In five minutes, she’d gone from naked, warm, and wrapped in his arms, to dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt and jolted into a situation that she shouldn’t have to worry about. She’d slipped on a pair of boots that Gabe had seen by the door of the mudroom. With her dark hair even more tousled than usual, and her cheeks flushed from the cold and running, she looked both irresistible and too worried for his peace of mind, as her gaze bounced from Richie to Gabe, then back to Richie. Gabe’s stomach turned sour.
This was not the way she should be spending her first waking moments. Not today, after they’d first made love, which had been off-the-charts…hell.
“Richie’s here. Pic left.” Without her having to ask a question, Gabe replied to the concern in her eyes. “Figuring out details.”
“Hey, Andi,” Richie said. “Was just telling your goons that Pic went to see Monica, who was staying at my apartment. He was supposed to get back here around seven-thirty. Eight at the latest. Don’t get alarmed. I’d be late too if I was seeing my girl for the first time in months.”
Richie glanced at Gabe. “And I wouldn’t have had to make a big deal about this, but you guys have this place locked down tighter than death row. All I’m trying to do is go to my apartment to tell Pic to get his ass back here. If I hadn’t been locked in, none of you would’ve even known that he left.”
“We’d have figured it out when he returned, though,” Tyre mumbled.
“Probably. But given how easy it was to pull a switch on you,” Richie added, arching an eyebrow and pushing his stringy blond hair behind his ears, “maybe not. Anyway, Pic and me were operating on the theory that forgiveness is easier to get than permission.”
Brow furrowed, eyes glinting fire, Andi’s glance returned to Gabe. “You said Pic was sleeping. That Richie left. What the hell happened?”
“I screwed up.” Gabe owned it without hesitation. Because even though he wasn’t the one guarding the gate when Pic walked out, shit flowed uphill on jobs. Any mistake belonged to the agent in charge.
“Ma’am, it was my fault. Agent Hernandez was off duty.” Tyre had the sick-to-his-stomach look of a man who was ready to take what was due him. “As soon as the situation’s remedied, I’ll tender my resignation.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.” Gabe admired the restraint in her tone. The woman who had routinely fired agents on the job for far less than what Tyre had done wasn’t resorting to that impulsive action, proving that she was smart enough to know that a temper tantrum wasn’t going to produce the desired result.
“I know now that Pic left at five-forty-five a.m., dressed in Richie’s clothes,” Tyre said. “But at the time, I thought it was Richie who was leaving. They’re the same height. Similar builds. The kid wore a hoodie, which concealed most of his features. He was carrying Richie’s banjo, in its case, slung over his right shoulder. He even said ‘later, dude,’ in the same tone that Richie used when he walked in not one hour earlier—”
“Yeah,” Richie said. “We practiced that. Gotcha, huh?”
Tyre winced, as Gabe fought the urge to punch Richie’s nose into the back of his skull.
“By the time I let Pic, dressed as Richie, through the gate and went to check on what was happening in the guesthouse—” Tyre cocked his head towards Richie. “—this one was upstairs, sound asleep, under the covers, facing the wall. Snoring. I saw the top of his head. Hair color’s similar. Thought he was Pic. So that’s what I reported. Didn’t know any better until this one—” With a frown, he jutted his chin in Richie’s direction again. “—came knocking on the back door to the main house at zero eight thirty-five.”
Marks cleared his throat. “Sir. Ms. Hutchenson. I was in the security room. I saw exactly what Tyre’s describing. To me, it looked like Richie left. Absolutely nothing aroused suspicion.”
“Take a fucking chill pill,” Richie said. “You’ve been had. Get over it.”
Wrapping an arm around Andi’s stiff shoulders, Gabe’s mind raced down a highway that was far different than the one Richie was paving. If Pic left as observed under his own steam, and Gabe trusted Tyre and Marks enough to have faith in their observations, which indicated a voluntary departure, then the lack of a prompt return by Pic could mean nothing was wrong.
Except his always reliable gut was telling him otherwise.
Where the hell are you Pic? You wouldn’t worry Andi like this. Not on purpose.
