by Cindy Dees
“Has there been a ransom demand?”
“Do the police think he’s dead?”
“When did he disappear?”
“Is it true you filmed his abduction?”
“Why didn’t you call the police immediately?”
“Are you involved in the kidnapping?”
That last shouted question caught her attention. Right. Like she would tell them if she was in league with the kidnappers. What kind of idiot did they think she was?
“What the hell?” a deep voice said from the stairs behind her.
She turned to ask Bass for help in getting past the phalanx of aggressive reporters, but she caught a glimpse of his heels and no more as he retreated at high speed back up the stairs. In the blink of an eye he’d vanished. Gone. No sign of him. Wow. How did he do that so fast?
She kept her back resolutely to the cameras. She really, really couldn’t afford to be splashed all over the news in conjunction with Gary’s disappearance.
What to do? If she went back inside her apartment, the media would just camp outside her door until she was forced to come out. Better to make a break for it now, before she got trapped. She looked left and right, seeking an escape route. Damn. The only way out was through that gaggle of loud, nosy reporters.
A uniformed police officer stepped forward. “Y’all okay, ma’am?”
“I could use some help getting these folks to back up so I can get my van out of the garage.”
The cop perused the crowd of reporters and photographers knowingly. “Only way y’all gonna git ’em ta move is ta run ’em over. Y’all just go on ahead and back on out of your garage, and they’ll git the idea. They’ll jump right spryly if you’s gonna smash ’em flat.”
She shook her head at the guy’s thick Cajun patois but liked his thinking. Throwing her arm over her face, she dashed for the garage, shoved up the sliding door, climbed into the van, revved the engine, and backed it straight at the crowd of news people. Please God, let this work.
Chapter 6
Indeed, the reporters did jump right spryly to avoid getting run over. In fact, they scattered like bowling pins that had a strike ball thrown at them. It would have been deeply satisfying were she not so panicked at being filmed on some major news channel where lots of people might see.
Glancing in her rearview mirror, she winced to see reporters sprinting in various directions, no doubt racing for vehicles to follow her. She stomped on the accelerator and prayed no one would successfully manage that.
The “haunted” bed-and-breakfast she and Gary were supposed to film next wasn’t in the best part of the French Quarter. But she did have to admit it had a deliciously spooky air about it. Overgrown vines crowded the iron gate that blocked the courtyard, and an air of neglect clung to the rusty second-floor ironwork and peeling paint. A pretty courtyard coated with green mildew and overgrown flower beds stretched away behind the gate.
She threw open the back of the van to grab her camera gear and, as she reached for it, spied Gary’s duffel bag sitting on the ribbed metal floor. She probably ought to carry that into his place so its contents could be included in the police inventory of his personal possessions. Later. When the press wasn’t stalking her and Bass wasn’t playing invisible.
Grabbing her camera bag out of the back of the van, she knocked on the B&B’s front door.
A woman who’d seen the back side of fifty but was attempting to hide it beneath garish makeup answered, gushing, “You must be the camerawoman from America’s Ghosts. Carrie Something. I’m Amelie Reigneaux.” She looked eagerly over Carrie’s shoulder. “Where’s Gary Hubbard?”
“I wish I knew,” Carrie snapped without thinking. Oops. She corrected hastily, “He can’t join us today. I’m here to shoot background shots and set shots we can use during voice-over sequences.”
“But I thought Gary would come with you. It’s his show, after all.”
Carrie answered, “I’m so sorry. We’ve had some unexpected complications to our shooting schedule. Can you show me around, so I can pick out some spots to film for background? I’d love to do a preliminary on-camera interview with you. That will help Gary prepare questions to ask you when he’s filming the actual episode.”
Amalie preened at that and ran a nervous hand through her bottle-blond hair.
Carrie stepped inside and wrinkled her nose at the scent of unchanged kitty litter. The front hallway was attractive in a faded-wallpaper-and-old-roses sort of way, and the front stairwell, made of beautifully-joined old cypress, really was gorgeous.
“Gary’s going to love shooting on this staircase,” Carrie commented appreciatively.
“This is one of the places Mignonette shows herself,” Amelie announced. “She’s the ghost. In fact, I’ve made a dress that’s an exact replica of the one she wears. If you’d like me to, I can put it on and re-enact the appearance of the ghost.”
Oy. This woman was obviously a fan of the show and knew the format. Gary often liked to use actors to portray the original historical figures who had later “become ghosted.”
“Umm, great. Gary will decide whether or not to use you in the show.” And no way was she touching that decision with a ten-foot pole. Gary could deal with his own crazy fans, thank you very much.
Was a crazy fan behind his kidnapping? Her gut said no. Those men in black who’d taken Gary had moved as if they knew what they were doing.
“Parlor’s in there,” her hostess said, pointing through an open pair of pocket doors. “That’s where Mignonette appears most often.”
Carrie listened to her hostess prattle on at length about sightings of the pre–Civil War belle who had pined away in this house for her true love and eventually died, herself.
Carrie wondered if the lover had died in the Civil War or from some other horrible nineteenth-century scourge. She tried to interrupt Amelie to ask, but the woman plowed ahead with the tour of the house, undeterred.
