Charmed and Dangerous

by Toni McGee Causey

  “If Claude winches up my trailer, someone’s gonna win, quick. Put Claude on the phone.”

  The Saab made another left turn, and they followed, gaining.

  Bobbie Faye could hear Nina calling nineteen-year-old Claude over, and when he sounded reluctant, she heard the whip crack and she cringed. The pit-bull truck owner was still following the car through the industrial backside of Lake Charles when Claude came on the line.

  “We’re just tryin’ t’ help,” Claude said, and Bobbie Faye could picture his scrunched-up earnest expression, the one she always associated with a chubby overgrown puppy who really, really didn’t mean to pee on the rug. Again.

  “Claude, I swear to God, if you and Jemy try to winch up my trailer, I will tell everyone I know that you were kissing your cousin and that’s why Mother Superior fainted dead away when she saw y’all.”

  “When the hell was this, seventh grade?” her driver asked.

  She mouthed, “Last year.”

  “I was just practicing!” he claimed. “I had a big date and how am I s’posed to learn? You won’t teach me.”

  “Claude, we had this discussion already.”

  “But how am I supposed to get out of the T-ball league if I don’t have a coach?”

  “League rules, Claude. Sorry ’bout that.”

  Bobbie Faye heard the phone being handed back to Nina.

  “Oh, B, he’s pouting now. He’s too precious for words.”

  “Do not, under any circumstances, get any ideas.”

  “You are so not fun.”

  “And sit on the damned trailer if you have to. Can’t you pile the stuff close enough for that whip to reach both?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Nina said, and hung up.

  Bobbie Faye frowned at her driver and squelched an irrational urge to punch him in the middle of his amused grin.

  “Just shut up.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Have you always been this cracked?”

  “Buddy, this is normal. You don’t want to see cracked.”

  “It’s Trevor. You know, for when I’m dead and they ask you who you kidnapped.”

  “You are a real positive thinker there, Trevor.”

  “It’s a little something I’ve picked up as a result of the female nutcases like you in my life.”

  “I am not a nutcase.”

  “So far, you’ve kidnapped me at gunpoint, you have what sounds like a homicidal friend with a questionable whip fetish doing things to people I am afraid to ask about, and you’re threatening a Tennessee Williams play on one poor soul who sounds like he’s just trying to help. You’re not driving in the ‘normal’ lane today, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh, bite me. Where are the geek boys?”

  “I kinda want to hear about this whip thing, though.”

  “I kinda want to shoot your truck again. The geek boys?”

  “Just up ahead.”

  “Thank you. Was that so hard?”

  “Lady, you have no idea.”

  “It’s Bobbie Faye.”

  She strained to see the white Saab, leaning into his line of sight. He pushed her back to her side of the truck just as her cell phone rang. Bobbie Faye noted the caller ID, paled, and answered.

  “I swear, Roy. I’m trying to get it. Really.”

  “Where are you—wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘trying’?”

  “Well, there was a robbery at the bank.” She smacked Trevor on the arm, motioning him to hurry. “They got the thing, and I’m trying to get it back. It’s got to be on the news by now.”

  She glanced out toward the Saab, which was gaining distance on them, and waved the gun toward the dash, saying to Trevor, “Do you even know where the gas pedal is?”

  Trevor grumbled something about how he just should have shot her, pleaded self-defense, and he’d have been home for breakfast already. She ought to just shoot his dash on principle, except she’d probably shoot the engine, too, and fry them both to crispy critterdom. Then she heard Roy babbling something about the TV footage and she snapped back to attention.

  Roy watched Vincent hit a remote control, and ebony wood panels on one wall folded aside revealing a state-of-the-art TV and satellite system. News footage on one TV interrupted the local programming to show an aerial view of the bank parking lot swarming with police and reporters.

  The picture cut to a young and overly enthusiastic reporter who flailed her arms toward the bank behind her as if she thought she was still competing for cheerleader tryouts; Roy half-expected her to whip out pom-poms at the end of the telecast.

