by Cindy Dees
Unfortunately, that left only Carrie Price as a viable suspect in the guy’s disappearance at the moment. Surely there had to be somebody else. To that end, he asked her, “And you’re positive Gary didn’t meet with anyone outside the show since he arrived in New Orleans?”
“No, I’m not positive. I’m not his babysitter.”
At least she was talking about the guy in the present tense. Murderers tended to shift to the past tense when they spoke of their victims.
Bass stood up to leave. “Don’t worry, Carrie. The NOPD will figure this out.” Problem was, he felt time slipping away from him. The first twenty-four hours of any abduction were crucial, and they had yet to receive any kind of communication from the kidnappers. He had no motive and no idea where the kidnappers might have taken Hubbard. He had no idea where to even begin looking for the guy. Which didn’t bode well for Gary Hubbard. The only reason people kidnapped a person, if not for money, was usually to kill them.
He spent several fruitless hours combing the bars, brothels and flophouses within walking distance of Pirate’s Alley, a photo of Gary Hubbard in hand. Nobody had seen the guy, nobody had heard any disturbances, nor had they seen anything out of the usual. Granted, the usual in New Orleans could be a little weird. But a kidnapping would have caught the attention of anyone who’d seen it.
He’d just returned to the office hot and sweaty and thinking longing thoughts about a cold shower and a colder beer when his phone rang.
“Detective LeBlanc.”
“Hey, Bass. Sandra Coleman in Traffic here. I got your request to review the closed circuit cameras in Jackson Square, and I checked every angle that might have caught someone near the exit from Pirate’s Alley into the square. I struck out. No cameras caught any vehicles or people coming or going in that time frame.”
“Bummer.”
She continued, “I checked all the cameras around that area last night, and I didn’t see any vehicles with three men, or any vans or trucks that might have been used in an abduction. I scoured everything. Good news is at that time of night, there’s very little traffic.”
“And you saw nothing at all?”
“Nope. And frankly, that’s telling. Anyone who could totally avoid our cameras knows where they are. Which means you’re likely looking at local talent being responsible for your guy’s disappearance.”
Bass hung up the phone thoughtfully. Locals, huh? Had Carrie had time to come to town, hook up with local thugs, and arrange for her boss’s capture? He made another call and found out the warrant he’d filed overnight had been approved. He had permission to check into both Gary Hubbard and Carrie Price’s bank accounts and credit card transactions.
He never failed to be surprised at how often solving a crime came down to the money trail. He opened up a search engine on his computer and entered the warrant number. Bank documents and credit card statements popped up on his screen for both victim and prime suspect. Come to daddy.
But an hour later, he pushed back from his desk in frustration. There were no unusual expenditures to indicate that Carrie had paid for a hit, or that Gary was involved in anything shady. All he’d learned was that Gary couldn’t manage money to save his life, and Carrie was seemingly frugal and careful with her modest finances.
He had to be missing something. But what?
* * *
Carrie tossed and turned in the dark, in spite of being exhausted. She was missing something. What on earth had Gary been involved in that had gotten him kidnapped? The only unusual thing he’d been talking about recently was his excitement over the idea of proving Napoleon’s last governor of French Louisiana had secretly been a loyalist to the French monarchy. Where was the scandal in that? It was two hundred years ago, and who cared who the guy had been loyal to? He’d still handed New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana over to Thomas Jefferson when the time came.
She had no idea what time it was when she heard the bump downstairs. Was that Gary? She sat up in bed and listened hard. Had she imagined the sound?
Nope. There was another thud, this time of something heavy and hard hitting the floor.
She jumped out of bed in her flannel pants and junky T-shirt and ran barefoot out of her apartment and down the stairs. She was going to kill Gary. Flat-out wring his neck—
She froze in front of the door. The police seal, a red piece of sticky paper, was still in place. And the garish X of police tape was still there, too. How did Gary get into his apartment if not through the front door?
She looked down and noticed no light showed under the door. Although, as she watched, a beam of light momentarily flashed under the door and then retreated.
Oh. My. God. That was not Gary in his apartment!
Her heart leaped into her throat and commenced beating like a hummingbird’s wings. She tiptoed back away from the door, easing up to her apartment step by cautious step. She was light-headed with fear by the time she reached her own door, slipped inside, and carefully, quietly, bolted the locks. Continuing to move carefully, one foot at a time, lest the floor squeak and alert the intruder downstairs, she headed for the kitchen counter where her cell phone was recharging.
She dialed Bastien LeBlanc’s phone number with clumsy fingers.
“Yo,” he answered sleepily.
She whispered frantically, “It’s me. Carrie. There’s someone in Gary’s apartment, and it’s not Gary.”
“Go into your bathroom and lock the door,” Bastien ordered tersely, suddenly speaking with sharp clarity. “Hide as best you can. Climb in the tub and lie down. I’ll call 911 for you so you don’t have to speak aloud to them. Stay on this line with me. Don’t hang up. I’ll be there as fast as I can. You’re going to hear sirens before I get there, most likely. Just stay put until I come for you. Got all that?”
