“A betting man. If we’re going to wager the stakes should be worthwhile. That’s what my papa always said.”
Be careful.
She smiled to herself, imaging Lilly jumping in with let’s play a game of strip cards.
But Anna realized that was far too obvious. It would certainly raise Pierre’s level of suspicion. What woman would volunteer to strip for a jailor? One with an ulterior motive. Pierre was drunk, not stupid. He would likely see through that. She needed to tempt him without it seeming too far out of bounds. “What do you propose?” She leaned forward. “A kiss, perhaps. But only on the cheek.”
His ruddy face turned apple red.
She’d made the right decision. No matter that he had her in his control, and was plying her with liquor, he considered himself an honorable man. He might fantasize about a game of strip with his prisoner, but he wouldn’t engage in one. Such a suggestion might’ve landed her straight back in the cage.
“I don’t want to take advantage.”
She rubbed her forehead. “I’m very confident in my game.”
“A kiss could cost me my job.”
“Is that what you’re worried about? Losing your job.” Regret brought heat to her cheeks. If she succeeded tonight, he likely would. But she had no choice.
Be Anna.
“Playing cards is one thing. But I do not take advantage of a young lady in my custody. I cannot.”
Quite liking Pierre, she sent him a genuine smile. “I’ll say it again. You’re a gentleman. How about this? We’ll have the same stakes. If you find the ace again, I’ll polish off my cup. If not, you drink yours. We Americans have a saying about a goose and a gander.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that one.”
“Just means things should be square—you know, equal between a man and a woman.”
“D’accord. Shall we continue?”
He’d uncuffed her, so she’d better make a good showing. She made it hard on him, tossing her cards from the top in order to disguise the ace. After losing to her twice and downing two cups of liquor, he looked jiggered and flustered. Time to let him have his day. She tossed the ace from the bottom, methodically but quickly. When he spotted it correctly, she swigged what little scotch remained in her cup, as promised.
With a shaky hand, he refilled her.
“Oops,” she said when liquid sloshed outside the cup.
He stole a shy glance at her, making her think he wanted to claim that kiss after all. She pointed to her cheek. “Un petit bisou? A little kiss?”
“I cannot.”
The man was snookered, and still, he held onto his honor, and she felt lower than a rat snake’s belly. She was slipping, slowly but surely out of character and had to remind herself often to stay focused on behaving as Anna would—feeling as Anna would.
When had the Anna game gotten so hard?
Pierre held out longer than she’d expected. By the clock on the wall it was after four a.m. when his head finally hit the table—again.
He was out cold.
She slipped his wallet from his pocket and slung his belt, loaded with goodies, pepper spray, baton, radio . . . over her shoulder. Finally, she removed his pistol from his holster and tucked it in the back of her pants beneath the tail of her shirt. Then she headed for the door.
Discarding the role of Anna, now that the game was won, she turned the knob.
Her feet froze.
Poor Pierre.
He’d been as much of a gentleman to her as any man in a long time. Though he’d clearly admired her, he’d kept his hands to himself.
Pierre’s troubles are not your problem.
Costing him his job could not be helped. In fact it was good for him, right? It might be just the nudge he needed to stop drinking.
His liver would thank her later.
It might be a hard lesson, but it was his own doing.
She hadn’t caused him to drink on the job. He’d been doing that long before she arrived. Still, as Rose, as herself, she couldn’t help wondering what lay in store for Pierre. Suppose his superiors thought he’d done more than get drunk and succumb to trickery? The camera was off. It might appear as though he’d disconnected it to help her escape. As though he’d colluded with her. That would be a criminal matter, she was sure.
Her hand fell to her side. She turned around and went back to the desk, pulled a chair to the corner of the room, and climbed it—but the camera remained beyond her reach.
What now?
She hopped down and returned to Pierre. Gently, she turned his head to the side, so that he wouldn’t be lying face flat on the table for hours, then she bent and untied his shoe.
She tossed it at the camera.
It took three tries, but she finally hit her target. The camera came bouncing down, hanging from the ceiling by its wires. She ripped the whole assembly out, and then knocked a chair to the ground and smashed the empty bottle of scotch over it.
A goose egg was already forming near the gash on Pierre’s forehead.
While she couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t be charged with criminal conspiracy, she’d set it up to make it hard to prove. She tucked the camera under her arm like a football. With it gone, no one would be able to say for sure he’d turned it off.
They’d find the broken bottle of scotch. He might be able to sell the story that she’d banged him over the head with it. He’d be suspended or fired for incompetency and drinking on the job—but not charged as a criminal. She hoped.
Best she could do.
Sorry, Pierre.
But she was using her get-out-of-jail card now.
She closed the front door behind her and headed down the deserted street, keeping to the shadows.
Busting out of a Papeete holding cell hadn’t been difficult for a woman with Rose’s skill set.
The hard part was up next: making Tommy Preston pay.
Chapter 9
Wednesday
Police Station
Papeete
Tahiti Nui
Caitlin twisted the diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand. The ring had once belonged to Spense’s grandmother. The band was loose and spun easily—she should either get it resized or gain weight ASAP.