“Come on guys.” Richie shoved his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. “This sure as hell wouldn’t be the first time a seventeen-year-old boy lost track of time when he’s getting some puss—”
“Go to Richie’s apartment,” Andi said, focusing one hundred percent of her attention on Gabe and interrupting Richie’s rant. Eyes alight with both anger and fear, Gabe caught a glimpse of the hell into which she was slipping. “Bring Pic back,” she insisted.
But my gut’s saying he won’t be there. Because Pic wouldn’t have done this to you. And I’m dying inside, because I know how hard you’re going to take it when you realize how wrong things are. If you haven’t already.
“I’ll find him,” Gabe answered. Goddammit. Forcing himself into calm, rational mode so that he could think, rather than react to the deep-from-within need to scoop her into his arms and tell her it was going to be okay, he tightened his arm around her.
“Richie,” Gabe said. “I’m assuming there’s no phone at your place?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Address?”
Richie shook his head. “Look. I’ll just go. No need for you to escort me.”
Releasing his hold on Andi, Gabe took an aggressive step closer to Richie, until their chests were six inches apart. Richie was five inches shorter and probably a good forty pounds lighter. He held Richie’s gaze and, to reinforce the message, squared his shoulders. He waited for the look of understanding to reach Richie’s blue eyes. When he saw it, he said, “You’re either going to give me the address now, or I’ll rearrange your face. One. Two—”
Richie spat out an address.
“Stevens, you copy?”
“Yes, sir.” Through his mic, Gabe heard Stevens clicking at the keyboard and mouse. “Location’s two point one miles from here. Sending you the most direct route via text.” As Gabe’s watch and phone both vibrated with the incoming directions, Stevens added, “And sending an alternate route. Streets are congested. Some French Quarter Streets, including Royal, are closed today. All day. Parades start early. Eleven a.m. Official routes run along Canal, on the opposite side of the Quarter from where we are.”
“Send it to Marks and Tyre. They’re going. I’m staying here. With Richie. We might need to have more of a conversation.”
“Gabe, I want you to go,” Andi said firmly, from behind him. “And I’m going, too.”
“No.” Not just no, but hell no. He wasn’t leaving and even if he was, he wasn’t taking her. “My men—”
“You. Pic trusts you.” The ‘I trust you’ was implied, and he felt her confidence down to his marrow.
Hell. One issue at a time. Transportation and game plan—first. Andi—after.
“Marks,” Gabe said, not budging from his ‘in-Richie’s-face’ vantage point, “go get the car.”
By the time Marks made it to the garage down the street, got in the SUV, pulled out, and returned to the corner, ten minutes would pass. Walking might be faster, but Gabe had the sinking feeling that Richie would do everything in his power to make it a long, slow walk, and he couldn’t very well walk the man through the streets at gunpoint, although the idea held a lot of appeal.
“Would be faster to walk,” Richie said, as Marks made his way out the door.
“Not asking for your opinion.” If things went as he suspected, and they didn’t find Pic at Richie’s apartment, then letting Richie flutter in the wind–seemingly free–would probably be more productive than holding him prisoner until Pic returned.
He typed a text to Marvin. ‘Availa
ble today for surveillance?’ He hit send, then said, “Tyre. Go upstairs in the main house. My room. Get my jacket and Glock.”
“You’ll be sorry,” Richie said. “French Quarter bars are cleaning up from last night’s party and getting ready for today’s. By now, delivery trucks are blocking streets. Takes a lot of beer to keep the bars full. It’s Mardi Gras, dude—”
“Shut up,” Gabe growled. He glanced back to where Andi stood, about three feet away.
She mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ proving that she was as sick of Richie’s bullshit as he was.
His phone beeped an incoming text. Marvin. ‘Yo. Available. Gimme deets.’
As Richie continued with a rant about how most people who lived in the area knew to park their cars and leave them parked from the Friday before Mardi Gras until Ash Wednesday, Gabe replied to Marvin via a text. He provided instructions to meet at the address Richie gave them, then follow Richie from there, wherever he went. He ended the message with an all capped warning, ‘BE INVISIBLE.’
