No Trespassing Read online

  Dedication

  Also by KD Robichaux

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Note From the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright 2016 by KD Robichaux. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  No Trespassing Production Crew

  Editing by Hot Tree Editing

  www.hottreeediting.com

  Cover Design and

  Formatting by Pink Ink Designs

  www.pinkinkdesigns.com

  Cover Photography by FuriousFotog

  www.onefuriousfotog.com

  Special Thanks

  Cassy Roop of Pink Ink, and Golden Czermak, the Photo Ninja and FuriousFotog himself, y’all are truly a dream team, and I’m so proud to call you my friends. You are both an inspiration to me to stick with something I love doing and to never give up. You two take my breath away with every new cover you create for me, and they just keep getting better and better!

  To Don Wildman, host of the Travel Channel’s Off Limits.

  May everyone know you are the inspiration for

  Dean Savageman, host of the Adventure Channel’s No Trespassing.

  Now Available:

  The Blogger Diaries Trilogy:

  Book 1: Wished For You

  Book 2: Wish He Was You

  Book 3: Wish Come True

  The Blogger Diaries Trilogy Boxed Set

  Standalones:

  No Trespassing

  Coming Soon:

  The Confession Duet

  Book 1: Before the Lie

  Book 2: Truth Revealed

  “I HATE HIM!” I hiss, before tipping back the shot glass of icy Patron, biting into my lime as if I was tearing into the man in question’s throat.

  “Hate is such a strong word, honey,” Erin says, handing me a napkin from beside her, where we’re sitting at the bar of our favorite little pub, only a block from the townhouse we share.

  And then our usual back and forth begins, as I rant, “That good for nothin’—”

  “He’s one of the leading historical preservers in the world.”

  “—selfish—”

  “He donates half his millions to charity.”

  “—asshole! I hate his stupid face!” I finish, ignoring her interruptions, especially what comes out of her mouth next.

  “You mean his perfect, drool-inducing, panty-wetting, heart-stopping face?”

  All I can do is growl and give her a death stare as I shoot back the next ounce of tequila.

  “Come on, Emmy. Even you have to admit how hot he is, whether he is your self-proclaimed mortal enemy or not. I bet 90 percent of the people watching his show are women who only tune in because he’s so fucking gorgeous.” She takes a sip of her Seven and Seven. “Have you seen his Twitter followers and Facebook friends? Really, like that many hot chicks are watching The Adventure Channel for the history documentaries,” she scoffs.

  I look at her sideways, feeling my body sway a bit on my stool. “What are you trying to say? Hot chicks can’t like history? I like history, you twat. Am I not hot?” I snarl my upper lip at her and cross my eyes, making her laugh. I’ll do just about anything to get her off the subject of how good-looking Dean Savageman, host of the popular No Trespassing television series, is, because as much as I despise the fucker, I can’t deny that man was blessed by God himself in the looks department. The ass.

  “Oh, yeah. And you’ll be even hotter when your face gets stuck like that.” She nudges me with her elbow, causing me to almost fall off my seat.

  “Every time, Rin. Every. Damn. Time. I show up at these locations, my hard earned History and Archeology degrees in hand along with my Louisiana driver’s license to prove I’m not a terrorist there to do any sort of damage to the place, and no one will let me in. Even name-dropping my freakin’ parents won’t work. I mean, what good is being the only daughter of pretty well-known archaeologists if it’s not going to get me access anywhere?” I huff, only half-joking. “I was conceived against the door of the queen’s chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza, for fuck’s sake. Mom and Dad love telling me that story.” I roll my eyes.

  Erin giggles as she sips from her straw. “What did you say the pharaoh’s name was again? Coffee something?”

  “Ugh, bitch. Khufu.” I take the last shot in the row of five shot glasses I’d ordered when we first sat down.

  “Yeah, that guy. I bet he rolled over in his pretty coffin thingy,” she says, nodding at the bartender for a refill.

  “Sarcophagus. You’re killing me.” I press the ball of my hand to my forehead to relieve some of the pressure I feel building at my best friend’s cluelessness when it comes to what I know so much about. But I don’t blame her. When she starts rattling on about the newest trends in psychology, I can feel my eyes roll into the back of my head.

  “I mean, if I had any desire to go to Egypt and work over there with my parents, I know I’d be set. But growing up surrounded by nothing but images of pyramids, sandy deserts, hieroglyphics, the Sphinx… it’s like I’m jaded. That shit doesn’t interest me. They submersed me in it too much. I want to see things right here. Right in our country. Shit, right in our state! But no. No one gives a rat’s testicle that my mom and dad are the people who drove the crawler robot that discovered that behind the queen’s chamber door was yet another door, and that on the other side of that door were hieroglyphs written in red paint. A giant discovery, huge, in fact, but apparently meaningless when it comes to getting me access to snap a couple fucking pictures for my blog.”

  “Tits,” she proclaims, and I look at her oddly. “Have you tried showing the security guards your tits? You have great tits, Em.”

