by Cindy Dees
“His laptop wasn’t in his apartment. It was in our van.”
“And you failed to mention this to me last night why?”
Crud. The detective sounded pissed. “I forgot,” she confessed. “I didn’t remember that Gary had put a duffel bag in the van yesterday until I was eating breakfast this morning.”
“I need you to bring the laptop down to the station immediately.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about the prospect of seeing the hot detective again. Particularly at a police station full of cops. He was definitely pretty to look at. But. Cops. No bueno.
“Umm, okay,” she managed to mumble.
“I’ll meet you there in half an hour,” he declared.
She wrote down the address he gave her and left the house right away. She still didn’t have the knack of navigating New Orleans’s copious one-way streets, back alleys, dead ends, and random pedestrian-only streets thrown in for fun. Parking turned out to be a challenge, as well. But, she found a spot a block away, ran for the police station and, exactly thirty minutes after her call, careened into the precinct, red-faced and breathing hard. Her cotton blouse clung to her back.
“Can I help you?” a cop behind a tall desk asked her.
“I’m here to meet with Detective LeBlanc.”
“Name?”
“Carrie Price. He’s expecting me.”
“Elevator to the second floor, turn right when you get out, last door on the left at the end of the hall.”
She more or less caught her breath in the elevator, and then lost it again when she realized she was about to see the hot detective who smelled like heaven.
The panic ultimately won out, erasing all thoughts of hot guys from her mind. Gary was definitely in big trouble. He never spent the whole night out. He always crawled home, his back teeth awash in beer, and slept it off, snoring like a chainsaw. If she’d had any doubt last night about the authenticity of his kidnapping, that doubt was fully erased this morning.
She stepped into a loud, messy squad room with a dozen desks in it, all of them piled high with papers and manila folders. Men and women talked on phones or talked to each other, and zydeco music twanged from a low-quality radio somewhere.
A few men spotted her and eyed her up and down while she scanned the room nervously for Detective LeBlanc. She didn’t see him, however.
But then a big hand cupped her elbow from behind and she jumped about a foot in the air.
“Easy, darlin’. It’s just me,” a familiar voice drawled behind her. Detective LeBlanc. “Let’s go find ourselves a nice, quiet spot where we can talk without these guys ogling you like a bunch of Neanderthals.”
The tone in his voice was fond. Affectionate, even. He liked his coworkers. Huh. So ice didn’t run in his veins, after all. It was one of the first signs of genuine humanity she’d seen in him, other than his reluctant flashes of compassion last night.
Shouts and insults came back at LeBlanc in response to his remark, and he responded in kind. Then he shook his head, grinning, and guided her out of the squad room.
She liked this more relaxed version of the good detective, although she didn’t know whether to be complimented or embarrassed that he’d pulled her away from the other officers.
He escorted her down the hall and opened an unmarked door, poked his head in, then stood back to open it fully for her. He slid a plastic sign that said In Use into a slot on the door, and ushered her inside.
It smelled like a urinal that had been cleaned with scented bleach in a failed effort to mask the underlying stench. The detective pulled out a metal chair for her and held it while she sat down. A metal bar stretched across the table in front of her. LeBlanc sat opposite her, and she set the computer on the table.
“What’s that for?” she asked, gesturing at the bar.
“We handcuff violent suspects to it.”
Oh, crap. Was she a suspect? Is that why he’d brought her into what was clearly some sort of interrogation room? It even had the big glass mirror on the wall that everyone knew was a one-way window. She glanced up, and sure enough, there was a camera in the corner near the ceiling.
“Why don’t you show me the computer?” LeBlanc suggested.
Right. Gary’s laptop. She opened the screen and quickly typed in the password. Then she handed the device over to him. He took it without comment and spent the next few minutes browsing through it. She thought she was going to explode with impatience before he finally looked up at her again. Surely there was some sort of clue on it that a detective could spot right away. They had to find Gary before something bad happened to him.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Food? He could think of food at a time like this? Heck, she could hardly remember to breathe. “Excuse me?” she mumbled.
“Are you hungry? You know. Desirous of partaking in food to break one’s fast or to satiate hunger pains?”
She rolled her eyes at him, and then took personal inventory. “I guess I could eat.” She’d forgotten to do so last night after she’d gotten home, and a half slice of dry toast this morning hadn’t done much to satiate her hunger pains. Gary’s kidnapping had been a wee bit distracting.
“Lemme pass this laptop to the tech boys and then you and me, we’re gonna go get some breakfast.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t use police resources to track down Gary for two days.”
“I think we can make an exception given that we have actual film of the abduction. Which reminds me, I’ll need a copy of that to pass to the forensics guys.”
“I thought you might.” She dug in her purse and came up with a thumb drive. “I copied the video footage onto that.” She dug again. “And here’s the list of people who work on the show in New York. I tried to call the producer a while ago, but he didn’t pick up his phone. When I hear back from him, I’ll check to make sure I didn’t miss anyone.”
