by JoAnn Ross
"Sorry," he said. "Bad choice of words."
She could tell Nick was about ready to explode and knew only his incredible control was keeping him from shouting. From putting one of those fisted hands through the wall. If he'd been anyone else, she would have been afraid, from the icy rage in his eyes, that he'd kill her. Just like that bastard had done to Jas.
"She was a prostitute," Tara allowed. "I just wanted to point out that she was more."
"Point taken." He heaved out a deep breath. Stretched out his fisted fingers, then thrust them through his dark hair. "All the more reason you should've gone to the police."
"Which ones?" she challenged. "Besides, I went to you."
"You only told me you had something on LeBlanc." Tara found Nick's soft, rigidly controlled tone more dangerous than a shout. "You didn't tell me it involved murder."
"How could I be sure I could trust you? After all, you were kicked out of the cops for taking a bribe."
"Then there was also a chance you could make some money on the deal," Father Mike suggested mildly.
Tara thought he was damn casual about all this, for a priest. Then again, he'd probably heard a lot of bad stuff in the confessional over the years.
"Look, it sounds worse than it was," she said, not quite believing her words herself. Hearing them out loud, they sounded pretty bad. Made her sound bad. "I was into LeBlanc for a bundle. From the surgery, which, by the way, I never asked for, and the drugs, back when I was using.
"Since I couldn't bring Jas back, I figured I might as well see if I could get enough bucks from that big shot to pay off my debt."
"By stealing that tape from LeBlanc?" Nick said. "You didn't think that'd piss him off?"
"Well, yeah. I guess that was a major flaw in the plan. But I was also thinking that maybe me and Toussaint could just take off to somewhere. Like Haiti. Where LeBlanc wouldn't bother to look for us."
She watched the two men exchange a look over her head and knew they were thinking she was an idiot. Which maybe she was. Hadn't Toussaint tried to warn her she was playing with a very dangerous fire?
"And Toussaint is?"
"Téo's brother. She owns the—"
"Yeah. The Voodoo place. Hell, I never even knew she had a brother."
"Technically he's her half-brother. He only came to the States a few years ago. From Haiti."
"Okay. So, your other friend—"
"Kels," Tara said. "She was hiding out at my place. I guess the guys LeBlanc sent after me mistook her for me."
"LeBlanc didn't send them," Nick said.
"How do you know that?"
"Because he told me."
"And you believed that SOB?"
"Yeah. Because he sent me."
"He sent you? To kill me?"
"No. To find you, and, I suppose, bring the tape back. Because it's my guess he was already milking the guy."
"Who, being a Homeland Security big shot, was able to make sure LeBlanc's companies got the bulk of the federal hurricane cleanup and reconstruction contracts." Michael Gannon filled in that blank.
"Got it in one," Nick agreed.
It was taking every vestige of self-control Nick possessed not to shake Tara until her teeth rattled for what she'd done. But he reminded himself that losing his temper would only make him lose focus.
He'd gotten his first inkling that things were going bad when he'd arrived in Algiers only to discover that Remy had never shown up. Then Kate hadn't answered her phone, and her mother—no surprise here—had professed not to have heard from her.
He'd been speeding back across the CCC when Desiree's call had come in. And his world, for a fleeting moment, had stood horrifyingly still.
"Those feds undoubtedly didn't go on their information-gathering tours themselves in those early days after Katrina, did they?" he asked the priest.
"Of course not. It would have been too dangerous."
His voice was dry, as if to point out life had certainly turned out to be deadly dangerous for so many local citizens. "They were given police escorts. I suspect, if you do a little digging into the logbooks from those days, you'll find your former partner was one of those escorts."
That made perfect sense. During the weeks after the hurricane, a lot of the politicians had been scrambling to cover their collective asses, which meant appearing on television. As they walked through the streets of devastated neighborhoods, such as the Lower Ninth, they were accompanied by cops.
