Charmed and Dangerous

by Toni McGee Causey

  “The key,” Trevor whispered in her ear, “is not to sneak over to the elevator because that will draw the employees’ attention. Just walk normally, head down like you’re reading something.”

  “Right, so I can walk straight into one of those machines which will probably fold me into some sort of origami figure and mail me somewhere.”

  “Nah, those machines have large knives. They’re cutting the salt blocks. You’d never make it out whole enough to mail. See all of the poles between the workstations? They’re pretty evenly spaced. They’ve got telephones, looks like intercoms to the manager area. If you move toward those, if anyone notices you, they’ll probably just mistake you for an employee going to call the floor manager.”

  Right. Because she looked so much like an employee with her SHUCK ME, SUCK ME shirt, now so filthy that the SHUCK ME was barely visible.

  Trevor led the way. They walked casually, separated, and then moved around the machinery and the workstations. No one noticed either of them, from what Bobbie Faye could tell. She made her way slowly toward the elevator, backtracking twice to avoid workers she hadn’t been able to see until she turned a corner. She bumped into one of the phones on the columns and knocked it off its cradle, and the dial tone was nightmarishly loud. She hung it up fast, pretended to be busy at a machine when she thought someone noticed her.

  She waited.

  No one was cuffing her. Okay, safe so far. She continued on, leaning past a whirring machine or a stack of boxes to see if the next aisle was clear.

  The constant patter of the TV news teams ran in the background, and she tried to ignore it, the constant commentary on her life, her every public appearance since she was three. First, they were finishing up with Susannah—the water company, LSU dean-boinking loon.

  “Oh, definitely,” the loon was saying. “She’s certifiable.”

  A few seconds later, they switched to another reporter who was interviewing her second-grade teacher. “We all knew Bobbie Faye was a little high strung, but we were very well-practiced on our fire drills!”

  She peered around the cabinet again, didn’t see anyone, and started to step out when someone snatched her back, hand clamped over her mouth.

  Trevor.

  Who pointed to another worker she hadn’t seen. She would have stepped out in front of him. He pulled her back into a nook out of most of the employees’ lines of sight.

  “Jeez,” she hissed, low, “you could have signaled you were behind me.”

  “I didn’t want the employee to hear.”

  “I think you just like scaring the crap out of me.”

  “That, too.”

  She smacked his arm.

  “So, genius, how are we supposed to get out of here?”

  “Besides running for the elevator?”

  “And then we teleport to Plaquemine? You said you had ideas.”

  “There are a couple of helicopter outfits not far from here that ferry workers to the rigs. I was planning on stealing a helo.”

  “Wow, subtle. ’Cause no one’s going to miss a whole helicopter.”

  “I didn’t say it was a perfect idea.”

  “Wonderful.”

  She scowled at him. Then sunk her head into her hands. This wasn’t his fault. She had to remember that. She was the one who’d gotten him into this. He’d been grouchy, but very helpful. She could deal with grouchy. Especially sexy grouchy.

  She stared at the floor, listening to the patter on the TV, then glanced up to see yet more aerial footage of the burning shack.

  She grinned at him.

  “What?”

  “I think,” she whispered, “that it’s time for someone to get an exclusive on the Bobbie Faye story.”

  She looked back at the local network station, proudly displaying its contact number at the bottom of the TV screen. She eased around to one of the columns and grabbed the phone. When she was done, it was all she could do not to throw both hands in the air in a mock “touchdown” score.

  “We have a breaking news alert,” a woman reporter said, interrupting the second-grade teacher’s prattling and riveting Bobbie Faye and Trevor to the TV. “Ms. Sumrall’s alleged partner in the bank heist this morning has been whisked out of the jail and into an ambulance. We’re trying to get word on the scene as to exactly what happened.”

  She noticed Trevor had been holding his breath and let it out slowly. They both craned around a cabinet to get a view of the TV. The scene switched to Cam’s state police station where a mob of reporters were drilling the police representative, Cam’s friend Benoit, with questions. He stopped them with universal cop sign, hand up, palm out.

