“Good idea.”
They headed down St. Louis toward Chartres, where the reception venue was.
“If it is the band of marauding Chers who did this, do you think robbery was their main goal?”
Drake shrugged. “Who can know what marauding Chers want, but since we don’t have any of our valuables, it seems likely.”
“But why were we missing our clothing, too?”
“Well, I don’t know if you recall how you felt before you blacked out, but I do, and I definitely wanted to be doing things that required me losing my clothes.”
Josie Lynn didn’t say anything, but her deep pink blush was answer enough.
They both fell silent.
“Do—do you think we did have sex?” she asked, her voice quieter than normal. Her cheeks pinker still.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I think it’s very possible. What do you think?”
When she fell quiet again, he glanced at her profile. Her lips were pressed firmly together, and she blinked several times as if she was fighting tears. That was answer enough, too.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she felt different, if she thought she could even tell, physically, if something might have happened. But her forlorn expression stopped him. He reached out to touch her arm. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I—I just hope all my catering stuff is still at Gautreaux’s.”
Drake didn’t doubt she was concerned about that, but he knew that wasn’t what had her ready to cry. He tried not to be offended that the idea of possibly having had sex with him brought her to tears. After all, she had made it clear, pre-drugging, that she wasn’t interested in him, and if they had done the dirty, the act hadn’t been her choice, but because of the effects of the drug.
He had to admit that he didn’t like the idea either.
“You know what, we probably didn’t,” he said with feigned decisiveness.
“You don’t think so?”
He shook his head. “Nope, and since we don’t remember what happened anyway, I think we might as well assume nothing did.”
She didn’t say anything more, and he got the distinct feeling that plan didn’t soothe her as much as she’d like.
Chapter Nine
VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHER AVEC MOI?
“SO how do you think we wound up wearing handcuffs?” Lizette asked Johnny as they sat outside of Saxon’s apartment on two rickety iron chairs on the narrow balcony. The drink he had handed her was resting in her grip, and she had her legs crossed, giving her appearance a sense of propriety she didn’t feel. But it was actually pleasant to finally stop tromping around and just sit in the warm air and try to calm down. The courtyard was completely empty, only two apartments having access to it, and it felt safe to Lizette.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Not normally prone to hysterics, she had been quite close to having a complete breakdown when she had seen the picture of Johnny biting her neck. It had looked so . . . sexy. So . . . public. “Were we wearing handcuffs in the photo?”
“No. So I guess we can still assume that it happened at Zelda’s later in the night.”
“Perhaps you meant it as a flirtation.”
“Hey!” He smiled at her. “How do you know it was my idea? Maybe it was your way of keeping me close at hand until you could get all your questions about ‘The List’ answered.”
It was clear what he thought of her job. It should have bothered her more than it actually did. But he sounded more teasing than anything else, and she had to admit that was something she appreciated about Johnny. He didn’t seem prone to hysterics either, and he definitely took the approach that life was meant for laughing. Lizette found that a refreshing change from the ancient and dusty vampires in the VA who clung to brooding traditions. To them, shopping for a new coffin was a hot night on the town. Johnny didn’t even have a coffin. She knew because it wasn’t on the list.
“I highly doubt that I would resort to handcuffs. Then again, I can’t say I behaved the way I normally would have last night.” She stared down into her glass. “I have compromised this case, you know. I will have to return to Paris and have it reassigned. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to be the one investigating your identity when I have . . . when we . . .” Lizette forced herself to say it. “When we have been sexually intimate.”
“At least you can verify my penis size. I’m sure the VA knows that, too.”
She wanted to be offended, but it was probably true. Lizette laughed. “I would if I could remember.”
“Want to check now?” Johnny put his hand on the button of his jeans, clearly joking.
“No!” She said the first thing that came to mind, a joke she normally would have kept to herself. But she let it out. “I don’t have a ruler on me, so what good would that do? Though I suppose I could gauge it with my mouth.”
Johnny choked on his blood, actually spraying some across the banisters of the balcony. “Holy crap. I cannot believe you just said that.”
She had her moments. “I can have a sense of humor as well, Johnny. If your name is really Johnny.”
He gave her an eye roll. “Well, how else can we verify that I’m Johnny Malone? There has to be a way. I don’t want you to get in trouble because my friends throw weddings with seriously spiked punch. I can answer any question you have, because I am me, you know.”
She did believe him actually. He was too well-known by the other vampires, too aware of everything in the apartment, too casually comfortable. Unless he was an astonishing con artist, he was in fact, Johnny Malone. “What is your birthday?”
“That’s easy. Born April 17, 1899 in Cork to Mary and John Malone. My sister Stella was born two years later, followed by three girls, one born each year. Molly, Maggie, and Maeve. My mom had an M thing going there for some reason. She and my three little sisters all died in the influenza outbreak of 1918, and my father buried his grief in the bottle. A few years later Stella and I came to America, and fell in with the mob in Chicago after I proved a dab hand with me fists.” He turned up his slight accent until it was thickly Irish, his fists in front of him. He gave her a mock jab with a grin. “It kept us from starving. Until it also got us caught in the line of a machine gun. Woke up a vampire, thank God. I wasn’t ready to go out yet, you know what I mean?”
She nodded. “I do.” She had seen an extraordinary amount of death. It had made her even more fearful of dying.
“When were you born?”
It wasn’t relevant to his case, of course, and she never shared her personal details with anyone outside of the inner council, but he had been so open, and she was feeling oddly melancholy, so she told him the truth. “I was born in 1770 in Lyons, France, though my family spent most of the year outside of Paris at the court of Versailles with the royal family. My parents were murdered during the Terror and I was a witness to it. I myself was scheduled for decapitation at the guillotine, but the blade was dull and did not complete the execution. However, I was tossed in the pile of bodies and well on my way to death, though I have no memory of it. But I awoke as I am today, a vampire by the name of Jean-Baptiste having saved me.”
“Jesus. That’s horrible.”
“Yes.” Lizette drained her glass. “But no more horrible than your history. You lost your family as well.”
“I did.” Johnny leaned forward, his palm on his knee, the hand connected to hers dangling by her side. “Stella and I never knew who turned us. We just woke up frightened and undead. Was Jean-Baptiste a good mentor?”