Trap realized she'd already marked him as her next victim if he fell for the bait. "Who are they?" Wyatt knew everyone in the area. He'd grown up there, hunted and fished and basically lived off the land during his childhood. He knew these men and he knew their reputations.
"She's causin' quite a stir. Funny that when she leaves no one remembers what she looks like, only that she's been here," Wyatt observed.
"Who are they?" Trap repeated, a slight edge to his voice.
Wyatt sighed. "The taller of the two is named Pascal Comeaux. That family has a feud goin' with mine datin' back to high school. The Comeaux brothers--and there are five of them. Were five of them," he corrected. He lowered his voice. "Their brother Vicq was involved in a sex trade ring. The Comeaux brothers like to beat the hell out of women. Vicq went far beyond that. He's dead now. Pascal has a bad reputation. He's married, and his wife is never without bruises all over her. His kids too."
"He's married?" Trap echoed.
"That doesn' slow him down. He's after every woman he sees. Visits Chantelle's place regularly and beats up every woman he pays to sleep with. He's bad news. The Comeaux boys avoid us because we're the only ones that can take 'em in a fight. You notice no one else messes with them. He's got money though. The entire family has money, and that's more than most in the swamp, so they always have women lookin' at them like they might be able to change them."
"So the other one on the other side of her?"
"Is his brother Blaise. Not married. Mean as a snake. She knows how to pick them."
Cayenne's soft laughter drifted through the noise of the bar. Trap reached inside his jacket for his notebook. He'd already begun the equations he needed to keep him working and from killing someone. The next couple of hours were going to be even longer, and he needed something--anything--to occupy his mind and get him through until closing time. He took out a pen and wrote on the notepaper. P = #AR. HYP
Wyatt shook his head and slid out of his chair so he could keep his muscles loose. There was going to be one hell of a fight before the night was through if he wasn't mistaken. He moved around the table to stand to one side of Trap and study the formula he was scribbling in the pages of the small notebook he'd pulled out of his pocket.
He frowned. "P is for peanuts and AR HYP is what?"
Trap didn't look up. "Arachis hypogaea, you cretin. You went to the same university I did. That's the biological/Linnaean classification for peanut, and you should know that."
"I don' store useless information in my head, Trap. It's filled with other much more interestin' things. Who cares what the biological/Linnaean classification is. Call it a fuckin' peanut."
"When doing something such as calculating the amount of peanut husks on the floor in this idiotic place you call a bar, you need to be precise. I'm estimating the square footage to be five hundred feet minus the dais the piano sits on and behind the bar." Trap pushed a napkin toward Wyatt. "You can do your own calculations."
"Not happenin,' brother. I'm about to get into a major fight with the Comeaux brothers, and my head can' be clouded by numbers. I don' think knowin' how many peanut shells are on the floor is goin' to help me when they pull knives out."
Trap didn't look up from the paper, pencil still moving across the surface. "I don't fight for fun, Wyatt. These boys pull a knife and they're going down."
He scribbled out more on a precise line.
Wyatt was always astonished that Trap could use such a mild, obviously half-listening voice, and yet sound menacing. Not sound. Feel. Trap always felt dangerous. Scary. Now Wyatt knew why. A boy couldn't go through the things Trap had without shutting his emotions down in order to survive. He didn't let people in. In fact, Trap pushed others away from him using his abrupt, rude antisocial behavior. Everyone had put it down to his tremendous IQ, believing it was difficult for him to relate to others.
Wyatt had never understood how Trap could be a solid member of their team, treating the other men with obvious affection. He was still a little apart, but he joked and he had their backs always. He cared about them, and it showed. If he could do that, put aside his rudeness for them, he could do it with everyone. He chose to push people away.
Trap gave extravagant gifts to the women he slept with, but he always made it clear he wasn't in the market for a relationship. None of them believed him and they always tried to go back for more, but he never gave any of them false hope. Wyatt realized it was Trap's way of protecting them. He didn't want his uncles to ever think he was falling in love or cared about any of the women he took to his bed.
