So what in the hell was Bobbie Faye up to?
The first thought Bobbie Faye had when entering Marie’s all-pink living room was that she was going to have to bleach her eyes. Every single item in the room was some shade of pink, peach, rose, or blush. Even the plastic casing on the large flat-screen TV had been somehow painted pink, which was an affront to TVs everywhere. She’d barely had time to blink and adjust her eyes from the bright noon sun when three men stepped into the room from the kitchen.
Emile. Great. She’d apparently missed the fact that today was Rat Bastard day.
Bobbie Faye swallowed the distaste that automatically flooded her as her uncle stood flanked by two bodyguards. Clearly, her uncle had a no-neck, “must be the size of a small planet” hiring policy when it came to his goons. Sandwiched between them, Emile seemed almost tiny, though he was nearly as tall as Trevor. His dark, exotic looks were still handsome; only the crinkles around his eyes indicated he was closer to sixty than a first glance would have indicated.
Bobbie Faye could imagine him as he’d been in college when Marie met him: bright, funny, beautiful, and rich. But somewhere along the way, he’d grown into a man who ran a multimillion-dollar Mardi Gras bead business, which, by allegations the federal government had never been able to prove, had also given him access to a wide organized crime network—a network he joined back then and now led.
“What,” he said, grinning, white teeth bright against his darker complexion, his arms spread wide. “No hug for your uncle?”
She tamped down the anger and fear she felt as she held up her zip-tied hands in front of him, blocking his hug; she wasn’t fooled. She hadn’t ever been fooled, not even as a kid, when Emile would bring along sacks of candy and ostentatious presents the few times he ventured into Cajun land when picking up Francesca from her grandmother’s in order to drag her back to New Orleans for the school year. He was the kind of guy who bought a watchdog, then shot it for barking and waking him up. Or so the rumor had gone.
“I don’t think uncles send pit vipers to pick up their nieces, but I could be confused by this whole family concept.”
Emile chuckled, glancing at Trevor, who’d taken up a stance on the opposite side of the room from the bodyguards. Trevor folded his arms across his chest. His biceps bulged, the tattoos on his shoulders above them flexed just a bit, almost imperceptibly. He looked chiseled out of stone and she got distracted for a second there, wondering where he got those tattoos—and if she could forget those, what else did she not know about him? Then his forearm flexed, and she felt the tension radiate off him, in spite of his practiced, calm demeanor. That was the first time Bobbie Faye registered that somewhere along the way, he’d put on a shoulder holster—and his right hand, tucked into the crook of his elbow, was probably resting on the butt of his gun. He wasn’t exactly inspiring her to relax.
“Oh, chérie,” Emile said, nodding toward Trevor, whose expression was that of a stone-cold killer, “he’s an insurance policy, nothing more.”
“Somehow, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t work for State Farm.”
“I want my diamonds back, Bobbie Faye.” Emile’s voice had gone soft and deadly. She had to blink away images of poisonous snakes slithering across the floor, but her skin crawled with apprehension, just the same. “So you can stop playing your little game and tell me where they are.”
Game? Game? She could see the headline now: Woman’s head explodes, takes out city. She gaped at her uncle with complete incredulity, and didn’t even bother to hide her rage.
“You have lost your mind, along with the rest of the idiots from today. I have . . . had . . . a car with duct-taped seats—that are now completely burnt to a crisp, by the way—and a huge expanse of a trailer that’s barely big enough to fit two lightbulbs . . . so just what about all of my opulent lifestyle has led you to this stellar conclusion that I know where the hell your stupid diamonds are?”
She may have been shouting. The great big men with the great big guns put their great big meaty palms on the butts of said guns. Maybe shouting at a murderous organized crime king wasn’t such a hot idea. Especially when tied up.
“One of these days, Bobbie Faye, your mouth is going to write a check your ass can’t cash,” Emile said.
“My ass has cashed plenty of checks.” Wait. Damn.