  I start to deny it, but confess, “There was that one time. But it was right here in New Orleans, and I was just trying to get in to watch them add someone to a family tomb in Lafayette Cemetery.” I pout.

  She looks at me in horror. “There is something so wrong with you. I can’t wait until you finally give in and let me shrink you. I’d have a field day.”

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s so cool. It’s so hot here in NOLA, and the tombs are above ground, like an oven on top of a hole. They put the deceased into the pretty tomb part you see, and then nature does its thing. Then when someone else in that family passes away, they go in there and basically just scrape the remains to the back, where they fall into the hole beneath, and—”

  “Stop! That is way too much information. I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing that,” she cuts me off, visibly shuddering.

  Even after all these years, growing up with my sweet-natured friend, I always seem to forget she doesn’t find morbid things like that fascinating the way I do. I guess it comes from being taught in great detail at a very young age, the process of mummification. I get back to what I was originally talking about so she can quit being grossed out.

  “It’s just not fair, Rin. I can’t count how many times I’ve been somewhere, practically on my knees begging for just five minutes inside one of these loca
tions, and being rejected, and then in waltzes Dean.” I say his name like it tastes bad on my tongue. “He walks right in. Doesn’t even have to show a fucking visitor’s pass. And I swear to God, he smirks at me. He. Fucking. Smirks. It’s not just in my head.” I start to tick off some of the locations on my fingers. “The limestone quarry in Louisville, Kentucky, when that bastard got to go zip-lining underground. Underground! The Redmond Salt Mine in Utah. He got to go up on the roof—the fucking roof, Erin—of the Cowboys Stadium, before it was opened for its first game, when all I wanted was a quick picture of the new field. And don’t even get me started on Alcatraz.” I end this by folding my arms on the bar top and dramatically pound them with my forehead, accentuating my whined, “Not. Fucking. Fair!”

  “You’ll figure something out. But right now, we just need to get you home,” Erin tells me, and I don’t even have it in me to argue. I want to get home and into my claw-footed bathtub, where I can soak and have my nightly tradition of exchanging goofy-filtered Snapchats with my blog friends Ricky and Calvin. They’re the only guys I know who would notice I’m in the tub and not be creepers and ask for naughty pics, seeing how they’re married… like, to each other. I met them when I first started my adventure blog. I had Googled how to work my new website, and their comments under the YouTube video I clicked on were absolutely hilarious, since they were as clueless as I was, as they were starting a blog on their life together. So, after commenting with them on there, we became friends on Facebook, and the rest is history. Their friendship is invaluable, and I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for their amazing senses of humor and optimistic outlook on just about everything to brighten my day.

  Our little pub has three-dollar You-Call-Its until 11:00 p.m., so I leave a twenty-dollar bill under my five shot glasses and allow Erin to hook her arm through mine and lead me through the door. A five-minute walk down the cracked sidewalk of our narrow French Quarter street carries us past quaint row houses, several with doors propped open, the owners sitting out on the steps enjoying the nightly relief from the humid summer weather. It’s still hot outside, but with the sun tucked away for the night, it’s our only chance to get a little fresh air without melting. The never-ending sound of jazz music floats on the gentle breeze from the many bars in our area, Bourbon Street being only a few roads over. But also riding along on that draft is the familiar funk of our one-of-a-kind city. It’s broken up though by the smell of spicy Cajun food, and occasionally something sweet, maybe beignets, or the delicious scent of coffee.

  As we come upon the creole townhouse where we live, I pause in my steps to admire the gorgeous three-story brick building with its wraparound black cast-iron balconies. I always have to stop and appreciate the architecture that seems to make my soul sing with joy. The home has been in my family for generations. With my parents always gone overseas, I stayed with my grandma to finish up school here. And after she passed away at the end of my senior year of high school, when Mom and Dad found out I wanted to stay for college too, they insisted Erin move in with me. Which was fine by me. She’d had hundreds of sleepovers with me since we were kids, so it wasn’t any different. Just a little quieter without Granny blasting her QVC and ‘stories’ 24/7. We’d tried to get her earbuds once, but that didn’t go so well after she got up to refill her sweet tea without pulling them out first. Poor old woman nearly had a heart attack as the TV crashed to the floor behind her. After that, we just dealt with the dramatic music of Young and the Restless and the constant tune of “Yours for eight easy payments of just $19.99!”

  “You all right?” Erin asks, bringing me out of the memory.

  I look at her and sigh. “Yeah, that’s just a loooot of stairs.” We both turn our gazes up to the top floor, where our bedrooms glow from lamps in the windows.

  With a snort, she pulls on my elbow. “Drinking night ritual before bed. Come on.”

  We walk up to the front door, the second floor balcony overhead casting a shadow until we get close enough for the motion detector lights to click on. As she closes the door and locks up behind us, I walk down the hall feeling like I’m on a cruise ship as I sway between the narrow walls. Turning into the kitchen, I go straight to the cabinet where we keep the world’s supply of Tylenol, as Erin pulls our two giant metal tumblers with straws down from another and proceeds to fill them with water from the fridge door. After a few moments of struggling with the Emmy-proof cap, I finally manage to shake out four of the white tablets before replacing the bottle in its spot.

