He sucked on the cigarette, stoking it enough to heat Liam’s and start it burning. Liam stepped away, nodding his thanks as Zane’s hand dragged across his shoulder. He blew smoke away from Zane’s face and winked. “Best chance encounter I’ve had tonight.”
Zane laughed uncomfortably and licked his lips, putting the cigarette in his mouth again so he wouldn’t have to say anything.
They stood together, enjoying their cigarettes and the warm night, watching the different sorts of people passing. A man in a top hat and cape strolled by, clicking a walking stick on the pavement. A woman rode the other way on a bike, fairy wings and ribbons fluttering behind her.
“It’s an odd sort of place, yeah?” Liam commented. Zane laughed. “That’s a big son of a bitch right there,” Liam added. He nodded toward the intersection as a man walked across the street. Zane’s eyes followed. It was unusual to encounter people that made Zane feel small.
“Hey Zane!” Ty called from the pool of light around the door of the tavern.
Zane glanced toward him and waved. “Be there in a minute.”
“Your boyfriend?” Liam asked.
“Yeah.”
Liam glanced toward the light. Ty was joined by the others and they stood around talking and laughing, waiting for Zane. It was dark enough in Zane’s alcove for Liam and Zane to stare without fear of being seen ogling them.
Liam looked Zane up and down one last time. “Lucky him,” he drawled.
Zane glanced at him, surprised. Typically when people saw Ty, the response Zane expected was “lucky you.”
“Perhaps I’ll see you around again. Without your boyfriend,” Liam added, giving Zane another wink before he turned and made his way down the darkened sidewalk, away from the tavern.
Zane took a step to watch him walk away. He had no intention of ever being with someone else again, but he could see why Ty enjoyed a harmless flirtation now and then. It was quite the ego booster. And kind of a turn-on. He wanted to get Ty back to the hotel and into a bed now. Thank you, stranger. He pursed his lips, turning his back on Liam Bell’s retreating form and strolling toward Ty and the others.
Ty put a hand around his waist when he joined them. “Making friends?”
Zane shook his head. “Arranging a tryst for later tonight.”
“Oh yeah?” Ty asked, his tone as casual as Zane’s had been. “Well, what happens in NOLA . . . goes home with an STD.”
A scream tore through the night and interrupted their laughter. Zane wasn’t the first to push through the door of the bar, but he could see the commotion over the shoulders of the men in front of him. A woman was in hysterics, being held in place by two men who were trying to ascertain what had frightened her so much. She finally gave up on words and pointed to the tiny bathrooms at the back of the bar.
A red stiletto sat in the doorway, blocking the door open. Beyond, Zane could see one bare foot on the floor.
Nick forced his way through the crowd, reaching the bathrooms first. “I’m a cop, I’m a cop, move aside,” he kept repeating, until he’d almost cleared out the area. One look into the bathroom was all he needed. He didn’t even try to step in to check the girl. He turned to them and gave a curt nod. “Call it in,” he said. “And don’t let anybody leave.”
Owen and Digger had stayed near the entrance, and they closed in to block the doors, preventing anyone inside from exiting. The patrons began to protest, panic building as they realized they were trapped.
“Everyone stay calm,” Zane called out, raising his badge so people could see it. “Remain calm until the police arrive and we’ll get this sorted out. We’re containing the scene and material witnesses, that’s all this is. We thank you for your cooperation.”
The crowd began to calm with his words. Nick nodded to him and smiled gamely. None of them were armed because neither Ty nor Zane had been given the chance to get their weapons before they’d been kidnapped. And it was merely luck that Zane still had his badge on him. He was surprised Ty hadn’t flashed his as well to help him calm people. Zane took a moment to glance around the bar for his partner. But Ty was gone.
Nick knelt at the door to the tiny bathroom and peered through the crack left by the shoe wedged in it. He had no jurisdiction down here, but it was ingrained to try to preserve a crime scene and that’s what he’d done. He felt someone kneel beside him, and was surprised to find Zane instead of Ty there.