Considering how bad NOPD had looked in the early days of the flooding, it only stood to reason that they would've wanted to present themselves in the best possible light. And who better to do that than a guy who could've appeared on a police recruitment poster?
"And Remy told you to tell me to bring you out to LeBlanc's camp?" he asked Tara.
"Yeah. I wondered about that, but—"
"He's wrapping up loose ends," Mike Gannon said. "He's already got Detective Delaney. You've teamed up with her, which means you know as much as she does, so you've got to go, as well. And, of course, he wants that tape."
"I think you've nailed it, Padre," Nick said. "And there's something more."
He gave Tara, who already looked as if her nerves were hanging by their last thread, his sternest look.
"My dad worked on LeBlanc's casino ship, didn't he?"
"Sure. But you knew that. He was head of the security detail."
"Which meant he could've been watching the cameras on the gambling floor and in all the rooms."
"He liked to watch." Tara shrugged. "A lot of the girls knew that and played to the cameras even more whenever he was on duty."
Nick hadn't needed to know that about his old man. But then again, he'd never had any illusions about Big Antoine.
It had taken a while, but the final piece of the puzzle that was his father's murder clicked into place.
"He bucked when it came to letting that guy get off with murder, didn't he?"
Tara's smile was sad. "Big Antoine was really mad. He said taking graft was one thing. Murder was another. Yeah, cher, he tried to stand for Jasmine."
And had died for it.
Christ.
"Who killed him?"
Tara exchanged a look with the priest, who'd been the one to insist she call him.
"Remy Landreaux," Father Mike revealed.
Oddly, it wasn't a total surprise. Because it all fit.
"And now Remy's gone off LeBlanc's reservation. He switched sides because the Homeland guy pays better."
Nick realized that there'd never been any elderly blue-haired aunties leaving his former partner money in their wills. Remy had probably been crooked from the beginning. He was also one of the few of LeBlanc's men his father would've trusted. Having known the fellow since Remy was knee-high to a crawdad.
He'd have to deal with his anger about this later. Big Antoine was in his tomb. There wasn't anything he could do for him now.
What he needed to concentrate on doing was getting Kate the hell out of there. Before she ended up as dead as his father. As dead as she'd believed her sister to be.
42
THE DICKHEAD WASN'T GOING TO LET HER GO. Kate had already figured that out. Fortunately, his ego required him to boast about how important he was in the plot to capture her sister and retrieve the video Tata had absconded with from LeBlanc's stash of tapes. Great racket the guy had had going for him. Get high rollers to pay to screw his hookers, then make them pay again so the pictures didn't arrive back in their hometowns, where their reputations—and their lives—could be shot to hell if their behavior became public.
Dubois seemed even more pleased by the idea that the plan had required Nick to bring Tara out here to the camp.
"We're gonna have a threesome: me, you, and your slut of a sister," he told her. "While Broussard's forced to watch. Then, since I'm a bighearted guy, I'm gonna let him pick which of you dies first."
There was no way it was going to come to that. Kate had had her fill of crooked cops.
She also realized that all the stories Landreaux had told them, about Joe putting out a hit on her, and the Hulk being arrested, had all been lies. Part of a ploy to get them off track.
Neither she nor Nick were naive; but Remy, with all his smooth charm, and his personal history with Nick, had drawn them both in.
"What if I don't want to share?" she asked.
His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. "What the fuck does that mean?"
"I mean, if I'm going to die, at least I'd like to spend the last minutes of my life having a little fun."
"Yeah. Right. Like of all the guys in all the bayou camps, I'm your ideal fuckmeister," he said.
Kate decided that he'd never believe an out-and-out lie, that he really was her dream fuck. So she opted for a middle ground.
"Hell no, you're not. Given my druthers, I'd rather bang Johnny Depp, or Russell Crowe, so long as he showed up in that leather skirt he wore in Gladiator.
