He wasn’t going to make it. He didn’t have a chance to angle enough in the catwalk’s direction before he’d leapt, and he was going to fall four stories.
Bobbie Faye jerked off her purse from across her chest, her stupid, cheap, holy shit, please hold up purse and looped it out toward him and he grabbed it. She fell backward onto the grating, his momentum pulling her forward and she planted her feet on a crossbar to brace against his falling weight. He dangled there, below her. Thank you for not smoking crack that day, dear anonymous purse-seam person, and doing a double-stitch like you were supposed to.
She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see a man’s fingers before—bloody, scraped, but gripping the catwalk grating, and he maneuvered until he could swing himself up onto the structure next to her. Another pocket of grain roiled in a new blast, and it was as if the world had decided to catch fire; the other silos stood by, silent bombs begging to blow. Their catwalk canted to the left; the last explosion had ripped apart some of the framework below. One of the poles that should have held it in place was loose from the metal walkway, but still cemented into its base below, like a very long fireman’s pole.
“We’ve gotta take this, slide down,” he shouted above the roar of the fire.
Sliding. Down. Why was she always plummeting to her death? She should have gone into accounting. Accountants very rarely plummeted to their deaths. That was a real perk they ought to be putting in those accounting description courses in college.
Trevor didn’t give her a chance to answer (probably a wise decision). He went first, and she gripped the metal pole and stepped out over forever and slid. When he caught her at the bottom, she didn’t even have time to relish being alive as the silo on the other side of the first one to burn erupted into flames.
Ce Ce and Monique sat outside an opulent office in one of the few high-rise buildings in Lake Charles (four floors) where they waited for Neil, the insurance agent who had assured Ce Ce that the company would be cutting her a check that day. Between them on the little coffee table sat the leftover blue gel in the container. Ce Ce hunched forward, nervous, wringing her hands with every spike and wiggle and rotation the gel made inside its plastic prison. Tied psychically to Bobbie Faye for as long as she was covered with a part of it, it looked like a demented hurricane, flipping and spinning and thrashing and contorting in on itself.
“That’s a little scary,” Monique whispered, her eyes darting to the secretary a few feet away, who watched the blue goo with stark terror. “Does it always do that?”
“Not that I’ve ever seen, hon, but then, I haven’t ever used the gel with Bobbie Faye. It’s supposed to be okay as long as I keep it separated from her—if it’s too close, it tries to get to the person it’s tied to and that makes it volatile; it can explode.”
Monique knitted her brows together as the container hopped across the table and the secretary fled the room. “I think it’s trying to escape.”
“It’s taking all of the bad karma aimed at Bobbie Faye and absorbing it away from her.”
The container flipped over on its side and started sliding across the table.
“Man, that girl has the stinky jinx all over her.”
“Which worries me. The gel has a fairly short life span if it’s put through too much, and at the rate she’s needing protection, I don’t know if it’s going to last. I’m going to have to find a backup spell.”
“Ce Ce?” a voice said next to them, and they looked up at the beautifully suited man standing there, smiling. She had to blink twice to recognize him as the demoralized, bland, nearly invisible agent who’d been in her store yesterday.
“Neil?” Ce Ce asked, then suddenly remembered: she’d given him the power of yes in a potion the day before. She’d given the power of yes to an insurance salesman. Oh, heavens, what evil had she created?
Cam saw the silo explode as they flew in and pain flared through his chest and down his left arm. Bobbie Faye was at that mill. Could she be near the explosions? Dear God. No.
All of the news helicopters backed off from the site as each concussive blast rocked them; any closer, they’d risk becoming part of the story. The PD helo landed in the long field across the road from the Landry front yard and he was out of his seat before the third silo blew. It was a madhouse on the ground. There was Reggie and her cameraman way too damned close. Everything was on fire. Cam turned and turned, scanning as much of the property as he could, looking over everyone’s head for Bobbie Faye. Fire trucks blared in and he saw his brother-in-law’s grim expression as he dismounted. Police cars followed, though one was already on scene. He jogged over to that car, noting they had several people corralled and were questioning them.
“We don’t know where she is,” the officer said once Cam explained who he was and who he was looking for. “We were working a DUI, but we heard the first explosion and we were first on scene. Some of these fine folks”—he indicated a group of disgruntled-looking people, some of whom were Bobbie Faye’s cousins—“were attempting to leave, so we’ve invited them to stay for questioning. All I’ve gotten so far is that Bobbie Faye was last seen heading for the silos, chasing after something. No one here seems to know what that was.”
Cam faced the shreds left of the silos. The largest seemed to have the most damage, though three others were burning as well. Was today the day? She was going to be twenty-nine tomorrow. He wondered if she knew he hadn’t forgotten. He always had something for her, even when they hadn’t been speaking. She’d always had something for him. He tried not to remember all of the times she’d joked that she wasn’t going to live to be thirty. She couldn’t even get that right—she wasn’t going to live to be twenty-nine.
There was nothing to hit, nothing to shoot, nothing to do but stand there and watch the whole useless world on fire.
