Midnight in Ruby Bayou (40 page)

“Has that boy been hacking into official computers again?”

“Is he breathing?” Archer retorted. “From the official description of Buddy Angel's bruises, contusions, and kidneys, he's going to be whining like a kicked pup every time he pisses.”

“He can cry on Tony Kerrigan's shoulder.”

There was a heartbeat of silence followed by Archer's opinion of his sister's ex-fiancé.

That was another thing Walker liked about his boss. He could speak gutter Afghani like a native.

“When did you see that son of a bitch?” Archer demanded, reverting to English.

Multiple phones rang in the background at Archer's office. He ignored them.

So did Walker. “He turned up during the show. Said he wanted to talk about old times.”

“Christ.” Archer's free hand curled into a fist. “Did he bother Faith?”

“Nope. I introduced myself, we shook hands, went outside to chew the fat, and then I paid for a cab to take him where he belonged. And he only had one li'l ol' broken finger when I was done.”

One of Archer's dark eyebrows lifted. He would love to read the rest of that official summary in its original long form. Like the way Tony had looked facedown on cement. “They don't have cabs to hell.”

“You've never been to Savannah.”

“Kyle didn't see a police report about it,” Archer said.

“Hell in Savannah?”

“No, your, uh,
conversation
with Tony.”

“No fuss, no muss, no bother. It looked to all the world like some poor fool who was so damned clumsy with his cane that he tripped his big friend and then thrashed all over him trying to stand up.”

Archer smiled, liking the picture in his mind. “Should I put a man on him full-time?”

Walker thought about it for a few seconds. “No need. If he gets in touch with her again, I'll take care of it.”

“Don't get caught.”

“Caught doing what?” Walker asked mildly.

Archer snorted. “So the man I assigned to guard Faith is such a klutz he's put two guys in the hospital. The Montegeau rubies are still safe despite numerous attempts to steal them. Three more of Faith's pieces are stolen at Ruby Bayou, no one was hurt but the dog, and you're voting for an inside job.”

“Too soon to vote, boss. I'm still trying to figure out where April Joy's Russian
mafiya
intersects with the Atlantic City mob, which is baying after Faith's jewelry like hounds on a hot scent. Then there's the FBI.”

“The FBI? Oh, shit. I'd forgotten about them. Where does the FBI fit in?”

“They claim they're following Davis Montegeau, trying to nail Sal Angel any way they can.”

“You don't believe them.”

Walker sighed. “Damn, boss, I'd sure like to. It may even be part of the truth.”

“But?”

“But we had Uncle on our ass before we ever saw a Montegeau. Two agents followed us to the restaurant, badged the hostess to get a table, and didn't leave until we did, even though Mel was still waiting for her car to be brought around. Yet Cindy Peel—the agent in charge—claims they were following Mel and got on to us after the fact.”

“Not good.”

Walker didn't argue. He felt the same way.

“Anything else?” Archer asked.

“They've got Ruby Bayou staked out fairly well, but they claim they didn't see anything unusual during the burglary. Course, they aren't swamp rats, so they could have missed something. I sure got close to them easy enough.”

Silently Archer absorbed the fact that Walker had tracked down the agents in the swamp. “Maybe they didn't see anything because it was an inside job.”

“Maybe,” Walker agreed. “The local sheriff seems to think Faith is good for it.”

“What?”

“I told him to check out Donovan International before he did anything he'd regret, like saying in public what he was hinting in private.”

“Judas Priest, what a cluster-fuck.”

“Don't take it personally. I didn't, and he hinted I could have done it, too.”

“That's it,” Archer said flatly. “I'm flying out.”

“Stay with Hannah and celebrate the next generation. And congratulations, by the way. You're a braver man than I am.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don't. Marriage and kids scare the bejesus out of me.”

On the other end of the phone, Archer kneaded his neck and raked his fingers through hair that already was rumpled. His office door opened. He turned to snarl at Mitchell, then saw Hannah. The smile he gave her transformed his face from dangerous to simply handsome. Silently he held out his hand to her.

“Then you're an idiot,” Archer said.

“Hey, every man has to be good at something,” Walker said.

“Why is the sheriff sniffing after you and Faith?”

Hannah gave Archer an alarmed look. He kissed her fingers, released them, and returned to rubbing his tight neck. She brushed his hand aside and leaned into the job of loosening tight muscles. He tried not to groan aloud with pleasure.

“Down here,” Walker said, “everybody blames outsiders.”

“I suppose the sheriff never heard of a local pillar of society breaking into his own safe.”

“That's the problem. The Montegeaus don't stand to gain anything if Faith's pieces disappear. Ditto the necklace. It's not part of their insurance coverage until Mel wears it at her wedding.”

“Even without insurance, the jewelry is valuable.”

“Sure, but you have to turn it into cash first. That's not easy, as good old Ivan Ivanovitch discovered when he got tagged trying to fence one of Faith's unique pieces.”

“Ahhhh, I get it,” Archer said, almost purring with the pleasure of his wife's fingers kneading away the tension. “You're waiting to see where the new pieces turn up.”

“Amen. Then I'm going to kick some serious ass.”

There was silence at the other end of the line. It didn't bother Walker. He knew Archer was mentally summarizing and filing everything that had been said and not said, done and not done.

Phones rang incessantly in the background. At least two computers beeped impatiently.

Frowning, Hannah kept working on Archer's hard shoulders. Even if she hadn't heard half of the conversation, the tension in his body would have told her that it was family rather than business at risk. He was fiercely protective of the people he loved.