Eight a.m.
She and Spense had been waiting to speak with Inspector Brousseau, and hopefully, Rose Parker Preston, at the Papeete Police Station for more than an hour. She folded her hands and stared at the acoustic ceiling tiles lining the room’s walls. They reminded her of every interrogation room she’d been in stateside: recycled pulp with punched holes to absorb mid-frequency speech. Apparently underfunding of law enforcement wasn’t only an American problem. No one seemed to have a budget for actual soundproof panels.
The ring made another orbit around her finger.
Didn’t these people know she and Spense had important matters to attend . . . like a cake tasting?
Spense smiled conspiratorially at her, and she knew he was thinking of Gretchen and Dutch left to do the honors: hosting the moms and fielding hard-nosed questions like does anyone despise coconut? while she and Spense got the fun of chasing down a case.
She sent him a stern frown.
They were in so deep now, it only made sense they would acquiesce to the inspector’s request and bring their crime solving skills to the table. Any fun they might have in the process would be an unwelcome side effect.
Spense shrugged and checked his watch. “How long can it take to bring her around?”
“You think Brousseau will let us speak to her?”
“He asked us to help him close the case—so yeah.”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“You tell me.” Spense stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I know we promised we’d say no. I know we said no yesterday. Under the circumstances though, it might be best to help him fit the puzzle pieces into their proper slots—I don’t want any other players surprising us in the middle of the night. Long as we wrap i
t up before the wedding, I think we should join the party.” He rubbed a spot on his arm that had gotten more sun than the rest. “Stop for aloe vera on the way back?”
“Yes.”
“To which? The aloe vera or the case.”
“Both. And wrapping before the wedding goes without saying.”
“No. We’re saying it.”
“Point taken.” The ring twisting started up again. “There’s something strange about this whole caper, don’t you think?”
He reached for her hand, to stop her fidgeting. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a gut feeling Rose needs our help. That she might be the injured party, here.”
He squeezed her hand and released it. Tilted back in his chair. “Babe, you do remember last night. Hot-sex interruptus. Rose waving a gun. Don’t move! Hands in the air!”
She did. She also remembered a tearstained face, a desperate woman, and a shakily uttered I can explain everything. They didn’t have all the facts. “I don’t think we should rush to judgment until we hear her side of the story.”
He dragged one hand through his hair, and the chair thunked back down on all fours. “I’m not criticizing, but do you think maybe you’re slipping back into an old pattern?”
“You mean not wanting to see an innocent person get railroaded into prison or worse? That kind of old pattern?”
“Rose Parker may or may not be guilty of the attempted murder of Tommy Preston. But she’s far from innocent—she broke into our room.”
“The terrace door was open.”
“She climbed out of the ocean and onto our terrace in the middle of the night and held us at gunpoint. That counts as a break-in. Not to mention almost ruining our lovemaking.”
Caitlin’s cheeks warmed at the memory of what had taken place after Rose had been hauled away and she and Spense had been left to their own devices. “But she didn’t ruin it,” she whispered.
On the contrary, the incident had turned up the burner under their lovemaking from sizzle to sear.
“Being held naked at gunpoint did turn out to be an aphrodisiac . . . but that doesn’t make what Rose did—”
The door swung open.
“To be continued,” Spense said, as Inspector Brousseau stormed into the room, waving his hands like a chicken wondering what had become of its head.
Something was definitely up.
“What’s up?” Spense asked, deadpan.
The inspector’s face went purple. “She’s disappeared.”
“You mean Rose?” Caitlin couldn’t hide her astonishment.
“Of course I mean Rose. Parker. Preston. The bride. She’s fled—again. At least we think she’s fled.”
“Is she gone or isn’t she?” Spense asked.
“There’s no trace of her anywhere.” With a heavy sigh, Brousseau scraped out a chair and plunked down in it.
“You make her sound like Houdini.” The woman had, in fact, pulled off two confounding escapes. Whatever else Rose Parker was, she wasn’t your run-of-the-mill criminal.
“Maybe she is some kind of magician. I don’t know. All I can tell you is that her cell is empty. And the guard’s disappeared along with her.”
“Why is that all you can tell us? You must have surveillance equipment.” Even Papeete with its low crime and low budget would have the basics. It was clear to Caitlin this gosh-I-just-don’t-know routine was an act. To Caitlin, Jacques Brousseau seemed sharper than the third runner-up in a singing competition. He was holding something back. Covering something up. But was he protecting himself or someone else?
“Naturally we have surveillance, but the camera was ripped out.”
Caitlin and Spense exchanged a glance. “Have you considered whether or not your deputy might have been susceptible to a bribe?” she asked.
“My deputy did not accept a bribe.” The inspector straightened in his chair.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I know him.”
“Seems like the most logical explanation.” And it was better than the alternative. The missing guard could either mean he’d colluded with the prisoner or something worse. It could mean Rose Parker was every bit as deadly as Tommy Preston had suggested. “Any sign of foul play?”
“There’s blood.”
