All In (2 page)

“You sure you’ve tried them all?” The desk clerk looked even more stalwart, unwilling to give him any leeway.

“Well,” Jackson said, “all except the bride. I guess it’s worth a try.”

‡‡‡

IT WAS PERFECT TIMING.
As Susannah lay sprawled in the aisle, the crowd gasped, then laughed, then ran to untangle her from a web of veil, tulle, beading, and heels. Susannah groaned and tried to right herself. The violinist had stopped playing, Chas had rushed down the aisle, and the Boss was trying hard not to laugh. And just at that moment Susannah’s cleavage began to ring with the chorus from “Jack & Diane,” which she had handpicked for Jackson.

Collecting herself and sitting up, Susannah said, “Thank goodness it was mine that went off.” She answered the phone with “I would thank you for ruining my wedding, but I think I’ve already done that.” She listened for a moment, then turned to the crowd. “Can someone get me a different pair of shoes? And can someone else go downstairs and let Jackson in?”

‡‡‡

JACKSON WAS SO
anxious that he had his hands in his pockets and was pacing back and forth when Lisa Bee came down to pick him up. Even so, he couldn’t help noticing how good she looked, rocking her pink outfit and heels. She literally took his breath away. When would he have the chance to tell her how he felt? Sadly, now was not the time to turn on the charm; he had to get the intel to the Boss ASAP. But he did smile, gulp, and say, “Wow, Bee. You sure know how to clean up.”

She smiled that cute little grin of hers at him. “Well, I can’t say the same about you, Jackie. Glad you made it, but you look like you’ve been to hell and back. What’s the deal?”

“No time to explain. I gotta talk to the Boss.”

Lisa Bee began to pout. “No one ever tells me anything.”

“Can it, Li’l Bee. It’s a fuck of a situation. Show me the way.”

“All right, Jackie, but you better make it up to me later on.”

“Oh, Bee, if I only had that chance.”

She laughed heartily and looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. “I love that I can always get you to sass me.”

He wished she knew there was more truth to his words than she thought. “Oh it ain’t sass, Bee. You know I’m not a sass man.”

Now she let out a girly giggle and winked. “Oooh, Jackie, that’s not what I heard!”

He laughed in kind. It was that combination of sweet and saucy that drove him crazy. She could always get him to laugh, even in the worst of circumstances; it was one of the many things that he adored about her. Unfortunately, his mission was of the utmost urgency, so he said, “Sorry to cut this short, but we gotta get upstairs STAT.”

She bit her lip and grabbed him by the arm. As they rode up in the elevator, he vowed to make it up to her later on.

By the time they got there, the room was in chaos. The guests were buzzing about, and all of FTP was clustered around Susannah, who sat on the floor with a grimace on her face, pulling a pair of boots on, and refusing to stand till she was comfortable.
Is she wearing UGG boots with that awesome wedding dress?
Chas was sitting by her side, saying, “It’s my fault, Legs, okay? Totally my fault. I know you did it for me.”

Jackson saw the Boss walking over on the double. He and Lisa Bee waited apart from the crowd, on the other side of the room from the seating area. “Bit of a rough morning, Jackson,” the Boss said, clearly trying to gain some semblance of control, “but it’s time we get this show on the road.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said, “looks like one helluva mess. Who allowed Legs to walk down the aisle in heels? You know she hates them.”

“Yes,” the Boss replied, “but her future husband doesn’t. Or, rather, didn’t. Till now. I think he has a foot fetish. Or, at the very least, a leg fetish.”

“Well, damn!” Lisa Bee piped in. “The things you find out just in the nick of time.”

“I’ve got a bunch of fetishes,” Jackson slipped in, grinning. “First on the list is girls with a Southern tongue. The accent’s not bad, either.”

“Now, Jackson,” Lisa Bee replied, a stern look on her face. “How many times do I have to tell you that New Orleans is
not
the South? It’s more like north Haiti.”

“Well, you can take the girl out of N’Awlins, but—”

“And we don’t call it
N’Awlins
; that’s just Hollywood bullshit.”

“Dammit, Bee, I just think you’re a hot piece and I don’t give a shit where you come from.”

The Boss held up a hand. “Okay, Jackson, hold your horses, we got a wedding to restart.”

