Deadly Secrets by Jaycee Clark Read Free Book Online

if she didn’t show?
    He’d ditched his brothers back at some bar on Bourbon Street, which was fine with him. They’d asked him where he was headed and he’d only flipped them off.
    Of course, knowing Ian, he probably had some sort of tracking device on his ass so his brother could keep tabs on him. And everyone worried about him? Ian would do well with a dose of Paxil.
    He glanced over to the cathedral lit up bright tonight, probably every night.
    One more had joined their party earlier. Brayden’s brother-in-law, Jonathan Beauchamp. Jon was Christian’s biological brother and a darlin’ of N’Awlins. Bachelor that he was, and his family owning banks all over the South with the headquarters in New Orleans, made the man every Southern mama’s dream son-in-law. The siblings, however, shared very few characteristics other than those wickedly pale eyes they both had inherited from a grandmother or something. Brayden’s brother-in-law was a diverse man of business.
    The man had showed up with a limo and had taken them out to dinner. Then he said he knew a great place he wanted to take them. That was after most of Quin’s siblings had consumed various amounts of alcohol during the afternoon and well into the evening.
    Avante Garde was a club Jonathan owned.
    Wonder-fucking-ful. In the heart of jazz and they’d listened to karaoke . . . in costume. Not Quin’s thing, but from the way the place was packed, a long wait line to get in, and the amount of booze and food flooding the time-warped venue, Jonathan had apparently clicked on something.
    Whatever. Quin was just glad to have left.
    The boys had all protested when he’d risen and said he was leaving. His brothers wanted to have fun. Wanted him to have fun. His family needed to know that he was capable of having fun. Otherwise, he might what? Swallow pills? No.
    He’d counted down the minutes until he could leave and get here. As his brothers were only a couple of blocks over, it had been within easy walking distance. Now he stood here on Decatur waiting, watching and wondering if she’d actually show up.
    Part of him figured she would, she was daring—and quirky. Part of him figured she wouldn’t because she didn’t know him from Adam or Jack the Ripper. Then again, maybe she figured with his gimpy leg, he wasn’t that big of a worry. Hadn’t she heard of Bundy? He walked a few paces one way, then the other, scanning the crowd and listening to the street musicians around Jackson Square.
    He saw her first, walking down the sidewalk toward him with a group of friends.
    He smiled. She came and daring won.
    Her pale blue hair seemed almost white under the streetlights and he almost laughed outright as she wobbled on impossibly high shoes.
    She was dressed in some sort of short, flowy, dark sundress, and he figured she was cold. But it wasn’t that cold, just sort of chilly. The shoes though . . .
    He laughed, it was a wonder she didn’t break her neck. They were tall platforms with straw or cork or something. He knew women called them something specific but he couldn’t remember. He just liked the way the dark ribbons from the shoes laced and wound around her ankles and up her calves. Toned calves.
    She broke away from the pack and came toward him, smiling, her dimples winking at him.
    “My friends wanted to make sure I got here safely,” she told him as she stopped in front of him.
    He nodded to them and the girls hooted and hollered, encouraging her, and waved at him.
    “They look like my brothers.”
    She glanced over. “Your brothers enjoy going drag?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
    He laughed. “God no. I meant they looked like they’re having a good time.”
    “They always have a good time. The one on the left with all the dark hair is Marie and the redhead is Shalon, then there’s Jif and Leigh with all the scarves.”
    He thought she muttered something about damned shoes.
    “So, sugar, you’ll have to bear with me, or rather with