  “We’re speaking to eyewitnesses here,” the reporter said, waving her microphone toward the bank teller, Avantee Miller, knocking her in the nose. “How many people were in this gang?” she asked, oblivious to Avantee’s pain.

  “At least six,” Avantee squeaked. “Lots of big guns, too.”

  “Did you fear for your life?”

  “Oh, totally. They were shooting up the whole place, threatening our lives. And that Bobbie Faye, man, she’s really scary when she’s in a bad mood.”

  “You’ve heard it here, folks,” the reporter shouted, flailing again as Avantee ducked to dodge the mic. “This brutal, vicious gang, allegedly led by local clerk, Bobbie Faye Sumrall, gone mad.”

  Roy leaned forward as the station cut to the bank surveillance footage.

  “Hey, your sister looks pissed,” Eddie said, now a little less bored. He even set down his interior design magazine.

  And sure enough, there it was, in grainy black and white, Bobbie Faye walking over, grabbing the money from Avantee and then handing it to a nervous little guy with a gun; they spoke (there was no sound) and then, suddenly, both ran—and fell—and Bobbie Faye grabbed the gun as it skittered across the floor, and then out the door she went.

  Roy shouted, “Holy shit, Bobbie Faye, you robbed the bank!”

  Five

  Bad luck: 10,381

  Bobbie Faye: 0

  —Graffiti seen on overpass

  “I did not rob the bank,” she shouted back, still leaning forward as if that would urge Trevor’s truck to speed up. “I may have accidentally robbed the bank, which is not at all the same thing.”

  “You robbed the bank?” Trevor said, slamming a palm against the steering wheel. “What the hell was I thinking? Of course you robbed it, you had the gun. And I fell for your sob story.”

  “I didn’t tell you a sob story, you jerk, I shot your truck. And you,” she said to Roy over the phone, “should know better. The other people robbed it. If I had robbed it, I’d have the money, and the, uh . . . thing.” She glanced at Trevor, aware he was listening. “And we’re going after it.”

  “We?” Roy asked.

  “Not important.”

  “What the hell is this thing they took?” Trevor asked, and she waved him off just as another man’s silky baritone voice eased over the line.

  “Bobbie Faye,” the man said, a seething level of impatience cutting through the silken tones. “I want that tiara. Now.”

  “I’m working on it!”

  “Work faster,” he said, “or I’ll start sending you pieces of your brother.” He hung up.

  “Wait!” But there was no “wait” and she sank back against the seat, thoroughly frustrated.

  “What’s going on?” Trevor asked. Not an unreasonable question, she knew, but she couldn’t risk explaining anything to him. He was in it for the reward. The last thing she needed right now was for him to have second thoughts and bail on her.

  “Nothing but my life disintegrating rather spectacularly,” she said, watching the car ahead of them.

  “So these guys took something important?” he asked, and she rolled her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as sharp as he’d seemed at first.

  “And you’re sure it wasn’t someone else, right? We’re chasing the right guys?”

  “You think I don’t know who the hell
stole the thing I need?”

  He swerved to the curb, parked, reached across her, ignoring the gun, opened her door, and pointed. “First floor, chocolate to your left, electroshock to your right, watch your step and next time, call a cab.”

  “But . . . but . . . what about the reward?”

  “Accessories to armed robbery don’t usually have free time to ride a motorcycle. Out.”

  He kept looking behind him, and Bobbie Faye followed his glance, wondering if the police were sneaking up on her.

  “I don’t have any money for a cab,” she said.

  “Lady, you robbed the bank.”

  “I did not rob the bank, will you please quit saying that? I mean, for crying out loud, do I look like the kind of person who . . .” She stopped when she saw his glance and she followed it down to her SHUCK ME, SUCK ME T-shirt and the gun in her hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Here’s the deal: I’ve got to get something back. If I don’t—”

  “Yeah, sure, it’s life or death, right?” he asked, interrupting her before she could turn on the patented Sumrall charm. He tapped the GPS box on his truck as if it was far more interesting than she was and Bobbie Faye gritted her teeth behind her best “charming” smile, fighting the urge to shoot the damned GPS box just for kicks.

