Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (27 page)

“I’m seriously contemplating multiple personalities right now. I think passive is real doable,” she offered. “How about I go practice—I know! I could sit home, making animals out of dryer lint.”

She tried to step away from him and he shoved the gun harder. He apparently had taken the advanced lesson in bad-guy school: how not to be confused by random victim babbling.

“Lower the gun,” Trevor said from somewhere behind the man, “slowly.”

Bobbie Faye would have done the happy dance, if it were not for the fact that she was seven stories up on a catwalk in the dark with sure death all around. Sure death tended to put a crimp in happy dancing.

The gunman started to lower the gun, and in the next heartbeat, ducked and spun. Trevor leapt over the man’s outstretched leg, pinning his arm against the catwalk and knocked his gun down into the grain . . . just as the gunman wrenched Bobbie Faye’s ankle. She slammed against the deck of the catwalk, the momentum rolling her underneath the waist-high safety railing toward the gaping cavern of the silo, out in the big open blackness. Trevor shouted something she couldn’t hear as she pinwheeled her arms, clawing for purchase on the metal grating, the dusty surface slipping from her fingers.

Time crawled. She saw the stark shock in Trevor’s expression—that and something more. Something deeper and pure and raw and she shot an arm out, knowing she had to stay with that emotion, knowing she had to somehow allow herself to believe in it, because the connection she felt with him at that moment was something she’d never known before.

The world sped up again as her left hand, sticky with blue gel, latched onto one of the metal support braces for the catwalk at the same time Trevor reached beneath the railing and fisted a handful of her t-shirt.

“Watch out,” she shouted as the gunman tried to elbow Trevor in the back of the head. Trevor kicked with a powerful jolt to the man’s knee and the gunman crumpled to the catwalk just as Bobbie Faye groped for a handhold and grabbed the front of the gunman’s shirt where he lay on the grating. Trevor hauled her up and as he did, the gunman tried to scramble away. . . .

She had the photos in her hand. Technically still in the guman’s pocket, and she was not going to let go. He reached for a gun in an ankle holster and Trevor had his hands full, just holding her. They looked like a psychotic game of Twister—one wrong move and they were all going to fall. Trevor yelled at Bobbie Faye for her to let go of the shirt, that it wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth losing her, but her fingers had a will of their own: those photos could not go with that man. Trevor used his weight to snatch her
away. The gunman’s pocket ripped and,
score
, she had the photos as he plunged over the rail and down toward the loose, quicksand-like oblivion of the dry grain.

The soft light from the hatch openings captured the gunman in that first second, and he had his gun up, aimed at them, and whether he meant to fire out of anger or if it was just reflex, she couldn’t tell. Bobbie Faye knew in that instant—that one-hundredth of a second which drew out into eternity—that they were so very dead.

The bullet emerged amid a flash, and even though the shot went wild, that tiny burst of flame from the barrel of the gun ignited the dust around it, and the ball of explosion rolled outward, every direction, growing and eating everything in its path. Trevor yanked her up and outside the silo (which was when she had the thought that he was real pretty but maybe not so sharp because they could not fly and,
hello, seven stories up
, jumping was as bad as the fire). He pulled her anyway, leaping out into the fresh air, and then they fell, flailing from the seventy-foot height of the hatch as the silo exploded above and around them, the thrust of the explosion propelling them farther outward and away and then there was the baby silo below them, looming, slamming toward them faster than Bobbie Faye could fathom.

Trevor took the brunt of the landing, cradling her on top of him, and they started sliding along the angled curve of the dome roof as the giant silo next to them detonated fireballs into the sky. Sparks and burning debris rained down on the metal roof beneath them. They plunged down its slope, both of them fighting to find a handhold; Bobbie Faye toppled over the outer edge of the silo as Trevor grabbed her hand, and with his other, snagged the lip of the roof, holding all of his weight and all of hers by his fingertips.

She should be dead. Instead, she dangled forty feet above the hard asphalt, Trevor the only lifeline she had. The big silo rocked with another blast and she could see his muscles cording under the strain and she met his gaze
and she’d never seen anyone look so furious and determined in her entire life.

She shoved the photo remnants—wadded in her right hand still—into her back pocket. Burning debris bounced and singed her arm as he nodded toward a catwalk below her, off to the right, and she nodded back, sickened, but knowing they had no choice. Trevor swung her from side-to-side, helping her gain momentum, and then he released her, and she flew, fell, prayed, promising God a whole lotta things He wasn’t even going to buy, not even on sale, not even at a heavy three-for-one specially discounted Deity Savings Rate, but she promised them anyway. And then that catwalk railing loomed up and up and she reached out for it, felt the now-warm metal in her palm, and she stopped falling so abruptly, it nearly pulled her arm out of its socket. She clambered onto the catwalk deck and as she looked up at Trevor, a large piece of burning debris sliced through the smaller silo’s roof. He launched off toward her and a living, breathing, fireball chased after him.

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 said ‘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.