Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 11

Grant changed into dry clothes—loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt belonging to one of his sister’s clients. He helped Paige clean the wet floors, the bloody upstairs hallway and downstairs bathroom, and generally return the brownstone to the jazz-brimming, candlelit brothel that had greeted him ninety minutes prior.

When the doorbell rang, Grant slipped into an empty closet beside the wet bar, pulling the door closed as Paige moved into the foyer.

She’d skimped down into something so lacy and see-through he could barely bring himself to look at her. But she’d somehow managed to work magic with makeup and foundation, upgrading her appearance from heroin addict to the sexy emaciation of a Paris runway model.

Muffled sounds reached him through the closet door.

Hinges creaked in the foyer.

An exchange of voices, barely discernible, but low and seductive.

Approaching footsteps moved into range, followed by laughter.

Grant heard the clink of ice dropping into empty glasses.

A cork sliding out of a whiskey bottle.

Liquid pouring over cracking ice.

Paige and her client stood at the wet bar, three feet away.

“You look tired, baby,” she said, her voice pure saccharine.

“Here’s to hoping you can fix that.”

Grant’s stomach twisted.

“Cheers,” the man said.

“Save any lives today?”

“No, actually. Car accident. Couldn’t find the hemorrhage in time.”

“Sounds like a bad day at the office.”

Grant had been fully prepared to despise whoever entered this brownstone with the intention of fucking his sister, but as he eavesdropped from the closet, he couldn’t find the rage. He’d stood in this man’s shoes countless times. Paid for sex with women who were undoubtedly sisters of other men. Whatever brotherly anger he felt was doomed to be laced with hypocrisy.

“I don’t know how you do it, Jude. Life and death every day.”

“The good days make it worth it. Also, they pay me a fortune which helps my fragile ego. How you doing, Gloria?”

“Aces.”

“Yeah? ‘Cause you’re looking a little peaked, as my grandmother used to say.”

“I’m fine. It’s just—”

“Eleven o’clock at night.”

“Exactly.”

They moved away from the wet bar and Grant heard the squeak of leather as they sat down on the sofa cushions.

In the darkness, he reached down, palmed the doorknob.

Waited for their voices to start up again, then turned it slowly.

When the latch had cleared the housing, he nudged the door open half an inch.

He couldn’t see them directly with the door blocking his view, but he could watch their reflection in the big mirror that hung over the fireplace—his sister cuddled into the embrace of a handsome man twenty years her senior. Even sitting, Grant could see that he was tall and endowed with the kind of longish, wavy-gray locks that were made to be windblown behind the wheel of a topless 911.

Grant listened to a conversation that could’ve unfolded in a confession box—Jude’s failing marriage, his suffocating mortgage, his ungrateful children—and all the while Paige gently prodded him along with a sincerity so genuine it made Grant simmer with jealousy. This man was closer to his sister than he was. Eric had been right. She was in a different league. Blue label all the way.

At last, Paige stood and took Jude’s hand.

“Come with me,” she said.

Jude smiled and rose. “Sure you’re up for this tonight? You really look tired,” he said.

Paige took a few sultry steps back and waved him on with a finger.