“Are you up for dealing with her, or would you like me to send her away?”
“Is there any news about Pic?”
“Not yet.”
Hell. Sighing, she squared her shoulders. “I’ll go downstairs.”
Juliette, standing in the vestibule, wore a cream-colored turtleneck, black pants, and leather boots. Her sleek black hair was in a neat ponytail that draped over her left shoulder. She’d apparently hung her coat in the closet, and was waiting to be let up the stairs. A Black Raven agent who Andi didn’t recognize stood, arms folded, in the vestibule a few feet behind her. Back to the wall, his gaze shifted from Juliette to Andi, then Brandon, as they descended the stairs. He slipped into the surveillance room, as Andi made it to the first floor.
With her tote bag at her feet, Juliette arched an eyebrow in irritation over being kept waiting. It was subtle, but unmistakable. “Are you okay?”
Over Andi’s shoulder, Juliette’s gaze followed Brandon as he walked through the foyer, towards the kitchen. From that direction, Andi heard the hum of voices, in low tones. Trying to focus on the fragrance of fresh coffee that filled the downstairs, Andi ignored the questions in Juliette’s eyes, like what is Taylor’s husband doing at your house, but she was too polite to ask.
“I’m so sorry,” Andi offered, “I should’ve canceled.”
She wasn’t the sort of person who treated manicurists as therapists. Not even Juliette, whom she trusted implicitly. Andi wasn’t about to discuss what was happening. I can’t even verbalize the horror of it.
Eyes narrowing as she studied Andi, Juliette’s cool, brown eyes shifted from irritated to concerned. She nodded with the understanding that Andi wasn’t going to spill her guts. Because Andi never did.
“No kidding. I should’ve been smart enough to reschedule. The French Quarter, on the Saturday before Mardi Gras? Did we do this last year?” She gave a solid headshake. “I don’t think so. You’re a wonderful client, but not this great. I could’ve just as easily gotten down here on Wednesday, when the city’s suffering a hangover and no one’s out. Trust me, traffic’s a bear out there. I had to park about seven blocks away, in the Marigny. But—” She accented her pause with a smile. “—look at the awesomeness I brought with me.”
Reaching into her tote bag, she pulled out a clear plastic pouch. “New OPI colors. The spring collection, released three days ago. You’re going to love this.” She pulled out a color, and held it up to light that filtered in through the leaded glass transom above her front door. “Just a bit of a bluish, silvery tint, but mostly lavender, right? You know colors better than me. The name of it is, ‘Don’t Make Me Blue.’ How sweet is this?”
On other days, Andi could’ve slipped into excited-about-nail-color talk with Juliette. But not today. Not with Pic missing. With her heart feeling heavy in every direction her mind raced, OPI’s new shade of lavender just wasn’t going to do it for her.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not up for a mani-pedi this morning. Why don’t you just go, and get out of here before the crowd starts building again?”
To say that Juliette had been exposed to the gamut of Andi’s moods was an understatement, so she easily shook off this one. “I’m here. So let’s both make the most of the situation.”
“No. I’m feeling off this morning—”
“Which is all the more reason for you to use me. Come on. You’ve paid for this time. At least let me give you a color change. Why don’t you grab some coffee while I get things ready upstairs. Once your feet are in hot, soapy water, we can decide whether you want your usual treatment or just a quick fix.” She lifted her wrist, and glanced at her watch. “It’s nine-fifteen. I’ll be out of your hair by eleven-thirty. I promise that by then, you’ll feel better, no matter what’s wrong.”
If only it would all be so easy.
In five minutes flat, Andi was sipping hot coffee, her feet were soaking, and a heated roll filled with lavender and rose scented potpourri was draped over her shoulders. Gently falling rain in a faraway rainforest sounded through the room. The chair was set to a rolling motion. Juliette had removed the nail polish from her fingers. Lifting her feet out of the soapy water, she rested them on a thick, plush towel as Juliette dried them.