  I hold my hand open to her and she takes two out of my palm after handing me my tumbler. Lifting the pills between us in her fingers as I do the same, she sings, “Here’s to you. Here’s to me. And here’s to the boys who lick us where we pee!”

  I throw my head back and laugh. Every time we go out for a drink, this is our tradition. Two Tylenols followed by an entire glass of water after exchanging a hysterical toast, ending the night on a happy note. We’ve woken up with way fewer hangovers since we started doing it, making it an almost superstitious thing for us. Like when Erin decides to go home with some hottie from the bar, before she actually goes to sleep, the bitch will call me, no matter how late it is, just to toast me and take her dose and water. The one time I slept through her call, she got a massive hangover that lasted three days, and to this day still blames me for that shit. I blamed it on the six hurricanes she drank before we left the bar, but she’ll hear none of it.

  We both chug our water then move to the fridge for refills to take to bed. We leave the light above the stove on so we can see our way to the stairs, and as we stand before the bottom one, we look aaaaall the way up the twenty steps to where we can see the first landing, knowing we’ll have to climb two more sets once we get up there.

  “You ever going to install that damn elevator?” she mumbles. I’ve threatened to many a time, but alas, it’s way too expensive. We’ve done this multiple ways. We’ve raced, seeing who could go up the fastest, but our out-of-shape asses ended up almost dying from oxygen deprivation by the second flight. We’ve tried climbing, with our hands down on the steps above us, essentially crawling up the stairs, which seemed like a good idea at the time, until we woke up the next day feeling like we’d done eighteen hundred pushups. I couldn’t lift anything for almost a week. But what seems to work the best for us is what we go with tonight. We hook elbows and each take hold of the banister on either side of the staircase, and start lumbering upward, taking a breather at each landing. Sixty steps later, breathing like we just climbed the Eiffel Tower, we hug, tell each other an affectionate, “‘Night, bitch,” then part ways, going to our bedrooms on opposite sides of the third floor.

  I PULL OFF ITEMS of clothing and drop them on the floor all the way to my en suite, knowing full well I’ll probably trip on them in the morning, but unable to care, hanging on to the bathroom’s doorframe to take off my second-skin jeggings. I get them all the way down past my ankles until they won’t go any farther as they turn inside out, still attached to my feet. “Motherfuckers,” I growl, trying to step on one leg of the denim and yank myself free, but they won’t budge. I plop my ass down on the carpet and take hold of the waistband, having to lie back while I pull with all my might until the stretchy jeans finally let go of their death grip with a pop, slingshotting me right in the face. The back of my head lands on the cushiony shag rug next to my bed as I stare up at my popcorn ceiling. “Is this really my life?” I mumble, panting from the effort, after I’d just caught my breath from climbing the stairs.

  I huff my way vertical and grab my phone out of my discarded purse before going into the bathroom to start the faucet at the foot of the tub. When it’s full enough, I drop in a vanilla-scented bath bomb, which gives off a satisfying sizzle as it fills the room with its comforting fragrance. I throw my long dark hair up into a knot on top of my head then lower myself into the scalding water, letting out a moan while making sure not to get the cell still in my hand wet. After a few minutes of letting heat so
othe my aching body, I unlock my screen and touch the yellow app giving me access to my favorite guys. I scroll until I find my favorite filter, letting the skin-smoothing, eye-brightening effects and golden butterflies that flutter around my head do the work that no amount of makeup would be able to do for my exhausted appearance.

  I hold down the circular button to take a ten-second video message. “Evening, my fabulous friends. Hope your day was better than mine!” I give the camera a smooch before the time runs out. I choose their names in my contacts list and send it through.

  Within seconds, the purple arrow next to each of their names goes hollow, indicating they’ve watched my message, soon turning into a purple square to notify me they messaged back with their own videos.

  I open Calvin’s first, and see him sitting next to Ricky on their couch, their dog Miley nestled between them. “Evening, gorgeous. We’re just working on the blog. What happened today?”

  I open Ricky’s, feeling special that he sends me actual videos. His Snapchat stories only consist of pictures with funny captions. In this one, he’s using the filter that makes his eyes look extremely large and his mouth nearly nonexistent, making me giggle. “Emmy doll, how did getting into the scary place you told us about go today?”

  I message Calvin back, using the same butterfly filter. Can this thing just follow me around everywhere I go? “Ugh, long story. Put your phone where your honey can see so I only have to send this once.” The red circle timer fills, so I start a new video message after I send it. “I was so close to getting into the catacombs this time. So. Freaking. Close! But just as the guard was about to let me through…” I send, and then start a new one, this time using the filter that makes my eyeballs completely black. “That asshole showed up with the guard’s boss, flashing a contract and flaunting the fact he has a camera crew, saying he was there to set up marks before they start filming tomorrow.” I add a red-faced angry emoji to the top of my message before sending.