The gunmen laughed. Even Trevor had to look away to maintain his stony stare.
Emile strolled to the coffee table and snapped open a day planner, thumbed through to whatever he was looking for and tapped it.
“What’s that?”
“Marie’s itinerary. One of the wonderful things I can count on about my dear ex-wife is that she doodles on everything. Even a burled walnut desk which cost me ten grand,” he seethed, getting carried away, then paused, regaining his composure. “Take a look.”
Bobbie Faye eased around the rose-colored leather chairs and bent over the day planner. It was one of the larger weekly calendar versions, with notes scribbled in and around and over the appointment time slots in no orderly fashion. There were annotations for hair, nails, dress fittings, lunches with friends, and business appointments for the textile business she’d started—an outgrowth from her weird art sculptures that had made her famous. She now created purses and shoes out of oddball “found” objects and beads of all types. Her work sold well in galleries and the textile business had rocketed when a couple of skanky-but-popular young starlets had been photographed wearing her belts on the cover of People and InStyle. Bobbie Faye nudged the book at an angle so she could make better sense of the blocks of time X’d out for shopping, crazy unclear notations of supplies, as well as a couple of recipes. She got dizzy just thinking about how much time it took to write all of that on one day, much less do it. Then the initials caught her eye. b.f. She had to turn the book sideways (Marie had filled every margin) and read a hodgepodge ramble of words that wrapped from the outer edge to the top of the page:
d’s safe check copies check b.f. knows where
The tingling sensation started at the back of her skull and raced down to her fingertips, numbing her hands. b.f. knows where seemed to grow larger and larger as she stared, and she closed her eyes, rubbed them, then looked again.
Yep, still there. What the fuck? What in the hell had Marie been thinking?
“Does b.f. stand for boyfriend?”
“Quit playing dumb.”
“I have no idea what this is.” Then something occurred to her. “Is this why Francesca thinks I can help find the damned things?”
“I’m sure my daughter has rifled through the entire place, so I imagine so. The more important point is, I’m sure you know where they are, and I want them back.”
“Right. You bet. I’ll get right on that.”
She waited for him to threaten her, waited for the obligatory I’m going to kill your family that everyone had resorted to so far. But instead, Emile just smiled. Which made her shudder.
“Okay, look, if Aunt Marie had completely lost her mind—and in this family, that’s not a terrible stretch—and she had planned on telling me where they were, she didn’t get around to it before she disappeared. If you want me to find the damned things, you’re going to have to let me search this place for clues.”
Emile seared her with a hateful glare.
“Or we could just stare at each other while someone else finds them first. Totally up to you.” She looked pointedly at the pink decor. “I’m not promising not to throw up if you keep me in this house, though.”
The goons nodded in agreement with her assessment of the pink. Emile thought it over and then said, “Fine. You have one hour to search. You don’t come up with anything, I start tearing apart everything you own and everyone you love until I find the diamonds or you bring them to me.”
“Yeah? You’ll have to take a number on that one; it seems to be the popular flavor of the day.”
“I’ll post my men at the doors, so don’t even think about trying to escape.”
<
br /> “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll take Tweedledee over there,” she said, smiling and pointing to the biggest of the two guards.
The man actually flinched. And then looked ashamed when Emile cut him a scathing glare. “You’ll get that one,” Emile said, nodding to Trevor.
“The assassin guy? No fucking way. How am I supposed to figure out clues if I’m worried he’s going to cut my throat?”
“I’d suggest you move quickly, then. I have calls to make,” Emile answered, stepping toward the front porch. “One hour, Bobbie Faye. And not a minute more.”
* * *
From: Simone
To: JT
Confirmed that Trevor has her.
* * *
* * *
From: JT
To: Simone
Bureau won’t confirm if he’s off the reservation with permission. Do not trust.
