“Be a friend. Hang out with her. When she looks good, say so. And when you remind her to shut the curtains, make sure she knows it’s not because you disapprove of nakedness, but because you care about her and want her to be safe.” The squirrel reached the ground and Gretchen took off, barking joyfully, to scare it back up the tree. Ophelia chuckled. “What a darling dog.” She smiled at Gideon, forgetting restraint.

  He swallowed. “Lord, you’re beautiful.”

  Ophelia flinched and stood up in a rush. “Art and Andrea Dukas are both being blackmailed. Andrea and her husband really are out of town, and you don’t need to discuss it with Art, because I’m going after the blackmailer myself.”

  Gideon stood as well, his appalled expression everything she could have hoped.

  Ophelia headed for the stairs. Back to detective work, Mr. O’Toole. Thank God.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gideon laid a hand on the retreating woman’s arm. “Hold on a minute.”

  “Let go of me!” Ophelia ripped herself away from him.

  Lord Almighty. “Look, Ms. Beliveau,” Gideon tried, “I don’t know what you’ve been through, or why you can’t let yourself be pleasant with me, but my sister’s at risk. If you won’t tell me what you’re planning, I have no choice but to take care of it myself.”

  Ophelia paced the porch, fists clenched, looking anywhere but at him. Finally she said, “This may seem irrelevant to you, but I’m trying to find a way that Art and Andrea don’t have to accuse this guy and expose themselves. For sure, Andrea won’t do it. She’d move halfway round the world rather than risk her kids going into foster care. And Art’s talking about giving up her job.”

  “What? She loves her job! She’s a born teacher.” Gideon stifled the urge to slam his way into the house. “What’s she being blackmailed for?”

  Ophelia threw up her hands. “She was doing nude modeling at the art school, and someone took pictures of her.”

  “What’s wrong with that crazy girl? If she was short of money, she should have come to me.”

  “You’re behaving just like she said you would. There’s nothing wrong with posing nude. Maybe she enjoys it. Maybe she likes people looking at her naked body. Many women do.”

  The whine of a vacuum came from inside the house, too close to be a coincidence, and Ophelia gave a tiny spurt of laughter. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the narrow window beside the door, while Gideon stood well back. Women. All of them were insane.

  “Scaredy-cat,” Ophelia taunted. The beginnings of a grin tilted her mouth.

  Gideon fought amusement. “If you want to clean house in the buff, honey, I won’t be shy. You’d look cute with a feather duster.” He leaned on a column and looked her over.

  “That is so sexist.” Ophelia returned his stare, hot and haughty. “But then, you’re used to being that way. Your bimbos will do anything you ask.”

  Bimbos? “I suppose you got that from my sister, who doesn’t know any more about my sex life than I do about hers.” His eyes drank in the swell of Ophelia’s breasts and the lush curve of her hips and he almost caught fire. Something pushed him in one smooth motion away from the pillar and toward those hot eyes and lips, something primal. He settled a hand on her waist, hard, cupped a warm breast with the other and fastened his lips on hers. Ophelia whimpered and pressed herself into his hand, parted her lips, and licked back at him with a hot, eager tongue.

  “Gideon O’Toole!” A voice out of the past slapped at him. Gretchen barked, and sharp footsteps clomped up the steps. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  Gideon pulled dazedly away as a hickory switch smacked his legs. Gretchen barked again and felt the switch in her turn, and Ophelia skittered down the stairs, saying, “Thanks, Mrs. Cotter,” her face white, hands to her lips. “I don’t know what got into me.” She hurried toward the garden.

  “Gideon’s been like this since he was a boy,” Mrs. Cotter replied. Twenty-odd years had left her unchanged when it came to dispensing untender care. “I caught him kissing the girls in first grade.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cotter,” Gideon admitted. “And they always enjoyed it—as Ophelia was doing until you came along.”

  “Sassy boy, making a display of yourself, kissing and fondling in public. Such things should be kept private.” Mrs. Cotter clopped away down the walk. “As for you, Ophelia, be warned. This boy’s been trouble from day one.”

