by Liz Talley
“Right,” Annie said, rehoisting her bag onto one shoulder and moving toward the open doorway.
“I’m serious about the massage. I’ve studied tension points in the body,” the older woman called. “Your aura is deep red. You need untangling.”
Annie turned around. “Untangling?”
The older woman smiled. “Or maybe a mint julep?”
“Who are you? And do you really serve mint juleps on the veranda down here? I thought that was a touristy trick.”
“Ah, maybe. I prefer good bourbon straight up, myself. Oh, and we call it the porch.”
“Me, too. On the bourbon.” Annie stuck her hand out. “I’m Annie Perez, Spencer’s nanny.”
The older woman smiled, but didn’t move toward Annie. She flowed into another position. “You don’t seem like a nanny.”
Unease pricked at Annie’s nape. “Yet I am.”
The older lady unwound, placing both bare feet on the planks of the porch. She took Annie in from head to toe. “I’m Picou Dufrene and this is my home. Welcome to Beau Soleil, Annie Perez.”
The woman seemed to possess the uncanny ability to see beyond the outer wrapping. Most people saw a young Hispanic woman and put her in a category. For the past few weeks, no one questioned her being the worst nanny to ever hold the position. Annie walked to the rail of the porch and rubbed a finger along the spidering paint as she surveyed the wide span of lawn with its moss-draped twisted oaks and allowed the romance of the place to seep into her bones. Maybe Louisiana wouldn’t be so bad for the next month. It wasn’t palm trees and balmy ocean breezes, but its earthy beauty tugged at the soul. Plus, the quirky Picou Dufrene interested her. “Thank you, Mrs. Dufrene.”
“It’s Picou.”
“Annie! You gotta see this!” Spencer exploded onto the porch, nearly tripping over himself. Annie put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Slow down,” she said, pulling his little hand into hers.
“I saw a bear!” His brown eyes danced with excitement.
Picou’s laugh was smoky. “That’s Chewie. My son Nate named him after the wookiee in Star Wars.”
Annie allowed Spencer to tug her toward the house. “I’m hoping this one is stuffed?”
Picou gave her a secret smile. “One can never be too sure at Beau Soleil. What seems benign can sometimes bite.”
Picou’s words followed Annie into the house, dancing around her mind, making her wonder if the kooky owner had some otherworldly sense about life and the people who trudged through it. Annie didn’t believe in magic hoo-ha crap, but she knew from her late grandmother some people were more perceptive than others. Or maybe merely more observant.
Better to heed Picou’s words and trust no one. Spencer’s life might depend on it.
CHAPTER THREE
NATE DUFRENE WATCHED Sandi Whitehall hurry out of the liquor store with two bottles of grain alcohol and a carton of Marlboros. Not good. Paul was drinking again and that meant the next day Sandi would likely be wearing heavy makeup and moving slowly. Not that the woman would ever admit to her husband beating the crap out of her every time he fell off the wagon. The whole damn town knew about the Whitehalls, but he couldn’t do anything if Sandi wouldn’t press charges. Which she wouldn’t.
He shook his head and watched the traffic creep by, nearly everyone braking when they caught sight of him sitting in the borrowed sheriff’s cruiser under the truck-stop sign advertising cigarettes, video poker and boudin. It was almost comical.
His mind flipped back to the brunette in the rental who’d pulled out of Breaux Mart a few hours before. She’d known he was law enforcement even if he’d been in his unmarked. He’d seen it in her expression as she’d pulled by him.
At first he’d thought her a regular soccer mom, replete with a rug rat in the backseat, properly restrained, until he’d caught sight of the rental tag. Of course, nothing wrong with renting a car for a trip. But still, she’d given off a strange vibe, and it had raised a flag in his awareness. Likely she was halfway to Alexandria or Lake Charles by now, heading to Grandma’s house or something equally harmless.
