by Lynn Shurr
“I doubt they’ll talk to anyone not family if the rest of you want to go home,” Tom said.
“We’re sticking.” Junior answered for both him and Connor who gave a precise nod.
“Let’s roll, then.”
****
No kidding about only talking to the family. Junior figured he’d checked his watch more often than Connor. They drank bad coffee, ate vending machine snacks to keep going, and sat in uncomfortable chairs that smelled like they’d been peed on by homeless people. At last, Tom and Alix appeared from some inner sanctum to bring them up to date. Alix decided to remain standing and leaned against the wall. Tom plopped down in one of the chairs despite the reek and raked his fingers through those wild, red curls.
“Okay, the officers who found the purse tried to contact Xo in the afternoon. Her phone, IDs, and credit cards, are all in her purse. They couldn’t track her down. She had some pepper spray unused, and form letters announcing that she would no longer be available for interpreting because she intended to leave New Orleans. Either of you know anything about that?” Two heads shook.
“That letter made them wonder if she planned to disappear without telling her family. We told them about the men she thought followed her. They said maybe she’d spooked and wanted to leave the city. Alix and I never saw these guys.”
“I told them to talk to Edward at the coffee shop since Xo was nervous enough to ask him to walk her to the corner on Monday,” Alix added.
Connor raised his bowed head. “I might have. When we were at the sculpture garden, a Latino man, well-dressed, thin mustache, passed us and greeted her pleasantly enough, but she seemed upset and eager to leave after that.”
“Maybe you can help ID him,” Alix said.
“Why didn’t I see him? I mean, I walked her to church, and she said they lurked in Jackson Square.” Junior cracked his large knuckles.
“I think you just answered your own question, badass football player,” Connor needled. “I doubt they wanted to take on anyone your size in a public place and laid low.”
“They probably thought they could take you! Anyhow, I’m glad if I did her some good, but now I feel sort of helpless.”
“We all do. The taxi was wiped clean, no prints, same with the handbag. Since she doesn’t have her phone, they can’t trace her. I guess whoever took her hoped someone would steal the bag from the unlocked cab and use the credit cards here in the city to confuse the police. No blood found. That’s something to be thankful for,” Alix said as she placed her hand on Junior’s shoulder and gave it squeeze.
Tony Ancona trudged into the waiting room like a surgeon bearing bad news. From habit, he tried to push black curls he’d recently had shorn off his swarthy forehead. “We sweated Diego, and he finally broke. Wednesday, three Mexican men broke into his house and threatened his family. They wanted to know the next time Xochi called him for a ride, and stayed at his place until that happened. He was allowed to go to work, but they kept his wife and children hostage until she phoned, then they stole his taxi and left saying they’d come back and kill them all if he notified the police about the cab before noon. I doubt that will happen, but we’re assigning a man to watch the house.”
“Not good,” Tom said, his voice shaking.
“Some good did come of it. They finally bumped the case up from missing person with a twenty-four-hour wait—because ya know sometimes young women go off with bad guys and show up again when the thrill is gone—to abduction. Your parents are being contacted to see if any ransom demands have been made. Usually, families are warned not to tell the police. Considering the Billodeaux fame and fortune, the FBI is being notified right now.” Tony slammed his fist into his hand. “Dammit, we already wasted over twelve hours!”
Alix spoke in a soothing female voice. “Her kidnappers were clever. We all know not to call Xo when she’s working. The soonest any of us noticed her absence was when she didn’t show at Tipitina’s and we started to call her. Went right to voice mail.”
“Yes, we checked those messages and your alibis. You three Sinners were at camp until past five, and the doctor, here, got off from Ochsner about the same time.”
“Alibis!” Tom’s face flamed. “As if any of us would hurt Xochi. We all love her.”
Ancona gave them a jaded shrug of his shoulders. “Sometimes, it’s a case of if I can’t have her no one can.” He tried to stare down Junior and Connor, but neither blinked nor looked away. “Like I said, you’re all clear. A few of the guys still think she had the resources to disappear if she wanted, get a false passport and go somewhere she feels safe. With her language skills, that could cover a lot of ground.”