Jackson turned back to him, his grin instantly gone, sharp and at the ready. “That’s the problem, Bossman. I gotta stop this wedding. Now. There’s something Legs needs to know before she ties the knot.”

The Boss looked him up and down, and Jackson could see him finally taking in the rumpled, dirt-strewn attire. “You look like you’ve had a rough time of it. What’s going on?”

“It’s a code five, Boss. I couldn’t discuss it over the phone, so I got here as soon as I could.”

Jackson could feel the energy shift as the Boss and Lisa Bee tried to steady themselves. The Boss narrowed his eyes. “We’re talking a Casablanca for real? Or is this just a high-level version of The Birds?”

Jackson took a deep breath. “Stop the wedding, Bossman. I wanted to send you a text from the airport, but I’d figured they’d be done by the time I got here, and I didn’t want to ruin it if I didn’t have to, you know? Now that I’m here, I realize we have to move ahead, and fast. We need all the members of FTP—scratch that, we need the whole goddamn Bod Squad on this. We need to be in with both feet, every last one of us. And Legs needs to be the first to know.”

For a moment, the Boss looked like he had lost his customary cool. Taking a deep breath, he ran his hands through his thick dark hair and rolled his eyes, exhaling slowly, trying to ground himself. Then he picked up his cell phone, used the attachment from Scrubs that turned it into a megaphone, and said, “Sorry, folks. Wedding’s over. We will reschedule soon with different shoes and a whole new theme. Susannah, meet the rest of FTP upstairs in the Mahogany Room. Everyone else, enjoy the party—it’s a great band, and there are some fun-filled chocolates from my friend Doc Scrubs.” With that, the Boss strode down the aisle, grabbed AJ by the arm, and mumbled, “Fingers, how quickly can you set up a control center?”

Without missing a beat, AJ batted her eyelids and said, “If you’re testing me, Bossman, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

‡‡‡

FIVE MINUTES LATER,
all the members of FTP were in the Mahogany Room. AJ was plugging in the last monitor she’d pulled out of her go bag, always at the ready to set up mission control. She never went anywhere without two computers, a satellite dish, an external hard drive, and an assortment of hidden surveillance gear, including “nanny-cams” and in-ear listening devices. And she never forgot her iPad Mini with her favorite jazz tunes, which connected easily to a portable high-end Bluetooth speaker. She was comfortable doing anything as long as jazz was blasting nearby. She had tried using earphones several times but found that she liked to be able to listen to things going on around her. So the jazz was on, and the computers were hooked up. She was ready to do whatever was needed. And when she was in vintage Balenciaga, she knew she’d do it right.

Tyka had given Chas a lighter that could be used as a GPS-enabled tracking device. Since it had been a helpful tool when they’d taken down the crime ring six months earlier, the Boss had asked Tyka to design something similar for the Bod Squad to use in case of an emergency. Tyka came up with several ideas; due to airline regulations, they’d settled on a key chain with the letters BS in gold. The Boss had liked the double meaning. Doc Scrubs had manufactured the idea, then Tyka had implanted each key chain with the owner’s fingerprint and a retinal scan. When the Boss put his thumb on the B, a small retinal scanner was ejected from the S, equipped with a voice recorder that could broadcast up to thirty seconds of any message. Calling all the members of the Bod Squad, he sent the message:

Bod Squad Code 5 alert. Get here ASAP. Coordinates: LAT 40.755361 LONG -73.980975.

Within minutes, Tyka had texted an ETA of an hour. Gabriella hadn’t responded, but she was back in Italy, trying to suss out the new allegiances within her cousin’s crime ring. She knew that Bruni’s death would leave several people vying for power, and she wanted to swoop in and claim the throne. If Gabriella managed to keep her cover and become a mob boss, there would be a whole new world open to the Boss and the FBI. They’d be granted a kind of access heretofore unknown.

Susannah pulled her train to the side and plopped down on a green velvet wingback chair. Crossing one ankle over the other, she said, “Jackson, what the hell is going on? I mean, this is one hell of an interruption.”

“Sorry, honey,” Jackson replied, “I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t important. And I know you well enough to know you needed to hear this before we go any further.”

Chas stood beside Susannah, a hand on her shoulder, his forehead deeply furrowed. “This isn’t about me, is it, Jackson? I’ve told you everything about my past. And you could’ve waited for Bossman to ask if there were any objections.”

