A Christmas Kiss Read online

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Cori St. John—She gave up her identify and her family to testify in a court of law.

  Joey Tio—Is the tough U.S. marshal Cori's protector...or is he part of the web of corruption that could cost Cori her life?

  Kit Wells—Cori's husband was presumed dead...but is he?

  Danny Dupray—He was Kit's stoolie, and he has free access to the U.S. marshal's office. He might also have access to Cori.

  Ken Applewhite—Is he a good cop gone bad or just a grouch?

  Bailey Smith—He's a gunman with a bad attitude and good aim.

  Jake Lewish—He carries a badge, but is he on the up-and-up?

  Farris Quinn—He has a nose for news and an appetite for fame. Does he know more than he writes?

  Jolene Markham—lived the life of the Twinkle club. When she offers Cori a safe haven is she signing her own death warrant?

  Prologue

  December l5, 1993

  The cold draft blew through Augustine's bar and settled tightly around Brently Gleason's trim ankles.

  She checked her watch and felt a flutter of anxiety emanate right from her heart. Kit was late. And he had assured her he was never late.

  Brently crossed her feet and thought of her older sister, Lane, who was always teasing her about her tiny ankles--saying she should have a message taped to one of them, like a carrier pigeon. It was a backhanded compliment, which was Lane's way, but it didn't help a shy young woman with a zero level of confidence in her social skills.

  But Kit did. Kit Wells. Brently said the name silently to herself and pressed her feet together tighter, glad that she was wearing her new, festive Christmas socks and the red sweater that made her mahogany hair sparkle. How had she been so lucky to attract the attention of the handsome police detective? Even as she checked her watch, she smiled at the memory of their first meeting. She had called the New Orleans Police Department, better known to all city residents as the NOPD, to complain about the noise and the "bad element" from the bar next to her studio. The lowlife who ran the club was out in the street threatening to pistolwhip one of his dancers. She had finally had enough and insisted that a unit be sent, stating she would press charges.

  Kit had come to take her complaint, a professional worn-out with the endless bickering of the mishmash of tenants in the crowded French Quarter of New Orleans. Watching from her studio window, she had seen him drive up to answer her call. He had parked halfway in the street, as if he were in a movie, with the blue light in his windshield flashing away. No siren, though. Just the light. Getting out of the car, he had been big and smooth, and he had walked up to the bar owner and pushed him back from the girl. A gesture that spoke of his power and his contempt for men who made their living off women.

  Kit had all the makings of the man of her dreams.

  As she relived their first meeting, she sipped the wine she'd ordered and checked the big front door of the restaurant-bar, hoping for a glimpse of a sandy head and strong shoulders. Augustine's wasn't big, and it was always packed. It virtually reeked of the history of the city, which claimed kinship to French, Spanish and Indian heritage.

  "Are you ready to order, ma'am?" the waitress asked for the third time.

  Brently looked into the face of a pretty woman with jeans and a sweater just a little too tight and an attitude a little too tough. "I'm, uh, waiting... I haven't made up my mind." She'd feel like a fool if she said she was waiting for someone and Kit didn't show. After all, she didn't know him that well, and he was working today. What if he'd been called out on a homicide or some other crime spree? Would he at least telephone the restaurant and let her know? Perhaps he'd left a message at her studio. She thought about going over to the pay phone and calling her answering machine.

  "How about another glass of water?" the waitress asked sarcastically.

  Brently heard the irritation in the woman's voice and knew that she'd occupied the table too long without ordering food. She'd occupied space where a tipping customer might have sat.

  "I'll have another wine." Brently glanced at her watch. It was twenty after twelve.

  A blast of air much colder than the normal December temperature drew her attention to the door, and a tall, broad-shouldered man with his face red from the sting of the wind stepped inside. In five long strides he was at her table. Ignoring the waitress, he bent to kiss Brently's cheek. "Sorry, we had a body down in the river, and I had to wait for the pathologists."

