by LETO, JULIE
“Hey, Michael,” she said, using his brother’s name so he’d clue in that her request was not entirely genuine. “I don’t see any doorway here. Why don’t you go around and check the other side?”
Danny arched an eyebrow, but he stepped closer so the Bandit could hear his end of the conversation. “I can’t leave you alone.”
“Where am I going to go?” she asked with an uncomfortable laugh. “It’s a dead end. I’m safe. Go on. We have to find Josslyn.”
“Okay, but I’m going to come right back for you. Don’t move.”
Danny winked.
“I won’t.”
He leaned into her opposite ear and whispered, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Claire nodded, swallowing when Danny swept his hand across her cheek in an intimate gesture that reminded her forcefully of his brother. Michael would hit the roof if he realized Danny was leaving her alone, even if only for the span of a heartbeat. But what choice did they have? If she didn’t at least pretend to be cooperating, Josslyn could pay with her life.
Claire realized that while the Bandit might not be upstairs with Josslyn anymore, he had her. Somewhere. Claire had gotten the woman into this mess—she owed it to her to get her out.
Danny moved toward the alley exit, his thumbs flying across the screen of his phone as he disappeared around the corner. She was sure he was texting Michael, who likely wouldn’t see the message until his bust of the upstairs studio was over and he discovered that the man they’d been looking for wasn’t there.
When Danny left, the air in the alley left with him. She was alone. Vulnerable. Just what the Bandit had wanted all along—just what Michael had put his career on the line to avoid since he’d first popped into her life at Nouvelle Placage.
It seemed like a lifetime ago. Her only real concern then had been tracking down a woman with a sex fetish. That night, in her sensual costume with the strains of romantic music floating on the air along with the scents of flowers and candle wax, Claire’s concern about the man who’d sent her the monogrammed scarf had been at the back of her mind. She’d planned to deal with that problem once she closed her case, banked the second half of her fee and ensured that two little children had a mother who loved them.
The Bandit had managed to make her vulnerable, but she wasn’t entirely unprepared. She still had her gun. And she wasn’t alone. Somewhere not too far away, Danny was lurking, attempting to contact his brother.
“Okay, he’s gone.”
A trill from behind her nearly made her jump out of her skin. A cell phone? A blue light glowed from underneath a scattering of discarded beer bottles.
“Answer it,” the Bandit said.
“What?”
“Answer the phone I left for you. Now.”
She complied, not surprised to hear his voice on the other end. “Now turn off your other phone. Can’t have anyone using it to track you down.”
Claire cursed silently.
“Fine.” She disconnected the call, but put her phone—still powered up—in her back pocket.
“Toss it.”
“Sure,” she agreed. She snatched one of the empty beer bottles and hefted it to the other side of the alley.
“If you still have the phone on you when you arrive,” he warned, his singsong voice powerfully menacing, “I will be very angry.”
She continued to peer into the darkness. He had to be watching her from somewhere, but he wasn’t close enough to see that she’d made a switch. A parade of curses marched through her head, but she pressed her lips together tightly, reining in her frustration.
She had to keep cool. He was already playing her by threatening to hurt Josslyn. She couldn’t allow him to manipulate her into making any bigger mistakes than she was already in by staying here and talking to him.
“The phone is gone,” she lied.
“Good,” the Bandit replied. “Now walk back to Dumaine. There, my lady, your carriage awaits.”
She retraced her steps and emerged from the alley. Her gaze darted up and around, but buildings in this area were closely packed and many storied. The Bandit could be watching her from anywhere—or from nowhere at all. Security cameras were dotted throughout the Quarter. Had he somehow tapped into the feed? And, if so, what would he do when he realized Danny was on her tail?
If Danny managed to keep up with the mule and buggy waiting for her at the sidewalk.
“You Paulette?” the driver asked.
“Say yes,” the Bandit said into her ear.
She nodded. It was a tiny defiance the Bandit let slide. The driver, an old and tired man she might have seen once or twice in the Quarter, gave a cursory nod and waved her up.
“What’s our destination?” she asked.
“That’s a surprise,” the driver said, practically in unison with the criminal on the other end of the phone.
The man snapped the reins and the carriage jerked forward. Claire figured that she wasn’t the only person in for a big surprise—Michael was going to get a hell of a shock when he realized she was gone.
“IS SHE ALIVE?”
Michael holstered his weapon the minute one of his team members yelled, “Clear!” He dropped to the ground beside Ruby, who was checking Josslyn Granger’s crumpled body for a pulse.
“She’s got a heartbeat,” she announced, then bent her face closer to Josslyn’s. The woman’s skin was pale, her makeup smeared off, leaving very little to remind him of the boldly sensual woman he’d met only the night before. “She’s breathing, but she’s out cold. Probably drugged.”
Ruby shouted for the other agents to look around for a syringe or pill bottle while she moved the woman into a more comfortable position. Michael whipped out his phone to dial for an ambulance when he noticed the flashing icon that signaled he had a text message from Daniel.
His heart seized in his chest. Daniel was supposed to be watching Claire. And the Bandit, who had skillfully lured them to this third floor studio, was nowhere to be found.
