The child was standing there thanking him and he’d just committed an unpardonable sin, shaking her hard enough to injure her. And she was right, which only infuriated him more. Even his chief wouldn’t back him up. He would have to take her back to that mansion with its swimming pools, home theater, bowling alley and all the drugs and alcohol and blatant corruption and immorality that went on there.
She didn’t say a word as they made the journey from the hotel to her home. The gates were manned by a guard who waved them through and frantically called up to the house. He stopped her as they approached the door to the ten-thousand-square-foot mansion.
“You know what I did, layin’ my hands on you like that, was wrong. No one, law enforcement or not, has the right to ever touch you, especially in anger.”
She nodded solemnly, her gaze steady on his, a rather disconcerting stare for one so young.
“Are you sorry?” she asked.
There was nothing in her voice or on her face to give away her feelings on the matter.
He frowned, thinking it over. She deserved the truth, but he wasn’t certain he knew the truth. His gut had reacted. His leopard, snarling. Raging. But, no, it wasn’t right, yet . . .
“I don’t know the answer to that, Bijou,” he said, brutally honest with her, with himself. “I don’t know what else I could have done to get your attention or to . . .” He faded off, knowing he’d been frustrated, not having any idea what to do with an eight-year-old child who was already an adult and heading down a path of destruction he couldn’t stop.
He wasn’t a fool. Good people often took bribes. They had families and needed the money. Cops had extra work when Bijou’s father was in town, hiring out as bodyguards and security. Often the extra perks included young, good-looking women. Bodrie Breaux was never going to have to answer for his deeds, unless there was truly a judgment day. Neither were the others whose job it was to protect this child, but took his money instead.
He could arrest Bodrie, but he’d lose his job, just as Bijou said. He couldn’t argue with her, and he couldn’t explain why the sight of her in that hotel room was so disturbing, surrounded by drugs and men who surely would have taken advantage of her had not another guest become upset at seeing a child with three older men going into a hotel room.
He reached past Bijou and opened the front door, indicating for her to precede him. She straightened her shoulders and her chin went up. A sulky, sullen expression crept over her delicate features as she shook her wild mane of hair to let it settle in her eyes. She marched in with Remy behind her.
There were needles lying around the marble floors; a bowl filled with pills and lines of cocaine lay out on a mahogany coffee table. Empty bottles of various strong alcoholic beverages along with empty wine bottles were scattered around the room. Several band members in different states of undress lay huddled on pillows, or on couches with one and sometimes two young women. Boxes of unused condoms were scattered around the room and used condoms were on the floor and the expensive rugs. Bodrie Breaux sprawled naked in a stupor between two naked women.
Bijou didn’t look at any of them. She kept her too-old eyes on him. There was no doubt she could read the distaste on his face. “Don’t do it. If you arrest him, he’ll be out in an hour and you’ll lose your badge. Don’t bother. I’d rather have you around.”
“Who are they?” He nodded toward the two women with Bodrie. One had lipstick smeared across her face. Someone had drawn on her breasts with lipstick, and cocaine still clung to her belly.
“One is my tutor and the other is my governess. They get paid a fortune for something that has nothing at all to do with me.” There was no bitterness in her voice, only weariness, and acceptance. “When he gets tired of them, he’ll fire them and hire new ones.”
“Can I take you somewhere else?”
She shrugged. “Where? I have no other relatives. I have no idea who my mother’s people are. There’s me and Bodrie.” She shrugged a second time. “I’ve got this. This is a nightly occurrence.”
“I can’t leave you here.” Remy shook his head. He’d shoot himself first. He’d never ever sleep again if he left a child in such an environment. He could sort it all out at the station once he got her out of harm’s way. “Get out to the car. I’m taking you to Pauline Lafont. She owns the Lafont Inn.”
“I know her,” Bijou responded. She looked around the room, and for the very first time, she looked like the child she was. Her shoulders sagged, and for one moment, tears swam in her eyes. She blinked them away and nodded, bolting past him for the door.
Once in the patrol car, he scribbled his private number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “You get into trouble, call me.”
Pauline had taken her in for the night, just as he’d known she would. He’d gone back and talked to his supervisor and then, on suggestion of the captain, took a leave of absence. It took a long while for the sick feeling to leave his gut and an even longer time to forgive himself for the way he’d handled the situation. Bijou needed someone to treat her with a little caring, not shake her until her teeth rattled. And he damn well should have stood up to the department, even if it did cost him his job. He’d been so disgusted with them, himself, and especially Bodrie Breaux.
The encounter with Bijou had changed his life. He’d left New Orleans and joined the service. He traveled as often as he could, to see if more of his kind were in the world and, if so, how they handled the savage nature of their leopards. He had resolved to be more in control and to come back home and change things, make more of a difference. He’d run into Bijou a couple of times after he’d returned home, mostly when she was in some kind of trouble, but she avoided his eyes. To his knowledge, she didn’t drink or do drugs, although she was often at the parties.
“She’s just a little kid, Gage,” Remy murmured aloud. “Cut her some slack.”
Gage laughed, a taunting, annoying sound that made Remy wish he wasn’t always striving for control. He had the urge to shove his brother out of the airboat.
“Well, Bijou is no little girl anymore. She’s stop-traffic, drop-dead gorgeous.”
Remy’s heart stuttered and, deep inside, his leopard snarled and unsheathed his claws at the note of interest in Gage’s voice. He still felt protective over that child and he was damn well going to look at her like she was a child, even though he knew Gage was right about the way she’d grown up. Something in Gage’s smug, secretive attitude raised an alarm. He was missing something. His head went up and he fixed eyes that had gone a cobalt blue on his brother.
“Saria didn’t bring that girl out here, did she?” He knew the answer before his brother answered. A snarl escaped, a low sound that set the swamp into a frenzy of warning calls. “She’s not home two minutes and they’re already in trouble together.”
Gage shot him a look and then hastily turned his attention to picking his way around a cypress grove. He cut the speed of the boat and maneuvered around the large broken knobs sticking up in the water. “They found a dead body, bro. They didn’t actually kill the guy.”
“Fils de putain,” Remy snapped, swearing under his breath. “It’s bad enough to have Saria runnin’ the swamp at night, but draggin’ Bijou with her is ridiculous. Don’ think for a minute those two aren’t goin’ to get into trouble. Damn Drake anyway.”
“Well, you can take it up with him,” Gage said. “He’s guardin’ the vic, keepin’ the gators and other creatures off the corpse.”