“Perfect.” He took everything from her and swung by the squad room to drop off the list. He handed it to an attractive female officer who made Carrie feel completely inadequate. The woman detective was tall, confident-looking, and curvy. All the things Carrie was not. The woman even joked around casually with Detective LeBlanc. If there was a nice big rock anywhere around here, Carrie would just go ahead and crawl under it now.
Unlike the female detective, she completely sucked at being around other people. Some people even accused her of being antisocial. She preferred to think of herself as a loner. Not that she’d always been that way, of course. She’d had lots of friends in high school. And she and Shelly had been inseparable—
LeBlanc touched her elbow again, and again, she jumped. Lord, that man made her nervous. He ushered her upstairs to a lab of some kind. A harassed-looking guy jotted down Gary’s password and took the laptop and thumb drive off the detective’s hands with a promise to get to them as soon as possible.
LeBlanc placed a hand on the small of her back as he guided her into a crowded elevator, but she was prepared for the contact this time. It was nothing personal, of course. Surely a man like him would see nothing of interest in a shy, antisocial girl like her.
She did notice that he was using his big body to block her from the other riders in the elevator car. Was he protecting her, or was he subtly taking custody of her? It was hard to tell.
Darned if she could think of anything else but that big, warm palm resting lightly on the small of her back as they rode the elevator down to the first floor. Normally, she disliked men touching her. But this one’s hand was sending all kinds of crazy responses through her body. And they weren’t all bad. Which was a little shocking. Since when had she decided men—cops—were okay?
She breathed a sigh of relief when he guided her out of the crowded elevator and into the morning hustle and bustle of the French Quarter. His hand fell away from her, but the memory of it was still se
nding bolts of lightning zinging through her and still confusing her completely as to what it meant.
“I know a little joint around the corner that makes the best beignets in the Big Easy.”
She normally didn’t do dessert for breakfast, but this morning, she was all over the idea of a huge greasy donut doused in powdered sugar. “Lead on,” she declared.
The “joint” turned out to be long and narrow, barely wider than its double front doors, as if it had once been a bar. The detective spotted two open, high swivel stools near the back and pushed through the crowd toward the seats. He took her hand and curled his arm behind his back, not releasing her hand as he towed her along behind him in his wake. Which was just as well. People never moved out of the way for her. She was about as intimidating as a baby bunny rabbit.
She perched on her stool beside him and jumped as the man behind the bar bellowed, “’Ey, Bass! Where ya been, man?”
“Here and there,” LeBlanc said. “Saving the world. You know how it goes.”
“That I do,” the older man said shrewdly.
A portly tourist sat down on the stool beside hers, crowding her over toward LeBlanc. Her left thigh was forced into contact with his right leg, which felt like freshly forged steel pressed against hers. Their shoulders overlapped a little, although his were a hand span taller than hers.
His presence surrounded her, enveloped her. And, for the first time since the attack last night, she felt safe. Which was totally weird. Cops usually made her feel exactly the opposite. But this morning, in his presence, she could finally breathe normally again. She relished the easy slide of air in and out of her lungs.
She glanced up at him, vividly aware of the intimacy of their seating arrangement. “Bass? Is that what your friends call you?”
“That, or Catfish, which is a nickname from my work in the military.”
“Hah! You were military!”
He blinked down at her, looking surprised. The flecks of silver against a background of ocean blue fascinated her as they danced in his eyes. “I still am military, part-time. But how did you know?”
“You said, ‘Roger’ to me last night, and I figured you might have been a soldier.”
He studied her keenly. “You’re an observer of people, then?”
Swear to God, she was getting a little breathless sitting smashed against him like this. “It’s my job to look at everyone through the lens of how my camera would see them. Details matter.”
“Indeed they do. How long have you been working for Gary Hubbard?”
“Three seasons.”
“Ahh. That explains the change in the quality of the show three years ago.”
It was her turn to stare at him. “How do you know that?”
“Last night I watched a bunch of clips from America’s Ghosts.”
“Shouldn’t you have been out looking for Gary?”
“The bars were all closed. And I took a walk through Pirate’s Alley before I went home. I couldn’t find any forensic evidence to help us identify his captors. Frankly, the best evidence we’ve got is your film of the incident. It’s a rare thing to get actual high-quality video of a crime under investigation.”
“Glad I could help,” she replied wryly.
The coffee arrived in an old-fashioned chrome pot, and Bass poured her a cup of what turned out to be delicious chicory coffee, strong and aromatic. A moment later, a huge plate covered in fried, spiraling donut batter and powdered sugar was plunked down in front of her.
She took a bite of the hot, crispy pastry, tender and moist on the inside, and groaned as her taste buds orgasmed. “Ohmigosh, this is fantastic.”
Bass grinned, watching her as she took another bite...and groaned again. “You like it?” he drawled.
“God, yes.”
“So you appreciate good food, but you don’t cook.”
She picked up a napkin to wipe away what had to be a confectioner’s sugar mustache. “I like food too much to mangle it, so I let other people cook it.”
