Stranger, Seducer, Protector. Joanna Wayne

as if trying to gain control. “The walls in one upstairs bathroom collapsed and a woman’s head fell out of the debris and rolled across the tile.” She shuddered again.

      “A human head fell out of your wall?”

      “I know how bizarre this must sound, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you about living next to me.”

      “Too late. I’ve already paid the deposit and the first month’s rent.”

      She was trying to make light of the nightmarish situation now, but he’d heard the scream. It had vibrated with pure terror. He held the gun where she could see it.

      “If there’s a problem, I can help.”

      She hesitated, eyeing him warily, her gaze lingering on his pistol.

      “Do you have a license to carry that thing?”

      “A weapon, not a thing.” Transferring the automatic .45 to his left hand, he retrieved a business card from the back pocket of his jeans. He handed it to her.

      She read it and then stared up at him from beneath incredibly dark and thick lashes. “So you’re a private detective.”

      “Yep. I’m legitimate and harmless.”

      “That’s what all the B-movie psychos say.” But she finally stepped aside for him to enter.

      Their bare arms brushed. The feel of satiny softness so unlike his own weathered skin caught him off guard. So did the surge of arousal that followed.

      He stepped away as she closed and locked the door behind them.

      He followed her up a wide, winding staircase, mesmerized by the sensuous sway of her hips. He’d never expected Jacinth Villaré to be this hot.

      What he had planned might turn out to be a lot like playing catch with a hand grenade.

      His sinuses rebelled as she led him into a high-ceilinged, narrow bathroom at the head of the stairs. The wall behind the tub had collapsed as if it had been shaken from its supports by a devastating earthquake. Stooping, he picked up a large chunk of plaster and turned it over in his hand a couple of times.

      “This is damp. You must have a leak in the wall, as well. That’s probably what caused the collapse.”

      “I can live with crumbling walls.” She pointed at the floor next to a woven clothes hamper. “That has got to go.”

      He stared at the rotting head. Definitely human.

      “Someone must have decapitated her and buried the head inside the walls of the house,” Jacinth said, her voice steadier and her mood seemingly calmer now that he was on the scene with her.

      “Looks that way,” he agreed. “I’m not sure the victim is female, though. A lot of male French Quarter inhabitants wear their hair long.”

      She nodded. “At least the decay explains the smell,” Jacinth said.

      “Not nearly as bad as I would have expected,” Nick said.

      “But the odor was nauseating in this room when we first took possession of the house. My sister Caitlyn was convinced it was a backup in the sewerage lines. The plumber we called assured us the smell was from something that had died in the wall. We assumed he meant something like a rat or a squirrel. It never dawned on either of us that the source of the odor might be human.”

      “What did you do?”

      “Called an exterminator. He checked the attic, but didn’t find what was causing the stench. Thankfully, he got rid of some rodents we didn’t know we had. Then we hired a handyman to secure the structure to keep out future pests.”

      “And the sickening odor?”

      “The exterminator used some kind of expensive chemical to subdue it. It took three treatments.”

      Nick settled on his haunches for a better look at the head. He couldn’t tell how long it had been rotting in the walls, but his educated guess was no more than eighteen months.

      “How long have you lived in the house?” he asked.

      “Just under a year, but our first visit was immediately after my grandmother’s will was probated. That was fourteen months ago.”

      Old murder tales went with the house like crawfish and étouffée, but it rattled Nick to think this atrocity might have taken place after Jacinth and her sister had moved in.

      “Where’s your sister?” he asked.

      “On her honeymoon.”

      He hadn’t realized she’d gotten married, though he’d thoroughly researched both sisters. Caitlyn was the drama queen who made a living by giving tours of the ghostly and sometimes dangerous Cities of the Dead that housed the Quarter’s famed crypts and tombs. She’d nearly gotten herself killed in that capacity.

      Jacinth was the quiet and studious type, a graduate student with a teaching assistantship at Tulane. Brainy and sophisticated. Unquestionably, not his type.

      Too bad she was so damned attractive. And that was without a trace of makeup and with her silky, dark hair disheveled and powdered with grayish, flaky plaster.

      Best not to even glance at the cotton nightshirt that skimmed her perky breasts and danced about her shapely legs.

      “I’m calling the cops,” Jacinth announced, “though I doubt they’ll rush right over to examine a decayed body that may have been entombed in the wall for years.”

      Bringing in the cops at this stage of the game might complicate his mission, but there was little he could do about that now. He waited as she made the call, his mind dealing with ways to handle the new layers of intricacies.

      “They’re sending a uniformed officer to deal with the situation,” Jacinth said once she’d broken the connection. “They said we shouldn’t touch anything before he arrives—as if I would willingly touch that head. But I guess I should get Sin out of here.”

      Jacinth reached up to a shelf just over her head where Sin had settled, looking as if she were poised for an ambush. Jacinth’s nightshirt inched up her thighs.

      Nick grew instantly hard. Sin avoided Jacinth’s grasping hands and pounced on Nick’s back, letting her claws scrape the skin at the back of his neck before it leaped from his shoulders to the top of the clothes hamper.

      Jacinth scolded the cat. The feline demonstrated the stare that had earned her name. Nick was undaunted. He figured he’d had the scratch and the stare coming to him for the thoughts he’d had about the cat’s owner.

      “Maybe we should go back downstairs and wait for the cop,” Nick said.

      “I appreciate you coming to my rescue tonight, Nick, but there’s really no reason for you to stay. I’ll be fine now that I’ve calmed down—unless the house decides to hurl the rest of the corpse at me.”

      “I wouldn’t rule that out.”

      She looked back to the freakish head. “Good point. But it’s late and you probably still have boxes to carry inside.”

      “Only a couple. And I’m a night owl. I’d be happy to stay.”

      “In that case, I wouldn’t mind the company.” Jacinth covered her mouth and coughed. “My throat feels as if I’ve been eating grit.”

      “More reason we should get out of here and close the door.” In truth, he’d like nothing better than to explore behind the walls and see what other gruesome surprises might be skulking there. Only he’d prefer to do that without Jacinth looking over his shoulder or even being in the house.

      Jacinth stepped over to make another stab at retrieving Sin. The cat jumped from her reach and slunk out the door.

      “She’s not the most cooperative of creatures,” Jacinth said.

      “Have