While Gabe sent the text, Richie continued, “I’m telling you, dude. Walking would be faster. Today’s when the real party begins and given that they’re shutting down more streets earlier this year, it’s going to be gridlock out there. If you were local, you’d know that. Everyone in the city’s on the move. And up until about eleven, liquor delivery and trash trucks will block traffic in and all around the Quarter. It’ll take—”
Gabe opened his right hand, reached out, and collared Richie while he pushed the guy to the wall. Feeling and hearing the satisfying thud of the guy’s skull as it smacked the brick, he kept a lock on Richie’s skinny neck, digging his fingers into his throat as the man gagged. Gabe added pressure from the heel of his palm into his Adam’s apple. When Richie got over his surprise enough to start clawing at him, Gabe swiped his hands away with his free hand, pressing into Richie’s pale, white neck harder, until his face turned bright red and his eyes bulged. “When I say something, I mean it. You understand?”
Richie managed a tiny nod.
“Don’t say another word without my permission.”
Gabe let go. Richie, clutching his throat, collapsed against the wall, wheezing. Leaving the guy trying to suck in air, Gabe went to Andi, gripping her upper arms as she looked up at him. “You have to promise me that you won’t do anything foolish. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t want you to try to follow us. With or without an agent. Don’t, Andi. Promise me. I can only do my job finding Pic if I know you’ll be right here, safe and sound, when I get back with him."
Her jaw set. “Pic obviously isn’t thinking clearly. I—”
“No.” And before she argued, justified, or tried to coerce him into changing his mind, he said gently, “Not because you aren’t capable of handling the crowds and craziness out there—you are.” It was a bit of a stretch, he knew, but she was better now than she’d ever been since the kidnapping. Didn’t matter how good she was. He still wanted her safely behind locked doors, with an agent on guard. Call him old-fashioned, but she was more than a client, and if anything happened to her… “But anyone on the streets right now could get hurt in the crowds, which are going to build throughout the day. Why put yourself into that kind of situation?"
Since her gaze told him exactly what she was about to say, despite his scare tactics, Gabe switched direction. “I won’t be able to concentrate on retrieving Pic if I’m worried about you every second we’re out there. Let me do my job, Andi. Stay here and rehearse what you’re going to say when he walks in and you ream him out for worrying us.”
She gave him a clear-eyed look. “I was about to say—before I was so rudely interrupted—I want you to be damned careful out there.” She brushed his jaw with her fingertips. “And thanks for that vote of confidence, even though we both know it’s not true. Go. Don’t look at me with that much worry in your eyes. I’m fine. Go. Just bring him back.”
Given Mardi Gras-related road closures throughout the Quarter and the traffic-congested streets that surrounded it, the straightest shot to the address Richie had provided on North Prieur Street was Esplanade Avenue. Vehicles on the narrow street traveled at a snail’s pace. Gabe, in the back seat with Richie as Marks drove, felt frustration ratcheting up his blood pressure. He’d left Tyre and Stevens at the house with Andi.
The day had changed from rainy to gray. Misty, but it wasn’t pouring. Pedestrians, some wearing jester’s hats, more wearing purple, green, and gold shirts, while some were in business suits, filled the sidewalks. People walked between traffic and cars that filled driveways, blocked sidewalks, and took up every possible inch of curbside parking. Everyone seemed to have a cup or a can in their hand, glistening beads draped around their necks, and broad smiles that proved the gloomy weather wasn’t bothering them.
“Looks like we’re the only people not going to a party,” Gabe mumbled, as his watch vibrated with an incoming call. His brother Zeus. He sent it to voicemail. Ragno had given him a solid clue that Zeus wanted information regarding the Hutchenson job. Given his brother’s ability to ferret out details, that conversation didn’t need to take place with an agent and Richie in the car.
As they waited at a red light where Bourbon met Esplanade, a woman wearing a costume of sheer rainbow swirls stepped into the street in front of their SUV.
Marks gave a low whistle. “Is she…”
“Yeah.” Gabe’s eyes traced blue, yellow, orange and red swirls of body paint. “Not wearing anything but primary colors.”