  “Not buying it, lady,” he continued. “You’re a magnet for disaster and you’re costing me every single minute you stay in this truck. While you’re cute and all—”

  “I’ll pay you,” she said. “To help,” she added when he smiled. She did not like that smile. That was a very dangerous smile; he could convince someone it was okay to jump off a cliff when he smiled like that. She also did not like that brown curly hair or the scar next to his eye, or how blue his eyes were against his tan. Brown eyes were way the hell more trustworthy. Somehow she had to get the upper hand here, and obviously the gun wasn’t really going to do the trick unless she actually wanted to shoot him, and while that wasn’t totally out of the question, she was already in enough trouble.

  Bobbie Faye eyed the Saab, which had stayed on the same street, getting caught by heavy cross traffic at each red light, clearly afraid to risk running the lights. She tried batting her eyelashes at Trevor, hoping to God she had maybe possibly at some point brushed her hair, and hopefully there was nothing in her teeth when she tried the patented “you-want-to-help-me” smile.

  He shook his head. “How are you going to pay me? You can’t afford a cab, remember? I don’t need this. Get out. Tell the cops you were having a nervous breakdown in the bank because of your . . . was it your brother you mentioned? And they’ll go easy on you.”

  “I am not having a nervous breakdown, and if you shove me out, I’m going to tell them the robbery was all your idea. And no one—not you, God, or anyone else in between—is going to stand in my way of helping my brother. Now drive.”

  The expression on his face shifted from “no” to “hell, no.” Never try to con a man who was so well-practiced in the art of “no” he had a repertoire of expressions. She had to do something, find some way to crack that armor, because she didn’t know if there was a way to catch up with the boys once they turned off this street into the busy grid of the city proper.

  She gave up the pretense, itching to just shoot him and get it over with. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Are you planning on kidnapping them, too?”

  “If it would help, yes. Do you?”

  “Three bratty sisters from hell.”

  “No wonder, with a brother like you.”

  “Please tell me there’s a jar somewhere with your picture on it, collecting for therapy.”

  He glanced back in his rearview mirror and frowned.

  “I’ve got to get that thing they took from me, or the people who want it are going to hurt my brother.”

  “This is why random murder was invented,” he muttered as he watched something in his rearview mirror.

  “Don’t give me ideas. C’mon. We’re losing the car.”

  She leveled her gun at him, watching him stare at that rearview mirror, frowning way more than he had when she’d first held the gun on him. She stole a fast glance out the back window and saw a silver Taurus parked at the curb a few car lengths behind them. A yuppie guy whose suit fit nicely across his broad shoulders climbed out of the driver’s seat and went to stand in front of a storefront. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place why. She squinted and realized that the storefront was empty, and the guy seemed to be staring a little too intently, his body half-turned away from where she and Trevor were parked at the curb.

  “Hey,” she asked, “is that guy . . . watching us? Through the reflection in the glass?”

  “Did that guy have anything to do with the other guys who stole your stuff?”

  “No . . . well, not that I know of, why?”

  A helicopter roared into view above them all, and Bobbie Faye met Trevor’s grim expression.

  “Goddammit, lady, you owe me. Big.”

  He floored the truck, and Bobbie Faye bounced against the dash, slamming her wrist into it, and accidentally fired the gun, blowing a hole in the floorboard. Instantly, before she had fully righted herself, bullets ripped into the tailgate, coming from somewhere behind them.

  “Not the truck! Sonofabitch. This is getting personal.”

  And then he did the thing that made her realize barging into his truck might not have been such a clever idea after all: he started shooting back at the yuppie guy running after them.

  “Stop doing that! You could hurt someone!”

  “You shot at me,” he reminded her.

  “Did not. I shot your truck.”