“Cooking’s not that hard. Someone just has to show you how, and then it takes a little practice.”
“Do you cook?” she asked him curiously.
“I’ve been known to putter around a bit in a kitchen.” He flashed her a thousand-watt smile that all but knocked her off her stool. Was he flirting with her? Surely not. But still. Dang, that man oozed charm. With difficulty, she recalled the general thread of their conversation.
The big bad detective was an amateur chef? Interesting. “Have you got a specialty?”
“Folks seem to like my jambalaya.”
“That’s some sort of stew, isn’t it?”
He grabbed his chest theatrically, which made her grin. “Woman, you’re killing me. Jambalaya is not just stew. It’s seafood and sausage in a base of rice and vegetables in broth, the whole thing seasoned until your eyes water from how good it tastes.”
She frowned. “I don’t do spicy food. My eyes would water from the heat.”
“Ahh well. A taste for heat can be learned.”
His voice had a rough edge that shivered across her skin. Or maybe that was just her shivering in response to his double entendre. She glanced at him sidelong, and he was frowning down into his cup of coffee.
Her heart tumbled to the floor. He seemed annoyed with himself, maybe for making the inadvertently sexy comment. Drat. He wasn’t attracted to her in the least. She looked away, more disappointed than made any sense to her at all.
“Where are you from that you don’t know what jambalaya is and you don’t like a little heat?” he asked, the sudden question startling her.
His expression was closed now. Stubborn. The man had no intention of flirting with her. At all. She mumbled, “I live in New York City. But I’m originally from upstate New York.”
“Ahh. A Yankee. That explains a lot.”
Nope. Not attracted to her at all. He was backing off that heat comment as fast as humanly possible. Well, hell.
“What does my being a Yankee explain?”
He merely shrugged and took a sip of hot coffee. They ate in silence for a moment, and then, in an abrupt change of subject, he said, “I put out a BOLO on your boss.”
“What’s a BOLO?”
“It stands for Be On the Look Out. The entire NOPD got copies of the picture you gave me and will be watching for him. If he’s out and about anywhere in the city, we’ll find him and bring him in.”
“What if he doesn’t turn up?” she asked, dread thick in her throat.
“Then we’ll see what the forensics guys find in his computer. If that doesn’t give us anything to work with, we’ll pursue other leads until we find him. You haven’t had any phone calls from anyone since last night, have you?” he asked.
“You mean like a ransom call?” she blurted, surprised.
“Correct.”
“No”
“I’d like to stay with you through the day today. If there’s going to be a ransom demand, it usually comes in the first twenty-four hours after an abduction.”
“Do you want to hook up my phone to a machine that can trace the call?”
“Kidnappers worth their salt know how to disguise the location of calls these days. They use voice-over-Internet protocols and bounce the calls off a bunch of IP addresses. Long story short, we can’t trace calls if the caller doesn’t want to be traced.”
“That sucks,” she commented. “You’d think technology would help the police catch more criminals.”
“What works for us works for them.”
“Just a heads-up for you,” she said reluctantly. “When word gets out that Gary’s been kidnapped, it’s likely to draw some media attention.”
“How much media attention?”
“News crews, journalists, probably some tabloid photographers,” she answered
grimly. She would have to find a way to stay behind the scenes. Off camera. At all costs, her face could not be broadcast nationally.
Bass swore under his breath. “Look. I can’t be put in front of cameras or have my picture taken. I may have to hand this case off to someone else—”
“No!” She interrupted him sharply, “I want you!”
His sapphire gaze snapped to hers, flashing blue fire, and for an instant, raw attraction flared between them. Then his expression shuttered once more, going implacably distant.
“You believed me last night and didn’t wait to act,” she babbled. “I trust you. And I don’t usually trust police at all—” She broke off, appalled at oversharing like that.
“Why not?”
Well, fudge. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out. “Umm. It’s nothing. Never mind.”
“No, I do mind. Why don’t you trust cops?”
“It’s an old story that should stay buried. I didn’t break the law if that’s what’s worrying you. I just had...a bad experience.”
“Not all cops are alike, you know. Take me, for example. I’m better looking than most.”
She had to smile a little at that.
“What would Gary normally be doing today?” Bass asked, interrupting her turbulent emotions.
“He would sleep through the morning and wake up around noon. He putters around doing nothing all afternoon, goes out for supper, and then we head over to the next shooting location and set up for the night’s shoot.”
“And where is that scheduled to take place tonight?”
“An old house in the French Quarter that has been converted to a bed-and-breakfast. It’s supposed to be haunted, of course.”
He pounced on her choice of words. “You don’t buy into the haunted bit?”
“I suspect the owner is mainly interested in getting free publicity for her business. I thought the legend of the ghost in her parlor that she submitted to the show was pretty thin. It felt made up to me when I first heard it, and our researcher in New York wasn’t able to find any record of this supposed ghost anywhere else.”
His mouth twitched, but he asked seriously enough, “Are some ghost stories not made up?”