Despite having slept soundly in Gabe’s arms for at least five hours, and the coffee, once Andi settled into the comfort of the massage chair, waves of fatigue lapped at her consciousness. Putting the coffee to the side, she leaned back, shut her eyes, and stopped paying attention as Juliette moved from foot to foot, hand to hand. The ritual was quietly soothing. It didn’t quite weave together the frayed endings of Andi’s nerves, but it gave her breathing space.
Gabe will find him.
He will.
He will.
Juliette gently tapped Andi’s left foot, a sign to put both feet in the soapy water. While they soaked, Juliette stepped behind the chair to give Andi a neck massage. Leaning forward, Andi kept her eyes closed, focusing on the feel of lush, soapy water on her feet, anticipating the soothing pressure of Juliette’s fingers on her shoulders.
Instead, a wet cloth covered Andi’s nose, pressed there by a strong hand. Andi gasped as she reacted, while inhaling sickly sweet wetness that could only be a drug. It was one that she’d smelled before, when Victor had needed to subdue her.
Chloroform.
Immediately woozy, with the room spinning before her eyes, Andi felt a sharp prick needle into her neck. She tried to lift her hands to claw at Juliette’s hands, but her brain’s signals misfired.
Andi heard Gabe’s voice, using the phrase he constantly hammered into her in their workouts, ‘don’t hesitate.’
Too late. I already did.
Fighting to hold onto thoughts that were fading, Andi tried to fight through her dizziness and stand. With both feet in a slippery tub filled with soapy water, instead of going on the attack, she sat down hard, in the chair. She tried to scream, but couldn’t hear her own voice. When she tried to get up again, Juliette was in front of her, with strong hands on her shoulders, holding her down.
Eyes shrewd, assessing, Juliette smiled. She put a hand in front of Andi’s face, waving fingers in front of Andi’s eyes. Her fingers became a sickening blur, as double vision gained control. “Sorry, hon. You’re my golden ticket out of pretending that I give a goddamn flying fuck about other women’s cuticles.”
With the room swirling around her, Andi fought to keep her eyes open as Juliette lifted a cell phone to her ear. “Ready for pickup. Get your ass over here.”
The other woman kept her gaze on Andi as she dropped the phone into her purse. Taking one of Andi’s hands into her own, she let it fall, limp and impossibly heavy. Hands working fast, she wiped Andi’s face with a warm cloth, removing evidence of whatever it was she’d inhaled. She pushed Andi’s head to the side and wiped at her neck with the cloth.
As her eyes drifted closed, she saw Juliette take a blue tube of something…concealer?…from her tote. Andi felt pressure on the spot where the needle jab had been.
“Good enough to get you out the door.” As Juliette prepped her for some unknown horror, Andi’s brain raced through defensive moves she’d practiced with Gabe, the no-hesitation drill he’d instilled in her, time and time again. She could hear his voice. Think fast. Act. Think fast. Act. Think fast. Act effectively.
Waste…of…t-time.
As crippling paralysis overcame her, Andi’s thoughts became fuzzier and fuzzier. Unable to think coherently, unable to move. Helpless.
“Help! Andi’s had a heart attack, or something!” Juliette screamed. “She’s not breathing! I’m dialing 9-1-1.”
Chapter Forty Two
Gabe
“Gabe. Stop. He’s not giving you anything.” Ragno’s voice came through his mic, loud and clear, though he’d muted her call before landing his first punch on Richie.
Damn, but she always finds a way.
Gabe ignored the intrusion. Rearing his arm back, he closed his fis
t, reconnecting his knuckles into the soft flesh of the man’s soft stomach. “Ready to talk?”
Bent over, between full-body heaves as he emptied his gut onto the floor, Richie held up his hand and flipped his middle finger in the air, just inches from Gabe’s face. Gabe thought about breaking the man’s fingers, one by one, but decided against it.
For now.
“If you value your fingers at all, I’d keep every last one of them out of my face.”
The pothead had slept all through Friday in his stinking shithole of an apartment, exactly as he said he would. Using a banjo that he’d picked up from a friend, he’d played with other musicians at the Fat Cat club until four a.m., exactly as he said he would. From there, Richie had gone to an all-night grill at the foot of Bourbon and Esplanade, where, according to Marvin, he’d eaten enough to satisfy a horse. Then he’d returned to said shithole, locked himself in, and had yawned as though he’d been sleeping when Gabe had banged on his door for a rise and shine visit. The smirk that had accompanied Gabe’s update regarding Pic had inspired Gabe to show Richie he had nothing to smile about.