"But neither one of them is here right now," she said. "And I strongly doubt they're going to show up out in the middle of this godforsaken swamp anytime soon. So, while you're definitely not my first choice, and would never even make my top-ten list, you've just lucked out, Dubois, because you happen to possess the only available penis out here."
He wasn't as stupid as he looked. She could tell he wasn't buying the entire story. Then again, she could also tell he wanted to.
"If I fuck you now, Broussard won't get to watch."
And, having heard the history between them, Kate knew exactly how important that one-upmanship was to this cretin.
"What?" she asked sarcastically. "Are you saying you can't get it up twice? What's the matter, Dubois? You got prostate trouble or something? Hell, Nick managed to do me three times in an hour. And that doesn't count I the number of times he made me come. Or scream."
Okay. Maybe she'd gone too far.
"I'll make you fuckin' scream," he threatened as his! meaty hands went to his belt buckle.
"You win." She dropped the edge in her voice as he unzipped his jeans. "I'll admit it. I'm afraid you're going to hurt me." The tremor, she thought, was a nice touch. "And even more afraid I'm going to enjoy it."
Oh, yes. From the way his peanut of a penis twitched at that, she'd gotten to him.
"There's just one problem," she said. "You've got me tied up."
"That's the idea."
Kate had to struggle not to throw up as he began to stroke himself.
"I can understand keeping the handcuffs on."
God, she wanted her hands free! But beggars couldn't be choosers, and she had to take one thing at a time.
"That's kind of kinky. But if you keep my ankles tied up like this"—she jangled the leather-and-chain manacles—"I don't see how you're going to manage to get very deep."
She paused while he thought about that.
"Here's the deal," he decided. "I'll undo your legs so you can spread 'em real wide for me. But if you even try to get away, I'll fucking kill you. By cutting pieces off you and makin' you watch while I feed 'em to the gators."
Well, that was certainly a more graphic death threat than any the Chicago cops had come up with.
"Deal," she said. A bit too quickly, perhaps, given the way he'd straightened his back again just when he'd been bending down to release her.
"You're stalling," he decided. "Hoping that Broussard will come riding to your rescue."
Again, she decided this was a case where the truth would serve her well.
"Absolutely."
"Dream on, bitch." He unzipped her jeans. Unlocked the bindings and began dragging her jeans down her legs. "Because he's fucking outnumbered."
"What are you talking about?"
The door to the cabin opened.
"I believe he's talking about me, for one," Remy Landreaux drawled. "Along with the two other men waiting outside as a welcoming committee."
He crossed the scarred pine floor, looking ridiculously out of place in the same jacket and slacks he'd worn when he'd come by the boat earlier.
"Put your dick away, Dubois," he said calmly, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about a woman tied up in a cabin with her jeans down around her ankles. "If you're a very good boy, perhaps I'll let you play with our guest later. After we get the tape that D.C. bureaucrat is willing to pay through the nose for."
He smiled down at Kate. "It was looking as if we weren't going to be able to deliver. What with your hooker sister dead and the tape nowhere to be found. Then today, damned if things didn't make a one-eighty turn when you let me know she was still alive.
"Fortunately, I'd already taken your dear maman's cell phone from her bag while we were all at her house. I'd thought it might come in handy. But I had no idea it would prove so useful so quickly.
"Your sister never would have answered a call from me. But fortunately she gets along with your maman much better than you do."
He reached down and ran a hand over her hair. Im- j possibly, his touch made her skin crawl worse than did the Dickhead's.
"Go outside," he instructed his partner. "I want to have a private chat with the detective."
"Chat, hell," Dubois grumbled. "You're going to do her."
"If I were to decide to dip my wick in our lovely visitor, that's none of your business." His outwardly pleasant tone was edged with deadly steel. "In case you've forgotten our organizational chart, I outrank you. Which means you do what you're told. When you're told to do it."
His teeth flashed. His eyes were hard and cold. "Is that understood?"
The Dickhead mumbled what Kate took to be a very reluctant affirmative.