  Ophelia was scanning the flower bed. “Thanks again, Mrs. Cotter. I really appreciate it. I have work to do. Here”—she marked with a trowel from her belt—“here and here.” Dirt was soon leaping obediently into neat piles beside precise little holes. Gretchen snuffled at the aromatic earth. Mrs. Cotter continued briskly down the sidewalk, no doubt planning to call the chief of police.

  “Kissing and fondling in private sounds like fun,” Gideon suggested.

  Ophelia’s eyes remained on the ground. “No.”

  “You were enjoying it. I was enjoying it. Why not?”

  “No,” Ophelia said again. She pushed Gretchen gently away and strode along the flagstone path to disappear through a gate in the stone wall. A minute later, still not looking at him, she returned with two flats of impatiens.

  You knew this was a bad idea, Gideon told himself, unable to walk away but needing to take care of Art. This woman was a mess. His sister was a mess. He wasn’t a frigging therapist.

  “What’s Ms. Dukas being blackmailed about?”

  For a long second, he thought Ophelia would refuse to reply. Then, “Her husband took pictures of her nursing her baby naked.” When he made an impatient noise, she added, “You never know when some social worker will decide that’s perverted. Andrea won’t take chances with her kids.”

  “The blackmailer’s someone at a photo shop? There’s only one left in town. It’s a print shop, too, as I recall.”

  “Yes.” She sounded grudging.

  “I suppose you’re thinking of luring him into blackmailing someone else?”

  She said nothing, but with quick, sure movements coaxed plants into new homes.

  “But you’ve got some cockeyed notion about entrapment, so because I’m a cop, you’ve decided I can’t be involved.”

  Ophelia offered him an exaggerated sigh. “We shouldn’t discuss this. Why don’t you just trust me?”

  Gideon laughed out loud. “How do you feel about trusting me? Not so confident, huh? And yet I’m a very trustworthy guy.”

  “That’s different!” Ophelia tamped earth around a couple of red impatiens. “I do trust you, more or less.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit.” She nestled the last plant into its home. “You don’t understand.”

  “I’m more than willing to try.”

  Her words were soft and bitter, her face still averted. “I wish.”

  “Whatever you wish, sweetheart,” Gideon said. “Just give me a chance.”

  He was such a fool.

  She brushed dirt off her hands and stacked the flats, then picked her way to the back of the flower bed. Gideon let the silence hang for a minute or two. “Honey, you haven’t given me any reason to trust you. You’re feeding me too many mixed messages. At the moment, however, what matters to me is that my sister gets through this okay. I need to know what’s going on.”

  Ophelia fiddled with the timer on the Dukas watering system. “When I’m ready for you to arrest the blackmailer, I’ll give you a call.” She picked up her trowel and the flats and started walking.

  Undeterred, Gideon strode beside her. “The hell with that. Say you convince some fool to set himself up to be blackmailed. Hopefully the dude at the shop falls for it and I arrest him…but what if your friend screws up and the dude gets wise? Even if the plan works, what about the photos of Art and Ms. Dukas? They could be in the shop, at his house, on his computer. I can’t be sure of getting everything. But with more warning, the odds are better. I need to know everything you and Art know about this guy, so I can prepare in advance.”

  “I’ll keep you informed.” Ophelia slipped ahead of him into Andrea’s backyard.

  Gideon followed. “I can’t take that for an answer.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, then. Tomorrow morning. First thing.” She headed for her truck.

  “Not good enough. What the hell is wrong with you? Talk to me, damn it!”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t need your help.”

  “Too bad.” Anger slowed his voice. “You’ve got it whether you like it or not. We can skip the sex, even though you want it as much as I do, but you damn well better cooperate when it comes to the law.”

  Her fists clenched as she hurried ahead. “I have friends who can do the job just as well or better.”

  Gideon fought back surprise. “Calling in vigilantes? I thought you didn’t hold with violence.” Ophelia was almost running now. In his frustration, Gideon lashed out. “On the other hand, what could be simpler? Constantine Dufray can off the guy, and everyone will live happily ever after.”

