careful with the husband. They freak out sometimes when they know they're busted."

"Yeah, I'll take care of Kat."

Jackson paused by her desk, held up the tabloid and grinned mischievously. "By the way? Last week, Miller wrote an article about the vampire underground here in the Big Easy. So cheer up. He's not right about everything."

Alec just snorted. "Thank G.o.d. If this town had vampires, I might throw myself in the d.a.m.n Mississippi."

A gentle knock woke Mackenzie, jerking her rather unpleasantly from a dream about Jackson and his strong arms. Fear froze her in place for one endless moment while she stared at the door and imagined all of the ways Marcus could have found her. Blood pounded in her ears as panic shot through her, leaving nothing behind it but the desperate need to escape.

The knock sounded again, louder this time, and she heard a friendly female voice on the other side of the door. "Mackenzie? It's Nick."

Feeling foolish, Mackenzie rose from the couch and crossed the living room. When she pulled the door open, she found her boss on the other side, looking so harmless it made her panic seem absurd. She stepped back so Nick could come inside. "Did-did Jackson call you? He told me it would be okay for me to stay here for the night."

"Yeah, he called me this morning." She lifted a heavy-looking paper sack. "I brought some things. Can I come in?"

"Of course. But you didn't need to bring me anything. Really, Nick, it's enough that you let me stay here last night."

"Oh, it isn't much." Nick dropped the sack on the counter and started to unload it. "Just a few staples. Did you sleep well?"

Mackenzie's eyes darted guiltily to the couch and back. "I did. It's a beautiful apartment. But I told Jackson I'd find someplace else to stay tonight, so you really don't have to-" She watched helplessly as Nick pulled milk out of the bag and set it in the fridge. "I can't pay you enough to stay here."

Nick wrinkled her nose and straightened her red tank top. "Don't worry about that. The place is just sitting here, empty."

It was the same easy, casual way Jackson had offered help, and it was too good to be true. "Nick, I'm serious. You've already done so much."

The short woman heaved a sigh and pulled a bag of coffee out of the grocery sack. She seemed pensive as she rinsed the carafe from the coffee maker. "Okay, fair enough. How about if I don't pay you? You can work for tips and stay here, keep an eye on the place."

Mackenzie finally asked the one question she'd been wondering since Jackson had taken an interest in her welfare the night before. "Why?"

Nick leaned against the cabinets and tapped manicured nails on the countertop. "Honestly? You seem like you need help. If I have the means to provide it but choose not to, what does that say about me?" She pulled a charm-style keychain from her pocket and held it out. On the ring was a single key. "Let me do this. That way, I won't feel like a complete drain on society."

The simple honesty of the statement soothed Mackenzie's suspicions like nothing else had. She walked into the kitchen and accepted the key. "Okay. I'll work for tips and keep an eye on the place." It was more than she'd been paying for the cheap hotel, but not nearly as much as she should have paid. Nick had to have known the bulk of Mackenzie's income came from tips, anyway, and losing her hourly wage wouldn't make much of a difference.

"All right, then." Nick opened a cabinet and pulled out two oversized mugs. "Want a cafe au lait?"

"Sure." Mackenzie retrieved the milk from the fridge, noting that Nick had also brought vegetables, fruit and cheese. "Is Jackson an investigator or something? He's pretty good at following people without getting noticed." She tried to sound subtle, but had a feeling she'd failed.

Nick's grin confirmed her suspicions. "Yeah, he's a private investigator. He and his partner, Alec, spend a lot of time at the bar. Jackson was close to the lady who owned it before me." She bit her lip, suddenly looking contrite. "I'm sorry I had him follow you, but I didn't really believe you when you said you had a place to stay. It was wrong of me, but I was worried."

"It was a little startling." As if the sheer panic that had gripped her the night before could be considered "a little" anything. "He was a perfect gentleman, though, once he stopped stalking me in the shadows and all."

"He usually is." Nick eyed Mackenzie shrewdly. "Quite the looker too, hmm?"

Mackenzie felt the corner of her mouth quirk up, and was almost surprised she could still smile. It was real, not one of the fake ones she plastered on while working. "You seem to have a lot of lookers hanging out in your bar."

Nick hooted as she filled a small pan with milk and set it on the range over gentle heat. "That's an understatement. My bar is chock-full of hot men, that's what it is. I should start advertising that way."

"The women would never leave." Mackenzie relaxed more and found herself praying the car she'd abandoned outside of Memphis held the key to how Marcus had been tracking her. Maybe the nightmare would be over for a while. She could catch her breath and try to make sense of the shambles of her life.

More than that, Mackenzie wondered if this was the kind of place she could stay. It was easy to imagine being friends with Nick, working at the bar, maybe even finding a place where she could get a job giving dance lessons again. And maybe get to know Jackson...

Nick filled two of the mugs half full of coffee and slowly added the heated milk. "Mahalia's could be the first official New Orleans meat market. Wouldn't my father just love that?"

Mackenzie reached out for the mug that Nick proffered. "Your father doesn't like you owning a bar?" Mackenzie's father had paid for her to go to bartending school, reasoning that anyone with a fine arts degree in dance should have something to fall back on. Her parents hadn't been wild about her career choice, but they'd been supportive.

Nick snorted and shook her head. "He thinks I should be heading museum committees in Manhattan and looking for the perfect society husband, not running a watering hole in the French Quarter."

"That must be rough." She said it because she wasn't sure what else to say. Growing up in suburban South Dakota had hardly prepared her to discuss the foibles of high society, which was obviously where Nick had come from. Somehow Mackenzie doubted that the way her adoptive parents had spoiled her growing up would be considered ostentatious by a woman whose destiny had included museum committees.