Wyatt reached for a handful of peanuts, noticing that Trap had cracked several open and thrown the husks to the floor without eating the peanuts. "What's all this?" he asked as he broke one open.
"I had to figure out the percentage of people eating peanuts," Trap said absently, scribbling more equations, but pausing long enough to point out to Wyatt the letter E that apparently represented the percent of people eating peanuts. Beside the letter E he had written two standard deviations runs from 65.0% to 83.6% with a mean of 74.3%.
"The letter F represents the frequency per minute of peanut eating," Trap explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to want to know how many peanut husks were on the floor of the bar.
Wyatt rudely spun the paper around to stare at it. Trap had written two standard deviations runs from .5 to 3 peanuts per minute with a mean standard of 1.75 peanuts per minute.
"You're really doin' it? Calculatin' how many husks are on the floor?" He gave a hoot of laughter and threw a peanut into the air to capture it in his open mouth. "Did you add that into your equations? My amazin' ability to catch anythin' I'm eatin' in my mouth? That's gonna wreck your minute-eating ratio."
Malichai Fortunes drifted over, followed by his brother Mordichai, drawn by Wyatt's laugher. They stood behind Trap's chair and peered down at the notepaper. Draden Freeman took a position to Trap's right.
"What's he doing now, Wyatt?" Malichai asked.
"Looks like he's figuring out how many shells are on the floor of the bar," Mordichai announced, reaching over Trap's shoulder to grab a fistful of peanuts.
"He's got himself some cryptic notes, N for the number of people in the bar on a weekday." He leaned closer to read the scribbled equation. "Two standard deviations (95% of all possibilities) runs from 15 to 20 people, with a mean of 17.5 people. You counting us as the mean people, Trap. That just plain hurts my feelings."
"He thinks most people eat .5 to 3 peanuts per minute," Wyatt pointed out. "Since I've got to toss them in the air and catch 'em before I eat them, I think I might take longer. What if I miss? What about you? You think you can eat faster than 3 peanuts per minute?"
"Go to hell," Trap snarled. "Seriously. You all are worthless." He pulled his paper closer to the edge of the table and wrapped his arm around it as if he could shelter his beloved calculations from them.
"Can he really do that, Wyatt," Mordichai asked, "or is he full of shit?" He looked at the peanut husks covering the floor.
"You could if you estimated the total number of peanut husks on the entire bar floor each weekday, each weekend day and each week by estimatin' peanut-eatin' rates, lengths of bar, that sort of thing," Wyatt said.
"Why would you want to?" Malichai demanded. "That's insane. How would you even know the square footage available without measuring?"
Wyatt laughed. "Trap's always been able to look at anything and tell you the square footage within minutes. We used to make bets back when we were at the university together with other students. We always won."
Trap made a sound of sheer annoyance. "Did you even go to school, Malichai?" Trap was very aware that Whitney wouldn't look at any candidate for the GhostWalker program unless they had above average intelligence, let alone allow them in. One of the things he was most grateful for was that in spite of the fact that he held himself aloof a lot of the time, they shared their humor with him and he could occasionally find that he could
actually joke back.
"Not if I could help it," Malichai admitted. "Ezekiel beat the crap out of me when I didn't go, but it was worth it. Well, except in tenth grade. I didn't miss a single day of tenth grade. Miss Conrad taught that year and she was hot. She wore tight sweaters, clingy skirts and sweet fuck-me heels. I still dream about those heels wrapped around me." He nudged Trap. "If you got your head out of your ass and stopped doing shit like this, you might find yourself with some sweet fuck-me heels wrapped around you."
"Isn't that what we're doin' here?" Wyatt demanded, as he dropped back into a chair. "He's all hot and bothered thinking about the woman that got away from him. Trap's a ladies' man. Never knew him to miss out on a score, but she just up and scuttled away without even lookin' back."
"She looked," Trap objected, glaring at Wyatt.
"She's not lookin' now," Wyatt pointed out, and the men erupted into laughter.
