Charmed and Dangerous

by Toni McGee Causey

  Yep, Cam thought, he knew exactly how persuasive she could be. But he also knew how smart she was.

  “And how long have you known Ms. Sumrall, Professor?”

  “Oh, uh. Um. Well. I’m not sure.”

  “Round it, for me. A few months? Weeks? Days? A year?”

  The Professor tried looking toward Dellago, then quickly faced away and proceeded to swallow, cough, and fidget. “Maybe, um, maybe about a year.”

  “Really? And how did you meet Ms. Sumrall?”

  “This isn’t important, Detective,” Dellago said, scraping back his chair.

  “Of course it is. He wants to plead down, he needs to explain how he met her and how long she had this idea.”

  “I—I—I. I met her at the festival,” the Professor said. “Uh, last year.”

  “Oh, that was the year her sister had to stand in for her as Contraband Queen,” Cam said. As an aside to Dellago, “Since Ms. Sumrall had the flu.”

  “Right! Right, that’s it,” the Professor said before Dellago had a chance to interject.

  “And she came to you to do this because . . .”

  “She, she trusted me, I guess. A beautiful woman like that, everyone’s always trying to take advantage of her. You know?”

  Cam didn’t answer.

  “So, so, see, she could tell I wasn’t the type to do that. I’m not exactly a ladies’ man. She needed help; she was very determined.”

  “I think that’s enough,” Dellago said. “Do we have a deal?”

  There was a brief knock on the door and Detective Benoit stuck his head inside. “Cam? You got a call you have to take.”

  Cam excused himself to Dellago and the Professor and just as he reached for the door, he turned back to them.

  “Oh, Professor. You ever heard of a guy named Trevor Cormier?”

  The Professor blanched, swallowed repeatedly, and Cam thought he saw the man clamp his legs closed beneath the table. Finally, the Professor shook his head emphatically.

  “Uh, no. I can’t remember meeting anyone by that name.”

  Dellago watched Cam as Cam nodded solemnly, giving nothing away as he left the room.

  One of the twins handed Ce Ce the private line again, and she was surprised to find Nina on the line.

  “Aren’t you busy enough?” Ce Ce teased, and instantly regretted it when she heard Nina’s tone.

  “I’m hearing some bad things.”

  “What kind of bad? And from who?”

  “Just my . . . contacts. In my modeling world.”

  Ce Ce shuddered.

  “I’m hearing there’s something B has that someone wants, and he’s going to kill her once he gets it.”

  “What in the hell could that child have that anyone would care that much about? She’s perpetually broke!”

  “I don’t know, and so far, neither do any of my contacts. Maybe if you called Cam? I know B is still furious with him, but—”

  “I’ve already talked to him, honey, and he don’t know much more than us. There’s some guy with her Cam thinks means her harm.”

  “The one she kidnapped?”

  “That’s the same one she kidnapped? This guy that Cam thinks may get her killed?”

  “That sounds like Bobbie Faye. Have you learned anything else?”

  “Honey, all I know is what I’ve seen on TV. And that she came and got an advance on her paycheck to pay for her electricity to get turned back on.”

  “On this trailer?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “If she gets out of this alive, I’m going to kick her ass for not asking for help.”

  “I think you’re gonna have to line up behind a few people, honey.”

  “I’ve got to go, Ceece. The boys are getting restless over here. I think they’re determined to take another stab at the trailer.”

  Fifteen

  The Bobbie Faye protection charms are our biggest sellers.

  —Eluki B., owner of the New Orleans Voodoo Jamorama

  Once Cam had left the interrogation room, and before he could hear what Benoit had to say, his phone rang. After a moment on the phone with Ce Ce, he knew his suspicions were grounded.

  When he hung up, Benoit spoke low, saying, “Got bad news. Kelvin called. The dogs? They lost her.”

  Cam paused a moment and it took every ounce of willpower not to kick the wall.