“Call 9-1-1,” he ordered Ruby, and then retrieved his text messages.
He read the thread of Danny’s messages, his soul leeching out with each word.
2:18 a.m.: Bandit on phone with Claire. Not in club!
2:19 a.m.: Claire found hidden exit from 3rd floor to back alley. Bandit gone.
2:22 a.m.: Bandit trading Claire for Josslyn. I’m following. Call me.
He couldn’t breathe—not without burning his lungs from the inside out. He blinked away a sudden wave of nauseating dizziness and stumbled toward the door, his fingers fumbling with the Call Back feature.
“Michael, what’s wrong?” Ruby shouted.
He pushed the words out of his mouth, nearly doubling over with the pain of saying them out loud. “The Bandit has Claire.”
Vaguely aware of footsteps following behind him as he clattered down the metal stairs, he stumbled out into the street just as Danny picked up his call.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
His brother sounded winded and spoke in a hushed voice Michael could barely hear over the revelry pouring out of the club. He shot across to the car, cursing when he realized he had no keys.
Danny had the keys.
Danny, who was barely audible now. “…down on Burgundy. Three mules and buggies. All with one woman inside. Wait, I think I have her.”
He gave his general location just before the call cut out.
“Danny? Danny?”
He hadn’t had enough time to curse when Ruby slid into the driver’s side and ducked under the dashboard. Five interminable seconds later, the car sprang to life.
“Where to?” she asked.
Michael jumped into the passenger seat, told Ruby where Danny had last been and then tried to return Danny’s call. He went straight into voicemail, so he switched tactics and texted Claire that Josslyn was safe and that she should not do anything the Bandit told her to do.
He said the words aloud as he typed, hoping without hope that Cl
aire was still in a position to read his plea.
17
CLAIRE FELT THE buzz in her pocket, but she didn’t dare retrieve her phone. The driver seemed wholly uninterested in her, not even bothering with the make-believe New Orleans history lessons a lot of buggy drivers engaged in with tourists.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched.
She knew the neighborhood fairly well. This stretch of Ursulines Avenue was quiet in the dead of night, but not abandoned. If she screamed now, someone might hear her—if they didn’t just assume she was a Bourbon Street partier who had lost her way.
The homes here were old and built for sturdiness. If the Bandit had managed to soundproof the studio apartment at the top of a popular jazz club, there was no telling what he’d do with an entire building.
Not surprisingly, the driver pulled up in front of a house on the corner.
“This is it,” he said.
“Say nothing,” the Bandit instructed. He’d remained on the phone the entire ride over, though Claire had tried to tune him out. While he’d spent the time rhapsodizing over her beauty and describing a sampling of the pleasures that awaited her at his hideaway, she’d been trying to figure out where she was going and what the hell she was going to do once she got there.
Now she was here. It was time to act.
She got out of the carriage, gave the driver a friendly wave and watched him snap his reins and continue down the street. She gave the neighborhood a quick once over. The abundance of low hanging tree branches did not erase the fact that most of the front yards had brick or stone walls in front of them, making it hard for anyone to walk down the sidewalk without being spotted—even an international art thief. Still, she had to trust that Danny wasn’t going to let her down.
“Come in,” the Bandit said. “The gate is open.”
While she pretended to futz with the lock on the gate, she reached into her back pocket and dropped her original phone onto a patch of soft ground by the fence. She waited for the Bandit to comment on her action, but when he didn’t, she figured she was in the clear.
If Michael was still tracking her cell phone, he’d be able to find her. She just had to hold the Bandit off for a little while, maybe make sure she’d located Josslyn before the cavalry arrived. When she turned to close and latch the gate, she glanced down at her phone and saw the latest text message on the screen.
We have Josslyn.
Her hand slipped. If Michael had Josslyn, she had no reason to be here. She fumbled with the metal latch when a gloved hand snaked around her neck and pressed on her throat.
“Now I have you.”
THE ONLY THING that stopped Michael from shooting his brother on the spot was the fact that the minute Ruby screeched to a stop outside the seemingly dark and uninhabited house on Ursulines Avenue, Danny leaped down from a dark section of the eight-foot-tall fence and landed beside him with barely a sound.
“They’re on the second floor, east side of the house. A bedroom, naturally.”
“Why didn’t you break in and help her?”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Danny shot back. “I’m also not entirely stupid. The guy is armed and I knew you were minutes away. He took her gun before he even let her over the threshold. Tossed it in the fountain. By the time I retrieved it, it was useless.”
“Get us in,” he said to Danny, who then clamped him on the shoulder and motioned for them to follow him into the darkness.
How he’d found the man-size break in the stone wall, masked by a thick bush that smelled like hibiscus on one side and bougainvillea on the other, Michael would never know. But as Danny had managed to successfully tail the Bandit twice now, he realized he’d be a fool not to trust the man’s instincts.
As he attempted to keep his movements minimal and silent, Michael watched Danny move across the lawn like a shadow created by branches and moonlight. Soundlessly, he launched himself onto a porch railing and flipped up onto the roof that ran around the entire length of the house.