“He knows something,” Gabe muttered, for Ragno’s benefit, checking the time. Nine-fifteen. Which meant he’d been ‘questioning’ Richie for a full five minutes. “But you’re right. Enough. I have another team of agents arriving in NOLA from Last Resort at noon, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Have them bring Serum One.” Referring to the blend of sodium thiopental, scopolamine, and amobarbital sodium that agents administered for tough interrogations, Gabe wanted to have it ready in case breaking the man’s fingers didn’t produce the desired result. The serum definitely wasn’t something one could get at a corner drugstore. On certain high-risk jobs, it was part of the agent’s tool kit. Andi’s job hadn’t been that kind of job. Until now.
“Gabe. Listen up.” Zeus’s growl broke in on Ragno’s call, conveying a solid warning to ‘calm down’. His brother was at Denver headquarters, working beside Ragno. “I’ve dropped everyone else. Me, you, and Ragno on the call. You can’t use Serum One in a domestic setting without permission from the file’s originating partners. That’s Sebastian or Brandon, in this case.”
“Understood. I’ll get it. I’m through with Richie for now.” Drawing a deep breath, Gabe side-stepped the eggs, sausage, and foamy, blood-laced goo that Richie had vomited. The stink of puke, coupled with the stale smoke and musty odors of the unkempt apartment, made bile rise in his throat. He glanced at the two agents who would be taking over surveillance of Richie for the next several hours.
Their eyes conveyed a solid message that Gabe’s methods were fine by them. “Cuff him. Ankles and wrists. Keep him standing. Tape his mouth. I’ll be back.”
“Gabe?” Zeus said. “Just so I’m clear here. Five minutes of using him as a punching bag was not warranted.”
“You agree with three minutes? Or four? Do not micromanage a field agent’s discretionary calls while you’re all comfy in Denver.” Stepping out of the apartment, onto the stairs that led alongside the garage, Gabe breathed in cool, crisp, fifty-degree air. The mostly cloudy, yet rain free day, was a hell of a lot better than the rainy, frigid weekend they’d just endured. Tamping down his irritation, Gabe kept his voice calm. “Trust my judgment, Zeus. Ragno—that goes for you too. Richie goddamn smirked when I told him Pic’s still missing.”
“Rein in your temper.” Although his voice remained as calm as ever, underlying worry crept into Zeus’s tone. “This isn’t like you. You normally do with words what other agents do with their fists.”
“Well, welcome to the reality of this job, Zeus. Because nothing about it is normal. Something’s way off. I feel like I’m looking at an alternate reality that seems so normal, that the first wrinkle of deception—something that I could get a handle on—isn’t even there. And I’m as cool as ever. Every punch was warranted. I’ll let both of you know when my temper’s in play. Or if I can’t control this.”
From the landing, Gabe’s gaze crawled over the congestion on the narrow street as people got into position for the holiday. While Gabe had been occupied with Richie, Marvin had driven around the block to avoid getting stuck in front of the dry cleaners.
He reached into his pocket for his phone and typed, ‘Ready for pick up.’ He sent the text to Marvin, then continued his conversation with Zeus and Ragno. “There isn’t one thing that’s amusing about the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old kid. Smirking was not the correct reaction. Richie now understands that.”
“I’d say,” Ragno said, sarcasm flag flying high.
Marvin replied, ‘Gimme 5. In gridlock on Rampart.’
‘Don’t bother w/ side streets. Meet u on Esplanade.’
“Justification for the file, if you feel that I need it, is that we always start where things stopped making sense. In jobs where we don’t have a solid trail to point to the danger source, it’s the subtleties that matter. You two know that. I know that. It’s what I try to teach our agents at Last Resort, for God’s sake. In plain-world speak, it’s goddamn common sense.” Breathing in another deep gulp of fresh air, Gabe realized he’d been holding out hope that Richie would give him something. Anything. Which now meant he had to swallow a bitter pill of disappointment.