  Benoit glanced around them, making sure no one was paying undue attention. “They dead-ended downstream and Kelvin turned ’em upstream, but there’s a couple of gators sunning themselves and one of our guys spotted a mama bear who’s done pissed off and aiming for a fight. Kelvin said he doubted they got by that ol’ gal, and even if they did, he ain’t sending the dogs that way. He’s trying t’ go around her now and see if they can pick up the scent.”

  Cam stared at the cinderblock wall, the industrial gray paint peeling in a few places. He could see why a lot of cops ended up smoking: it gave you something to do with your hands besides punching brick walls.

  There were two things of value he’d learned from his quick interrogation with the Professor: one—the Professor was lying about when he’d met Bobbie Faye. She so loved the Contraband Days Festival, she would have dragged herself to the festival even if she’d been shot and was on her deathbed. Her sister had never substituted for her. Cam wasn’t entirely sure if Lori Ann had ever even gone to the festival. The second thing was that Bobbie Faye was just as good as dead. Someone high up in organized crime didn’t want her around. Dellago would only offer up Bobbie Faye if he was fairly sure she wasn’t going to be alive to rebut the Professor’s statement and tell whatever it was she knew that could harm them.

  “So what was the deal asking him about Cormier?”

  “The professor obviously doesn’t really know Bobbie Faye. We know Cormier was at that bank. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Cam pressed his forehead to his fist and leaned against the wall, buying a moment to think.

  Bobbie Faye was marked for a kill from two, possibly three, different directions. There was the FBI, who couldn’t care less if she got in the way. There was whatever Dellago was up to, probably having something to do with the information Ce Ce had passed along. And that may or may not mean the man traveling with Bobbie Faye was out to kill her, as the FBI suggested.

  Apparently one contract out on her life wasn’t challenging enough. And she was still running. To what, God only knew.

  It occurred to him, just then, how much that summed up Bobbie Faye. She was always running. Running away.

  Unbidden, he had a flash of her laughing, her long wild hair flying across her face as she grinned over her shoulder at him. He’d mentioned he might have to go into work that day instead of spending it with her. She’d grabbed his keys in a mock threat to toss them in his backyard, a wooded lot on a lake. He’d been joking, of course, and she’d known that, and was teasing back, and she ran through the house, impish and grinning and eyes sparkling.

  She made him laugh. He’d grown up serious, rigid. Straight “A” student, class president, senator at LSU. Everything right and expected. But laughter—deep joy—was new to him. She had a way of looking at him as if he was the greatest gift in the whole world, and she couldn’t believe he was for her. She shrieked as he tried to catch her; he’d doubled back through the living room where he hurdled the coffee table and pinned her to the sofa. Only to discover she’d somehow hidden the keys and refused to tell where until he took her to bed.

  He hadn’t needed a lot of convincing.

  He remembered waking hours later to find her kneeling next to him, the light from the bedroom window casting a suffused glow over half of her face, the other half in shadow. She had an odd expression he couldn’t quite read, and when he asked her what she was thinking, she had shrugged, saying she was happy.

  All gone. Everything. This woman, this person who used to be his best friend, who now hated him.

  It shouldn’t have been that way.
r />   He paced, ignoring Benoit’s amused grin until it grated.

  “What?”

  “You’re kicking yourself because she didn’t come to you for help.”

  “Like hell. She’s insane, putting everyone in jeopardy, never asking for help. She’s pathologically incapable of accepting help. She’ll destroy everything before she’ll ask anyone, especially me. She’s doing this to herself and there’s no fucking reason for it.”

  Damn, he needed to hit something. Soon.

  “Yeah, well, if you’d really wanted her to ask you for help, maybe you shouldn’t have arrested her sister.”

  “Fuck off. I was doing my job.”

  Benoit laughed. “Right. And she took it so well, too. You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen armed cops dive for cover and hide from an unarmed person?”

  “I was doing my fucking job.”