  "It's okay." Brently felt positively light-headed with relief. He'd come. Until then, she hadn't acknowledged how much this lunch meant to her.

  Kit took a chair opposite her and signaled the waitress for an iced tea. "I'm on duty," he said. "Not like you artistic types. I hear you paint better when you're relaxed."

  "I may paint better, but I'm not so sure I can hang pictures straight, and that's what I have to do this afternoon. Remember?" She tried to sound casual. "We're having the opening for Selma Gray's show tomorrow night. Our big Christmas gala."

  "The artist from Alabama?" Kit nodded. "This is the event I have to wear a monkey suit to." He grinned to take the sting out of his words.

  "That's the one." Brently beamed. He was coming.

  "Wouldn't miss it for the world." He motioned the waitress back to take their orders. "Although, I don't have a clue what those modern painters are doing with their splotches of color here and there all over the canvas."

  Brently laughed out loud. "Selma is a primitive. Bright colors, simple figures. Her paintings tell a story. You'll love her work, and her, too."

  "If you say so." He pointed to the menu. "Want to split a muffaleta?"

  "Wonderful." The big sandwich with salami, Greek olives and bread fresh from the stone ovens was more than enough for two hungry people.

  As another blast of cold wind swooped over the stone floor, Brently and Kit looked up at the man who swept in with the chill and the faint tinkle of Christmas bells from one of the street vendors outside.

  "Isn't that Ben DeCarlo?" Kit asked.

  Brently studied the handsome man who stood in the doorway, his overcoat impeccably tailored, his eyes hooded. The sun-streaked hair was honey-brown, but there was a faint hint of darker stubble on his lean jaw. The trademark cleft in his chin was a dead giveaway. "That's him. I heard he was going to run for the senate seat that Crosby is vacating." It was a rumor ripe in the French Quarter—and probably all over the state. The DeCarlo family was big, powerful and, some said, hardly ever on the right side of the law.

  "Why shouldn't he join the rest of the crooks in Washington? He'll fit right in." Kit shrugged his shoulders. "It's all I can do to keep up with city politics. I hope DeCarlo runs and wins. It'll be one less crime boss for me to worry about."

  Brently shifted her wine so the waitress could put down her plate. When she looked up again, Ben DeCarlo was still standing in the doorway. His gaze was fixed at the back of the room.

  "Listen, before I pick up this sandwich, I want to wash my hands." Kit stood. "Police work isn't the cleanest business in the world." He was gone just as the waitress brought catsup and mustard and whirled around to another table.

  Reaching for the pepper, Brently caught sight of Ben DeCarlo moving through the restaurant.

  Something about his stride made her pause in mid-reach. He passed her table and kept going, his gaze never shifting. The dark brown overcoat flapped at the back of his calves, just a shade lighter than the expensive Italian shoes he wore. He didn't stop until he reached a table in the back.

  "Ben?" An older gentleman at the table started to stand. "Come and have lunch with us, son."

  "Sit and eat with us___" the woman said, her word trailing off as she motioned to a chair beside her.

 
; Brently had a clear view of the table. She watched as DeCarlo reached into his coat. The gun he withdrew was dark, deadly-looking.

  "I won't run for senate. I'm sick of you interfering in my life. You may run this town, but you don't run me!"

  The two shots that rang out seemed to freeze everyone. Brently felt the pepper shaker slip from her fingers but she was unable to move her arm. She watched in horror as blood blossomed on the chest of the man as he fell back in his chair. The woman, who was still sitting at the table, slumped to the side, blood gushing from her throat.

  Ben DeCarlo turned directly to face Brently. His handsome face was twisted into a mask of rage and hatred. The gun was still in his hand, and he aimed it straight at her for a split second. Then he turned and began to run.