  Ophelia whirled, eyes narrow, voice cracking. “Don’t you ever dis Constantine to me!” She tossed the dirty trowel and the empty flats into her truck. “Now leave me the fuck alone.”

  Gideon waited as she drove away, rage churning his gut. Gretchen shoved her cool nose under his hand. He stalked across the street toward his car. Art could wait for later.

  “Losing your touch, boy?” Mrs. Cotter cackled from her gate a few doors down. “She’s too bright for you. You chased silly girls in first grade, and still do, by what I hear.”

  Gideon slowed. “If you say so, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Cotter rapped the gate with her stick. “Unless you’re thinking of marriage…which you should be at your age. Ophelia’s an ideal choice: smart, pretty, kindhearted, an excellent gardener to boot. If anyone can tame that wilderness around your place, she’s the one. My daughter drove me that way last Sunday to see all the fancy subdivisions and the new golf course. Your driveway’s so overgrown it’s a miracle you can get your car into it. Heaven only knows what condition the house is in. Your mother would turn in her grave.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Obviously she had more to say, so he waited with gritted teeth.

  “Court Ophelia the old-fashioned way. Marriage first, sex afterward, as it should be.”

  That worked for him, as long as they got married tomorrow. Better still, tonight. He was going out of his mind.

  Mrs. Cotter poked him with her hickory stick. “Otherwise, she’ll think she’s just another conquest.”

  “I never…” He wasn’t getting into this with his firstgrade teacher. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Think you never hurt anyone? I’ll bet there are broken hearts all over town. Silly ones, but broken all the same. Mind you don’t hurt Ophelia, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

  Not to mention Leopard and Constantine, and Violet and Zelda, and by now probably Artemisia as well. Gretchen and Psyche, too.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gideon fled.

  Dusk was falling as he arrived at the Chamber. Unlike Violet Dupree’s Blood and Velvet, which catered to the faux-vampire crowd, the Chamber focused on the milder forms of punishment and mutilation. You could participate or just watch. You could get stripped, but only so far, tied and whipped or hung on chains, and of course pierced or tattooed or scarred if you so desired. Like Blood and Velvet, it was a sissy club, a tourist hangout. In the welter of striped velour and gold trim, whorehouse daybeds and gaping idiots, nothing much illegal or even remotely serious went on.

  Gideon avoided a tussle and, far more inconvenient, a locked door, by choosing the employee entrance at the rear, and worked his way with little protest to the wings of the dance-hall stage. There being no sense in wasting any time, he marched onstage to where Willy Wyler was hooking up a wah-wah pedal and grabbed him by the throat. Wyler clawed at him, choking, and Gideon rammed the musician against the scaffolding and let him fall.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Burton Tate dropped the mess of wires he was tangling with and hurried over, followed by his younger brother and a lanky guy on speed. “Get the hell out of here or I’ll call the…Oh, yeah. You are the cops. What are you doing, dude?”

  “Saving Willy from the tender mercies of Leopard’s goons,” Gideon said. “He should be thankful.”

  “Don’t mess him up too bad, dude. We got a show tonight.” It was the same wheedling, whining Burton as ever. “What’d he do?”

  The musician on speed goggled, and Gabriel Tate, with a scared glance at Gideon, shoved a couple of groupies into the opposite wing.

  “Vandalized the wrong person’s garden.”

  Gideon waited while Willy Wyler dragged himself up off the floor.

  “So I heard,” Burton said. “Lisa was all bent out of shape about it.” He scratched the dagger tattoo on his bicep. “Willy shoulda known better. Ophelia don’t put out for no one, ’cept Constantine and Leopard. Why else would they protect the bitch?”

  Gideon took Willy by the arm. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”

  He guided the guitarist over to the bar and balanced him on a stool, then picked a cigarette from the packet in Willy’s shirt pocket and lit it for him. “Okay, Willy, now listen. We both know you didn’t vandalize Ophelia’s place because she won’t fuck you. That would be dumb, and although you’re not one of the world’s bright bulbs anymore, you’re not that dumb either. Why’d you do it?”

  Willy grabbed the cigarette and took a long drag. The silly fuck was trying to think.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Gideon said. “We know you did it. All I want to know is, why?”