  He’d had to arrest her sister, Lori Ann for a variety of crimes, starting with full-on drunk driving and ending with theft, fraud, and check-kiting. He’d known Bobbie Faye was worried about her, he’d known Bobbie Faye was trying to handle the problem, but the arrest fell to his unit and frankly, he thought Bobbie Faye would appreciate that he was kind and gentle with Lori Ann when others wouldn’t have been. It had to be done. He knew it, he believed in it. Sure, Bobbie Faye would be upset, but she’d already stated that Lori Ann was a menace to society, so she’d understand. She’d be pissed, but she’d understand.

  He hadn’t expected the head-spinning, Defcon one, stupendous meltdown that had been Bobbie Faye when she found out he’d been the arresting officer. It was not quite a year later and he still could feel the blisters from her fury.

  Hadn’t she known what it meant that she was dating a cop? What the hell did she expect? He’d done the right thing. He stood by that. But accusations were hurled and words were said that neither could take back.

  “You still writin’ checks for that ring every month?”

  Cam hated the way Benoit knew him so damned well. The night Bobbie Faye had ended it, Cam had thrown the ring in the lake. She’d never seen it, had never known, and he was never going to tell her.

  “Every month. And I’m gonna keep writing them for the next two years just to keep remembering what a stupid idea that was.”

  “Maybe if it takes writing out a check to remind yourself you don’t want to feel the way you do, then—”

  “Don’t even finish that thought.”

  Benoit turned and leaned his back flat against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other, arms folded and his brown eyes closed.

  “You can’t shoot her, you know.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  Bobbie Faye needed to formulate a strategy on how to handle the kidnappers, though she hadn’t a clue what it was she could actually do until she had the damned tiara and knew where she was supposed to take it. She just might, possibly, need help.

  She sure as hell couldn’t ask Cam for help.

  She wondered if it had been her biggest mistake not to call him at the beginning. Of course, even though the kidnappers had said “no police,” it wasn’t like there were kidnappers out there who had ever said, “Oh, sure, honey, call the cops, we don’t mind.” So maybe she should have.

  Still.

  Cam was Cam. Unchanged. Freakishly stubborn. (She resolutely refused to think of any phrases in which “pot” and “kettle” might figure significantly.) He was livid with her, would never see that she’d been right, and if she’d called him, he would have wanted her to go in and do it his way. By-the-freaking-book. They didn’t have time for “by the book,” and she didn’t have time to argue with him.

  It would have been one hell of an argument. He’d have turned into obnoxious, bossy cop, the one who knew every freaking thing, who had explained to her that he was a cop, first, a man, second; the one who lived, breathed, and dreamed rules and goddamned ethics. She’d like to tell him where he could plant both, then remembered she already had, rather explicitly, the day he’d arrested Lori Ann. And now . . . well, given the scope of the hunt for her, his hands would be tied—he’d be fired in a heartbeat if he helped her (especially without proof of her story). No, he’d arrest her and Roy’s chance would be gone as soon as the media reported she was in custody.

  Bobbie Faye raced round and round these worries while she and Trevor trekked through the woods. Another mystifying development: a man who actually seemed to be helping, whoever the hell he was—and could he be trusted? Could he help her when she had to face the kidnappers? Was it even right to ask? Probably not.

  She barely tuned into where they were going and frankly, it wouldn’t have helped much, anyway. It was just more trees, mud, and water. She kept smacking up against the puzzle of the tiara and no way to solve it when she saw they’d reached a narrow, rutted lane. The fine dust beneath her boots roiled at the injustice of every disturbing step they made, then settled over the encroaching foliage in such fine, light layers that the grass and leaves beside the road looked like they’d been dusted with mocha icing. There was barely enough room for one car to pass, with the swamp lapping at the nonexistent shoulders of the lane. At least there were cypress trees growing thick as weeds to obscure the tiny road from overhead view. Bobbie Faye supposed that the rare times cars met one another, one had to back up to a wider spot to allow the other to pass, which prevented the road from becoming very popular. This was planned, she suspected, by the people who lived this far out of the beaten path; they preferred their privacy.