"Don't worry," Remy called after him. "I'm not a selfish man. You can have her sister all to yourself."
"It's not the same thing," the Dickhead muttered as he closed the door behind him.
"Exactly," Remy agreed. The smile he gave to Kate was several degrees warmer. But it still chilled her to the bone. "Now where were we?"
"If I were you, instead of raping me, I'd be saying my prayers. Because when Nick gets here, he's going to kill you."
Kate hoped she'd still be alive to watch.
43
NICK WAS SURPRISED REMY WOULD GO INTO the swamp. Not only had he always had a fear of gators, he'd established a lifelong pattern of keeping himself on the sidelines.
Besides, getting into the fray was messy. And the one thing Remy Landreaux had never liked was messes of any kind.
Then again, greed was a prime motivator.
The night was dark, lit only by a cool winter moon as Nick piloted the pirogue through the bayou. Bullfrogs croaked, nutria paddled alongside the boat, furry shadows in water as dark and murky as Cajun coffee.
The pirogue's headlight cut through the rain falling from low-hanging clouds. Nick didn't need the GPS he'd brought along; thanks to those goons dragging him out here, the way to LeBlanc's camp was emblazoned on the map in his mind.
He was going to find her. Save her. And then together they were going to take off on The Hoo-yah and sail to romantic ports where they'd drink mai tais and feed each other passion fruit. Where there were no cell phones, or computers, or good guys versus bad guys.
They'd lack back for a change. Enjoy life. Enjoy each other. They'd make love, and maybe, one of these years down the road, they'd settle down in some big old house with a wide front porch—with a swing for making love—and start making babies. He liked the idea of a harem of little girls with bright red hair and slanted cat's eyes like their mother's.
Nick had never thought of himself as an optimist. Nor a pessimist. He'd always been a pragmatic realist, something that had been necessary in his line of work.
But as he headed deep into the bayou, he kept assuring himself that everything would turn out okay, and his admittedly rosy-scenario fantasies regarding his sexy detective were going to come true.
Because the truth was, he couldn't allow himself to consider the alternative.
He was about a thousand yards h
orn the camp when he cut the boat's motor. He knew they'd be expecting him to come by boat. He also knew that a civilian could watch those Discovery and History Channel shows about SEALs 24/7 and they still wouldn't get it.
No one made it through training unless he found water to be a refuge rather than an obstacle. And you never knew who was going to make it through that all-important Total Immersion training. Hell, he'd watched LA surfers ring out in the first week, and farmboys from Iowa—who'd never been near a goddamn ocean until they landed on Coronado Island—hit the water like tadpoles.
The key was to swim more like a fish and less like a human. It was like swimming downhill, making your body physically longer in the water, reducing drag.
As he went over the side of the boat, Nick wished he had his Draegar, the rig that allowed him to swim beneath the water without leaving bubbles on the surface. Still, being that the sun had set, he was counting on the dark, and the element of surprise, to work in his favor.
Rather than skimming the surface, he dove deep, increasing the partial pressure of oxygen in his lungs, which allowed him to breathe longer. And swim farther.
At least that was the theory, and it'd always worked in the past. Then again, it had been more than six months since he'd trained with his team.
Nick was assuring himself that this was like riding a bike, that a guy never forgot the technique, when he started to surface near the camp and found himself eyeball to eyeball with the granddaddy of all gators.
44
OKAY, HER CAPTOR MIGHT HAVE CHANGED, BUT there was no way Kate was going to let Landreaux rape her. Maybe, in the overall scheme of things, rape was preferable to dying. But just as that hadn't been an option in Chicago, it wasn't now.
"Can I ask a question?"
"Of course."
"Joe didn't pay to have anyone try to shoot me, did he?"
"Very good." He shook his head. "No. I lied about that."
"To keep Nick and me from digging around."
"It seemed like the best way to get you both off track. Of course, if the shooter hadn't failed in what he'd been well paid to do ..."