Jackson smiled. “No, buddy, you’re clean. We’re psyched to know you’ll be taking care of our girl for life. And she’s gonna need you now more than ever.”

“Well, get to it, Jackie,” Susannah said. “I’m really worried.”

“Legs, honey,” Jackson said gently, “it’s about your father. He’s alive. He’s somewhere in Africa. And if we don’t find him soon, he’ll be dead. For real this time.”

2

THE ROOM WAS SILENT.
The blood rushed from Susannah’s face; she looked ashen, frozen in place. Chas moved to her side while the Boss sank into the nearest chair, his head in his hands. AJ, who had been playing Sarah Vaughan’s recording of “Autumn in New York,” immediately turned it off, mumbling, “If I’d known he was gonna drop that kind of bomb, I’d have played ‘Send in the Clowns.’ ” Lisa Bee teared up a bit and said, “Oh,
merde
merde merde,
that is so totally
fucked
.”

Susannah swallowed. “Details, Jackson,” she said, her voice straining to keep control. “Now.”

Susannah’s father had died—or so they all thought—when she was sixteen. But six months ago, her mother had revealed that her father had been in intelligence and was not the life insurance salesman Susannah had always believed him to be. She’d never believed he had died in a drunk driving accident. Buzz Carter had been sober for years and adored his wife and daughter. It never rang true for her that her grounded, disciplined father would suddenly turn to alcohol; his unsolved death was one of the main reasons she had gone into the field of criminology. But the idea that he could still be alive? That had never crossed her mind.

Jackson took a deep breath. “The Italian was running one branch of something larger and more insidious than any of us thought. My contact in Tangier has been doing a little recon for us. This globally connected crime ring is being run out of Morocco. When you were sixteen, Legs, your father was about to expose the Italian—Bruni, I should call him—when he realized Bruni was connected to a much wider net. Your father was zeroing in on the ‘master of ceremonies’ when he realized the ring was on to him. He faked his own death to protect you, Susie-Q, and your mom. Not only that, but he likely knew Chas’s father, though we don’t know how well. Your dad’s been living under an alias in South Africa, and they’re on to him again. We need to get on a plane ASAP and get to Tangier. Your father’s life depends on it, but so do a lot of other people’s—this is a global network, and we have a chance to put it away for good. I’ll give you more details on the way. In short, the world is fucked, we have a chance to unfuck it, your father is a massive target, and we are his only hope. Any questions?”

Susannah shook her head as if trying to clear it. “I need some time alone with the man who will someday be my husband. And I need to break this to my mom. Then we’ll all go. How much time can you give me?”

Jackson smiled. “I’ve got a plane chartered and ready to go. You take whatever time you need. And what I mean by that is: Let’s get the Sam Hill outta Dodge ASAP.”

‡‡‡

LISA BEE GRABBED
her go bag and waited for Jackson in the lobby, chewing on a fingernail painted with rose pink polish. She was deeply concerned about Susannah, worried about what was to come, and pissed as hell that her friend’s wedding had been interrupted. Since she was a wedding connoisseur, she was royally peeved that what had started as the perfect one was now ruined.

Lisa Bee Goudreau had grown up on the bayou. She came from a loving and boisterous Irish Catholic family and had four older brothers who taught her how to drink, how to fish, and how to keep a man in line. They also taught her how to be discerning about whom she dated—too discerning, really. Between her father and her brothers keeping a keen eye on her, she seldom was allowed to date anyone for all too long, and if a guy wasn’t up to snuff (a common occurrence), he was summarily scared off by a bit of overprotective Irish muscle. While she was grateful for the love of her family, and for having grown up around five great examples of male chivalry, she was now just . . . lonely. With FTP, she was once again surrounded by good, strong, vibrant men. But where was her Prince Charming? Her partner? She was getting tired, she was getting too old for dating, and it was harder and harder to put a smile on her face.
Isn’t he supposed to be right around the corner? How big a corner is it, for fuck’s sake?