“Get Faith on the next plane out,” Archer said finally.

“Short of tying her up and stuffing her in a bag, how do you suggest I do that?” Walker asked calmly.

“Tie and stuff works for me.”

“Kidnapping is a federal crime,” Walker said. “It's hard to get away with such things when there are federal agents camped on your butt.”

“Try sweet reason on her.”

“I did.”

Archer didn't have to ask the outcome: Faith was still in Ruby Bayou. “E-mail directions to Ruby Bayou to—”

“Kyle already has them,” Walker interrupted.

“He didn't say anything to me about it.”

“Probably didn't want to rain on the baby parade.”

Archer smiled slightly and kissed what he could reach of Hannah's strong, nimble fingers. “Probably not. If the sheriff is as stupid as he sounds, you'll need the name of a good local lawyer. I'll put Mitch on it.”

“He took care of it while I was on hold. The woman's name is Samantha Butterfield and she's been in the South since the first mosquito hatched. Knows where all the local bodies are buried, who buried them, who went to jail for it, and who didn't.”

“Does she know the damned sheriff?”

“Second cousins.”

“Kissing kin, huh?”

“Down here, we're more serious about our cousins than just kissing,” Walker said wryly. “We like to keep things in the family. Don't want to spread all that poverty too wide, hear?”

Despite his tension, Archer laughed.

Hannah smiled. Walker was one of the few people who could knock Archer out of full work mode. Then she remembered the circumstances the last time she talked on the phone with Walker. She didn't know whether to laugh or blush. She supposed it served her right for teasing Archer when he was on the phone, but it had been so delicious to listen to him carry on a rational business conversation while she seduced him.

She wondered what would happen if she did it again. Right now. Right here.

He would probably do what he had the last time—pull her on like a glove, hand her the phone to talk to Walker, and then make her forget her own name.

Archer felt Hannah's touch change from medicinal to sensual. His blood heated, his heartbeat kicked, and the fit of his pants changed. He figured he had a minute before she got him unzipped. Maybe two.

He was hoping for one.

“Get Faith on a plane if you can,” Archer said.

“And if I can't?”

“Take care of her any way you have to. Lawyers are cheap.”

The line went dead.

As Walker disconnected, he hoped that Samantha Butterfield didn't look like the north end of a southbound mule. Unless he got real lucky, he would be spending a lot of time with the formidable southern lawyer.

“Faith?” he called.

There was no answer.

Walker went through the house very quickly. Faith was nowhere to be seen. The gardens were empty. The rickety wharf stood vacant in the sun.

He swore in Afghani with deep conviction and considerable expertise. He knew if he told her not to let him out of her sight, she would tell him to go to hell. So he hadn't given her any orders.

Now she was gone.

Trying to still the rush of adrenaline in his blood, Walker untied one of the battered oyster skiffs and started rowing. Boats were the fastest means of travel in the murky depths of Ruby Bayou.

F
aith hesitated, trying to remember which path she had taken down from the house. The faint dirt tracks braided their way along the dunes and through the scrub in startling confusion. She was beginning to think she might be lost.

Well, not lost, exactly. She knew where the ocean was. She knew where Ruby Bayou was. She just didn't know how to get from here to there through the knife-blade grass, waist-deep mud, and brackish water so dark it could have been a mile deep. Or an inch.

“Faith?”

She jumped before she recognized Walker's voice. He was calling from somewhere out in the tall marsh grass.

“I'm over here.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. But I'm damned if I can figure out how you got there.”

“Me too,” she admitted.

“Stay put and keep talking.”

“What about?”

“Anything you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the local paper.”

“Darn. And here I was fixing to talk dirty to you.”

“Just as well. My poor old heart couldn't take it.”

Faith's laugh was as silky and hot as the sun pouring over the uncertain margin between ocean and land.

“Talk to me, sugar,” Walker said.

“I'm trying to think about something that wouldn't get us arrested.”

“Good idea. Bondage only works in books.”

She snickered, drew a breath, and memories came flooding back. She didn't know why the restless breeze and the earthy smell of wet ground called up an incident that had happened years ago and thousands of miles across the continent, but at least she had something to talk about.

“When we were thirteen,” she said, speaking in a voice that would carry to Walker, wherever he might be in the tall grass, “Honor and I sneaked out after bedtime and rode our bikes to the local make-out place.”

“Keep talking.”

“We watched Archer at work on Libby Tallyman, who was two years older than he was. Talk about sucking tonsils . . .”

Walker laughed out loud. He eased the flat-bottomed, leaky skiff through a shallow spot, poling against mud that was almost as liquid as water in places. For a moment he thought he was going to get stuck. Again. Then the skiff went through the narrow opening between clumps of grass.

A startled heron took off with a squawk.

“What was that?” Faith asked anxiously.

“Shitepoke. Keep talking. It's easy to lose direction in all this grass.”

“Kyle followed us.” She stood on her tiptoes and looked, but all she saw was the marsh grass. She hadn't known it was tall enough to hide a man. Maybe Walker was wading through the mud. “He threatened to snitch us off to Archer unless we agreed to do his dishes for a week and his laundry for a month.”

“Out-and-out blackmail.”

Walker's voice now came from Faith's left. She turned and stared. Nothing.

“The worst kind of blackmail,” she agreed. “You know how unpleasant a brother's dirty socks are? Especially to delicate little flowers like we were. Yuck! But we agreed. Anything was better than one of Archer's endless lectures.”