  Bobbie Faye had forgotten about Valcour’s Boat Landing until they stumbled upon it, where the road sloped to an end in a small bayou which eventually spilled into Lake Charles. To the side of the landing was a tiny store, a building no more than a shack, really, the wood siding so grayed with age and loose-jointed, it looked like a tired old man, too shrunken for his skin. At one time it had been a meeting spot for fur traders, and it still sported hooks for the pelts to hang from the slatted wood porch. Now, it was the last spot fishermen could buy extra bait, maybe grab a few drinks or snacks for the day before heading out to the lake.

  Five dented, rusty pickup trucks with empty boat trailers lined the square of shale where the road sloped down to the water—a poor man’s boat landing. The building looked deserted and dark, sandwiched between cypress trees overflowing with gray Spanish moss.

  “Maybe there’s a phone,” Trevor mused, and she watched how he scanned the area.

  “You don’t think it’s too risky? With all of the news helicopters, anyone in there’s bound to know what’s going on.”

  “I doubt very seriously they have cable out here, and there’s no satellite dish. We’ll pretend we’re a couple stopping by on our way to our fishing camp.”

  “Yeah, with no boat, truck, fishing gear, tackle . . .”

  “Just act casual.” He looked her over. “Okay, never mind. No one’s going to look at you and buy ‘casual.’ Just act like a pissed off wife whose idiot husband knocked you out of the boat and into the lake.”

  “Do I get to smack you upside the head?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he warned as they stepped onto the tiny porch.

  Sixteen

  Please advise all businesses within the state of Louisiana that they now must include a “Bobbie Faye contingency” in all safety training.

  —memo from the National Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to the Louisiana OSHA office

  Cam needed to get ahead of her. Stop her. Find out what the hell was going on. How in the hell was he supposed to keep her safe with her running amok?

  “When are we gonna have background on this guy?” he asked, nodding toward the interrogation room. “Financials?”

  “An hour, maybe two. All Crowe would say was she had a lead as to why he may have wanted to rob the bank, but it wasn’t too reliable and she was checking it out.”

  “She say what it was?”

  “Nope. You know her. She’s not gonna say ’til
she knows for sure.”

  The Captain leaned into the hallway, motioning for both men to step back into the observation portion of the interrogation room. He closed the door behind the detectives.

  Through the window, Cam could see Dellago, still seated next to the Professor, swelling with annoyance at their delays. He seemed to be doubling in size while the Professor seemed to be shrinking. If they waited too long, Cam wondered if the Professor would disappear into himself, leaving only the orange jail jumpsuit behind.

  “I wanted to wait ’til after your initial questioning to tell you this,” the Captain started, “and I didn’t want this broadcast over the radio. It’s critical we keep this quiet.”

  Cam knew he’d paled from the frown of concern on the Captain’s face. The Captain was going to tell him Bobbie Faye had been killed. He knew it through every cell to the marrow of his bones. He reminded himself that he didn’t care, that it no longer mattered, that he wasn’t going to have to try to remember how to breathe in and breathe out once the words were out of the Captain’s mouth.

  He leaned against the door frame (it was not for support, he reasoned, because he leaned all of the damned time), and he looked into the Captain’s eyes, but did not see sorrow or sympathy. Instead, he saw frustration and nerves at work, particularly evident in the way the Captain had taken out a quarter and quietly rotated it through his fingers. The joke around the station was that if he got the quarter out, you should probably be worried. If he got it out and bounced it from palm to palm, you were probably fired. If, instead, he got it out and just held it, someone had died. Cam exhaled when he saw the quarter twirling instead.

  “I’ve checked with our resources on Cormier’s rap sheet. It’s as long as my alimony.” The Captain had been paying alimony for twenty-five years. His ex refused to remarry. “All I can tell you,” he looked up at Cam pointedly, “is that we are to assist in bringing in this Trevor Cormier alive and unhurt. No matter what.”

  “What about Bobbie Faye?”

  “She’s not the top priority here.”