  “We don’t have any comment at this time.”

  “Is it true,” one reporter persisted, “that he was poisoned?”

  “Again, no comment.”

  “Or,” the same reporter continued, “that when you found him, he kept repeating nap nap nap? Or gold?”

  Bobbie Faye watched Benoit adopt a poker face, and she knew him well enough to know he was ticked and that the reporter was correct.

  “I’m not sure where you’re getting your information,” Benoit said, “but you’re creating fascinating fiction. The man was cold and he wanted to sleep. I’m sure we’ll know more after the doctors can tend to him.”

  Nap. Man she wanted a nap. Nap nap nap, her brain hummed, as she tried to shut it up.

  She peeked out and their path was blocked by two people who’d entered the aisle.

  Nap nap nap nap nap cold, her brain sang. Nap nap nap nap nap cold. Nap nap gold. Nap gold. Nap nap gold.

  Nap nap nap nap gold, her brain kept singing. Stuck in a groove.

  She fingered the tiara for the hundredth time since getting it from Alex, just to make sure she still had it, now re-tied to the front of her jeans.

  Nap nap nap gold.

  Nap gold.

  She looked down at the tiara.

  Nap. Gold. Ton trésor est trouvé. Nap. Gold. Treasure.

  Jean Lafitte had been given Napoleon’s gold, just before Napoleon was exiled to Elba. She grew up hearing this story a hundred times in high school and another thousand at the Contraband Days Festival.

  Napoleon’s gold. Treasure.

  Oh, holy hell.

  She looked at the odd markings on the backside of the tiara. Marks she’d grown up thinking were nothing more than scratches garnered through years of wear and tear.

  “What’s wrong?” Trevor whispered as she turned the tiara to catch the light so she could see the markings a little clearer.

  “Fuck,” she whispered back.

  “Sorry, I’m going to need a little more to go on to understand,” his voice rumbled in her ear, “because I don’t think you’re asking for a quickie in the middle of this room.”

  “I think this is a treasure map.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “A what?”

  “Nap. Gold,” she said, pointing to the TV, where they were rehashing everything which had been said, who’d said it, and what everyone thought about everything that had been said. “I think the bank robber was trying to say Napoleon’s gold. He was definitely in that bank to get something more than money, and he definitely waited around to get the tiara, and now he’s babbling about Napoleon’s gold and it sounds like someone tried to kill him. I think he was saying ‘nap’ as in Napoleon. And gold.”

  The anchorwoman broke in again. This time there was a current photo of the Professor in the right-hand corner of the TV screen. He was dressed much nicer in a business suit, posed in front of a well-appointed desk, with expensive bookshelves filled with heavy tomes behind him.

  “We’ve now confirmed the identity of the alleged bank robber, though this seems to have taken his colleagues by complete surprise. The man seen here in this footage—”

  There was a new graphic placed under the Professor’s photo, which contained the surveillance footage from the bank showing the Professor with his gun and “dynamite.”

  “—shows t
he same man now known to us as Professor Bartholomew Fred, Professor of Antiquities at LSU. He has had an esteemed record of discoveries, particularly with old manuscripts and journals, and had been quite excited over the last few days, according to his secretary, who didn’t know the Professor’s whereabouts today until she saw our footage earlier this afternoon.”

  The anchor continued with a background of the Professor, all his colleagues either “no commenting” or giving glowing speeches, but Bobbie Faye tuned out and stared at Trevor, who looked oddly back at her.

  “Professor of Antiquities,” she whispered, and then she looked down at the tiara again.

  Holy freaking bouncing Buddhas. She had to be right. Napoleon’s gold. She’d been wearing the map to Napoleon’s gold on her head. For years. When she was too broke to pay her taxes, too broke to pay her electric bill, too broke to buy lunch meat for Stacey for her school lunches and had made do with peanut butter and jelly for the zillionth time.

  No wonder the kidnapper wanted the damned thing.