“Yes,” she breathed, already moving into her tiny bathroom. She did as Bastien had told her to and climbed into the big cast iron tub. Very, very carefully, she pulled the shower curtain shut around her, wincing as the curtain rings squeaked against the metal shower rod.
In her ear, she heard the sounds of shuffling, as if maybe Bastien was getting dressed. Then heavy breathing. He was running. A car engine gunned and tires squealed. Give the guy brownie points for coming to her as fast as he could.
Something scraped downstairs, like maybe a piece of furniture being moved. She jumped as something big crashed below. It sounded like a dresser had been tipped over. Whoever was in there was ransacking Gary’s place and didn’t give a damn if she heard it. Which meant that the intruder either didn’t know she was up here or planned to come up here to search when he was done with Gary’s apartment.
She’d been scared—really scared—a few times in her life, and she’d been worried sick the past twenty-four hours, but she’d only experienced true fight-or-flight panic like this once before. And it had not turned out well for her. At all.
It took every ounce of will she possessed to force her body to remain still and curled in a ball inside the tub. The urge to run for her life was overwhelming, and her limbs ached with adrenaline, begging to fly.
“Still with me?” Bastien asked.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“I know you want to do something, anything, rather than just hide in a bathroom, but trust me. You’re in the safest place you can be. Hang in there.”
Huh. He must’ve have been in a tight spot before to know what she was thinking and feeling so accurately.
“I’m about five minutes out. Any sirens yet?”
“No.”
“Okay. I may beat the uniforms there, then.” He swore at something having to do with clueless drivers and then came back on the line with her. “Can you still hear movement downstairs?”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
“Can you tell if it’s more than one person?”
“No idea.”
/> “I’m going to come in hot, which means I’ll have a gun out. Don’t freak out if you happen to see me with it, okay?”
“Okay.” She added, “Be careful. It’s dark.”
“No problem. I’ve been a Navy SEAL for ten years. I know my way around in the dark.”
Wow. A SEAL? That was a relief. Maybe she did stand a chance of getting out of this bathroom alive, after all.
He was speaking again. “I’ll clear Gary’s place first and try to apprehend the intruder. There could be a ruckus downstairs when that happens, but stay where you are. That way I’ll know you’re clear of my field of fire and I won’t mistake you for a hostile. After I’m done downstairs, I’ll come up and get you. Just be patient.”
She whispered, “Be careful.”
He laughed a little. “Count on it, darlin’.”
In spite of her breath-stealing panic, something warmed a little in her heart at him calling her darling. Down here in the South, it was no doubt a casual expression that meant nothing. But no one had ever called her by an endearment before. It was nice.
“I’m about a minute out, so I’m gonna go silent now. Don’t say anything more to me or you might give away my position. But I’m gonna leave my phone on so you can hear me and know when I’m done mopping up downstairs.”
She’d counted to thirty in her head when a faint sound of sirens became audible in the distance. They weren’t an unusual sound in the city, but she prayed they were the ones coming for her. It was selfish, but she prayed the bad guy would flee before Bastien got here and engaged him in a potentially lethal confrontation.
Sure enough, the sirens got louder and closer. Oh, yeah. Those were her sirens. In fact, within a few more seconds, they were so loud she couldn’t hear if the intruder downstairs fled or not. She could only assume the person had come in through a window. Would he or she go out the same way? Or would the intruder race up here to take a hostage? Point a gun at her and demand something?
Her imagination ran wild with awful possibilities until she put herself right into the middle of a full-blown panic attack. She was going to disappear just like Gary. Bastien would get here and find her gone as well. And there would be no clues. Heck, he might even think she’d fled the city and not look for her at all. Would the bad guys torture her? Assault her? Kill her?
A door crashed somewhere downstairs.
Oh, God. Was that the bad guy leaving or the good guys arriving?
The next few minutes took an eternity to pass while she waited in silence, hugging her knees and biting back moans of distress. Over the open phone line, she heard the occasional shuffle. But for the most part, Bastien was utterly silent.
Without warning, her bathroom door flew open. A big, dark shape loomed in the doorway, silhouetted through a crack in the shower curtains.
She lurched, terrified, biting off a scream so it came out as a squeak.
“Carrie? It’s me.”
Oh, thank God. All the tension went out of her body, and suddenly she was so weak she didn’t have the strength in her legs to stand up.
The curtain tore back, and Bastien shoved a beefy handgun in the back waistband of his pants. He reached down and lifted her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a child. She flung herself at him and clung to him as if her life depended on it.
His strong, warm arms closed around her, and at long last, she let out a full breath. She was safe. And then the shaking started. Her entire body trembled violently, and she couldn’t seem to control it.
“I’m s...sorry,” she mumbled.
Bastien’s arms tightened around her even more. “No worries. This is a perfectly normal reaction to fear.”