Trap turned his attention to his notes. "Mb is the maximum number of peanuts per person sitting at the bar." He added onto his note. Two standard deviations runs from 90 peanuts to 130 peanuts with a mean of 110 peanuts.
Wyatt tipped his chair back. "I could take off my shoe, dump shells into my shoe and count them. We could calculate the size of my shoe . . ."
Trap hooked the toe of his boot around Wyatt's chair and dumped him on the floor without looking up. "You're an ass," he muttered. "Mr is the maximum number of peanuts per person sitting at a table." He added to his notes. Two standard deviations runs from 40 peanuts to 75 peanuts with a mean of 58 peanuts.
Draden frowned. "You're assuming for your model all random variables have normal distributions."
Trap nodded as Wyatt, laughing, got off the floor and righted his chair. "He confirmed this by plotting the curves based on all days of observation, collecting data points, and seeing the resulting probability curve that did follow the normal bell curve distribution. He does shit like this while we have to sit around drinking beer and waiting for his woman to show up."
"Have to drink beer?" Trap snorted derisively. "You practically begged to come along."
"Only to protect the locals from your mean ass," Wyatt said.
"What were the numbers you used?" Draden asked curiously.
"I figured, based on my observations, that during the weekday anywhere from fifteen to twenty people come to the bar, but that number triples on the weekends. For the model I'm using, a key distinction is whether a person stays for a short versus a long time. I observed repeatedly that the two cases split fairly evenly, meaning one out of every two people stays just for a drink or two and one out every two stays for several drinks and to chat with their friends."
Laughter burst from the bar. Melodic. Beautiful. The notes filled the air, and Trap tapped his pen on the tabletop repeatedly. He breathed deep as a small, vaporous cloud snaked into the air surrounding the table. Instantly both Draden and Mordichai clapped a hand on Trap's shoulder. He took a deep breath.
"What about the bar sitters versus table sitters?" Malichai asked, clearly wanting to distract him.
Wyatt bent over the paper, reading Trap's equations while Trap continued to stare at the bar. "Bar sitters who stay a short time, 1.5 hours or less, are modeled by the frequency of their peanut eating, while those who stay longer than 1.5 hours are modeled by their peanut-eating capacity."
Trap forced his gaze away from Cayenne. He looked up at Malichai. "That's you, a bar sitter, and you machine-gun them. Wyatt's a table sitter because he likes to have food."
"Delmar can serve up a damn good burger," Wyatt defended himself.
"The average length of a short stay for a table sitter, not Wyatt, is about an hour. The bar is open on four weekdays and two weekend days with the average number of people tripling on the weekends. One out of every three people sits at a table whereas two out of every three people sit at the bar," Trap explained.
"To be closer to the liquor," Malichai pointed out, nudging his brother.
"There is that," Wyatt said. "I often am conflicted about where to sit. Mordichai doesn't sit. He wanders. Did you figure him into your calculations?"
"What's the ratio of bar sitters to table sitters weekdays to weekends?" Draden asked.
Trap took another deep breath and let it out, clearly trying to get his mind right. He took the notepaper with his calculations written out in his precise, neat hand and began to make seemingly random folds to the sheet of paper right along the various lines of formula.
"It remains the same. On weekends the bar puts out six tables rather than four. By the time I finished it all, I came up with the total number of husks on the floor per week as thirteen thousand, two hundred and ten." His gaze moved past Wyatt, who had inched his chair around just a little more to try to keep Trap from staring at Cayenne as she leaned against the bar.
Pascal Comeaux swept his hand down her hair, fingers lingering for a moment. Cayenne caught his hand, pulled it from her hair and indicated his wedding ring. Trap clenched his teeth. Around them, the air thickened until it was dense--so dense that a heavy opaque gray slipped around them like a veil. Mordichai coughed. Draden cleared his throat. The air was difficult to breathe into their lungs.
"Trap," Wyatt cautioned softly. "You've got to hold it together. We're all watchin' her. Nothin's goin' to happen."