Nick just waved a hand as she carried her mug to the small round table in the middle of the bright yellow kitchen. "It isn't rough, and if I ever say it is, smack me. When you've had everything you've ever wanted, whining about your life is just bratty."

"Hey, it's still hard. My parents weren't exactly thrilled when their daughter decided she wanted to study dance instead of engineering like her father. But they still helped me find the money to do it." And somewhere in the apartment she'd abandoned was a picture of her parents at her graduation, her mother already frail from the cancer that would kill her two months later but beaming with so much pride.

Nick's mouth curved into a slight frown. "They're not around anymore?"

"No. They were older when they adopted me. My dad was almost forty-five already. My mom was younger, but when she got sick the stress was horrible on both of them..." Mackenzie let her voice trail off and shrugged one shoulder. "She got to see me graduate, though. Then she made my dad pay for bartending school so I'd have a way to eat while I tried to make a living dancing. And my dad came to every dance audition I had until the day he died."

"They sound wonderful."

"They were." And the thought of how desperately she could have used her mother's unwavering affection and her father's pragmatic good sense over the past month was going to reduce her to tears if she didn't change the subject. "I was really lucky. Even when they didn't agree with me, they always supported me."

"Who needs parental support when you have a bar full good-looking men?" Nick proved herself plenty intuitive with a swift subject change. "Speaking of... What did you think of Jackson? Besides being blown over by his keen investigative skills, that is?"

"He was nice." She dropped into the chair across from Nick and tucked her feet under her. "Like I said, a perfect gentleman. Don't meet a lot of those these days."

Nick nodded too casually and played with the end of her ponytail. "I try not to keep them around if they don't have any manners. But Jackson's a good egg. His partner is too, though not nearly as...affable." She sipped her coffee. "I let them run up a huge tab at the bar. That way, whenever I need something, they have to pony up 'cause they owe me. It's Machiavellian, isn't it?"

Mackenzie laughed. It seemed like it had been forever since she'd laughed as easily as she had in the last few days. "It's brilliant, if you ask me. You can never have too many hot men owing you favors."

"That's what I'm saying." Nick tilted her head. "I heard you made quite an impression on Derek Gabriel."

Uh-oh. Mackenzie shook her head. "He was just trying to annoy his friend. Penny, I think?"

Nick shrugged, but her cheeks colored. "Hey, Gabriel's not bad, either. If you like him, you should go out with him."

Well, that answered the question of how Nick felt about Derek. After the past month, it seemed almost surreal to be sharing coffee with another woman and talking about men, but something about it felt normal, too. "I'm not really in a place where I should be going out with people." Don't you forget that, Mackenzie Brooks.

"You may feel differently after a couple of weeks." The look in Nick's dark eyes was sharp and a.s.sessing. "I've got to get downstairs and do some inventory. Can you come down around two?"

"Sure. Thanks, Nick. For everything."

Nick took her mug to the sink to rinse it. "You're welcome, Mackenzie. See you in a bit." She crossed the room to the door and smiled before stepping through. The door closed behind her with a soft click, leaving Mackenzie alone with her thoughts.

She finished her coffee and rinsed her cup before giving in to curiosity and peering into the bag Nick had left on the counter. Several bottles sat inside, along with a new toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. She pulled them out one at a time, admiring Nick's expensive taste in shampoo and conditioner. The body wash was labeled "Summer Rain" and smelled fresh and wonderful. There was even a tiny container of bubble bath.

She lifted out a pink loofah and imagined taking her first bath in over a month. Not a quick shower in a dingy hotel room but a real bath, with hot water and privacy and no bugs crawling over the floor or strangers banging on the walls.

She gathered the toiletries and wandered back to the bathroom. It was bright and clean, and it looked like heaven. After closing the door, Mackenzie turned on the tub and resolved that, if nothing else, she was going to spend the rest of the morning in mindless luxury.

Maybe, if she was lucky, she could drift back to sleep and dream of Jackson Holt and his beautiful eyes again.

Chapter Four.

Jackson stared at the etched silver letters on the picture window and sighed. He'd arrived early, even though Nick had told him Mackenzie wouldn't be down until two o'clock, and had even pondered circling the corner and climbing the staircase to the apartment above.

He was losing his mind.

He glanced down the street in both directions, squinting in the afternoon light. Alec and Kat hadn't called yet, and they were nowhere in sight. With another small sigh, he pushed open the door.

Mackenzie must have been early, because she stood behind the bar, humming absently and wiping it with a white cloth. Her hair was up again, and she was dressed more formally than Nick, in a blue b.u.t.ton-up shirt tailored to skim her curves. When the bell above the door rang, she looked his way.

She smiled, the expression far friendlier than the one she'd given him the day before. "Hey, Jackson."

He grinned as he approached the bar and eased onto a stool. "Mackenzie. You seem like you're breathing a little easier already."

"I am," she admitted, folding the towel neatly on the counter. "Can I get you something?"

"Whatever soft drink's handy." He grabbed a handful of pretzels from a nearby bowl. "I'm working. My partner and our a.s.sistant will be here in a bit, actually. I'd like for you to meet them."

She poured his soda, and when she turned back her easy smile had vanished, replaced by the tense, brittle one from the previous day. "Oh yeah? You guys have a big case or something?"

"Not really. We're finishing one up now, but everything else we've got going on is pretty small-time." He took the gla.s.s she offered. "They just want to meet Nick's new hire."

For a moment he thought she was going to take him at his word, but her lips flattened into a hard line. "If that's all it is, I'm happy to meet them. And I don't want you to think I don't appreciate everything you did for me last night, Jackson. I do. But-" She hesitated, and the weary exhaustion in her eyes made his chest ache with sympathy. "I'm not a great person to get tangled up with right now. I don't want people who are trying to help me to end up hurt."