Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1)

by Jennifer Blake

  “I get the picture.”

  Trey chuckled. “What I’m trying to say is, I get it, too. Mandy acts tough, but she’s a softy inside. It’s plain stupid to think she’d kill anybody.”

  “Plenty of stupid people in the world.”

  “Too right.” Trey clapped him on the shoulder and then moved off, back toward the counter where Zeni was signaling that he was needed.

  Lance was still staring after him, bemused, when Beau came up behind him. “Trey trying to make amends for all the stuff he said against Mandy?”

  “Something like that.”

  “He lets his temper get away from him now and then, but he means well.”

  “Mandy’s the one he should be apologizing to.”

  “He might, if he didn’t think you’d take his head off.”

  “Who, me?”

  “The way you watch her, it could be dangerous to get too close.” Something more than teasing humor lay in the bright blue of his other knightly cousin’s eyes.

  “I don’t—” Lance stopped as he glanced toward where Mandy had been a minute ago, when he was talking to Trey. He scanned the room, but saw no sign of her slender shape or shining hair.

  “What is it?” Beau asked.

  “Where did she go?”

  Beau turned this way and that, craning to see. “She’s bound to be here somewhere. She can’t simply vanish.”

  Lance wasn’t so sure. His belly clenched at the thought of the two men who had left the coffee shop not so long ago. They, or someone like them, had taken Mandy before. She’d escaped that time, but what if she had to do it again?

  Zeni was winding her way through the tables not far away. “Hey,” he called. “Seen Mandy?”

  “Sure, she was here just now. What’s up?”

  “I don’t see her.” He didn’t see Granny Chauvin, either. They wouldn’t be so thoughtless as to go outside right now? Would they?

  “She was headed toward the back a minute ago. Maybe she went to the restroom. Want me to check?”

  He gave Zeni a look that demanded why she had to ask.

  “Right. I’ll do that little thing.”

  She spun on her heel and raced toward the short hallway where the restrooms were located. Slapping the door with the flat of her hand, she disappeared inside. Long seconds ticked past before she came out again. Face grim, she shook her head.

  Panic beat up inside Lance. He swore under his breath.

  “Call Tate,” he rapped out, meeting Beau’s eyes for a single instant before he started for the back room. “Tell him I need back up.”

  Everybody seemed to think he’d been watching Mandy too close, but they were wrong. He hadn’t watched her close enough.

  Chapter 19

  Granny Chauvin hovered in the doorway of the coffee shop’s back room. Her face was pale and her eyes looked huge in her lined face. Catching sight of Mandy, she put a finger to her lips then motioned for her to come. When she didn’t move at once, Granny beckoned again with a near-frantic signal.

  It never occurred to her to refuse the summons. The thing might look odd, but then nothing that had happened these last few days was normal. She owed Granny Chauvin so much. If she had some small personal emergency, then Mandy was glad to go to her rescue.

  “I’m so, so sorry, sweetie,” the elderly woman said, her voice quavering so it was hard to understand her. Taking Mandy’s wrist, she pulled her deeper inside the crowded back area with its head-high steel shelving stacked with goods, dim lighting and narrow corridor between the interior and exterior door. “I had to do it. If I didn’t, they said they’d walk out and start shooting, kill everybody in sight.”

  “Shut up!”

  Hard on that order, a heavyset khaki-clad figure stepped from behind the nearest shelf. He grabbed Granny Chauvin around the neck in a chokehold. Holding a handgun to her head, he dragged her away from the door and pushed it shut.

  In that same instant, the thinner construction worker stepped from the cover of a stacked metal shelf. The gun in his hand was trained on Mandy.

  The blood congealed in her veins. She stopped breathing. Shock began deep inside and radiated outward, making her hands shake and her knees feel unhinged.

  Two seconds later, it dissolved into the calm of defeat. She lifted her chin, looking the shorter man straight in the eyes. The hard, determined light she saw in his face was not encouraging, but she spoke anyway.