He settled into the seat and closed his eyes. He hated sitting out here, but Buddy Rosen’s wife had unexpectedly delivered a baby boy early that morning. Nate had “gifted” them with covering Buddy’s shift for the afternoon even though he’d sworn he’d never sit in a patrol car again. It hadn’t seemed like such a sacrifice until he’d had to change a flat tire on the drive from West Feliciana parish and then discovered Buddy had been assigned to watch a four-way. So much for his day off.
His cell phone rang.
Picou.
He sighed. “Dufrene.”
“I know very well who you are. I called, didn’t I?”
He sighed again.
“Get over here right now.”
His mother sounded winded. Panicky. He hadn’t caught it in her initial greeting but now his Spidey senses kicked in. “Why?”
“The boy has gone missing.”
“The boy? What boy?”
His mother sucked in a breath. “The director’s son. His nanny took a shower while Tawny was playing with him, but then Tawny got a call and went to another room. When she came back, he was gone. Just hurry.”
The phone clicked. She’d hung up.
Nate started the cruiser, but didn’t put the lights on. His mother had good reason to overreact to a missing child, a fact well-known to the Bayou Bridge Police Department and the Sheriff’s office. She’d called in his younger brother Darby as missing many times over the course of his childhood. This boy had probably done what most little boys do—traipsed off into the woods to explore or play a game of hide-and-seek in the many rooms of Beau Soleil. But, still, some children didn’t come home.
Just like Della.
Regret hit him hard, as it always did. Her disappearance had been partially his fault. But he didn’t want to think about that February day no matter how much it stayed with him, like Peter Pan’s shadow sewed onto his conscience.
Della. Gone. His fault.
He glanced down at the manila folder sitting in the passenger’s seat as he pulled onto the highway and headed toward his childhood home. Another detective had handed it to him when he’d left the station that morning, but he’d yet to open the file. Instead he’d allowed it to sit like a ticking bomb, afraid it would explode and crack the thin layer over the wound festering for the past twenty-four years. He refused to watch his mother crash and burn all over again. Because even though he was a big, tough St. Martin Parish detective, his mother’s tears brought him to his knees.
Never again.
His murdered sister was gone and there was little sense in digging it up again. Every other lead over the past had played out, and this new wrinkle would, too. But following up was his job—for both his family and this girl asking questions.
He shrugged off the burn between his shoulder blades and increased his speed, hugging the twisting road. He’d not been to Beau Soleil in over a week. Not since the gypsy had visited Picou. Or was it a mambo? Either way the woman had given him the creeps. For one thing she was blind, and for another, she looked like one of the witches from Macbeth.
Huckster. That’s what she was. Had his mother believing all sorts of nonsense about setting suns, righting wrongs, and prophesies about birds or some such crap. Picou’s quest for answers was ridiculous. He could tolerate the occasional trip to Baton Rouge to consult a palm reader because that incorporated a visit to her cardiologist, but bringing those sorts of people out to the house crossed the line.
The gates greeted him before he bumped down the long, winding drive faster than normal. He needed to seem as if he were in a hurry. Otherwise, he’d hear about it for the next few weeks. The Arch Angels Feast Day was coming up and he’d been hoodwinked by the parish priest into serving on the church’s committee, so there’d be no escaping Picou, who was the chairwoman of the celebration.
He rounded the corner and saw her. No
t his mother. Or the actress. But the woman from the rental car he’d seen outside the Whiskey Bay gas station.
She stood calmly in the center of chaos, hair damp, brow furrowed. All around her people scurried, left, right and in circles, calling out and craning their heads in that universal motion signaling something lost.
In this case—a child.
He rolled to a halt and climbed from the car.
“Oh, Nate, thank heavens!” Picou called, drawing the attention of the people milling about. The woman who he now assumed was the freshly showered nanny caught his gaze. Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t move.
A well-endowed blonde tumbled toward him, and he recognized her from the pictures in the local newspaper.
“Oh, God, please help us. My baby. He’s gone!”
He placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder as much to keep her from crashing into him as to hold her up. “Okay, Mrs. Keene, take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
The blonde burst into tears, shaking her head and swiping at the streaking mascara on her cheeks. Her thin shoulders shook and she covered her face with both hands and sobbed. The presumed nanny stepped forward and took the actress’s elbow. “Go sit down, Tawny. I’ll talk to the deputy.”
Her voice was nice. Kind of low and gravelly. It had quiet authority, probably from all the nannying she did.
Tawny nodded and allowed a pale Picou to lead her away. Nate looked hard at his own mother. She looked shaken and he felt every tremble of her hand as it stroked the actress’s back. His mother’s clouded eyes met his and he tried to convey reassurance in his nod, but as usual, he failed to comfort her.
He turned his gaze back to the nanny.
“I’m Annie Perez,” she said, stepping forward without extending a hand, as if recognizing the situation didn’t call for niceties but rather expediency. “I work for the Keenes as Spencer’s caretaker.”
People still scrambled around them. Many looked to be part of the production crew, if their sweaty T-shirts and baggy parachute shorts were any indication. He would expect the nanny to be searching desperately, but she wasn’t. Her calm struck him as peculiar.
“Lieutenant Nate Dufrene.”
“Dufrene?”
“Picou’s my mother.”
“Oh.”
“Time is of essence…”
She stiffened. “Right. Tawny took Spencer to her room to spend some time with him. She said he fell asleep while she read to him, so she stepped out to make a phone call. When she hung up, he was gone. I’ve searched the rooms on the second floor, top to bottom.”
“Closets? Bed—”
“Thoroughly,” Annie interrupted, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. Sweat beaded her upper lip, reminding him to wipe the sweat from his own forehead. Too hot for mid-September.
“The first floor?”
“Your mother and Mr. Keene searched the bottom floor—”
“Third floor?” he interrupted.
“The housekeeper—I’ve forgotten her name—and the production assistant are searching now. Mr. Keene brought some of the crew to search the grounds and outer buildings.”
“Lucille.”
She frowned. “What?”
“The housekeeper’s name is Lucille.” He realized that had nothing to do with the task at hand. “What about personal security? Does Keene have it?”
“His name is Brick, but he was with Carter on set. He’s out there searching now,” she said, with the slight lift of her shoulder. Any other time and he would have thought it sexy, but not in the middle of a crisis. Or that’s what he told himself.
“Where do you think the child is?”
“If I knew, you wouldn’t be here.”
Okay, it had been a dumb question. “Best guess?”
“I don’t know. We had a long flight from L.A., and he could have gotten up to look for me or Tawny and fallen back asleep somewhere. He’s done that before, but if he dozed off elsewhere, it’s somewhere very strange.” She averted her eyes and he knew there was something she wasn’t saying. Something darker and more worrisome.
She started walking toward the door of the house. She didn’t invite him to follow. He followed anyway. She turned around. “You may want to talk to Mr. Keene. He’s in the kitchen on the phone with the FBI.”
“FBI?” Nate stepped inside the house. “The child has been missing for all of thirty minutes, why would Keene call the feds?”
“That’s not my place to say.”
“Humor me. There’s a child missing.”
He saw reason overcome duty. “Fine. The family has been receiving threats for the last several months, directed at Spencer.”
He studied her in the gloom of the entryway. Alert, no-nonsense and levelheaded, this woman seemed once again something more than what her job title hinted. “You sure you’re just the nanny?”
A flicker of something appeared in those quicksilver eyes. “What do you expect? A bodyguard? The Keenes have one of those.”
Her words didn’t drip with sarcasm, but it was there. She seemed offended he didn’t trust her. “Sorry. You don’t talk like a nanny and with the threats, other precautions might have been taken.”
Another lift of her shoulder. Again, kind of sexy. “Look, I’m just a former real-estate agent. The housing market sucks, and I needed a job. Besides, the only threats have been letters and, maybe, a rock through the production office’s window. Nothing to necessitate locking down the kid. The FBI is looking into it as a courtesy to Mr. Keene since he consults with them on his films. My job is to keep the kid with me when he’s not with his parents…something even a former real-estate agent can manage.”