“No. She’d tell us or get in contact when she got there,” Tom swore.
“None of you seemed to know she was shutting down her business and supposedly going back to Chapelle. Maybe you ain’t as close as you think.”
Alix hung on Tom’s right arm as his flush grew deeper. “No.”
A welcome interruption came in a summons for Officer Ancona. He took the message. “We reached your parents. No ransom demand, but they do know why Xochi planned to leave town. Come on, they want to talk to you. You, too, Doc. We have some pictures you can look at.”
Not about to be left behind, Junior stood. “Maybe I did see one of these dark guys, but Xochi didn’t point them out.” Frankly, he’d been too busy being jealous of Connor to make any clear observations, but had no intention of being left behind.
“Sure, sure. The whole circus can come to town, and I’ll be the ringmaster that leads the way.” Ancona stalked off, the rest trailing behind him, Junior at the rear of the procession like the only elephant in the parade.
They crammed into a rather small but private office. Another officer handed over the phone and left. Before taking a look at several glossy photos splayed out over the desk, Connor nodded at the telephone. “Are you recording the conversation?”
Tony nodded. “Consider yourself notified. Doc, take a gander at the photos while they talk.”
Junior planted himself in one corner of the room, the outsider without a task. Though he couldn’t hear the words, the worried tone of the conversation came across loud and clear. Tom listened intently to his folks. Alix pressed as close as she could to hear. “She’s going back to Chapelle to become a traiteur. That’s just nuts!” Tom exclaimed.
“Actually, it’s not. My mother believes in them. We have a couple of Mexican ones, curanderos, in Chapelle since the Spanish speaking population increased after Hurricane Katrina with the workers staying behind after the cleanup. She gets herbs for her hot flashes from them.”
Junior drew Dr. Bullock’s scorn. He glanced up from the photos. “I could prescribe something more effective than a handful of leaves. These people mean well, but what they do is mostly psychological, a prayer here, a calming chant there.”
“You, the son of a minister, don’t believe God can heal?” Junior challenged him right back.
“I didn’t say that. Medical miracles do happen. No one knows why, but my father would give the credit to God.”
“You two shut up,” Tom ordered. “I can hardly hear. Okay, we’ll see you tomorrow.” He concluded his phone call. “Team meeting at the ranch around eleven for all who can attend. That includes you, Junior.”
“I would have come without an invitation. Want me to drive?”
Before that question received an answer, Connor drilled his finger into a photo. “This is the guy from the park.”
Ancona picked it up. “That’s bad news, one of Esteban Miro’s right hand men, possibly an illegitimate son being brought into the drug business. Same guy Diego identified as leading the men at his house.”
Tom sucked in a breath. “Miro had Xochi’s parents executed, and we shared the same natural father before Joe Billodeaux adopted us. Miro burned her home in Laredo. I was there, supposedly on a ‘vacation’ with my father. He failed to tell me he’d asked for a ransom for my return. Joe and his friend
s came after us. We escaped, but at least one of El Jefe’s men died in the confrontation. Dad only went to get me back from Bijou but walked into a shit storm. Self-defense if he killed anyone down there. He never said.”
Junior kept his mouth shut. He knew who’d taken out most of Miro’s men with nothing more than a high-powered hunting rifle, his own father, the former Army ranger. Told as a cautionary tale about the cost of poor decisions and the danger of old enemies, tight-lipped Knox Polk, Sr. opened up one day when his chubby son rebelled against his demanding sports training and threatened to run away to his mother’s family in Mexico. The moral: Don’t endanger your friends or make enemies unless you absolutely cannot do anything else.
He noticed Connor Bullock stayed silent as well. His reverend father went on that expedition into Mexico along with Connor Riley, his godfather. Joe made both of them go back to report the crime and wait at the border station. As for the rest of the rescue party—Tom’s feisty birth mother, Cassie, and his future stepfather, Howdy McCoy—he did not know what their part had been.
Ancona smirked. “The FBI probably knows more about that than any of you do. They’ll be tugging those lines as soon as we notify them Diaz was in town.”
“These aren’t mug shots?” Connor sorted through them again searching for others he might have seen.
