Charmed and Dangerous

by Toni McGee Causey

  Cam flinched. He felt sorry for that boy, somehow.

  “Yep, she beat the ever lovin’ crap outta him. Made him eat dirt. Actual dirt.” He laughed. “And the next one that stepped up, too. The rest of ’em ran off, an’ she got Roy outta there.”

  “So you’re saying she’s going to be fine.”

  “No, boy. You really need to learn to shut up. I’m sayin’ Bobbie Faye thinks she ain’t got nobody but herself to fight what she’s up against and she thinks she can win with just sheer force of will.”

  He turned to look at Cam again. “She can’t, this time, boy. Only she don’t know it, yet.”

  Cam would have asked him how he knew, but the man wasn’t going to tell him. It was the most Cam had ever heard the old man say in all of the years he’d known him.

  “Why the hell do you care? She shot you, remember?”

  “Yep. She did. Good shot, too. She coulda killed me if she’d wanted to.”

  “So why are you helping her? Or are you?”

  The old man paused, and Cam saw something of regret pass across his face, then disappear.

  “Let’s just say, I have a debt to pay, boy, that you know nothing about. And it ain’t paid yet. I’d like her to stay alive long enough not to owe her.”

  The old man slowed the airboat. They were navigating a difficult area where old logs bobbed just below the surface of the water; the green moss covering the trunks blended them in with the dark water.

  Cam started to ask the old man if they were close, but the old man put his fingers to his lips to hush him.

  While they wound through the bayou, Cam checked the portable GPS he’d taken from the helicopter. Still working, sending off a beacon. He’d punch in a code as soon as he knew he was close and get the SWAT team in there.

  He tried not to think about the fact that the old man didn’t believe Bobbie Faye could win against the odds this time. If it were anyone else, Cam wouldn’t have paid it any attention. He stretched his arms, trying to get the feeling back, trying to breathe.

  This wasn’t a good day for breathing.

  Bobbie Faye had never seen a more beautiful sight in her entire life than the one before her: about a hundred yards away, on a peninsula jutting out where their bayou met a larger canal, was a small shack. It looked out of place in this setting, with its gunmetal gray steel siding, its flaking, rusted tin roof, and industrial windows with security bars. What made it beautiful was that this was the “X” on Marcel’s map.

  The geeky boys were supposed to be inside.

  Finally. Something had to go right, for once that day. Not even she had this much bad luck.

  Trevor pulled their bateau over to the bank of the small canal.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked as he climbed out to tie their boat off to a tree.

  “Let’s just ease up on them, okay? Wouldn’t hurt to be safe.”

  “Out here in the middle of freaking nowhere? What are they going to do? Air guitar me to death?”

  She didn’t want to have to trudge all the damned way to the shack, through the muddy water along the bank of the bayou. And she knew Trevor well enough at this point to know they weren’t going to walk up on the land and leave footprints. No, that would have been much too easy.

  She might as well have been talking to the fish, for all of the good it did her. Trevor had already slung the gunrunner’s satchel-o’-goods over his shoulders, pulled out his gun, and headed toward the shack.

  “Next time,” she muttered to herself, “kidnap someone a lot less bossy.”

  Trevor led the way to the shack, crossing onto the peninsula only when grassy undergrowth would prevent them from leaving footprints. There was no way to see into the windows past the heavy black-out curtains so he was being careful. Extra careful with a dollop of pokey on top.

  Trevor eased toward the building, sweeping a glance across the ground, pausing to search for other footprints, carefully moving from tree to tree with such stealth he probably could have tiptoed up to a big white-tailed buck and hung bells on the horns.

  It was driving her fucking insane.

  She (barely) resisted the urge to ram her gun into his ribs to hurry him along.

  “Will you quit being all 007 and just go the hell in there?” she whispered, unable to disguise the snarl edging her voice.

  “We need to be careful,” Trevor whispered back.

  “Why? Because they might start chanting algorithms? I think we can take ’em.”

  They could hear the electronic pinging and whirring and clangy music of some sort of electronic game.

  “See?” she said. “They’re don’t know we’re out here. Let’s go.”