“We’re twenty-nine hours out from Pic’s disappearance, and the only thing we’ve got is that things went off-kilter with Richie. We now know Pic didn’t head here, so Richie is lying and needs to tell the truth. And speaking of things that don’t make sense, no one lives off the grid like this guy. No one. Except Pic. And the other runaways we’re looking for. But this guy isn’t a runaway. By the end of today, Richie will be talking. I guarantee it.”
After leaving Andi’s, Gabe had gone directly to the dry cleaners, thinking Richie’s landlord might be able to shed some light on just who the hell Richie was. They’d been unable to locate the owner, who had apparently closed each of his four business establishments for the duration of the holiday and left town. Gabe had picked a lock on a side door, and figured out the business was exactly what it purported to be—a dry cleaners.
Gabe continued, “Recently acquired camera footage from the Marigny area tells us Pic was several blocks off course.”
“He may have gotten into a car. Voluntarily. Just as he walked out of the gate of Andi’s house,” Zeus said. “For drugs, maybe. Or, as much as you want to believe otherwise, the kid could have spent the last couple of years prostituting for mon—”
“Not a goddamn chance.”
“For the record, I was listening in on the discussion between Gabe and Pic the night that Gabe found him on the levee.” Ragno’s voice softened. “I’ve never heard a clearer picture of desperation, relief, and yearning for something better. I’m solidly in Gabe’s camp on this. Yes, he walked out. Probably because he thought he’d see Monica. But I don’t think he would’ve disappeared like this. He wouldn’t have done this to himself, or to Andi. Or Gabe, at this point.”
“Field agents are fact finders, Zeus. Unless you have solid data to back up conclusions that override my findings and decisions,” Gabe argued, trying to keep a snarl out of his voice, “stop questioning my judgment.”
“Playing devil’s advocate, Gabe. That’s all. We don’t have full video of the area in question where Pic was last seen,” Zeus protested. “I’ve looked at what we do have. Slide by slide, second by second. You’re missing coverage of several blocks at key times. There’s enough gray space there to provide a route, coupled with a time lapse, where he could’ve simply walked out. And kept going, without us knowing.”
“It would be too coincidental,” Gabe said. “Plus, I disagree. We have enough footage to see where Pic should’ve walked, keeping pace and timing consistent, had he kept walking. The only thing that makes sense is the possibility that Richie’s a connection to something bigger. So I need to make him talk. Whether he’s lying about why Pic left, or where he told Pic to go, or whatever the hell, I don’t know. Richie’s lyi
ng. I know it like I know my name. Ragno, any luck with satellite imagery?”
“No. We’ve been through every potential source for the relevant area. Two things are going against us. One, it was still dark. Two, cloud coverage was heavy. All of New Orleans was covered in rain yesterday morning. So any effective imagery was blocked.”
“In the meantime,” Zeus said, “keep in mind one thing—Pic may have just decided to leave. Admittedly, the chances of that are low, but a teenager with a runaway history could very easily have wanted to leave a setup where there are armed guards keeping him in…”
Having explained, ad nauseum, to everyone who was now involved with Operation Pic, that they should disregard the five percent likelihood of voluntary departure that their computer models gave for Pic’s disappearance, Gabe tuned out his brother. Climbing down the outdoor stairs, he crossed the parking lot of the dry cleaners. It had been half empty when he’d arrived, but now it was congested with cars, trucks, and vans. People were setting up ice chests, lawn chairs, canopies, and barbecue pits, settling in for a two-day party. A couple of port-o-potties were in the back of a pick-up truck. A hand-lettered sign said, ‘$3.00.’
“Gabe,” Zeus said, “my question called for a reply.”
“Answer it. However you think I should, because I stopped listening. You’re giving too much weight to the voluntary departure scenario.”
“Not the correct response from a field agent when you’re talking to a partner.”
Hell! His brother seldom pulled rank.
“Let’s keep communication open between us for the duration,” Zeus continued, “because…”
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