* * *
From: JT
To: Simone
She blew up what? No. How the hell am I going to explain that one on the expense report?
* * *
Bobbie Faye and Trevor dodged past flaming pieces of silo and equipment and, as they sprinted around the last building, they saw the house. She couldn’t process what she was seeing and when her brain finally made sense of the images in front of her—the blaze that had been her family’s home—she didn’t think. She ran toward the back of the house, toward her aunts and uncle, until Trevor overtook her, picking her up, holding her back in spite of how hard she fought. He pulled her deep into the fields on the back side of the property, beneath another stand of trees, far from the sight of the house and the black smoke, and she kicked and hit and tried to twist out of his arms, and then she registered what he’d been saying: They’re gone.
“Gone?” All of her energy swamped away from her. Her despair flooded in its wake.
“Not dead. Out. I saw them leaving when I followed you away from the house.
She swallowed a knot in her throat, a deep ache in her chest. “This is my fault. I’ve destroyed everything. I destroy everything I touch.”
“No.” Trevor ripped the hem from his shirt and wrapped a makeshift bandage around her hand to stem the bleeding. “You didn’t start this, you didn’t ask to be here, and you sure as hell didn’t make them steal the photos from you or put a gun to your head in there. It sounded to me like your aunt had an idea of what was about to happen, though she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and if she didn’t stop it, how can you blame yourself?”
One of the FBI guys scared the bejesus out of her when he suddenly appeared next to them, though Trevor didn’t seem surprised.
“This is Yazzy,” Trevor said of the man whose nose and chin belonged on a man a foot taller. “He just arrived as backup.” Then to the man, “You called Bihari?”
“Yeah,” the man said, trying not to stare at Bobbie Faye. “She’s pissed. She thinks we’re making things worse, says we’re to find the diamonds her way. She wants you to bring Bobbie Faye in for questioning.”
“Tell her I s
aid ‘no.’ You can report you warned me, and cover your ass, but there are too many players and not enough time to stop and have a committee meeting. We have a lead and we’re going after it.”
Bobbie Faye knew he meant the photos, though she wasn’t sure they were a real clue, but she kept quiet. She’d rather chase around after a bogus clue than sit in the loving (ha) embrace of the FBI.
“It’s not just Bihari that’s the issue now,” Yazzy said. “She indicated HS was involved.”
“I know.” When he caught her puzzled expression, Trevor explained, “Homeland Security.”
“Crap. You mentioned them earlier and I got distracted. Why in the hell is Homeland Security following me around?”
“They probably think you’re working with MacGreggor,” Trevor said, and Yazzy blanched.
“You told her?”
“She saw him. We don’t have time to debrief—where are the keys?”
“You’re in way too deep, man,” Yazzy said as Bobbie Faye looked around to see what the keys Trevor requested might be for. Then she saw the motorcycle parked a half a football field away.
“How—”
“Backup plan,” Trevor said, cutting off her question. So that’s what he’d been texting on their way to the mill that morning. “And I’m fine,” he said, addressing Yazzy’s comment. But there was something about the way they glared at each other that didn’t really scream “fine” and she looked back and forth.
“He’s not supposed to get involved emotionally with a Confidential Informant,” Yazzy said, not taking his eyes off Trevor. “Jeopardizes the whole case, not to mention it’s illegal.”
“Unless it’s been cleared that there was a relationship before she became a CI,” Trevor said, his voice strained with fury. “Which I did.”
“When?” she asked.
“The evening after your brother was kidnapped.”
Her head spun. She was exhausted, bleeding, she ached in places she hadn’t known could hurt, and she ought to be thinking about a million other things instead of Trevor’s timing. Maybe she was just too damned numb to process anything else, because all she could do was watch Trevor’s expression and think about that timing.
That was after their first melt-her-clothes-off kiss, but long before their conversations. Before she’d even thought he might really want to date her. So the question was, how does a man know to notify his superior that there’s a relationship, when there isn’t one yet? He could only do that if he planned to start one. But . . . why? After all, the only thing they’d done, interaction-wise, was blow up parts of the state and nearly get themselves killed. Which meant that the next question was, did he plan to start one because it was something he wanted to do, or because having a relationship with her was merely an extension of his undercover work and his surveillance? How far ahead had he known about these diamonds and that note in Marie’s day planner?
She was losing the little fractured pieces of what was left of her mind . . . because if she couldn’t tell what was truth vs. a lie, how could she trust her own instincts after this?
“The helicopters are landing,” he continued, “and we’ve got to get out of here. The last thing she needs is to be plastered on TV right now or arrested. Keys.”
Trevor held out a hand and, for a minute there, Bobbie Faye thought the other agent was going to refuse. He finally handed Trevor a set of keys before he spun and ran off toward the house and sirens.
She crossed her arms, hiding her shaking hands. It was all too much to comprehend, especially with a fire raging. She focused, instead, on Trevor, on his sure movements toward the bike, on the certainty in how he put his hands on the small of her back.