  She ignored his glare. He probably would have followed through on the threat to throw her out, except he was flying down side streets in the same general direction the Saab had taken. Contraband Days Festival banners were strung across the street from lamppost to lamppost. People had already turned out by the dozens, dressed up in pirate costumes with fake swords, beers and soft drinks in hand. Bobbie Faye yelped as Trevor wheeled around a curve and almost plowed into a batch of schoolkids crossing the street.

  Trevor spun the truck in a sharp right turn and she slammed up against him. (And damn, guys aren’t supposed to smell good in the middle of running for your life, are they?) Before she could sit up to see just where they were, his bicep tensed against her cheek. He nearly elbowed her to death as he spun the wheel, avoiding something she couldn’t see as he punched the gas. She gawked at the view out of the windshield as the truck suddenly angled up, going airborne, Trevor laying on the horn to scatter pedestrians.

  The truck landed. Hard. Inside something red. It was one of the parked parade floats waiting in the prep area.

  “We just landed in a crawfish,” she said helpfully.

  “Thank you. I noticed that.” He didn’t sound particularly appreciative.

  Two cop cars sped past, and she considered the red pincers around them and appreciated that they were camouflaged. But only briefly, because a helluva lot of pissed off Cajuns started emerging from various floats in the prep area, including the float they were straddling, searching around for someone’s ass to kick. Bobbie Faye scanned past the chaos, the cops, and the crazed pirate wannabes running around, past the roadblock created by the logjam of the first floats which had already begun traveling down the parade route.

  And then she saw it: the Saab, trying to extricate itself from the same unholy mess, just a few blocks away.

  “Hot damn, there they are. We’ve gotta hurry.”

  Trevor gaped at her as if she couldn’t be serious, and when he made no move to hurry, she hit the low-wheel-drive gear and stomped on Trevor’s accelerator.

  The truck dug down into the bed of the float, grabbing traction, and Trevor had to manhandle the steering wheel to keep control, all while blowing the horn to warn bystanders on the sidewalk to get the hell out of the way. The truck climbed off the float fast, dragging a good portion of the
rest of the crawfish with them for a couple of blocks, causing everyone to stampede.

  Everyone except the cops, who tried to U-turn and get back to them, but who were slowed by the floats lumbering out of the giant crawfish-truck’s way. Bobbie Faye grabbed for the steering wheel when Trevor started turning away from the Saab. He wrestled it back, pointing to the passenger side.

  “You,” he seethed. “Stay over there.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  From the fury radiating from him, she decided maybe sitting in the passenger seat wasn’t so bad an idea after all.

  He glared at her, muttering, “One quick shot to the head, no one would have been the wiser.”

  She pretended not to hear him, peered out the back window, and almost seizured when she saw just how many cops were trying to cut through the jammed streets to follow them.

  Six

  Not only no, but hell no! We already had the Alamo. We sure as hell are not taking Bobbie Faye.

  —the governor of Texas to the governor of Louisiana

  In the lead cop car, State Police Detective Cameron Moreau blared his sirens at the idiots in the red truck, relying on his quarterback reflexes to outmaneuver the other cars in his way and watch downfield in case the red truck made a break for an opening. For one second, he had a clear view of the truck and a woman in the passenger seat. When she glanced back, his heart sunk to his size eleven shoes.

  He grabbed his microphone and keyed for dispatch.

  “Jason,” he said, “get me backup. Bobbie Faye’s in that damned truck ripping through the parade.”

  “Our Bobbie Faye?”

  “I sure as hell ain’t claimin’ her.”

  “Shoot, Cam,” Jason said, barely hiding the laughter. “You just been pissed at her since fifth grade, when she sold lemonade she made out of holy water and told the priest it was your idea.”

  Sonofabitch. Why’d he have to live here where everybody knew every damned fart anyone had ever taken in their life? And why in the hell did it have to be Bobbie Faye in that damned truck? He could feel Jason laughing without even being in the same room.