But then Jackson came around the corner, and she grinned from ear to ear. He had counseled her through a bunch of bad dates and a score of office mishaps, had let her cry on his shoulder countless times, and always made her laugh with his goofy sense of humor and bawdy repartee. He reminded her of some of the boys she had grown up around in New Orleans—the cool ones who wound up playing in bands or owning art studios. Maybe this was the thing to be grateful for: He was a sign that there was one good man left. Of course, like any good man he was unavailable. He always seemed to have some hot chick he was seeing.
He just isn’t
ready for the real thing,
she thought. When he was, she bet he’d make the perfect husband. But till he found the girl of his dreams, she was happy to be friends. She’d never had such a close guy friend before, and it was totally fun—different from her other friendships, and full of surprises. And since she’d never be one of his many lovers, the sex thing wasn’t even an issue. With him she had what every girl wanted but rarely found: the perfect guy to hang with until she found the man she was looking for. And when it was finally her time, just like her friend Legs, she’d choose Jackson to walk her down the aisle.

“Time to rock out on a new adventure, Bee,” Jackson said with a smile, reaching down to grab her bag. “I know it’s complicated, but I also know we’re gonna save the day. Ready?” And there it was—he always knew just how to turn her mood around. With just a few words, she was now excited for what was to come.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, Jackie!” she said, linking her arm with his. “Lead the way.”

‡‡‡

CHAS AND SUSANNAH
were in the bridal suite, both trying to catch their breath, each scrambling to pack a bag. Susannah’s mascara ran down her face, and Chas stopped what he was doing so he could hold her in his arms as she cried. He just kept saying, “I know, sweetheart. I know. We’ll make it all better, I promise.”

At that, she lifted her face up to his. “How can we make this better?” she said with tears in her voice. “My
father,
who has supposedly been dead
for sixteen years,
is now
alive
and in real danger with the more complex and dangerous version of the men who killed
your
father years ago, and we have one chance to
fly to Morocco
,
find my father, and save him before he dies for real,
and you think you can
make this better
?”

Susannah was actually hopping mad. So mad, in fact, that she managed to wrestle her way out of her wedding gown and throw it to the ground, which left her jumping up and down in her boots, lingerie, and gun holster. “I mean,
really,
” she screamed, “
why the fuck did I ever decide to tie the knot
?”

Chas had an amused smile on his face and a naughty look in his eye. “Well,” he said saucily, “I’m happy to untie what few knots you have left.”

“Stop it, Charles,” Susannah snapped. “This is no time for jokes.”

Chas took her in his arms again. “First of all, this is exactly the time for jokes. Second, please don’t call me Charles when you’re angry. It reminds me of my mother. Third, can you always be naked with a gun strapped to your thigh? Hot, Legs. Best almost wedding night
ever
.”

Susannah slumped out of his arms and onto the bed. “Chas, honey . . . what are we going to do?”

Loosening his bow tie and removing his jacket, Chas got onto the bed and pulled her close. Nuzzling the back of her neck, he said, “Okay, Legs. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to lie here for a few minutes and just breathe. I’m going to try desperately to keep my hands off you. Then we’re going to get dressed, and pack what little we have, and get on that flight. And before we do that, we’ll talk to your mom. Together. That’s the tough part. But it’s the beautiful part, too. I mean, there’s a chance you may get your dad back. Surely that’s what we need to focus on, right?”

Susannah rolled over to look Chas square in the eye. He, too, had lost his father when he was a teenager, and though his father’s death had been avenged, there was a world he would never get back. She saw the loss swirling in his eyes and said, “Yes, Chas. You’re right. That’s what we focus on. And I’m cool with everything you said except one thing.”

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

She moved toward him and gently nibbled on his lower lip, then expanded the kiss to full-blown seduction. “I’m gonna need you to put your hands all over me,” she said huskily. “And sadly, you’re gonna need to do it quick.”

‡‡‡

TEN MINUTES LATER,
Chas and Susannah emerged, dressed in travel clothes and looking considerably more relaxed. They made their way downstairs toward a small room at the front of the hall that was empty except for Janice Carter, who sat on an Italian carved wood grotto chair with her head in her hands. She was, as always, impeccably dressed, in a burgundy Chanel suit with vintage gold buttons up the front and signature jewels to match. She wore earrings made of vintage lockets etched with small flowers, and a necklace with a cameo that perfectly matched her suit. Janice owned a small gift store in Alexandria, where Susannah grew up, and she was known for her unique jewelry and unusual knickknacks.

Susannah approached her mother, holding Chas’s hand. “Mom? I have something to tell you.”