* * *
* * *
From: Simone
To: JT
Think it’s a coincidence he helped her with the tiara which was a map to a fortune . . . and now he’s back when the diamonds are worth a fortune?
* * *
* * *
From: JT
To: Simone
I don’t believe in coincidences.
* * *
Benoit worked the bridge accident with Cam, sweat dripping from him in the mounting heat. Cam managed to look cool and collected. Wearing LSU football gear as a star quarterback—high pressure and high heat in the first games of the season—had made him immune to the temperatures now. Benoit, on the other hand, felt like he’d been swimming. It was too hot even to talk, though they’d been friends so long, they didn’t have to do much more than a subtle shake of the head. Cam, a good eight inches taller than Benoit, was still scanning the crowds gathered at the foot of the bridge. If anyone had actually seen Bobbie Faye walk away from the accident, they had one helluva poker face.
Another gorgeous, blonde LSU fan approached Cam for an autograph (he always obliged) and Benoit waited until the woman walked away before quipping, “You need to carry some of them glamour shots, cher.”
“Go to hell.”
They worked the crowd, trying to cull witnesses from media-seekers, and Benoit was amazed all over again at the grace Cam could display in crisis. The man handled the football fans with aplomb, though he was completely focused on the task: finding Bobbie Faye. Lots of people had asked Benoit over the years why Cam hadn’t gotten a job outside of Lake Charles at some fancy corporation—there were many who’d have been willing to put a famous ex-football star on the payroll, especially as a company spokesman. But those people never really understood the man and how much his hometown meant to him. The town was family. There was another reason Cam had stayed, though he’d never said as much to Benoit: Bobbie Faye would have never left her home, and Cam wasn’t going to leave Bobbie Faye.
Well, until the dumb sonofabitch caused their breakup.
Benoit’s cell phone rang then, and it was Diane in dispatch.
“I’ve got a call to forward to you,” she said, “from someone who says they have something important about the jeweler murder you and Cam been workin’.”
Benoit had her put the caller through, and he heard a man’s voice speaking with the thick Cajun accent, thicker than his own, indigenous to these Acadiana parishes.
“Son,” the man said, “I done worried me about this now, an’ as much as I figure on to likin’ her, I got to call it in.”
“Call what in?” Benoit asked, once he had the man’s name and address.
“Well, now, you got to come see. Me, I don’t want to cause her no grief, an’ if it was just a’blowin’ up somethin’, cher, I wouldn’ta minded, her being the Contraband Days Queen an’ all, but this here, well, there’s killin’ when someone needs it, and then there’s just killin’.”
Benoit couldn’t get anything else out of the man except when and where to meet. The PD didn’t normally get calls like this in a Bobbie Faye case; people were usually lining up to be her alibi. He closed his cell phone and watched Cam scowling at the back of another autograph seeker as she walked away.
“What was that?” Cam asked.
“Nothing, cher, ’til it’s something, and I’ll let ya know.”
The television on the wall blared the news coverage of the bridge accident and the sound echoed off the rehab hospital’s walls. Every square inch of the rehab’s nasty aqua-green recreation room sprouted some cranky, bitchy, angry, not-quite-dried-out addict of something or other, all glued to the chaos on the screen as if it was some blockbuster film, with her freaking sister the action star. Lori Ann was thankful right about then that she only favored Bobbie Faye around the eyes and possibly the chin; she curled her petite frame in the corner of the horribly uncomfortable sofa, made purposefully tortuous, she was sure, because every day without drinking was going to be hell and they wanted the inmates—okay, okay, patients—to start experiencing hell as soon as possible so they’d learn to cope.
The viewpoint of the footage on the TV screen widened to show multiple news helicopters hovering alongside the helo apparently shooting the footage. On the ground below, there were at least a dozen cop cars, two fire trucks, paramedic units, a crowd of a couple of thousand onlookers, traffic snarled for miles, and reporters like fleas on a dog. One of her fellow patients was passing around a big bag of popcorn, for crying out loud. Lori Ann glanced over at her counselor, an older, conservative social worker who looked like he’d had all of the fun beaten out of him a thousand years ago.
