Leopard's Prey

been taking a series of photographs of. I landed a really big contract with a company that provides stock photos and they wanted the swamp at all hours along with the wildlife and plants,” Saria answered. “I’m supposed to capture the feel of the swamp throughout all seasons.”
    Remy swallowed his sarcastic reply. Sending in the pictures of the murder would certainly show the company that gave his baby sister the contract what kind of danger they put her in, but Saria would ignore his bad humor and good advice. She went her own way and made her own decisions. He couldn’t blame her. Maybe it was guilt that made him so overprotective of her now. When she was a child running wild and free in the swamp, he hadn’t paid attention. Like Bijou, she hadn’t had supervision and she’d been the adult in the home, not her drunken father.
    “Remy.” Saria sounded loving.
    He looked up at her. She looked so young, but so adult. Just like Bijou. Of course they’d gravitated toward one another and been secretive about it. For good reason. He sighed.
    “I had a good childhood,” she said. “Stop beating yourself up. I love that you want to protect me, but I’m all grown up now. You can’t take care of all of us.”
    “I can damn well try,” Remy replied. His gaze jumped to Bijou’s face.
    She sent him a faint smile. “I see why you were so insistent on me explainin’ the threats. You have a strong protective instinct, but really, Remy, you have enough family to look after without addin’ me to the mix.”
    He wished that was all it was. “Don’ kid yourself, Blue,” he snapped without thinking.
    Color swept into her face and she frowned at him. The hell with it. Let her figure it out on her own. Clearly, no matter how often he told himself she was a baby, his body said other things. He was leopard enough to know there was more going on than he could see. Instincts were strong in leopards and never once had he found himself in such a predicament.
    Saria stared at him in shock. She looked from Bijou to Remy and shook her head, dropping into a chair.
    “Tell me about your mother, Bijou,” Remy ordered, slipping the photographs into an envelope without more than a cursory inspection. He had no doubt they were excellent. Saria’s skills were known throughout the country, her reputation building fast. He didn’t want to distress Bijou any further.
    “My mother?” she echoed, her voice even softer, taking on more of that smoky, sultry flavor. “I don’ know anythin’ at all about her. Well, just what Bodrie told me. He met her backstage at a concert and she was strikin’. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. But honestly, Bodrie couldn’t take his eyes off of most women.”
    Remy was aware of Saria’s sharp glance from him to Bijou and back. She was smart, and she knew Remy didn’t bother with small talk. He interrogated people for a reason. He was good at it, sounding conversational and interested, putting whoever he was interrogating at ease and slipping in questions so easily no one knew how much information they actually gave up. If he was bringing up the uncomfortable question of Bijou’s mother, he was doing it for a reason.
    He flicked one look at his sister, and she pressed her lips together, getting the message to keep her mouth closed.
    “Did he ever talk about her family? Where she was from?”
    Bijou shrugged. “He mentioned they came from someplace near Borneo. He always said she was exotic, but he never talked about her family. I got the impression they were dead.”
    “You have a lot of money, Blue,” Remy pointed out. “Hire a PI and find out.”
    “Why?” Bijou regarded him steadily over the rim of her coffee mug. “Why would I want to do that now? It isn’t as if Bodrie wasn’t known around the world. He went on world tours all the time. I ought to know. He dragged me along on most of them.” She took another drink of the aromatic coffee and gave another shrug. “I needed them when I was a child. Even knowing someone was out there fightin’ for me would have helped, but they didn’. They left me with him.”
    Again, he couldn’t detect bitterness in her voice. Just resignation. She accepted that most people loved, even revered her father and thought he could do no wrong. She went her own way, made her life and made no apologies for it.
    “I think it would be difficult,” Saria said to Remy, “if I was Bijou and I inherited all that money, to trust anyone