“I didn’t think about…” Rixton cleared his throat. “Are you sure you can handle…?”
“I’m sure. I can do this. Let me hold her.” Oxygen deprivation blurred my vision as he knelt in front of me and murmured instructions on how to support her head and neck, and then she was in my arms, her weight so slight I might have been cradling a blanket instead of a small person. “What if I drop —?”
“Look at me.” His calm order sliced through my panic. “She’s a baby, not a ticking time bomb. Unless you count the explosive diarrhea.” He patted my knee to avoid an accidental brush with the metal beneath my skin. “You got this.”
Nettie blinked up at me through clear, blue eyes the color of faded denim. She blew slobber bubbles that popped on her chin with each breath while clenching one tiny hand in the air like she was grasping for golden dust motes. The smell of her skin, fresh powder and innocence, twisted something in my chest until I had to glance away to dry the promise of tears from my eyes.
“Remember to breathe.” Rixton grinned as he snapped a quick picture on his cell. “You’re doing great.”
A breathless quality entered my voice. “I’m holding a baby.”
“Like a pro.”
A dull headache blossomed in my temples, the persistent throbbing a reminder of the car accident that had rattled my brain like rocks in a soda can, but I ignored the discomfort. “Look at her fingernails, the wrinkles on her palms.” I marveled at each flexing toe and every curl of black hair, each detail I took for granted in adults rendered in flawless miniature. “How is this even possible?”
“Well, it’s like this.” Rixton sat back on his heels. “Mommies have lady gardens and daddies have —”
A groan slipped past my lips. “Please stop.”
“— magic seeds. When the soil in the lady garden is at its most fertile, the daddy plants his —”
“Rixton.” I twisted to one side, shielding Nettie with my body. “Your daughter can hear you.”
“She won’t remember a thing,” he promised. “Besides, I have to practice that speech for when she’s old enough for me to explain how I will double tap any gardener I catch aiming his tool at her —” he whirled a hand in the air “— flower bed.”
A knock on the door did what my threat had failed to do and shut him up.
“Come in,” I called out. No way was I tempting fate and actually walking with a baby in my arms. “We’re in the kitchen.”
Rixton took over host duty and pulled aside the plastic curtain to admit a tall man with angular features arranged in a polite expression that sat wrong on his face, like polite wasn’t his default, and he wasn’t sure how it ought to look on him. His build reminded me of an Olympic swimmer, all lean muscle and long legs.
He wore gray slacks, shoes that cost more than the new hardwood floor he walked on, and a white button-down shirt rolled up over his forearms. His thick, black hair had been trimmed in an undercut and slicked back, and his soulful brown eyes drank in every detail of the room before settling on me with a tangible weight that made my bones creak. He smiled first at me and then at the baby in my arms. I couldn’t pinpoint why, but the flash of his straight, white teeth in her direction set my heart pumping and propelled me to my feet.
“Luce Boudreau?” His silky voice caressed each syllable of my name with the hint of a foreign accent I couldn’t place. “I’m Adam Wu. I work for All South Insurance. I’m here to discuss the claim you filed.”
Hairs lifted down my arms in a prickling wave. “Rixton? Would you mind taking Nettie?”
“No problem.” He read the tension bowing my shoulders in a protective curve around his daughter and positioned himself between Wu and me. “Is this guy legit? Or is he a well-fed vulture in a nice suit?” Keeping his back to my guest, he lowered his voice to keep our conversation private. “Say the word, and I’ll toss him out on his can.”
Wu shook his head once in silent warning behind Rixton.
“I got this,” I assured him and then cut my eyes to Wu. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to walk my partner to his car.” I shepherded Rixton and Nettie through the sheeting, paranoid he might trip and drop her, then out onto the front porch in record time. “Tell Sherry I’ll stop by tomorrow for a visit.”
“Okay. I’ll keep my phone on me.” His gaze slid past my shoulder into the house. “Call if you need me.”
“I will.” I waited while he strapped Nettie into her car seat then waved him off, watching for the moment he turned onto the main road before returning to my guest in the kitchen. “All South Insurance went out of business about five years ago. We’re with Mississippi Fidelity now.” I leaned a hip against the counter, toying with the water bottle Rixton had left untouched. “Who are you really?” I decided against playing hostess for Wu and tossed the drink back in the cooler. “Is your name really Adam Wu?”
“Adam Wu is one of my aliases.” His wry smile drew my attention to the unusual curve of his mouth and his slightly larger upper lip, like the bee who stung the top couldn’t be bothered to give him a matching set. “Special Agent Kapoor prefers it to my others these days.”
“Ah.” Curiosity trumped my annoyance for a heartbeat. “This is one of those visits.”
“Where is your coterie?” The man studied me as though I were an exotic animal he hadn’t expected to encounter in rural Mississippi. “Why aren’t they here? Protecting you? Helping you?”
Wu hadn’t earned the answers to those questions even if I’d had them. “Why are you here?”
“You have three weeks left with the Canton Police Department.” Wu inclined his head, a birdlike gesture of curiosity. “Are you ready to put in your notice next Monday?”
“Counting down the days, huh?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you here to help me draft my resignation?”
“If that’s what it takes.” He cast his gaze around the room once more. “Not all charun embrace our philosophies. Some require —” our gazes locked “— encouragement.”
“I accepted the deal.” I prowled closer, until the toes of our shoes touched. “I stand by my word.”
Kapoor didn’t have to send thugs like Wu to twist my arm when I had already shaken his hand on the bargain to join a demon taskforce spearheaded by the National Security Branch of the FBI and made my peace with its cost. Namely, my career.
“Forgive me for not trusting your nature.” Wu searched my face, and a frown knitted his brow. “Your kind are not known for their honesty. Otillians are a vicious breed, their females in particular. That you are one of the four in Czar Astrakhan’s cadre does you no favors in my estimation.”
I smiled at him, flashing my own teeth. “Good thing I don’t care what you think about me.”
“You will.” Wu leaned down until our faces were on the same level, until he could look me in the eye, and the scent of his sun-warmed skin hit the back of my throat. “I’m your new partner.”
Wu pivoted on his heel and left me swaying toward him. New partner? Wu thought he could replace Rixton? Ha. No chance. I marched after him, slapped the plastic sheeting aside, and stepped out onto the front porch. I was about to light into him when I noticed his attention was focused off in the distance where a plume of dust whirled down the main road. I squinted past the mailbox, and my heart gave a hard thud as a familiar black SUV rumbled up the driveway.
Three men exited the vehicle, and none of them were smiling.
“Cole Heaton, Miller Henshaw, and Thomas Ford.” Wu rattled off their names without a hitch. “To what does Ms. Boudreau owe the pleasure of this visit? The house carries no scent of her coterie. How long have you left your mistress unguarded?”