  She started to rise from their crouched position behind a tree and he snagged her jeans and pulled her back.

  “We need to go slow,” he bossed. “You have no clue what’s in there. You have to have patience for this sort of thing.”

  “Buddy, Patience hopped a bus a few hours ago and is slinging back margaritas with a bunch of sailors in some bar on the west coast by now.”

  She marched over to the shack before Trevor had a chance to pull her back again, then she kicked the door in as Trevor rushed to cover her. He was back to muttering again, something about hog-tying and women, but she ignored him as she went in low, her gun drawn, forcing Trevor to go in high.

  As their eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she saw a man sitting in a chair, twirling the tiara. A man whose shape looked a little too familiar, and when her eyes fully adjusted to the dim light in the room, she damned near shot him on the spot.

  “Alex! What the hell are you doing here?” she shouted, and he laughed.

  “Well, now, chère, I realized something after we left you out there. You have something I want, and you’re pretty good at weaseling out of giving it back. I knew where you were heading and I knew you needed something of your mamma’s, and I figure this must be it. Now, I think, we’re even.”

  “You bastard,” she seethed, pointing the gun directly at him.

  His eyes narrowed a bit and he nodded to the opposite corner.

  There were two of his gunmen there, guns pointed at Bobbie Faye and Trevor. On the floor next to them were the geeky boys, tied up and gagged, both looking like they’d wet their pants.

  “See, now, Bobbie Faye. I’ve got two men over there who ain’t a bit from Louisiana, an’ you know what that means?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Dat means, chère, that they don’t give two shakes if you’re Contraband Days Queen or not.”

  Bobbie Faye glanced at Trevor, and the second she spun back to Alex, storming over to him, Trevor put himself between her and Alex’s gunmen. She stopped just two feet outside of Alex’s reach.

  “Give me the tiara, Alex.”

  “Not ’til I get my stuff.”

  “Goddamnit Alex,” she shouted, “I don’t fucking have time for this!”

  She was breathing hard, itching to pull the trigger just for the satisfaction of wiping the smug-ass smile from his face.

  “She’s a pretty good shot,” Trevor said from behind her. “Even if your guys get me first, she’ll still nail you.”

  “You’re the idiot who gave her the gun. Like I’m gonna listen to you. Who the hell you think taught her to shoot?”

  “I swear to God, Alex. Not. Today.”

  “Why don’t you just give Alex his stuff back,” Trevor suggested, and she hated that quiet reasonable tone with every single cell in her entire being and she very nearly shot him just for being so fucking helpful.

  “I don’t know where his stuff is.”

  “Au revoir, chère. You can have this tiara when I get my stuff.”

  “Alex,” she said, flush with fury and heat, “I don’t know where your stuff is! My trailer flooded this morning and the water wouldn’t quit and I got Stacey out and then the trailer kept flooding and my electricity got turned off which is when Roy called to say he was kidnapped and then the trailer fell off
its piers and I don’t fucking know where your love poems are! So give me Mamma’s goddamned tiara right now or I’ll make sure every single fucking one of them gets published.”

  Alex froze, breathing hard, his face red, and she didn’t know if he was blushing or furious, and honestly, she didn’t care.

  The guards at the opposite corner started creeping toward the door, looking all the world like they were both embarrassed for their boss and aware this was something they really weren’t supposed to know. Marcel entered the room from what looked like a closet door and started chuckling until Alex raked him with a heated, furious gaze.

  “Sorry, boss,” Marcel said, trying hard to stifle the laugh. “I just . . . you know. Luuuuuuuuuve poems.”

  “Say another word and you’re dead,” Alex fumed.

  “Poems?” Trevor asked, incredulous. He swept a look from Bobbie Faye to Alex and back again. “You’re kidding me? This is about love poems?”

  They were so not kidding. Bobbie Faye and Alex each tried to bore holes into the other with laser-intensity stares.

  “They’re mine, anyway,” she announced, never moving her gaze from Alex. “You wrote them for me. You can’t have them back.”