He dropped to his belly and extended both hands.
Michael motioned for Ruby to go. He preferred a more direct route.
“Alarm?”
Danny, still lying prone with Ruby beside him, grinned. “I took the liberty of disengaging it before you showed up. Hope you don’t mind. I know you hate for me to be a part of your investigation.”
Michael couldn’t decide whether to respond wryly to the crack or thank him profusely, so he opted to say nothing at all.
Once inside the house, he took a moment to establish his bearings, then headed up the stairs in the direction Danny had indicated. The house was large and devoid of furniture, so his every step echoed. Once he reached the upstairs corridor to the bedrooms, he found two doors that could lead to Claire. He leaned his ear against both, but neither revealed any sound. He couldn’t make a mistake.
He flattened his palm on the closest door. His father’s ring sparkled dully in the dim light. He slid across to the other one. This time, the emerald seemed to flash a little brighter.
He stepped back, leveled a flat-footed kick just below the door knob and watched the frame splinter as pain shot up his leg and a scream rent the air. Weapon drawn, he charged into the room at nearly the same time that Ruby tumbled in through a shattered window.
It took a second before Michael registered that neither Claire nor Ruby had been the one to scream.
Claire stood menacingly over a man, dressed entirely in black satin, who was rolling around on the ground clutching at his crotch. “I warned you not to touch me, didn’t I?”
“Man, I hope this guy bought home owner’s insurance,” Danny quipped, artfully tumbling through the cracked glass. He surveyed the scene, then winced. “And an athletic supporter.”
Claire leaned forward, hands on knees. “The bastard tried to drug me.”
Danny sauntered over, picked up a wine bottle now spilling its contents over the faded rug and took a whiff. “Bad year.”
“Things are about to get worse,” Michael said, pulling out his handcuffs.
He and Ruby secured the Bandit, but left him on the floor. They called for backup, then gestured Claire over so she could snatch the black mask off his face.
She frowned. “Never seen him.”
The man had regained his ability to speak, though his voice spiked high at first before settling into a raspy accent. “Of course you saw me! I was everywhere you were. Everywhere. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? My passion heating up your body—”
Claire shoved the mask in his mouth and marched out of the room.
Michael finished up his call to the agents still processing the jazz club crime scene, but before he could speak to Claire, who was standing on the top landing overlooking the desolate interior of the rental home with Danny, the police arrived.
This, of course, caused Danny to disappear. Claire remained alone, silently watching as the local cops processed the scene. Then, with Ruby at her side, she completed an extensive interview with a pair of detectives, one of whom Claire seemed to know.
Twenty minutes passed before Michael found her again, and they were twenty minutes too long. The entire time he’d liaised with the police, engaged in a brief preliminary interrogation of the suspect—who still refused to give his name—and supervised the processing of the crime scene to ensure that enough evidence was gathered to put this creep in federal prison for a long time, he’d wanted to be with Claire.
His muscles ached with the absence of her. His senses seemed to reach out from wherever he was to catch a sight or scent of her. Even a murmured echo of her voice from the hallway had sent the blood thrumming through his body as if attempting to propel him near her, to comfort her, to help her through the terror she must have felt when the Bandit had captured her.
Claire had said she could take care of herself. Clearly, she hadn’t been exaggerating.
“I’ll take over,” Ruby said, coming up beside Michael at the back of the room whe
re he stood watching the crime scene photographers.
“Yeah?” he asked.
She grinned. “I’ve never seen you so antsy. She’s fine, but she needs you. Go.”
Claire sat on the top step. She leaned her head against the banister, clearly exhausted. He snatched a blanket from the paramedics and wrapped it around her shoulders as he sat beside her. The front of her T-shirt was stained with red, probably the wine the Bandit had dosed with Rohypnol. The wet fabric instantly reminded him that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Not something he should be thinking about, but he couldn’t help himself. His desire for Claire went beyond the physical—but the physical was still pretty powerful stuff.
She shifted to lean against him.
“So,” she said, her voice bone weary. “How angry are you?”
“Why would I be angry?” he asked, turning so that her cheek slipped off his shoulder to press against his chest.
“Um, because I left Danny behind and walked right into the very same dangerous situation you’ve been working so hard to keep me out of?”
He chuckled and held her closer. From the side, he noticed a couple of his colleagues staring, but he didn’t care. Soon enough, everyone was going to know that he’d been involved with the subject of his investigation. Maybe it was the ring’s influence, but he didn’t care.
“Yeah, well, there is that. But you took care of yourself, just like you promised you would. I promised to protect you. That part didn’t work out so well.”
She sat back, glowering at him. “What are you talking about? You did protect me. It took a lot of guts to leave me in your brother’s hands, and I have to say, for a guy who’s spent the majority of his life breaking the law, he did a great job of keeping track of me and making sure you got to me as fast as possible. And it was your text message that changed everything. If you hadn’t let me know that Josslyn was safe, I wouldn’t have fought back so hard. Once I knew she was alive, I had nothing to lose.”