Blood Is Thicker...
By
Christine
Part One
Chapter 1
It was a cool, misty evening in New Orleans. The light was fading but there was still enough left for Madeleine Rourke to watch the men in black coats enter the seedy apartment building across the way.
She was seated at the back-most corner of a small outdoor café. Her dark brown hair was bluntly cut just below her chin, and she used the placement of it as well as her coffee mug to occlude her face. She was worried that they were on to her, that they knew she had been following them. They had come to this place several times before, always together, though she was only interested in confronting one of the men. She knew they would turn up here sooner or later, and when she saw Emil Fouchon leave the building alone and linger at a nearby newsstand, apparently waiting for his companion, she knew she would finally have her chance to speak with him.
Resolute, she stood, straightened herself, and paused for a moment, gathering her courage. She was nervous, but wanted to appear confident to Fouchon. The moment she was making her first step toward him, from behind, an arm clamped around her waist, and a hand around her mouth. She was swept around the corner into the ally before anyone else in the café noticed something was amiss. She struggled against his strong, steel grip, but to no avail. Halfway down the ally, her captor turned her to face him, pinning her against the brick wall with his arm and the hand still over her mouth. She continued to struggle, fruitlessly, then he leaned in close to her face. His dark, stormy eyes pierced through her and pinned her soul to the wall as surely as his strength pinned her body.
“You’re going to be a good girl, now, aren’t you, and keep quiet. Yes?” His deep, caressing voice and piercing stare stilled her, and she nodded, eyes wide.
The man slid his hand from her mouth and studied her face, then reached up again to run the back of his hand down her cheek. “Such a pretty girl,” he mused. She flinched away from him, angry now at this spoiler of her plans. “What do you want!?” she spat out at him. He stood back, incredulously, raised his eyebrows, and chuckled a silent “ooh” at her boldness. She made to dart toward the mouth of the ally, but his warning glare was all it took to pin her to the wall again. She had been so close, and then this….this….this was the man who accompanied Fouchon all those times! Dark hair, silent, black coat. . . it was him. She hadn’t paid him much notice before, focusing instead on Fouchon. But now, staring into his features framed by his collar, how could she have missed his compelling presence? The man saw recognition in her eyes and asked,
” Are you a reporter, or a journalist of some sort?” Confusion clouded her eyes.
“What kind of question is that?” she thought, and shook her head nervously. His voice, his indistinguishable accent, his entire being unnerved her.
The man leaned very close to her ear, and warned her, “A young, pretty thing like you shouldn’t go looking for trouble. It can only get you…hurt.” Madeleine would not be bullied, and she glared at him saying, “This is none of your concern. I have no business with you.” She tilted her chin up in defiance, “I will do as I see fit.” Hearing some commotion, they both turned to notice that a small crowd on onlookers had gathered at the mouth of the ally, wondering if they were witnessing a mugging, or a rape, or something. He stood back slightly again and finished,
“If I catch you tailing us again, believe me, you and I will have a most interesting and thorough interrogation.” With that, he strode through the ally, shouldering his way through the small crowd, and out of sight. Heart pounding, she leaned back against the wall and thought,
“What was that all about? Trouble? What does this mean?” Dejected, having lost her chance with Fouchon, she made her way back to the corner table, shooing away the concerned onlookers, and sipped her coffee, brooding her next step.
***
“Try not to keep me waiting like that again, won’t you Pik?” Fouchon glanced toward his passenger in the Jaguar, slightly annoyed. Pik Van Cleaf nodded silently. He kept the encounter to himself, preferring to have a little more information before he reported anything to Fouchon.
“So, her business was with Fouchon,” he mused. “And what business would that be?” He was curious about the spirited young troublemaker.
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