She buried her face against his chest and unashamedly let him hold her until the worst of her shaking calmed. Eventually, it dawned on her to wonder how long it had been since anyone had held her like this. Even when she’d been a little girl and had nightmares, her parents had subscribed to the theory of “go back to bed and get over it. It’s just a dream.”
But Bastien scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to her sofa. Gently, he set her down. “Whatchya got there?” he asked.
“What?” She looked down at the scrap of ratty fur in her arms. “Oh. It’s a stuffed sea turtle. His name is Mr. Paddles. I’ve had him since I was little. My parents weren’t much for comforting me as a kid, so whenever I got scared, I hung onto him. He always kept me safe.”
Blessedly, Bass didn’t make fun of her for still having her childhood stuffed toy. All he said was, “I’ve got to go help the guys downstairs take a look at the crime scene. Will you two be okay here until I get back?”
She nodded, abruptly embarrassed at how she’d thrown herself at him and that she still had a comfort toy.
“I won’t be long. I just have to check in with the uniforms in Gary’s place and make sure they call for a crime scene unit. I want to lift more fingerprints and see if we can get an ID on who tossed Gary’s apartment this time.”
“Tossed?”
“Ransacked. Generally destroyed. Last night, someone searched the place. Tonight, someone trashed it.”
She watched his powerful back and long stride as he left her living room. Obviously, someone was looking for something they thought Gary had. But what? The guy couldn’t keep a few bucks in his wallet or a cent in his bank account to save his life. What else worth committing crimes over did the guy have?
She bloody well hoped this didn’t come down to a ransom situation. Gary had no money, and she wasn’t rich by any means. Would the television network pony up a fat ransom to get an aging ghost show host released? Somehow, she doubted it. Paying for Gary would set a bad precedent with future kidnappers, right?
Freezing cold, she reached for the crappy acrylic afghan on the back of the sofa and wrapped it around herself and Mr. Paddles. She pulled her knees to her chest and huddled in the corner of the sofa with her turtle until Bastien came back. He hadn’t lied. It only took him a few minutes to do whatever he had to do downstairs.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her quietly.
“Cold. Numb. Scared.”
“Mild shock. Totally normal. You’ll get thirsty soon. Maybe get another round of the shakes, too.”
“You sound like you’ve been through this before.”
He shrugged. “I’m SEAL trained. We’re taught to set aside emotions like fear and anger. They cloud the judgment. But I certainly know the symptoms of a good scare.”
“You’re right about the emotions clouding judgment thing. I was so mad at Gary for playing another prank on me that I failed to notice he was actually being kidnapped right under my nose. This is all my fault.”
Bastien stared at her for a moment. “No,” he answered slowly, “I don’t think it is.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No one can fake panic like I’ve seen from you a couple times, now. You were genuinely terrified.”
She frowned. “Was that in any doubt?”
“Don’t mind me. I’m just a suspicious SOB. Comes with the job.”
“Which job? Being a SEAL or being a cop?”
“Both.” He stood up. “Let’s get you out of here. The crime scene guys are going to be banging around downstairs making a racket for hours. No way are you going back to sleep tonight if you stay here. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough for you to tell us if anything has gone missing from Gary’s place.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to spot anything—”
“Don’t think about it now. Don’t worry about it. That’s a job for tomorrow. Right now is about taking care of yourself.”
He must have sensed her mind going blank on what that was supposed to mean, for he stood up and swiftly scooped her up into his arms, blanket and all. “C’mon,” he growled. “Let’s get out of here.”
He paused long enoug
h for her to grab her purse off the kitchen counter, but then he left her place swiftly.
“I hate being carried like this,” she mumbled.
He paused in the middle of her staircase to stare at her. “Why?”
“It makes me feel like a child. My whole life, people have picked me up and tossed me around because they’re bigger than me. Mr. Paddles notwithstanding, no one sees me as an actual adult woman.”
Bastien set her down and snorted. “Honey, it’s hard to miss that you’re a woman.”
He resumed heading downstairs without waiting for her response, which was just as well. Her jaw had mentally dropped so hard she wasn’t sure she could speak if she tried.
He’d noticed her in the same way she’d noticed him? Never in a million years would she have guessed that. He was so serious and focused on business all the time.
All the way out to the car, she tried to think of a good reason why she shouldn’t let him whisk her away from her place like this, but not a single decent argument came to mind. He opened the passenger door of a vintage muscle car that looked perfectly restored. She slid inside, noting that the leather seats even smelled new, and the dashboard practically glowed as if freshly polished.
He climbed into the driver’s seat and the engine roared to life like some mythic beast preparing to devour any road put before it.
“Nice car,” she murmured.
“Thanks. Took me two years to rebuild the engine and restore her.”
“Her?”
“Sally Ann. Cars have names, you know.”
“Indeed. All cars?”
“Yup. If you ask them and then listen real close, they’ll tell you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I own a car.”