He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching. He liked her prickly and smart-assed. Suited her. And made those mysterious gray eyes crackle. “Okay, I get the picture. So why aren’t you as concerned as everyone else?”
“Who says I’m not?” she challenged, lifting her chin. Her skin was smooth and golden, her cheeks broad and high. Her hair frizzed around her face, making her hard edges a bit softer. She was altogether an intriguing woman. “Do I have to run about like a chicken missing its head in order to be worried?”
“No.” Yes. Every woman he knew reacted in that way. Were real-estate agents any different?
“So I don’t panic. Won’t help find Spencer. Oh, and by the way, I don’t know what was in the notes they received. Only what I heard from the staff. You’ll have to ask Mr. Keene.”
She’d anticipated his next question. Odd.
He stood a moment watching her as she pushed through the swinging kitchen door. Then he followed and found Carter Keene, careworn and sweat-soaked, holding the corded phone Nate’s mother insisted on keeping. He spoke intently to whoever was on the other end of the line. When he saw Nate, he cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. The cavernous kitchen felt oppressive with the man’s apprehension. Nate preferred Annie’s calm assurance or Tawny’s wailing melodrama over the desperation in Carter Keene’s eyes.
“Nate? Thanks for coming. You know about the threats against Spencer in California?”
Nate nodded. “Ms. Perez told me a little.”
The former star of Miami Metro, now turned director, looked at Annie. “Tell him what he needs to know. I’ll join you out back when I finish talking to Agent Burrell.”
Annie gave Carter a look, as if communicating something. Were they involved somehow? With Carter’s former reputation, it wouldn’t surprise him. Nannies had to be easy plucking, but this one didn’t seem the type to dally with the boss.
Yet after ten years in law enforcement, nothing truly surprised him.
The nanny motioned Nate through the back door and onto the bricked patio as if she were the hostess of Beau Soleil. As if she were the one in charge. He bristled. This was his damned house. Okay, not his, per se, but his family’s. Something about this woman both soothed and rankled.
“Look, I need to call for backup. Do you know if Keene has talked to Blaine
Gentry about the situation?”
She shook her head and averted her gaze. “I don’t know who Blaine Gentry is.”
“The sheriff.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes searching the property behind the house. “What’s out there?”
She pointed to the horizon toward where the land sloped off toward the Bayou Tete. She also ignored his question.
“The bayou.” He combed his hand through his hair, wicking the sweat from his forehead. “So is the sheriff aware of this threat situation? He’s hasn’t mentioned it to our department. And is there anything you can tell me about Spencer that might help me? A special toy? Activity? Perhaps he did something naughty and doesn’t want to be discovered?”
Annie’s eyes glazed into thoughtfulness, and he could almost see the cogwheels in her mind turning. A furrow crinkled her forehead. She blinked once. Then twice. “You know, I think I know where he might have gone.”
“Where?”
“To see the alligators.”
“Alligators? We don’t…” His voice trailed off as she turned, breaking into a jog as her feet hit the thick grass of the lawn. He snapped his mouth closed. “Hey, where are you going?”
“He wanted to see a real alligator. I told him we’d find one later, but he’s not good at waiting,” she called back.
Nate jogged after her. “Surely he wouldn’t wander off with no one seeing him? To the bayou? By himself?”
“You don’t know children well, do you?”
He didn’t answer. No, he didn’t know children at all. Why would he? But he didn’t think a child could make it down the stairs, through the kitchen and across the wide lawn without making noise or at least one person seeing him. It didn’t seem plausible.
The distance to the bayou was a good piece. Thanks to numerous hurricanes, fallen oaks lay uprooted, their grotesque limbs stretching toward a cloudless sky, blocking their progress to the river. Finally they reached the edge of the property. “To your left.”
She veered, spying the worn path leading down the embankment toward the river. Her footing was steady, though the path was steep. All the while her eyes methodically searched the silted bank below.