  Trevor stiffened, and Bobbie Faye dragged her focus back to their present. And realized: she could hear the dogs baying. A helluva lot louder.

  “They got through the stairwell door,” he said. “We have to go straight to that elevator. Just pretend you belong here, and we should be able to get there without someone stopping us.”

  “Right, because two muddy, filthy people who reek of swamp and sweat won’t be noticeable.”

  “Unless you plan on taking everyone in the room hostage, too, I think that’s our only choice.”

  Bobbie Faye looked at the elevator, a good thirty yards away, with secretaries and workers between them and it. Behind her: the banging and clamoring of the dogs slinging through the corridors, and the heavy tromping of boots as the men followed.

  Which got the attention of every single person in the room.

  And they all turned to see what the commotion was about.

  Which meant that there was not going to be any “walking casually to the elevator” plan put into action.

  Especially when Bobbie Faye heard Cam as he ran through that corridor, a few steps ahead of the rest of the men (damn him to hell for staying in shape), and she could hear him shouting, “Bobbie Faye! Stay right the hell where you are.”

  She turned and realized that the nook they were standing in was easily seen from the hallway, and she and Trevor were in Cam’s direct line of sight.

  Cam was holding his gun, ready to raise it if need be. He was giving her a look, half fury, half . . . what? Fear?

  She had her own gun, ready.

  She didn’t have time to decide.

  Trevor shot his gun, aiming it up, into the ceiling, and everyone in the place screamed. Most ran. Several crossed between Cam and where she and Trevor hid, and Trevor yanked her hard toward the elevator.

  Thirty-Eight

  Our best sales? During a big storm or a Bobbie Faye event. People are trapped and they need to cope.

  —J.P. Paul, beer deliveryman

  Cam saw her. Cornered. Trevor standing behind her, one arm around her waist. Cam couldn’t tell if she wanted his arm there, or if Cormier was forcing her, controlling her. The fact that she had a gun registered only after the personal space the two escapees seemed to be sharing did. And with that gun in her hand, he knew Cormier couldn’t be forcing her; she didn’t mind his arm around her. Maybe even wanted it to be there.

  Sonofabitch.

  The way her eyes darted, measuring the space from where she stood to his location at the hallway opening, told him what was racing through her mind: could she take out the SWAT team before they slowed her down?

  He’d never seen such a desperate expression in her eyes, not even the time she’d asked him to let Lori Ann go. There was a wave of absolute primal fear vibrating off her, and he knew she was calculating her shot odds as soon as she’d heard the SWAT running toward her.

  Yeah, she might try to take out the SWAT team. Which still left the FBI, who would kill her to get to Cormier.

  “Bobbie Faye! Stay right the hell where you are!”

  He had his gun ready, but not aimed at her. He saw her think about raising her own, and he gave her a look. If you do, you’d better kill me.

  He understood, then, he’d let her fire first. He couldn’t draw down on her, couldn’t put her seriously in the eyesight of the barrel of his gun, not even to wound her.

  What in the hell was wrong with him?

  He didn’t have time to think; Cormier fired upwards, sending everyone screaming and running. Massive chaos put the civvies between Cam and Bobbie Faye as Cormier yanked her toward the elevator, and she stumbled, crashing into a pole, then spun, and as she got her footing, she shot Cam a look that challenged him to shoot her to stop her.

  Goddamn her all to hell and back again.

  And then she ran.

  My God, she thinks she’s going to make it to the elevator.

  Shooting exploded around him, and Cam knew the time was up. The FBI were in the room, shouting, “Get down, get down,” and “Freeze, Cormier,” and yelling Bobbie Faye’s name. All three of the FBI team had taken up protected positions behind machinery and were firing in the general direction of Trevor and Bobbie Faye.

  They weren’t even trying to aim. The asswipes. They were peppering the area, not caring what they hit. They had such a hard-on for Cormier, they had forgotten the civilians. And they clearly couldn’t care less about Bobbie Faye.

  He had to do something. People were going to get killed like this.