“No, surveillance photos. Miro rewards his men with trips to New Orleans aboard his super yacht, Los Siete Pecados.”
“The Seven Sins,” Tom muttered.
“Shouldn’t that be The Seven Seas?” Alix asked, Spanish not being that popular in her home state of Wisconsin.
“The Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Anger, and Sloth. My dad is a preacher.” Connor shrugged in a self-deprecating way, but Junior found him guilty of pride in his knowledge. Hell, he could reel those off in Spanish if he wanted.
“We know about your father, Dr. Bullock,” said Officer Ancona in a way that implied he’d run their backgrounds, perhaps even Xochi’s. “Those sins are practiced in full when Los Siete Pecados comes to town. Miro is never aboard. We’ve raided the ship twice. Once on a tip that women were being forced aboard. We get there, and all we find are more than willing working girls. Another time, we try for drug possession. The most illegal thing we find are Cuban cigars. The ship either has some very sophisticated hidey-holes, or Miro’s thugs called in the tips to make us run our asses off and find nothing. Ha-Ha. Part of their fun. She left port this morning.”
“Xochi?” Junior asked.
“The ship. By the time we made the connection, she’d sailed into international waters.”
“Xo is aboard. I feel it in my heart.” Tom slammed a fist against chest. “Miro sent for her to take his final revenge.”
“She’s due to dock in Cozumel in a couple of day. The Feebs will have eyes there.”
“Miro’s men could dump her overboard or—or do other things to her.” Alix embraced her husband and buried her face in his shoulder.
Ancona shook head. “Miro is a possessive son of a bitch. No one touches what he wants. That’s the best news I can give you. She’s got a few days, and I want to find her as much as you do. Honestly, I told you more than I should. Go home and console your parents. Out, let me and the professionals work this case.”
“You’re lead on this case?” Tom said, doubt in his voice. Junior didn’t like the idea either. Wasn’t Tony just Officer Ancona, not Detective Ancona?
“I’m this far from taking the detective exam.” Tony pinched two of his short, thick fingers together. “The powers that be are letting me in on it for now because I know Xochi and some of you guys. I care about her. Satisfied?”
“I guess we have to be. Yeah, Junior, you drive my SUV. I don’t want to travel with Dean if Stacy is going to be puking along the way, not to mention hauling Wynn along with her happy music playing on a three-hour drive. I need to be able to think. We’ll talk along the way.” Tom stood hunched over as if in pain.
“Do you have a seat for me? I’m calling in for personal emergency leave,” Connor said.
How Junior wanted to tell him to drive by himself, but he could not claim the Escalade lacked room. He couldn’t shut out the Rev’s son. That good man had coached and encouraged him so much over the years. In fact, he’d gotten along fine with Connor despite the occasional condescending remark—until he became a rival for Xochi.
“Sure. The more heads we put together about this the better.”
He wouldn’t sleep tonight. None of them would.
Chapter Sixteen
Junior drove Tom’s SUV past the swampy lowlands and small towns, his eyes on the road, his ears open to every word Tom Billodeaux spoke. Tom, the jester of the Sinners team, the man with the rapid-fire imagination, sat next to him making rescue plans.
“I say we go after her the way Daddy Joe came for me in Mexico. We can fly to Cozumel this afternoon. Everyone brought a travel bag, right? Passports like I told you.” They had.
The voice of reason spoke from the backseat. “If you count on carrying weapons, flying is not the way to go,” Connor Bullock said. “A private charter, perhaps.”
“We can go by sea, Connor Riley’s cabin cruiser. Alix loves to fish. I’ve learned how to use the GPS, the radio, the charts, get fuel, everything. We’ve spent nights out on the water. He leaves the key at the Intracoastal City marina, said we could take it out any time we want. Besides, the Rileys are following their son around on some kind of junior golf tour, so they won’t miss it. No need to spend hours getting to the Gulf from New Orleans. It’s docked right on the coast. We might even pick up some time on the super yacht being smaller and faster.”
“Tom, don’t you think we need to tell Dean about this plan before we act?” Alix interjected from her seat beside Connor. Dean, the natural leader, Dean, the white knight, Junior knew the whole team would follow the man anywhere.