Janice lifted her head, then stood up in alarm. “Oh, dear me! Thank God Chas is still here. I’ve been sitting here pondering how hard I would kick him in the crotch if he’d done something wrong. He hasn’t, right? He doesn’t have a hidden wife somewhere, does he?”

Chas grimaced. “Not exactly the words I’d like to hear from my future mother-in-law, but I get it, Janice. Frankly, I also wondered what I’d done wrong. And no, I have no skeletons in my closet. Certainly none that Susannah hasn’t already seen.”

Susannah smiled sadly. “It’s not Chas, Mom. And we’ll get married soon. I can’t wait for us to have that moment. But . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What, sweetheart?” Now Janice looked deeply concerned and walked toward her daughter. “What could it be?”

“Well,” Susannah began, “when Chas and I do get married, there’s a chance Daddy might be at the wedding.”

“Wha—?” Janice looked confused, then alarmed. “What on earth? Is this some kind of a sick joke?”

Chas looked her in the eyes. “It’s no joke. He’s alive, Janice. His death was part of a cover-up to protect you and Susannah. He’s spent the last sixteen years living under an alias in Africa.”

Janice still looked perplexed, and her face paled. “Please tell me you don’t mean—” She sank to the ground, seeking something to hold her up. Chas moved to her side and helped reseat her on the chair.

Susannah knelt at her feet. “Mom, FTP is on the case. The whole Bod Squad is. We’re going to find him. It’s too complicated—and too dangerous—for me to tell you any of the details, but we’ve got to go now. I’ll report back as soon as I can. We may be his only hope.”

Janice sat for a moment, her hand over her mouth. Her eyes darted around the room as her mind sought to catch up to the information given to her. Then she pursed her lips and said, “Well,
goddamn
that bastard. I should’ve known. He’s got a hell of a lot of explaining to do. In the meantime, I want to know everything, everything you find out, as soon as you can get me the info. And when you find him, give him a message from me: tell him he’d better be prepared, because the second he’s home, I’m going to kill him for this.”

‡‡‡

AN HOUR LATER,
the Bod Squad boarded a private plane waiting at JFK. Since they were in New York for Susannah’s wedding, they all had everything they might need packed in a small travel bag—what the Boss called “The Yellow Brick Roadster.” He had insisted that they all have a travel pack of surveillance gear and travel paraphernalia so that they could leave the country at the drop of a hat. AJ was there with all her recon essentials, wearing a fabulous Prada jacket; Susannah, Chas, Jackson, Lisa Bee, and the Boss were all sporting backpacks and an expression of determination; and Tyka had joined them, wearing aviator goggles and carrying a set of flight plans. She announced that if need be, she could fly the plane.

When the plane was at cruising altitude, they were offered drinks by a stewardess named Graham Cracker. Or so her name tag said. Jackson seemed to be acquainted with her and called her “Lady’s Got Wings.” At one point, standing near the front of the plane, Graham Cracker reached up to a compartment to grab some snacks; her miniskirt lifted slightly, revealing the tip of a gun. Tyka snorted and said, “Well, since we’re so well taken care of, I’m sure you won’t mind if I see how the pilot’s doing?”

Graham Cracker smiled and said, with a melodic Western twang, “We’ve all got protection, baby. And you know what I mean!”

Tyka said something in Russian that none of them understood, then brushed past their saucy stewardess and into the pilot’s cabin.

‡‡‡

THEY TOOK SOME TIME
to enjoy their drinks and the lushness of the plane Jackson had chartered. The cabin was spacious, with chairs that looked like they belonged in a living room rather than an airplane. In the center was a table with seating around it, perfect for conferences—
or poker
, as Jackson told them with a wink. The primary color of the interior was a blush pink, with violet lighting and gray accents. He had wanted to decorate the cabin with pink rose petals for Lisa Bee but hadn’t had the time; also, she had no idea how he felt and probably would have laughed at the effort. Come to think of it, he would have laughed at himself.
Rose petals? Really? You don’t need to act like a fucking douche bag to win her, Oreida.
Still, he had been deeply pleased when she entered the cabin, let out a small “Oh!,” and held her hand to her chest. But he would never tell her he had chosen the colors for her. It wasn’t the right time, he reasoned. And maybe it never would be.
Maybe she’d find this whole thing too strange.
He certainly didn’t want to scare her off before he knew where she stood. Besides, there was some rough shit he had to tell them all, so it was time to buck up and get to work.