  Trevor lowered his gun, arching an eyebrow at her, watching her with an intensity she couldn’t quite define. “You’re still in love with this guy,” he said, as if suddenly understanding.

  “Hell, no,” she and Alex said in unison, and then glared at each other again.

  “No,” she repeated, evenly this time. “I had sense enough to get off that bus to Hell a long time ago.” She glanced at Trevor. “But they’re very nice poems. They could be on Hallmark cards.”

  Alex flinched so hard she thought for a second she’d actually shot him.

  “Bobbie Faye,” he said, strained. “Do you have any idea how much poetry pays? I’m a gunrunner now. I have a reputation to uphold!”

  “Uh, boss?” a guard said, and Alex snapped around to him.

  “One word,” Alex said, “and you’re both dead.”

  “Uh, no, boss. Not that. This,” he said, indicating something outside the window.

  Twenty-Eight

  Oh, we always check the bobbiefaye.com site for a travel advisory so we know which end of the state is safe for day trips.

  —frequent tourists Danette, Joy, and Michael (last names withheld at their request)

  Cam could see the shack right where Old Landry had told him it would be, set on an odd little vee of land where two bayous joined. It was just like the old man to dump him off, claim his debt to Cam was paid, rev the airboat up, and scram out of the bayou, leaving Cam there with not much more than his gun and the GPS unit he’d grabbed earlier. It wasn’t cowardice. He’d seen the man handle a bar fight against four men half his age, and they all ended up in the hospital and he didn’t have a single scratch. No, Landry just didn’t want to be anywhere near Bobbie Faye.

  One of these days, Cam was going to have to find out what the hell happened when Bobbie Faye shot the old bastard.

  After triggering the GPS, signaling his SWAT team, he crouched and absorbed the sounds and smells of the swamp, noting the distinct absence of birds cawing and the complete lack of humming chirps and croaks from crickets and frogs, a sure sign someone had recently passed through the area. He scanned the ground and tree trunks for any clue. It didn’t take but a few minutes to spy a heel print from Bobbie Faye’s boot, noting the imprint’s worn edges which matched those he’d seen back at the lake earlier this morning. He stayed in his crouched position and noticed grass that had been pressed down as someone passed through; it was rising back into place. They couldn’t have been here very long, and were most likely still in that shack.

  He rocked back on his heels and thought about the man with Bobbie Faye. A man who was wanted by the FBI, who was supposed to be an ace asshole, a cold-blooded killer. And yet, this man had hung with Bobbie Faye all morning and hadn’t yet hurt or killed her, and Cam could barely count three men who’d managed that feat, especially when Bobbie Faye was in full-throttle mode. Which made the guy far more dangerous than a rabid bear, because he obviously wanted something. Anyone going to that much trouble to put up with Bobbie Faye at her ballistic worst wanted something bad, and anyone that desperate worried the hell out of Cam.

  He explored the area and found the tiny bateau Bobbie Faye and Trevor must have used; with a swift kick to the belly of the boat, he cracked the wooden hull. At least they wouldn’t be able to slip past him and get away. Now all he had to do was get Bobbie Faye out of that shack.

  A rabid bear would have been so much better.

  Alex peered around the black-out shades and cursed. “Je su m’en sacré fou!”

  Bobbie Faye scowled at him and Trevor looked from Alex to Bobbie Faye, a question in his eyes.

  “That’s Cajun. He just said he’s a damned fool,” she explained. “No huge surprise there.”

  Alex glared at her, then back out the window. “I should have known better than to chase after little Miss National Disaster.”

  Trevor replaced Alex at the window and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” Bobbie Faye asked.

  “Cops.”

  “Not just cops,” Trevor corrected Alex. “FBI.”

  Bobbie Faye joined him there and squinted through the window. Three guys in military camo moved through the woods toward the shack; each man kept to some sort of cover as they advanced. Bobbie Faye cocked her head as she studied the shorter, blond guy, and then remembered: he was the guy in the Taurus, the one dressed in a nice sports coat. The one who started shooting at them right after the bank robbery.

  “How do you know they’re FBI?” she asked Trevor.

  “Procurement, remember?” he said, shrugging.