  Chapter One

  December 14, 1996

  The Cafe du Monde was bustling with activity as the woman now known as Cori St. John took a seat toward the rear of the open restaurant. Grateful for the warmth, she wrapped her hands around her cup of steaming cafe au lait and smiled at the young Vietnamese waiter who served her and quickly withdrew. He had no time to waste. The wrought-iron tables of the caf6 were filled with Christmas tourists, all eager for the delicious mixture of steamed milk, sugar and the rich coffee famous in New Orleans. The cafe also boasted the best sugar-coated doughnuts, called beignets, served piping hot and messy. After a burst of warmth and sweetness, the eager shoppers would be ready to continue their holiday shopping sprees. There were only ten shopping days left until Christmas.

  Instead of looking around at the splendor of Christmas that bedecked every shop along the two-mile strip of the Riverwalk shopping zone, Cori stared into her coffee as if she could read the grounds like some of the old voodoo women she'd once known. But she didn't have to read coffee grounds to see her future. The surface of her coffee was as smooth and blank as her life. How could you have a future when you had no past?

  A lone trumpet player strolled up to the side of the cafe. A grizzled African-American, he looked homeless and hopeless. When he lifted the horn to his lips, a rocking, jazzy version of "I'll be Home for Christmas" had the breakfasters clapping their hands and tossing money into the open trumpet case.

  Cori glanced away. Once she had loved New Orleans. She had loved every smell, every sound, the way the rain fell and glistened in slick pastels on the cobblestone streets. The city had been uniquely alive

  —and so had she.

  And Christmas. It had been her holiday. Her favorite time of year. The one time when she had believed that every wish could possibly come true.

  Especially the wish of love.

  She felt her throat begin to close, and she swallowed the hot coffee to block the emotion. She shouldn't have come back here. In doing so, she had violated the terms of her contract with the federal government. Her handler in the witness protection program would be the first to say, given the pending retrial of Ben DeCarlo, that she had foolishly endangered her life. The efficient Joey Tio, from the U.S.

  Marshal's Service, had been mad as the proverbial wet hen when she had informed him that she was coming to New Orleans to discuss Kit's disappearance with the authorities and demand to see the investigation they had so unsuccessfully launched.

  She had never met her handler in person, but she had a pretty clear mental picture of him, based on his accent. He had the soft, rising pronunciation of the southern part of Louisiana known as Acadiana. If he was a son of the region, he would be dark-haired and dark-eyed—and fiery. She had heard the fire as well as the accent in his angry voice when he'd told her to "stay the hell out of New Orleans if you know what's good for you."

  Well, that was just tough. Joey Tio and the rest of the marshals went home every night to their wives or children or girlfriends or mothers. They had a life, complete with a past, present and future. And she had nothing. Not even the satisfaction that someone was still looking for Kit. They'd abandoned the search for her husband more than a year ago. Just up and quit. More pressing cases, Captain Blake, formerly Kit's boss—and supposed friend—had said. There were others with more desperate needs, he had reminded her.

  No one had taken into consideration how desperate her need truly was. There had to be some resolution to her marriage to Kit, even though there was some question whether it was even a valid marriage. In her mind, she had made a vow. A lifetime commitment. That type of commitment didn't come cheaply for Cori.

  As a member of the witness protection program, she'd given up her right to be in New Orleans. For two years, ever since DeCarlo's first trial, she'd given up any contact with her family. She'd given up the name Brently Gleason and assumed a new identity. Cori St. John of Houston, Texas.

  What she wouldn't give up was the belief that her husband was alive.

  She felt the prickle of gooseflesh along the nape of her neck and knew it wasn't the December weather or the song the trumpeter was now blowing on the horn.

  Reaching into her purse, she fished out the tiny foil-wrapped chocolate. As a child, she'd called the candy a silver bell. Later on, she'd called it a kiss. A chocolate kiss. Her favorite treat, especially at Christmas. The little drops of sweet chocolate had been a coded communication between her and Kit during the year of their engagement. She felt the tears building in a wave she no longer wanted to withstand. Kit had even tucked the box holding her engagement ring into a bag of chocolate kisses, knowing it wouldn't take her long to find it in such a tempting place.