  “Granny did what you wanted. Now let her go.”

  “And have her screech the place down. Not on your life.”

  “She can’t—”

  “Not happening. Come on, babe, where is it? What have you done with it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie,” the other man said with a fast, slicing gesture of his free hand. “We’re in no mood for games.”

  “Honestly, I’ve no idea—”

  “The account numbers, that’s what. Caret swore you have them. Considering the shape he was in at the time, I say that’s it.”

  The simplicity of the hint at torture was horrifying. It suggested standard procedure that might be implemented again. Mandy moistened dry lips before she spoke.

  “Bruce never gave me any numbers.”

  The shorter man holding Granny Chauvin made a sound of disgust. “They are on that hair thing of yours, you idiot. Caret’s cell says it’s right here, right now. Get it for us or Granny will meet her maker earlier than expected.”

  “You mean my hair clasp,” Mandy said in sudden comprehension. “But it has no numbers.”

  “Caret was cute. They’re written on the gold part.”

  “But it’s so tiny.”

  Granny made a rasping noise, as if the arm across her throat was interfering with her breathing. “If they can engrave the Bible on the head of a pin, dear…”

  She had a point. Whether she was right didn’t matter. The important thing was that the two men believed it.

  “Let Granny go and I’ll get the clasp for you,” she said as firmly as she was able.

  “You’ll do it no matter what. Now!”

  What choice did she have? She’d stalled as long as she could in hope someone would come into the back room. It hadn’t worked. She could hold out a little longer, or she could give the men what they wanted and hope they would be satisfied. Nothing else came to mind.

  “I don’t have the hair clasp on me,” she said with care.

  “We figured that out from the signal. But you know where it is. Hand it over.”

  The clasp was most likely still in Zeni’s apron pocket, the one she was wearing this minute. To get it, Mandy would have to entice her into this situation where she might be killed.

  She couldn’t do that, not and live with herself. Yet what did that leave?

  Her lips trembled a little at the corners when she opened them to speak. “I think—it may be in the pocket of the apron hanging there by the back door.”

  “Get it.” The taller of the two men stepped back a pace to allow her room.

  “Honey,” Granny said with a warning note in her gravely old voice.

  Mandy suspected she intended to remind her it was likely she would be killed when she gave the men what they wanted. Granny didn’t realize they were both going to die, anyway, unless something happened. She also didn’t know she was still playing for time.

  She took a step, and then another. She skimmed past the handgun in the thin man’s hand, watching with her lashes shielding her eyes as its black bore followed her every move. Her hand trembled as she reached for the apron on its hook. She closed her fingers around it.

  Something weighted one side. Disbelief held Mandy immobile for a second. Then she dipped her hand into the pocket and pulled out the hair clasp.

  “About damn time,” the hatchet-faced man said on a snort. He reached over her shoulder for the piece. Shorty released Granny Chauvin and started toward them.

  Mandy let go of the tortoiseshell clasp.
Its gold decoration and polished shell shimmered and gleamed as it tumbled end over end toward the floor.

  Hatchet-face swore. His aim wavered as bent down, grabbing for the bauble.

  Mandy shoved him with every ounce of her strength. He stumbled backward, arms flailing as he bowled into his partner. The two of them went down.

  Mandy lunged toward Granny Chauvin. Snatching her around the waist, she spun with her toward the door into the coffee shop.

  “Stop! Stop or you’re dead!”

  It was the heavyset thug. His weapon was trained on them both as he grabbed a shelf and pulled to his feet.

  Mandy skidded to a halt.

  Before she stopped moving, the door ahead of her crashed open.

  Lance burst through and whipped to one side. Feet set in shooting stance, both hands supporting his sidearm, he shouted in hard command. “Drop your weapon!”

  “Well, well.” Hatchet-face got to his feet with the hair clasp in his hand. He slouched down the narrow aisle toward where Mandy and Granny Chauvin stood, snide satisfaction spreading over his face. “Looks like we got us a Mexican Standoff.”