“Do you always have a backup plan?” How much is seducing me a part of that? she wanted to ask. It was right there, tip of her tongue, jumping on the edge of the diving board, too freaking scared to go ahead and attempt that half-gainer into the water. Bravery scuttled back off the board and hid under a towel and Self Mockery was having a stellar moment, making clucking noises.
“Not when it comes to you.”
Trevor pulled her to him, and she rocked against the hard planes of his body, which was just so wrong to think about with everything going on around them, but felt so freaking good.
They were a pair. Both cut and bruised, bloody and standing alone in the world, all sound falling away; she trumped him with the blue dye, but he had burns and scrapes that tied her in the crazy-looking department. He didn’t seem aware of any of it. Instead, he kissed her, lacing one hand through her hair, and the kiss was gentle, startling her. She leaned back to see that same expression of fear and hunger and loss and something else, something more, like he’d had when she went over that catwalk rail. He kissed her again, savoring, she thought, melting into his lead. He kissed like a man who’d made up his mind, who knew what he wanted, and never in her life had she been kissed like this. Thorough. So very thorough, she forgot completely where they were or what had happened. She forgot that she was standing there, bloody, aching, heart breaking for her family—forgot everything but his mouth tasting her, tears mixed in their kiss. Forgot everything except his hands, gentle in her hair, her body pressed the length of his. And then they heard the click of another freaking gun.
The voice, that cold-blooded Irish sonofabitch voice, said, “Which just fuckin’ proves you can depend on women to fuck you up. I think we’ll take her from here.”
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
FROM THE DESK OF JESSICA TYLER (JT) ELLIS
ASSISTANT TO THE UNDERSECRETARY OF THE UNDERSECRETARY OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ASSISTANT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HOMELAND SECURITY
NEW ORLEANS, LA
Re: progress report stats
(to be filed under field notes, personal, only)
Textiles which originated with Marie Despré to be seized for suspicion of acting as a method of smuggling diamonds. Textiles include but are not limited to: purses, belts, shoes, and accessories. Please note that suspect’s other hobbies in clude sculptural art—all known pieces are to be searched, galleries plus private collections. Various offices around the country, including FBI, tasked to help.
Twenty-two
Aiden glanced at his boss to his right as they all—he, Sean, Mollie, and Robbie—held guns on the couple. More accurately, they held their guns on Bobbie Faye, whose back was to them. Special ops, Sean had said when they saw the guy bail out of the silo and keep Bobbie Faye from falling to her death. Needs to die had been all he’d said after that, which sucked for the spec ops guy, because when Sean wanted ’em dead, they ended up dead.
The man looked over Bobbie Faye’s shoulder at them, poker-faced, though Aiden knew he had to be pissed off for letting them sneak up on him; had he not stopped to kiss her, they might not have found ’em in time.
“You don’t want the girl shot,” Sean said, smiling, “so let her come over here and I’ll return her when I’m done wit’ her.” The man couldn’t draw his gun on them without putting her in immediate harm’s way, so Aiden and Robbie swept out from Sean; spec ops was as good as dead as soon as she stepped away. “Or,” Sean continued when neither of them moved to comply, “I can hurt her and make her work t’rough the pain. Your call.” Sean let his gaze drift over her backside and he grinned as she turned slightly and looked over her left shoulder, her right hand still around the man’s waist.
“I thought you wanted me to find the diamonds and bring them to you. Why the change?”
“Let’s jus’ say I’m not happy with everyone slowin’ you down, álainn.”
“I think,” the ops guy said, “that you’re asking for a lot more trouble than you realize. She’s a handful.”
“There you go again,” Bobbie Faye said, and Aiden saw anger flash, and something else as she recoiled away from the man, “always insulting me to the bad guys the split second things . . .” she whirled, throwing a knife, “. . . get nasty.”
Fuck, the woman was talented with kniv
es, and the ops guy always had one . . . they’d forgotten that in their satisfaction of having them cornered and outnumbered. Aiden heard Robbie’s muffled groans and realized the woman had impaled his right shoulder against a tree. And in the moment they’d all followed the knife’s trajectory, the ops guy had his gun out, shooting, winging Mollie, and everyone scrambled. Aiden popped a few shots in the couple’s direction, but he couldn’t get a bead on the asshole ops guy without killing the woman, and Sean didn’t want her dead.
Yet.
The woman had a Glock—fuck—grabbed from her purse as she and the ops guy shot back, the ops guy managing to nick Aiden in his side and leg. They hurt like a sonofabitch, but it wasn’t fatal, and at least the injuries weren’t to the point of leaving him lame, because the last thing he wanted was to be a drag on the team and hear Sean humming “There’s a Hole in My Bucket.”
The gunfire drew one of the news helicopter’s attention and it flew toward them. They didn’t have time to stay and grab the woman here.
“Regroup,” Sean commanded, seething.
Cam scrutinized the chaos at the mill, knowing there was nothing useful for him to do. One of the first responding officers jogged over to him—Luke James, good kid, fresh out of the academy.
“Sir, no one seems to know where Miss Bobbie Faye is. But they seem . . . odd.”
Girls Just Wanna Have Guns Page 21