  Willy cleared his throat and cleared it again. “Fuck, man, why’d you have to choke me? I woulda told you without that.”

  “Because, Willy, I want you and everyone else to leave Ophelia alone. Just talking doesn’t leave enough of an impression.”

  Willy stared. “Fuck, man, you’re not falling for that dyke, too, are you?” He blanched. “Don’t hit me, man! It’s true, I swear!”

  Gideon, who hadn’t moved a muscle or changed expression, sighed. “Christ, Willy, not jumping in the sack with every turd that makes a move on her doesn’t make her a dyke.”

  Willy Wyler took another drag of smoke. “Promise you won’t hit me?”

  “I promise I will hit you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  “You’re not gonna like it.” He flinched as Gideon leaned forward. “Okay, okay. The thing is, man, she likes kids. I ain’t got nothing against dykes, fags neither, but they gotta stay away from kids, and my kids in particular.”

  Gideon held his breath, gripped Willy’s shirt, and yanked him forward, though getting in the smelly old dude’s face was the pits. “Tell me the truth, asshole.”

  “I swear,” Willy babbled. “She took nudie pictures of my girl Joanna, real disgusting stuff. The kid’s only thirteen, man, and she’s got her posing like some slut. There’s even one of little Connie in the bathtub. No big deal, but still, who knows what she’ll do next? I couldn’t put up with that!”

  What smelled like genuine anguish had bled through the stink, and Gideon eased up, frowning. “Go on.” He motioned to the bartender, who had wisely decided to wipe the far end of the bar first. “Bourbon, straight up.”

  “I told her to stay away from my kids. That was a couple weeks ago.” Willy paused, evidently trying to think again and succeeding to a limited extent. “Long story short, I was all coked up this morning and I sorta lost it.” He slumped. “But goddamn it, she’s got no right touching my girls!”

  Gideon let go of Willy and leaned back far enough to take a proper breath. “How’d you happen to see these pictures, Willy? Ophelia come by one day and show them to you?”

  “You don’t believe me, man, but it’s true. Ophelia dropped off some of Lisa’s CDs to be printed at the photo shop, and she must have mixed up her roll of film with our stuff. In fact, I know she did, because my name was on the fucking envelope, and—”

  “And what?” As if he needed to ask. While Willy tried thinking again, Gideon traded the whiskey for a five and offered it to Wyler. “Did Joanna say Ophelia took the pictures?”

  “Of course she—” Willy’s eyes flicked this way and that. “She didn’t have to, poor baby. She cried her eyes out and said she was sorry and…She didn’t say Ophelia didn’t take them!”

  Gideon lifted his eyes to heaven. “Who put the dead cat on her doorstep? One of your jackass friends?”

  Willy downed the shot of whiskey. “No clue, man. Lots of guys are pissed off at her, and maybe she’s been messing with other people’s kids, too. I dunno.” He shook his head. “I don’t want nobody thinking that was me. Or that it was me took those pictures.” His voice rose close to panic. “I’m a druggie, man, but I’m no pervert. My career would be in the toilet, and they’d ship the kids off to foster homes and Lisa’d kill me.”

  “Your career’s already headed for the toilet,” Gideon said. “Look who you’re working with. Not getting as much session work as you used to, either, but you could fix that if you got off the drugs. Have some pride. While you’re working on that, keep your head down, don’t trash anybody’s place or beat anybody up—blackmailers in particular. You hear?” He grinned as Willy’s jaw sagged in surprise. “I’ll take care of the blackmailer and find out who really took those pictures, but you better clean up, or those kids’ll end up in foster homes regardless.”

  He escorted Wyler back to the band and signaled to Burton to accompany him to the door. “Get rid of the underage chicks,” he said when they were alone in the corridor. “You know the law.”

  “I know, dude, I know, but my kid brother—”

  “Your brother’s not a kid anymore. You want him to keep his nuts?”

  “Jeez, Gideon, c’mon!”

  “This isn’t me talking, Burton. When it comes to the clubs, the underworld applies the rules. One, no one under eighteen. And two, no unwilling participants.”