  “Beautiful! Man, do I ever know how to pick ’em or what?”

  “Hey!” Alex said, his expression dark.

  Bobbie Faye ignored Alex and smacked Trevor in the chest with her palm. “You bastard. That guy was shooting at you back there at the bank robbery!”

  “You robbed a bank, chère?” Alex asked, pride suddenly emanating from him. He dove for cover behind his chair as Bobbie Faye whipped around, gun aimed at his head.

  “For the last. Freaking. Time. I did not rob the bank.”

  Trevor pushed her hands down, pointing the gun at the floor. “She’s a little touchy about that one. It was her first time.”

  Bobbie Faye glowered at Trevor, who looked . . . amused. They had the FBI, which were somehow connected to him, outside the cabin they were holed up in with a bunch of idiot gunrunners and two geeky boys, who, by the smell of it, were having serious bladder control issues, and he was amused. She would show him amused. Maybe a bullet in his leg would be amusing.

  “Bobbie Faye?” a voice shouted from outside. “I know you’re in there. Get your skinny ass out here right this minute.”

  Everyone in the shack paused a moment as a wave of shock crossed Bobbie Faye’s face. Oh, geez. No. She stomped across the small shack to the window opposite where the FBI were crouched and peered through the black-out drapes.

  Sure enough, there was Cam. Gun drawn and ready. Half-hidden by a giant cypress tree, positioned where he’d get a good shot at anyone coming out of the only door. Sonofabitch. She knew he hated her but sweet chocolate baby Jesus, she hadn’t counted on him hating her this much, enough to abandon Stacey. The bastard.

  Trevor leaned in toward her and peered out the window over her shoulder.

  Cam shouted again from his spot near the tree. “I mean it Bobbie Faye. Now!”

  “Is there any man in this state you haven’t pissed off?” Trevor asked.

  “Nope,” Alex, Marcel, and the guards all said simultaneously.

  Trevor checked his watch, pushing fancy timer buttons, then he showed her the countdown: twenty-seven minutes. She caught his expression and understood: he’d set it when she’d gotten the deadline from the kidnapper. Trevor crossed back to the window to the
FBI agents spreading out and he turned to Alex.

  “I think it’s about time you explained just how you got into this cabin.”

  When he saw the Fibbies sneaking around on the other side of the shack, he knew he had to take control. Quick. God only knew what Bobbie Faye was planning inside, but it was his job to bring her in, dammit, and he wasn’t letting the FBI get the jump. He expected his SWAT team to show up in the next five minutes; he could hear their helicopter already, the Huey blades chop-chopping the air. One slight plus to a Bobbie Faye day: the chief practically threw SWAT and any resources he wanted at him with a blessing and a prayer.

  Zeke moved to a position where Cam could see him and made a cut-throat motion for Cam to cease calling out to Bobbie Faye. Cam, instead, eased out a bit from behind the tree, his weapon held shoulder high, though still covered from smaller trees and shrubs.

  Zeke, livid, motioned him to move back to safety.

  Cam ignored the asshole agent.

  “Bobbie Faye? I know you’re in there. I tracked you. Old Landry helped, so you’re not going to get to pretend like you don’t hear me. Now get your skinny ass out here or I swear to God, I’m—”

  He stopped when the door cracked open an inch. Cam looked back at the FBI’s positions and stepped a little to his right to put himself between the FBI and whoever opened that door. The last thing he needed was for the FBI to go trigger-happy.

  The door eased open a bit more and Bobbie Faye stood there, her own gun drawn on him.

  Holy shit, did she ever look pissed.

  “I cannot believe you got that old bastard to help you track me.”

  Cam grinned. Which just pissed her off a helluva lot more. His gloating was short-lived when he got a glimpse of what was going on behind her. Over her shoulder, several men he couldn’t see well and didn’t recognize moved behind Cormier. A gang? Didn’t fit his profile, but they were, from what little he glimpsed, armed. What little Cam could see of Cormier, the man’s appearance was every bit ex-military-turned-mercenary: more dangerous than his photo, and well enhanced by the SIG Sauer the man held.