  Mandy had seen that situation in western movies. This was different. Mere millimeters of movement by the finger of either man could spell the difference between life and death.

  The air was too thick to breathe. Not a sound broke the quiet inside the back area, though voices and music filtered in from the coffee shop.

  Granny Chauvin recovered first.

  Jerking around, she swiped the hair clasp from the hatchet-faced guy’s slack grasp. “That’s not yours, buddy boy!”

  All hell broke loose.

  The rear door slammed against the wall as Trey burst through with a double-barrel shotgun raised and ready.

  Beau and Sheriff Tate poured around him on either side, weapons drawn.

  A shot rang out.

  Mandy grabbed Granny around the waist and hit the concrete floor. She rolled with her as Lance had with her not so long ago. They jarred to a halt underneath a steel shelf as more shots blasted the air.

  Plaster exploded in every direction. Glass shattered, raining down. A man yelled. Another grunted. The smells of gun powder and dill pickles filled the room.

  The commotion stopped as quickly as it began. Quiet fell like a lofted blanket settling to a mattress.

  The sheriff swore. Snatching off his Stetson, he threw it on the floor with a solid plop. “Damn it all, Lance,” he said in fuming exasperation. “I guess you know you’re on administrative leave again!”

  Lance didn’t give a damn about the leave, the sheriff, the perps or anything else. Jamming his weapon into his holster, he tossed his cuffs to Trey who had disarmed the thin-faced man, stepped around Beau who was checking the vital signs of the one he’d shot. Two long steps, and he was kneeling beside Mandy and Granny Chauvin.

  “Mandy? You okay? Mandy?” He ran his hands along her arm and shoulder in a hasty search for injury.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” Her voice was strong, though not quite even. “But I think—Granny is trembling all over.”

  “Here, let me.” He eased Mandy from under the shelving and helped her to stand. Then he scooped Granny Chauvin out and lifted her against him. His heart seized up inside him as he felt the tremors that wracked her frail body.

  “Beau,” he yelled. “Over here!”

  “Oh, my!”

  At that tickled yet impressed exclamation, he looked down again.

  Immediately, he relaxed.

  The redoubtable Miss Myrtle Chauvin was only laughing, half from nerves, half from unalloyed satisfaction at being in the middle of the action.

  Twinkling up at him, she rubbed the hair clasp she still held back and forth across the wall of his chest. “Just look here at me, being fussed over by all three Louisiana Knights. Why, this is the most fun I’ve had in years!”

  Bedlam transpired for the next several minutes. Zeni and a gang of customers crowded in to see what the noise and excitement was about. An ambulance pulled up beyond the back door with lights flashing, and EMTs carried the injured perp away. Deputies stuffed the second man into a patrol car and took him off to jail.

  After that, Sheriff Tate cleared things out in short order. When the coffee shop was empty of all except Trey and Zeni, Lance and Mandy, Beau and Granny Chauvin, the parish’s elected sheriff pulled out a chair from a table and sat down. Dropping the hat he’d retrieved from the floor over the napkin dispenser and ketchup in the center, he heaved a wheezing sigh.

  “Okay, folks, let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  Zeni gave him a look with one eye half closed before turning back to the river of red-tinted pickle juice on the floor of the back room behind her. “What we have is an unholy mess.”

  “It can wait,” Trey told her.

  “Says you, boss man,” she returned at once. “You don’t have to clean it up.”

  The sheriff kicked a couple of chairs from under the table by way of invitation for them all to sit. “Later, if you don’t mind, Zeni. Folks?”

  Lance had an idea of what was coming. He sat anyway, after holding chairs for Granny Chauvin and Mandy.

  “What I want to know, first off,” the sheriff began, “is how long you all have known these goons were here, fouling up my jurisdiction, without letting me in on it.”

  It went downhill from there.