The original house had been joined to those on either side of it, and the resulting layout was a warren of narrow hallways that didn’t line up with one another and odd, dark corners. No wonder Gary had chosen this place to shoot. It screamed of poltergeists and apparitions.
It took a while, but eventually, she captured every last mazelike nook and cranny of the home and wrapped up shooting for the day. As night fell, she climbed into the van and stared at the steering wheel. Where was she supposed to go now?
Her mind drew a complete blank. Idly, she looked around the interior of the beat-up van. “What’s your name, old girl?”
She tried to imagine what a twenty-year-old van that had seen a lot of miles and better days would want to be called.
“I’ve got it,” she announced to the vehicle. “You’re Roxanne.” Smiling a little, she coaxed Roxanne to start.
She drove randomly around the downtown area, which was magical at night. Bright neon signs and crowds of happy tourists juxtaposed against shadowed alleys and dawdling natives, all set against the lovely historic architecture created a seductive and moody ambience.
She couldn’t go back to her apartment and the media sharks who would no doubt be waiting for her. She was tempted to go to Bass’s place and seek shelter with him. But she had no idea what was up with him. He’d seemed so interested but then pulled back so quickly.
If only she could tell whether he had seriously been flirting with her or just doing his job, attempting to use pillow talk to get her to confess to kidnapping Gary.
As full night fell over the city, and the French Quarter became more than a little spooky, she pulled into a parking spot on a street at the edge of the historic district. In the peach glow of a streetlamp down the block, she ducked into the back of the van and retrieved Gary’s duffel bag. Maybe there was some clue in it that might help the police find him.
She set aside the goofy artist’s smoc
ks and dug deeper. A spare razor and toothbrush spoke of Gary’s eternal optimism when it came to picking up women. A cheap spiral notebook yielded plenty of Gary’s chicken-scratchings. She glanced through it, and for the most part, his notes seemed to deal with upcoming episodes of the show.
Until she reached the last half-dozen pages.
Words leaped off the page at her. “...one of the greatest undiscovered treasures of our time...priceless...lost since 1795...best lead in decades, possibly ever...”
Whaaat?
She thumbed back a few pages to where the notes about this supposed treasure began. A string of bizarre sentences were painstakingly written down, with at least half the words crossed out and replaced by other words. And they seemed to be...a love letter?
Carrie frowned. The recipient was someone named Pierre. She knew for a fact that Gary wasn’t gay. He was a hound dog after the ladies and had never wavered in that. So who was this Pierre guy? Honestly, the language sounded feminine and old-fashioned. My beggared eyes weep for the beauteous wealth of your soul and my paupered heart yearns to beat in your presence.
Nope. Definitely not Gary’s style. She thumbed forward in the notes. Something about the return of Louisiana to France from Spain. Clearly, this had to do with the treasure hunt.
Which was unlike him, truth be told. Granted, Gary’s work often involved historical tales and events, but the guy was no deep professor of history. He learned just enough to shoot the show and not one fact more.
The last annotation in the notebook was, “Stopped p 16, 6-1802. Arrived in New Orleans.”
Confused, she laid the notebook down. The duffel bag appeared empty and she pulled it close to repack it. It thunked down onto the metal floor of the van and she frowned.
The bag was made entirely of canvas. The metal buckles hadn’t made that sound. She turned the bag over to look at the bottom and it was plain canvas, too.
She turned the bag inside out and stared at a seam that appeared to have a clever fold built into it. She pulled the fold of cloth back. A hidden zipper. A secret compartment?
What did Gary have to hide? Given that his apartment had been ransacked twice, he obviously had something of value that someone else wanted.
She unzipped the secret pouch sewn into the bottom of the bag and slipped her fingers into the crack. Something smooth and cool was in there. It had a sharp edge. Paper. Another, smoother edge. That felt like leather. A book?
Working carefully, she eased out a very old-looking leather-bound book with rough-edged parchment pages. She opened it gently and spied brown handwriting. A journal. A very old one, written in a cramped hand. The tiny writing wasn’t in English, either. She didn’t speak French, but she could guess based on the accents over letters.
Was this what got Gary kidnapped?
* * *
Bass glared at his cell phone and jammed it back in his pocket. Again.
Carrie still wasn’t answering his calls, and he had no idea where she was. He’d spent all afternoon cooped up in Gary Hubbard’s apartment with the crime scene guys trying to figure out why on earth some goons felt obliged to destroy the place. So far, no answer had emerged.
On a personal level, he was worried as hell about Carrie. She’d looked like a firing squad was waiting outside for her instead of a bunch of reporters. Yes, she was an adult, and no, he wasn’t responsible for her. But damned if it didn’t feel as if he ought to be. She’d had a hell of a rough few days, and she was all alone in this town.
On a purely professional level, she was still a suspect in a kidnapping investigation. She couldn’t just take off and not tell anyone where she was going. If she skipped town, she would be in even more trouble than she already was, and she’d looked fully panicked enough to bolt and leave New Orleans when she’d spotted all those cameras.
He hated to admit it to himself, but she was a definite flight risk.