He’d been holding out on them all right. Her heart sank as her mind played out a thousand scenarios of what fate might’ve befallen the deputy.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Spense asked, rapping his knuckles on the desk. “How about you give us the whole story? We can’t help if you don’t.”
“Yesterday, as I recall, you declined to become involved, saying you must not be distracted from your vacation.”
Brousseau knew it was more than a vacation. But his tone implied they’d been mean-spirited or selfish, refusing to help for some trivial reason.
Their upcoming marriage was not trivial.
She clutched her hands to keep from shaking a finger at him. “That was yesterday. Before Rose Parker broke into our room and out of your jail. Before there was a missing deputy and blood left behind. Maybe you don’t want our help anymore. Maybe you’d rather no one learn the truth about what happened right under your nose. Good lord. What if your man’s dead?”
Brousseau’s Adam’s apple dunked up and down. “It’s not a lot of blood. A few drops and a long smear—confined to the desktop. And there’s a broken bottle of scotch. Chairs knocked around. We don’t think our officer’s come to serious harm. We think it was what you Americans call a scuffle.”
“Your man put up a fight,” Spense said.
“Oui. Under normal circumstances a small woman couldn’t have bested him. But it’s possible he may not have been operating with all his faculties. It’s possible he . . .”
“Your deputy was drunk,” Caitlin surmised. Broken bottle of scotch. Not hard to figure.
“He’s been known to take a nip here and there.”
“On the job?”
The inspector shrugged. “We’ve warned him. He’s supposed to be on—what’s your phrase? The wagon.”
“Risky to leave him in charge of suspects,” Spense said.
Brousseau looked down at his hands. “I understand this makes a terrible appearance. But you must remember most of our prisoners are peaceful.”
“I think you mean docile?” The inspector’s English was excellent, but she wanted to be sure she didn’t misunderstand.
“I’m trying to say not dangerous and not a flight risk. But as you are no doubt thinking, this woman has already attempted to murder one man.”
“Allegedly.” Caitlin crossed her arms over her chest.
The inspector’s brows shot up. “Ah yes. Allegedly. But we have her husband’s statement. And the evidence speaks to us. Her husband was hit by a bullet and Agent Spenser saw her fire the gun.” He pressed both palms on the tabletop. “Which reminds me I meant to ask about something that happened last night.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Caitlin said.
“You, Dr. Cassidy, instructed the suspect not to speak to the police. Allegedly.” He drew the word out.
“I said don’t talk without a lawyer. She’s an American citizen and—”
“She is a guest in Tahiti. She must obey our laws. We are French citizens. We are a civilized people. We do not permit wives to shoot their husbands.”
“Nor do we, in the United States,” Spense said. “But in the U.S. we like to look at all the evidence before we reach a conclusion.”
“Well, as you can see, we do not have the woman’s statement, thanks to Dr. Cassidy.”
Spense sent Brousseau a look that could fell an elephant at a thousand yards. “Dr. Cassidy isn’t the reason you can’t get your statement. You have no statement because you lost your prisoner.”
“But we found the guard.” A uniformed man butted his head in the room. “Pierre’s back, sir. And he’s ready to tell us everything—everything he can remember, that is.”
Wednesday
Police Station
Papeete
Tahiti Nui
When a barrel-chested man in uniform—split at the knees and muddied—sporting a square bandage on his forehead skulked into the interview room and seated himself next to the inspector, Spense kept his expression neutral.
“Where have you been?” the inspector asked, his tone stone cold.
“Looking for my prisoner,” the deputy answered and lowered his gaze.
Brousseau’s throat moved like he was choking on a piece of meat. It took a moment for the words to emerge. “You didn’t call for help. We’ve had a search going since shift change.”
“I—I . . .” He looked up. “I apologize.”
Brousseau rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Don’t apologize. Just explain it to me. Why didn’t you call for help?”
“I tried to. I—I remember waking up . . .”
“Waking up?” The inspector scoffed. “That’s what you call it?”
“I remember coming to, and seeing the door to the station open—and she was gone. I thought I must go after her. I remember running into the night and then reaching for my radio, but it wasn’t on my belt and my belt wasn’t on me . . . I don’t know.” He looked down at his torn uniform. “I can’t remember what happened after that. I think I fell. I woke up at the bottom of La Colline Du Français an hour ago.”
The inspector muttered something unintelligible and then turned to Spense and Caity. “Frenchman’s Hill. It has a deep ravine at the bottom, not half a mile from here.”
“I had a hard time climbing out, but I came straight to the station. I don’t know what’s become of my radio.” Pierre paused. “Or my belt.” He looked from Caity to Spense, clearly mortified. “She must have stolen my Glock.”
“Agent Spenser, Dr. Cassidy, I present to you Deputy Sergeant Pierre Brousseau.” The inspector’s clasped hands were white around the knuckles.
A flush of red climbed the V of chest showing beneath Deputy Brousseau’s uniform, past his neck, and upward, eventually leaving only a pale crescent of unaffected skin near his receding hairline.
Countdown Page 6