  Lance stepped into the role of spokesperson, since no one else seemed inclined. Besides, he had his ideas lined out in his head, and didn’t mind sharing them.

  “Trey noticed them a couple of days ago,” he said easily. “Turned out they were registered at the motel down the road, though under aliases. We talked to the desk clerk, collected fingerprints, tapped into their communication, and so on. I’d have gone through your office for the op but had no access—but the NOPD has searched Caret’s office, dug into his accounts and phone records since his disappearance became a murder investigation. I might have shared what I discovered, but other things got in the way.”

  The sheriff cleared his throat, a sign of his understanding those other things included his suspicion and arrest of Mandy. “And you found out what?”

  “Turns out the two that were here, as well as the guy still in the hospital after the parking lot incident, are known enforcers for the Dixie mafia. I was outside the door back there long enough to overhear them admit to killing Caret after forcing him to spill what he’d done with the money he’d skimmed from their accounts.”

  “What accounts would those be?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Lance answered. “But the whole thing seems to have started with the money Caret received to finance his political ambitions. That favor put him into debt to the wrong people. Granny first mentioned his lost senatorial bid, and turned out she was on to something.”

  “The man was an out and out crook,” Granny put in with a nod. “I never did like the look of him in his commercials.”

  Lance tipped his head in recognition of her judgment before he went on. “My guess is Caret resented being forced to use his legal expertise to benefit men he felt were beneath him. He cultivated them, however, and managed to penetrate their financial system. Once in, he apparently siphoned off millions using minute electronic transfers from gambling operations, credit card scams, immigrant trafficking, you name it.”

  “Gutsy of him to even try that,” Trey said from where he sat lounged back at ease in his chair.

  “Or stupid, however you want to look at it.”

  Mandy gave a small shake of her head. “Bruce always believed he could think circles around everybody else. He used to say he was the most intelligent man he knew.”

  “If he had that kind of money, why didn’t he leave the country while he could?” Beau asked, his gaze on Mandy.

  “Nothing he said or did suggested he had it. But saying it’s true, I’d guess taking it was the main point, to prove he was smarter while making them pay for his expertise.”

  “And considerin
g the good opinion he had of himself, no amount was ever going to be enough,” Lance said. “Meanwhile, records show he stacked it up in offshore bank accounts, mainly in the Cayman Islands, accounts which could only be accessed by a series of number codes. To avoid a paper trail, so it seems, he had the bright idea of engraving the codes on a tortoiseshell hair clasp he bought for Mandy.”

  “Dear me, this pretty thing?” Granny dropped the clasp on the table with a clatter.

  The sheriff reached out and picked it up, squinting as he turned it back and forth. “Seems a chancy way of doing things.”

  “It would have been, except he also had a miniature tracking device added. He meant to know where that clasp was at all times.”

  Zeni snorted. “And his wife, too.”

  “Exactly,” Lance said with a twist of his lips. “He was possessive to the point of mania already, and this deal just added to it. But the trick put Mandy in danger once Caret’s former business associates beat the info out of him.”

  Beau sat back in his chair. “So that’s how they were able to track down you two every time.”

  “You got it. I thought for a while Mandy might be leading them to us.” Lance met her gaze, holding it with an effort. “I was wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her smile was brief, but clear enough that he felt the lift of guilt he hadn’t known he was carrying.

  “You were actually right,” Trey pointed out. “It was the method that threw you off.”

  “Not that it matters a hill of beans,” Zeni said in stringent tones. “Go on, Lance.”

  It was a moment before he could gather his thoughts again. “Anyway, it appears the mafia discovered the drain on their accounts, and wanted their money back. Mandy knew how to get it for them, or so they thought. They tried kidnapping her, but that didn’t work. She went into hiding then, but was tracked to the safe house once they figured out Caret’s method. Killing her for the info seemed an okay deal.”

  “Shooting you to get to her didn’t bother them overmuch, either,” Beau said, his face grim.