Richie did a low catcall of a whistle. “Toto, this ain’t Kansas. Friday’s a little early for the body-painted chicks, but it gets earlier every year. Happy Mardi Gras.”
“Why isn’t the paint dripping in the rain?” Marks asked.
She smiled, winked, and turned to them when she looked inside the vehicle. Preening, in all of her airbrushed, body painted glory.
Richie asked, “Is that a pot of gold on her…”
“Can that be legal?” Marks muttered. “It’s broad daylight.”
A man accompanying Rainbow Woman, dressed in a bodysuit that was spray-painted to look like a yellow-brick road, scowled at Marks through the windshield. Too bad it was hard to take him seriously. Gabe watched two police officers on horseback cross in the middle of the intersection. Their glance took the woman in, but then they moved away without breaking a smile. “Guess so.”
“Light’s long.” Marks drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, his gaze still fixed on Rainbow Woman. Four young men wearing Roll Tide sweatshirts, stood in freeze-frame in the middle of the intersection, staring at her.
The light turned green. A woman pulling a red wagon with two kids sitting in it was three paces behind Rainbow Woman and the congestion she was causing. Which meant she and her two children were in the crosswalk, in front of their SUV, which had the right of way.
“Come on. Get a fucking move on, people,” Gabe muttered.
Gabe glanced at Richie, who was hunkered down low. Richie arched his eyebrows. His smirk sent a silent I-told-you-so message. Just as Gabe started to think no one in this crazy-ass city would notice if he gun-prodded Richie through the streets, traffic started flowing.
Richie’s apartment was located on a commercial property that had parking for seven cars and a storefront with a large, solid commercial sign:
A-1 Dry Cleaners.
Delivering fresh-cleaned clothes and linens to the
New Orleans Metropolitan Area.
A large, cinderblock garage, with three solid doors, was attached to the storefront. A neatly hand-lettered sign attached to the front door indicated the business would be closed until Wednesday. Burglar bars covered every window. Signs that said, ‘Do Not Park Here’ were posted, ineffectually, all around the property. Parked cars were three deep everywhere.
Richie climbed stairs alongside the garage, then fished a key out of his front pocket.
“You didn’t give Pic the key?” Gabe asked.
“Nah. Monica’s here to
let him in.” Richie bent to unlock the door, then opened it and pushed it aside.
One glance into Richie’s small apartment, which reeked of marijuana and cigarette smoke, confirmed what Gabe’s gut had suspected all along. Pic wasn’t there. Neither was Monica. Seething, he walked quietly through the living room and kitchen, studying the place.
An old brown couch had tears in the leather. Fast food wrappers littered the low coffee table and the kitchen counter. Pizza boxes were stacked on top of a trash can. A bottle of vodka, half empty, was on an end table. In the bedroom, a mattress and box springs, without a frame, was barren of sheets. The mattress had multiple stains. Between the living room, bedroom, and bathroom, Gabe counted at least five overflowing ashtrays. There was no television. Full trash bags lined one wall. There was no art. No posters.
Gabe glanced at Richie. “Where is he?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“Not the right answer. You’ve got one more chance.”
“Hell. He’s probably almost back at Andi’s by now, with Monica. And when you get there, tell him I want my damn banjo, ‘cause it ain’t here.”
Gabe bent his knees, rotated his body in Richie’s direction, and threw an uppercut that landed squarely on the scrawny guy’s chest. Richie’s air left his body in a solid whoosh. Gabe finished the guy off by landing another punch, this one into his right side. When Richie fell to the ground, he left him there, barely resisting the urge to kick in the guy’s kidneys.
“Next time I touch you, I’m breaking your ribs. Consider that a promise. And if Pic doesn’t show up damn soon, it’s only a matter of time.” He glanced at Marks. “Find anything that gives us a goddamn clue as to who the hell this guy really is. Because I’m betting his name isn’t Richie, and if that’s his first lie, then we need to figure out the rest. Papers. Bills. Checkbooks. Computers. Cell phones. Stevens?”
“Yes, sir.” Stevens came through the mic, loud and clear.
“Everything okay with Andi?”
Concierge Page 39