Zane gave him a shrug. “I’ll have to do for your sidekick this time. Ty’s gone.”
“What? Where’d he go?”
“I have no idea. He was right beside me one second, then he was gone. He had to have slipped out before you said to block the exits. Fire hazard, by the way.”
“The cops can arrest me when they get here,” Nick muttered.
Zane snorted. “Is this a murder?”
“I would say so, but I’m sure as hell not touching anything to find out. I’ll fake getting pegged for a murder all day, but I don’t want to do it in real life. You got a pen or something?”
Zane dug around in his pockets and pulled out a Bic. Nick took it and nudged the door open wider. It was mostly out of habit and curiosity that he was looking at the scene, because the FBI didn’t have jurisdiction here, and the Boston Police Department sure as hell didn’t either.
“Ligature marks,” he whispered to Zane. “Definitely a crime scene.”
“What is that in her hand?” Zane asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the people around them trying to peer in.
Nick waved for Kelly, and the man came over to usher people away. Nick smiled. Sidewinder had never been used to investigate crimes, but Nick had to give the boys credit for being able to handle crowd control. Except for Ty, who had bailed on them.
With a bit more privacy to work with, Nick gently lifted the girl’s fingers with the tip of the pen. She was holding a small white bag in her palm. Its contents had spilled open: dried herbs of some sort. Probably drugs, but not the kind Nick usually saw at murder scenes. The fact that they were still there meant they weren’t anything to write home about. In her other hand was a small strip of paper. Nick was careful not to touch it as he pushed her fingers aside.
Zane crowded closer to him, and Nick shifted to let him see. Zane reached his phone over the girl’s hand and snapped a picture. They could hear the sirens drawing near, so they both stood and backed away from the door. They helped Kelly keep people away from it until the police took over.
“What’s the FBI and Boston PD doing here?” one of the officers asked Zane, his shoulders squaring like he was preparing for a fight.
“Just on vacation,” Zane said with a sigh.
“We didn’t touch a thing, just tried to lock it down until you got here,” Nick assured the man. “All we want to do is give our statements and move along.”
The cop eyed him suspiciously, but he finally gave a nod and took down their accounts. Nick didn’t have to tell the others not to mention Ty being there. They all knew he’d spent a few years undercover in the city. Whatever his reasons for disappearing, they were probably good ones.
It was nearly an hour after the discovery of the body before they were allowed to leave.
“Least they could have done was thank us for helping,” Owen muttered as they trudged across the street into a crowd of curious onlookers.
“We’re lucky they didn’t arrest Nick for poking the dead girl,” Digger said.
“I didn’t poke her. Jesus.”
“Looked like you poked her.”
“Shut up.”
Zane laughed ahead of them, and slowed to let Nick catch up. He glanced at Nick, smiling wryly. “I forget how much you and Ty have in common sometimes.”
“Yeah, until O starts taking it up the ass, they’re not as alike as you think,” Owen mumbled from behind them.
Nick turned and held up his hand, stopping the group in the middle of the road. “Enough with that bullshit, hear me?” He tried to catch his breath to add more, to tell Owen that he did in fact enjoy such things, to finally put up the united front Ty deserved, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He turned to find Ty there, looking sheepish.
“Where the hell did you go, man?” Kelly demanded. “Left us there to do the dirty work.”
Ty glanced around guiltily. “I didn’t want the locals catching sight of me. And all those people with cameras in their phones, I had to get out.”
“Why?” Owen asked. He was still scowling, transferring his irritation from Nick to Ty.
“I wasn’t exactly friendly with the locals when I was undercover, okay? I don’t want to spend my weekend in lockup.”
“Again,” Digger added.
“Yes, thank you,” Ty snapped. He nodded at Nick. “Was it a murder?”
“Definitely. Looked like it might be drug related.”
Zane shook his head. “I don’t think so. She was strangled. Pretty efficient. The scene wasn’t messy and the drugs were still there. If that’s even what they were. Drug deal gone wrong would have been more spontaneous. And the bag in her hand didn’t look like any drug I’ve ever seen.”