“Another Bobbie Faye day,” he said, acknowledging her glance. “Looks like she’s blowing things up again.”
“Yeah,” Lori Ann said, “and somehow I’m the fuck-up of the family.”
Nine
Michele pulled her glasses off as she leaned her slender frame against the ornate bedroom door inside the governor’s mansion, her ear pressed to its raised panels. She knocked a few times, then listened again. She’d been at this for an hour.
“Sir? You have appointments.” She tried to control the rising panic in her voice. “And the benefit tomorrow night! It’s going to be televised! Everyone will take it as a personal affront if you don’t show! I can’t just tell them you’ve canceled!”
She listened to the muffled reply and rolled her eyes at Kitty, the governor’s assistant secretary and Michele’s right hand, who approached from the intersecting hallway. Kitty leaned in to the door, listening as well.
“Is he . . . crying?” Kitty asked.
“He says he’s not leaving this room until ‘that woman’ is found and hog-tied.”
“He’s hiding from—”
“Shhhhh,” Michele stopped her. “Ever since she accidentally blew up his limo, he gets real twitchy when he hears her name.”
“Geez, if the Senators only knew.”
Trevor closed the door to the neon pink master bedroom—he suppressed a shudder—as Bobbie Faye paced. Frustration billowed from her as her long legs made short work of the wide space by the bed. He’d cut the wrist-binding as soon as he sent the two guards to their posts, and she pumped her arms with each step as if she’d like to strike something. Hell, who was he kidding? She’d like to strike someone, probably him.
“If your head spins off your shoulders,” he teased, “I’m going to be completely grossed out.”
She stared at the opposite wall, but he could tell she fought against a smile.
Her phone rang, jarring her and she jumped, knocking over the crystal lamp, which shattered on the wood floor. She snatched her phone open after checking the caller ID with, “Hello, Frannie. No. No. Bite me,” and hung up. She glared at the opposite wall, not quite facing him. “I have a ride home. And an appointment to get a facial and highlights, should I live.”
She paused, a ragged breath shuddering through her. “Why would Emile hire you?”
“Suffice it to say he thinks he’s got the most cutthroat, successful mercenary available for t
he job in me.”
“Emile’s not easily fooled.” She eyed him, and he could see she was trying to calculate just how much of his cover was real, and how much was for show.
“There’s enough verifiable truth there for him to be a believer.” He watched her. He knew how easy it would be to lie. He could pretend his cover had been completely fabricated, that he’d simply played a role. But he wouldn’t—she’d had enough of lies in her lifetime.
“Oh, well, that’s just great. First I date a guy who turns out to be a gunrunner, then I date a guy who’s a cop who would prefer to arrest my sister and destroy my family, and now I like a guy who could probably give lessons in one-hundred-and-one ways to dispose of pesky corpses. I swear, the next guy I am remotely interested in, I am getting a resumé with full references.”
“I think you have seriously underestimated me if you think there’s going to be a next guy.”
She frowned at him, her energy crackling the air in the room, and he waited, his arms crossed. She was a little dangerous when she was on edge. He liked dangerous, so that worked. In fact, it worked a lot, as did her curves in the killer t-shirt now tied beneath her breasts, the thought of which reminded him of the welt the asshole Irish guy had apparently created. Trevor had to smooth out a scowl. No need to remind her of that event; she was already wired and deadly as it was.
“So I don’t suppose,” she asked, still staring at that wall as if the pink rose wallpaper was the most fascinating view on earth, “that it was a complete accident that you—the guy I’d been talking to on the phone, the guy I had all of those hot conversations with, who didn’t hint at all about going undercover—just happened to be assigned to this case about the same time I had my ass dragged into this mess?”
Girls Just Wanna Have Guns Page 7