"I was right, damn it," Trap hissed. "She's fuckin' robbin' them. First she flirts her cute little ass off with them. What the hell? Does she go home with them?" The moment he said it, the walls of the room creaked. Expanded and contracted. Overhead the roof creaked, the sound like tree branches scraping against tin.
"You know she isn't goin' home with them, Trap," Wyatt said. "Don' be an ass. And don' take down my favorite waterin' hole."
Cayenne's soft laughter drifted toward them again, and Trap's head came up, rage churning deep inside, right beneath that thick blue ice. He'd had enough, and this time, he was going to put a stop to her shit.
"Uh-oh," Wyatt whispered softly under his breath.
Trap's eyes narrowed. Stop flirting with them before someone gets hurt.
There was silence. Outraged silence. Her breath hissed out between her teeth, but only Trap heard it. She turned her back to the bar, leaning on her elbows, which thrust her breasts out toward him. For one moment her jeweled eyes touched his and then skittered away defiantly.
You don't own me. You have no right to tell me whether or not I can flirt.
You want to flirt, you can damn well flirt with me. You want to get laid, I'm your man. You're going to get someone killed.
Her eyes came back to his face. Drifted over the angles and planes. Touched on the shadow on his jaw. Trap, you know what we're feeling isn't real.
It's real enough for me, baby. Those two men are brutes. I'll take my time with you. I'll make you feel better than you've ever felt in your life. His velvet voice stroked her skin, deliberately fed her need of him.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she abruptly spun around again. Get out of my head. I've been a prisoner all my life and no one is going to cage me.
He refused to leave her head now that he was firmly entrenched in it. He stroked her again. Gently. Intimately. When I'm inside you, baby, you're going to fly. No cage for either of us. Ever. You're mine, and no matter who comes at you, I'll fucking kill them before they get to you. That's a promise. Now get away from those two.
There was a small silence again. Trap made himself breathe. She needed to come to him. If he tried to force her, she'd be in the wind again.
This isn't what it looks like. Just business.
She was trying to appease him, but that just pissed him way the fuck off. I know what you're doing. I don't like it, and you have to stop before someone else figures it out.
You don't know what I'm doing.
Her voice was always sultry. Sexy. An invitation, but delivered telepathically, mind to mind, so intimate, his body's response was low and wicked, a hard punch he didn't expect. It actually took effort to kee
p his expression the same.
You're testing them to see if they meet your personal criteria for setting them up to be robbed.
Again there was a small silence. She turned her head to give Pascal another smile. The man reached over and slid his hand down her spine to the curve of her ass. She moved away instantly, saying something low to him. His brother boxed her in, forcing her body back toward Pascal.
Trap stood instantly. The room pulsed with tension. That shimmer moved from their table through the air, thickening more, making it difficult to breathe. Several men coughed. The other GhostWalkers stood as well. Cayenne turned immediately still, sandwiched in between the brothers. She flashed a smile at Trap, ready to defuse the situation. She could see the intent in his eyes, feel the danger pouring from his body. The icy rage pulsed in the air.
She continued to smile at Trap as if they were old friends. "I didn't see you sitting there in the dark. Want a beer?"
Pascal leaned down and said something in her ear. She shrugged, snagged two bottles of icy beer that Delmar put on the wooden plank in front of her and slipped out from between the Comeaux brothers. Pascal let out a snarling curse and caught her long hair in his hand, jerking her back toward his body.
Trap got there first, but every team member had his back. All five of them. Men with cool, dangerous eyes that had seen more combat than Pascal could possibly imagine in spite of his years of growing up fighting.
"Let her go," Trap said softly. Too softly. "She's mine. You touch her again and you're a dead man." He meant it. He let Pascal see that he meant it.
Pascal was mean and he liked to hurt others, but he wasn't stupid. He was a cunning, cruel man who ruled his world with an iron fist. He knew death when he saw it. He knew a situation he couldn't win. He shoved Cayenne at Trap.
Trap's hands were gentle as he caught her to him, trusting the others to keep the Comeaux brothers off of him.
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