“Wait, she had a bag in her hand? What kind?” Digger asked.
Zane and Nick shared a glance, then both shrugged. “It was just a little white bag,” Nick said.
Ty held up his hand, making a circle out of his thumb and forefinger. “About this big? Full of herbs?”
“Yeah,” Zane said.
“I saw you take a picture. What was that of?”
“You saw me? How? Where were you?”
Ty shrugged. “Around. Did you get a picture of the bag?”
“No. She had a slip of paper in her other hand,” Zane said, glancing at the others as he dug out his phone. “I took a picture of it to see if we could read what was on it, but I couldn’t get a good angle.”
“Can I see?” Ty held his hand out for the phone. Zane handed it to him. Ty’s frown deepened as he looked it over, then he glanced up to meet Digger’s eyes. “It looks like a strip of parchment.”
“It would have had her name on it then. It was a gris-gris bag,” Digger said. Ty nodded.
“What the hell is a gris-gris bag?” Nick asked.
“Voodoo,” Zane said. “Right?”
Ty nodded again and gave him his phone back. “They’re usually used for good things. Luck, love, safe travel, protection. All kinds of stuff. But sometimes they can be used to bind or hex. It’s rare; most voodoo practitioners don’t mess with the negative outcomes.”
“Too dangerous,” Digger explained.
“Dangerous? What does that mean?” Owen asked.
Ty looked around the crowd that had formed. He took a deep breath, beginning to edge toward the nearest side street as he spoke. “It’s like a boomerang. The evil comes back at you.”
“Threefold.”
Nick snorted. Between Ty, Digger, and Sanchez on missions, all the superstitions had almost killed them all. It was contagious, though, because Nick had carried his own good luck charms with him. So many that other Marines had taken to calling him Lucky. After all he’d seen and been through, he was willing to put some stock in the reality of magic.
But Zane gaped at Ty. “You actually believe in that stuff?”
“To an extent, yeah. Yeah, I do.” Ty shrugged. “And you can bet people around here believe it too.”
“The stronger you believe, the stronger the power of the spells,” Digger added.
“Wow, D. Wow,” Kelly said. He was keeping a straight face, but his mouth twitched.
“Well, the bag the girl had was white,” Nick said. “What’s that mean?”
Ty ran a finger over his lower lip, wincing. He walked further into the shadows, like a magnet being repelled by the crowd. “I think it’s for protection. Something about protecting your home, maybe. I don’t remember.”
“It’s for any kind of protection,” Digger said.
“Well, it didn’t work for her,” Owen muttered.
They all stared at him for a second before Nick cleared his throat. “Anyway.”
“Are we investigating a murder while we’re here, or are we actually going to get to be normal tourists this time?” Kelly asked.
Zane glanced at the scowls they all gave Kelly and he laughed. “This time, huh?”
“Don’t ask,” Nick muttered. His theory was that it was because they were all trained to help, but even he had to admit they stumbled over crimes more often than your average bear.
Digger shrugged. “Sounds like a hoodoo thing. Turf wars. The locals can handle the weird ones like that.”
Ty looked relieved.
Nick wondered just how much trouble Ty would be in if someone recognized him down here. He knew Ty would never tell them until trouble reared its ugly head, but he supposed he should have expected Ty to have left New Orleans with enemies. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that they might have put Ty in danger by luring him here.
“Not our jurisdiction. Not our problem, right?” Ty said.
Zane’s brow furrowed, but he remained silent.
Nick shrugged. “I guess not.”
Kelly continued on down the street. “Kind of a buzzkill though.”
The grisly crime in the middle of their revelry had indeed cast a pall over the night, but they only had the weekend to enjoy each other, so they continued on. They hopped from bar to bar for another hour, and after a quiet talk with Zane about the alcohol, Ty finally ordered himself a few oddly colored drinks to toast the memory of their fallen brother. They told stories, sharing them with Zane so he wouldn’t feel left out, and reminisced about the good days they’d spent together.