Which chapped his butt, frankly. Hadn’t she found the incendiary attraction between them interesting enough to stick around and see where it went? God knew, he rarely felt something like that with any woman. He knew how unusual, how precious, it was.
What did she have to be afraid of from reporters with cameras? He knew full well why he couldn’t afford to be photographed. Not only did he work undercover as a cop from time to time, but as a SEAL, he seriously had to avoid his face being on public display. The police had spokespeople for a reason. It gave men and women like him a means of staying away from the press while someone else briefed journalists on high-profile cases.
“Hey, Bass,” one of the crime scene investigators called to him.
He moved over to the dresser the guy was kneeling down in front of. “What’s up?”
“There’s a false bottom in this drawer. Looks hastily made and recently installed, like someone was hiding something. See these scratch marks on the interior side of the drawer? They’re not deep and there aren’t many marks, so this fake bottom hasn’t been opened and closed more than a few times.” The guy lifted a thin piece of balsa wood out of the bottom of the drawer, revealing a maybe one-inch deep space. Empty, dammit.
“Maybe the ransackers found whatever was in there,” Bass suggested.
The crime scene guy shrugged. “I don’t think so. The fake bottom isn’t broken and was still in place when I found it. There’s no deep scratching in the interior of the drawer to indicate a violent removal. In my professional opinion, the intruders didn’t get whatever was supposed to be hidden in here.”
“Was the vic into drugs?” Bass asked no one in particular.
A young woman, a rookie to the Missing Persons Unit, piped up. “No evidence of any drug residue in here. Appears Mr. Hubbard drank a fair bit, though.”
Bass turned on the young woman. “Why do you say that?”
“He’s got misdemeanor drunk and disorderlies in a half-dozen cities.”
“What else did you find on him?” Bass asked.
“A bankruptcy a while back. Not long before he got the America’s Ghosts gig. Doesn’t do social media. Never married. Friends are mostly in the entertainment business. I found an article that described him as lacking any discernable talent, but hardworking.”
Bass grinned. “Ouch.” Then, “What about his email?”
“The lab still has his laptop.”
Bass pulled the rookie aside and murmured to her, “Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, B. Whatchya need?”
“Can you run a full background check on Carrie Price? She’s Gary Hubbard’s camerawoman and producer.”
“Already tried. It’s an alias.”
Bass stared at her. “Come again?”
“She’s got no history prior to three years ago when she started working on America’s Ghosts.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Nada. Zip. She doesn’t exist before she showed up on this show.”
“Then who the hell is she?” he burst out.
“You’re the one who’s all cozy with her. Why don’t you charm it out of her?” The rookie waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Carrie was a fraud? Who the hell was she and how in the hell had she conned him so convincingly?
“Keep digging. I need a name. Something concrete on her.”
“Will do, Bass.”
“Let me know the second you figure out who she really is.”
The rookie nodded, studying him a little too intently for comfort. Bass turned away cursing in a steady, silent, well and truly pissed-off stream.
Evening turned into night, and still there was no sign of, nor word from, Carrie.
He finally broke down and got on the police band radio in one of the squad cars parked out front. He tuned to one of the unofficial frequencies and said, “LeBlanc here. Has anyone seen a white van with New York plates in the French Qua
rter in the past few hours?”
Someone answered quickly, “I saw a van like that parked on a side street near Dauphine and Urseline about a half hour ago.”
“Thanks, man,” Bass replied. He jumped in his Aston Martin and headed for the northeast French Quarter. With every block that passed, his irritation grew more intense. Although whether it was directed at Carrie—or whatever her name was—or at himself, he wasn’t sure.
She’d lied to him...and he’d fallen for it. She’d potentially impeded an investigation by not telling the truth, and now she was hiding from him. He ought to arrest her and let her spend a night in jail thinking about it—
There. He spied a pale shape down a dark side street. Her van. Cripes. This was one of the uglier parts of town. Gang activity and drug deals were frequent in this area, particularly after dark. He pulled a U-turn that would have been illegal were he not a cop and turned into the narrow street. He parked behind the van and got out of his car, stalking up to the driver’s side window with every intent of reading Carrie her rights and placing her under arrest—
She was crying.
The sight of her tears was a punch in the gut. It stopped him dead in his tracks. Then a burst of adrenaline shot through him, flinging him into full combat alert. What was wrong? Who’d hurt her? A need to commit violence, to protect her from harm, surged through him.
Sitting in the driver’s seat of the van with tears streaming down her face, she looked like a lost child. He knocked on the window and she jumped about a foot straight up in the air, reaching frantically for the van’s ignition before she recognized him and rolled down the window.
Good grief. She looked up at him with those huge, sad, brown eyes of hers, and his gut twisted like a rope of toffee folded over on itself. If he arrested her, he might as well kick a puppy while he was at it.
He exhaled hard, and that single breath whisked away his fury and frustration. “What’s wrong?” he heard himself asking in a much gentler tone than he’d planned.
“I tried to go home, but I couldn’t. Reporters were waiting for me and I have nowhere to go and Gary’s gone and I don’t know anyone except you and you’re a cop and you think I’m guilty and I don’t know what to do—”