“Hell, no! He has a sick wife, a child, and another on the way. If anything happens to him, the Sinners fall apart. I’m sort of dispensable—and Xochi’s blood brother.”
“You’re the best kicker in the league and not dispensable to me, but I guess I can watch your back well enough.”
“You’re not going, Legs.”
Alix slammed the back of Tom’s seat. “Why, because I’m a girl? I’m just as strong as you are and can shoot a rifle better from all the hunting I did with my dad.”
“Not because you’re a girl. I know you can handle yourself and kick the shit out of any one man. More because you’re my wife, and I’d worry about you when I have to concentrate on rescuing Xo. Not to mention if more than one of Miro’s thugs came after you, I don’t want to imagine what they’d do to a beautiful blonde Amazon. After they had their fun, I wouldn’t put it past Miro to sell you to some Middle Eastern sultan for his private harem.”
“He does have a point, Alix,” the ever-cool Dr. Bullock said.
Alix punched him in the arm and crossed hers over her chest as she sank back into her seat.
Junior tried not to intervene. Recalling Dean tiptoeing around his ailing wife, and now this argument between the honeymooners, marriage appeared a whole lot more complicated than I love you, you love me, let’s start a happy family. He thought he could do it though, being so attuned to Xo.
“However, you’ll need someone with good reasoning skills, not to mention medical training in case there is violence,” Connor replied to Alix’s frowning displeasure reflected in the rearview mirror.
“Good point. You’re in, Connor,” Tom pronounced.
That riled Junior. “What am I? Just the chauffeur? When my dad taught all the children to use handguns, who always got the highest scores, the nice cluster in the heart? He wanted me to join the military and gave me extra training none of you got once I hardened up.”
“You’re the guy who can knock down an opponent, run faster, and carry more than any of us. Not to mention how you feel about Xo. I thought you realized you were in from the begi
nning.”
“Good, because I am.”
Tom became thoughtful again. “Dad has his hunting rifles in that locked cabinet in the den. Wish it didn’t have a glass front because he’ll notice if they’re gone, not to mention he’ll hold the team meeting there. The house is probably crawling with Feds. Difficult to get anything out of the house.”
“I can get weapons. I know the code to the security building.” Junior said that matter-of-factly, but he noticed Tom’s eyes go wide.
“Dad never gave that code to any of us. Said we didn’t belong in there.”
“Mine trusts me—and he’s ready to defend Lorena Ranch from the Zombie Apocalypse if necessary.” After this, would Knox Polk, Sr. ever trust his son again? Hard to say. His dad didn’t think the way most men did, which made him good at his security job and prepared for anything.
“Good then. Junior gets the weapons. Connor, can you put together a medical kit in case we need it?”
“We’ll stop at my mother’s clinic on our way out of town. I can get what I need there.”
“And I do nothing,” Alix grumbled.
“You can provision the boat, make up a hot dish, bake us a cake to take along.”
This time, Alix slapped the back of Tom’s head. “Sometimes, I think you will never understand me! I can cook and kick ass.”
Tom rubbed the stinging spot on his scalp. “Hey, an army travels on its stomach. It’s an important job. If I should die, I hope it’s with a piece of your Bundt cake melting in my mouth—because that is heaven.”
Junior had to credit Tom with quick thinking after his blunder. Alix’s soft, “Oh” signaled an end to the debate. She seemed to absorb the fact that Tom might not survive the rescue of his sister this time even though it had been disguised by a joke. Junior stepped on the gas. The sooner they got to Lorena Ranch, the better.
Their group found the parking area by the house already crowded and spilling over into the open area by the barn. Junior could name the attendees by their vehicles: Dean and Stacy in her car with the safety seats in the back, the twins with the red Prius that belonged to one of them, Teddy’s van with the hand controls and wheelchair lift, the Rev’s black SUV with the gold cross on the back, and two anonymous black sedans. No sign of either of Mack’s SUV or his sports car. Lorena was in far off Australia. Had she gotten word yet? She’d be angry if left out. The rest of the Billodeaux offspring still lived at home, though Trinity would probably head out on his own at the end of the summer.