  There was the elevator, ten feet away.

  She zigged through machinery. Ducking. Hearing pings and metallic clanks as bullets whizzed by or embedded in something too close for comfort.

  Eight feet.

  She lost track of Trevor, and dodged around two desks, rolling down behind one as bullets skipped across the top like rocks on a calm lake, sending paperwork snowing to the floor.

  Five feet.

  The elevator doors were shut.

  She couldn’t exactly stand there and wait for them to open. She scanned around the floor, found a stapler which had fallen in the melee, and threw it at the button.

  Missed. Sonofabitch.

  She crawled to a paperweight, snagged it as another bullet bounced between the desks where she’d just been. Was it Cam who was shooting at her? The other guys?

  Her stomach iced over as she thought about how much he must hate her to be shooting at her, to not care if she was dead. She tried not to think about the last time she was lying next to him, listening to him breathing, thinking then that he was, finally, home. Her home. Not the house, not a place, but a who.

  And now that person was trying to kill her.

  She tried to ignore the gnawing, gaping hole she felt in her heart and threw the paperweight.

  Bang. Nailed the elevator button.

  Watched the numbers trail downwards.

  Everyone was going to know she’d thrown that paperweight. All eyes were undoubtedly focused on those doors. She was going to be a sitting duck in that car until those doors closed. She was going to have to shoot back into the room to force them all down. To buy time.

  Where the hell was Trevor?

  Then she saw him. Several feet away, behind another piece of machinery. Holding something . . . oh, holy freaking geez, he had the tiara. She looked down, and the rope that had held it to her front belt loop had been severed.

  She looked back up at him just as the elevator dinged its arrival. She motioned to him, and as soon as she moved toward the elevator, a new carpeting of bullets scattered in her direction. Between them.

  He shook his head.

  And started to back away, taking the tiara with him.

  She had a crisp flash of telling him it was a map. And that look in his eye . . . it had been that look she’d seen in the gunrunner’s shed. The one where she knew he was way more than just the “helpful” guy he seemed at the time. The look that said he knew way the hell t
oo much about guns.

  Had that look been greed surfacing? Had it always been there? Did he decide somewhere along the way that whatever a kidnapper might go to that much trouble for would be worth a lot, and so he’d play along, pretending to help her to get it?

  She knew she shouldn’t have trusted anyone. She’d always known; she’d grown up knowing.

  The elevator doors slid open, agonizingly slow.

  “You go,” he shouted. “You’ve got to get there.”

  “I’ve got to have the tiara,” she shouted back. “They’ll kill him if I don’t have the tiara!”

  Bullets blanketed the aisles between them.

  “I’ll meet you.”

  “Like hell. Throw it!”

  More bullets slammed around her, then, and she could tell the shooters were getting closer. The antiquated elevator doors were starting to slide closed. She only had seconds.

  Then, pop. Pop pop pop, the lights shattered above her. Shards of glass exploded and there were more screams and scurrying and running as the place went darker and darker. Men shouted.

  Bobbie Faye looked back at Trevor.

  He was gone.

  The elevator door inched closer to closed.

  More lights popped out.

  She rolled, then. Somersaulted, actually, and flopped into the elevator car, the doors clipping her and bouncing open a little, then sliding closed again. Bullets embedded in the back of the car, just above her head.

  As the doors slid shut, she saw the shooter of the lights, his gun still pointed up.

  Cam.

  Cam? Shooting out the lights?

  Helping? Motioning her to get down. Cam.

  And Trevor . . . who’d been helping . . . now gone? With the tiara?

  Absolutely nothing made sense.

  The elevator crawled its way upwards as the inconsistencies swirled through her overwhelmed mind, her thoughts jumbled, hodgepodge, broken in waves of astonishment.

  She had to find purchase somewhere. Some raft of rational thought. Some plan. She was drowning in confusion as the elevator doors opened. Another guard did a double-take from his desk as she stormed out of the car into his lobby. He started to stand, and she drew her gun on him.