Forbidden Touch

“Thank you,” she repeated, almost sagging with relief when he removed his hand from her shoulder and walked to the door. The tightness in her chest receded, the blackness ebbing from the edges of her vision.

He turned in the open doorway, his head slanting as he gazed back at her. “If the police don’t help you, let me know.”

“What can you do?”

He smiled. “I know people who know people.”

“Are any of those people private detectives?”

His only answer was a widening of his smile as he closed the door behind him.

“MAN COME lookin’ for you, Mad Dog.” Claudell Savoy looked up from behind the bar when Maddox entered the Beachcomber, a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive that catered more to locals than the tourist crowd. “Seem real interested in where you at.”

Maddox shot the grizzled Creole bartender a wary look. “You tell him anything?”

“Not me, man.” Claudell didn’t sound convincing.

“For enough cash, you’d sell out your mama. What’d you tell him?” Maddox slid onto a bar stool in front of Claudell. He was the only one around; the bar wouldn’t open for another hour, but Claudell never minded the company.

“I jus’ say I see you around here sometime.” Claudell grinned, looking proud of himself. “He give me twenty dollars.”

Maddox frowned. “Thanks, buddy.”

“You ain’t nobody’s buddy, man. We both know that.” Claudell set a tumbler in front of him and pulled out a bottle of rye whiskey. “Here. On the house.”

Maddox put his hand over the glass. “Rain check.” The temptation to drown his chronic dissatisfaction in liquor was getting a little too strong these days.

Claudell shrugged and put the glass back in a rack behind the bar. “Say, I remember somethin’ else ’bout that man.”

Maddox met the bartender’s expectant gaze. “I ain’t givin’ you twenty bucks, Claudell. Good try, though.”

Claudell shrugged, smiling. “Bah, I tell you for nothin’. He say someone name Celia lookin’ for you.”

“I don’t know any Celia.”

“He say she wanna talk to you. Real important.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’d he look like?”

Claudell grimaced. “You know. Tourist.”

Great, that narrowed it down. “Did he say where I could find him if I happened to want to talk to this Celia?”

“Didn’t say. Give me this, though.” Claudell reached into the chest pocket of his stained white uniform shirt and retrieved a business card.

Maddox took it from him. “Charles Kipler Management,” he read aloud. An address in Beverly Hills, California. The cell phone number listed might be a place to start.

He pulled out his own cell phone and started to dial the number, then stopped, remembering why he’d come here in the first place. While looking for Iris’s hotel room key, he’d come across the photo of her friend in the front pocket of her purse. He’d snapped a shot with his phone, figuring he could show it around, help her out.

Not as if he had much else to do these days.

He showed Claudell the image. “Ever seen this woman?”

Claudell peered at the photo. “Not me. Pretty, though. You meet you a girl, Mad Dog?”

Maddox ignored the bartender’s salacious grin. “She’s gone missing from the Hotel St. George.”

“St. George?” Claudell’s smile faded. “No good. I hear bad thing about St. George.”

Maddox pocketed his phone. “What bad thing?”

“People gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

“What do you mean?”

Claudell picked up another glass and started polishing. “A man go into the Tremaine yesterday. Say his friend missing from St. George. Gone, nobody know where.”

Maddox hadn’t heard about it. “Did he talk to the police?”

Claudell made a face. “They want it go away.” He lowered his voice, as if imparting a deep, dark secret. “There more.”

“More disappearances?”

Claudell nodded. “Bad thing happen at St. George. You smart, you stay away.” The telephone sitting at the end of the bar began ringing. Claudell went to answer it.

Maddox looked down at Sandrine’s image on his cell phone. Where’d you go, darlin’?

The bartender wasn’t what he’d call a reliable source; his integrity was questionable, and he was a sucker for a spooky story. But if Iris’s friend Sandrine wasn’t the only person to go missing from St. George—

His cell phone vibrated against his palm. The display panel popped up, showing an unfamiliar number. Maddox slid off the bar stool and headed outside, pushing the connect button on the phone. “Yeah?”

“Is this Mr. Heller?”

Well, hell. “Who’s askin’?”

“My name is Charles Kipler. My client Celia Shore wants to thank you for your aid to her this morning.”

“I think you must have the wrong guy.”

“You weren’t the man who gave aid to an injured woman on the beach earlier this afternoon?”

He ought to deny it. Save himself the headache. But there were a lot of unanswered questions about the woman on the beach, or more specifically, Iris’s connection with her, that piqued his curiosity. “That was me. How did you get my number?”

“I’ll explain later. Ms. Shore wants to see you. She’s at St. Ignacio Hospital. I’ll meet you in the lobby and take you to her room. How soon can you get here?”

“You expect me to drop everything and come visit your client, and you won’t even tell me how you got my number?”

“Yes.”