  Her hand trembled as she put the candy back in her purse. The diamond solitaire she wore beside her wedding band caught a flash of morning light. Cori fought to control her emotions—and her imagination. She had found three kisses on her desk in the small studio she ran in Houston. At first she had tried to pretend that some child had simply left his or her stash of candy. It made a lot more sense than to jump to the conclusion that her dead husband was "haunting" her. Or so she had convinced herself.

  Until two days later when she'd found three more kisses on the dash of her locked car.

  Either Kit Wells was alive, or she was losing her mind. And it was the latter that scared her a lot worse than the former. No one had a key to her car or her studio. There had been no sign of forced entry into either place. Was it possible that she had put the candy in both places and had no memory of doing it? The possibility made her chest ache with terror.

  The sensation that someone was staring at her made her turn around suddenly. She found the startled gaze of a man who was looking over the top of his newspaper directly into her eyes. He gave a smile and a nod and looked back at his paper.

  Cori felt the flush touch her cheeks with color. The man had been staring at her, true enough, but only with mild interest. She had wheeled on him like a caged tiger. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him toss money on the table, stand and leave. So much for his breakfast. Her wild-eyed stare had motivated him to get up and get away.

  It had been more than a year since she'd looked at a New Orleans paper, and Cori reached across to the now-vacant table and picked up the man's discarded Times-Picayune. As she had anticipated, the possible retrial of Ben DeCarlo was front page news. There was a picture of him standing outside his Angola State Penitentiary cell block talking into a microphone, always proclaiming his innocence.

  How could a man who had walked into a restaurant and cold-bloodedly killed his mother and father at point-blank range even pretend to be innocent? Cori felt the old anger boil. One reason she was such an astute art dealer was because of her ability to remember detail. She could recognize talent and remember the unique style and brush stroke of an artist, the exact shades that marked a painter as original, the curve on a line of sculpture that told of the creator's talent. Time and time again she'd been able to pick up a budding artist for a song and sell him for big money when he developed a reputation.

  Before she'd left New Orleans, she was gaining an impressive clientele of serious collectors, as well as an audience for her own work. Kit had often te
ased her that her memory was nearly photographic. It was that talent that had made her such an important witness at Ben DeCarlo's trial.

  All of that was gone, along with Kit, and her sister, Lane. Her parents. Her nieces. All gone.

  Because she had witnessed a brutal murder and had then fulfilled her duties as a citizen. She was paying the price for doing her civic duty.

  She flipped the paper, hoping for something to take her mind off her personal troubles. At the photo of a man in a black dinner jacket and big smile, she stopped. He was familiar. She scanned the story quickly, gleaning the facts that Emmet Wyatt had been shot, execution-style, and stuffed in the trunk of a rental car and left at the docks.

  The reporter who wrote the story, Farris Quinn, had drawn the link between Wyatt and the DeCarlo retrial. Even as she read, Cori heard the blood thrumming in her ears. Emmet Wyatt, the man who was dead, had been one of the five eyewitnesses at Ben DeCarlo's trial. His name had been Kyle Johnson, and he also had been placed in the witness protection program.

  And now he was dead. Murdered the day before, not all that far from where she sat this moment.

  She scanned the story again, hoping for the details that would give her enough information to form the rest of the picture. Why was Emmet back in town? Why had he returned to New Orleans? Had something happened in his new life that had triggered a part of the past he could no longer ignore? Or had he been lured back to the "Crescent City" —possibly just as she had been?

  Farris Quinn's story dangled a few suppositions, but there was no hard proof either way. The New Orleans Police Department was predictably silent. Just as they had been when Kit disappeared—right after she had testified against De-Carlo.

  And now Ben DeCarlo had won a new trial. "New evidence" had been discovered by his defense team, and the trial date had been set in January. Cori had been informed by her handler that she might be expected to testify again. Of course, if that was necessary, she would be supplied with a new identity.