No Limits (22 page)

Was he doing something clandestine he didn’t want anyone to know? A small tickle crawled up the back of her throat. “You know, I think you’re starting to scare me.”

He didn’t soothe or hesitate but jerked the truck over to the side of the road, shoved it into park, and shifted on his seat to face her. “What have I done to frighten you? Te
l
l me. I want to know.”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing you’ve done. Unless you count the bodyguard lie. It’s more how you pick and choose what you want me to know. And the fact that I only have your word to go on that things are as you say.”

“They are. They’re as real as everything that’s happened the last two days.”

Had what happened been related to his visit? Did he know more than he was telling her? “So, you making fun of me and crime TV was about covering up your own expertise in fighting the bad guys?”

“I didn’t tell you this to prove that I know what I’m doing. I told you because I want you to know me.” He dropped his gaze, shook his head, rubbed at his eyes before looking at her again. “I told you because I need you to understand what happened between us can’t ever be anything more.”

She wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell her. “Any more sex? Or any more than sex?”

“The latter. The first, too, if it makes it easier.”

He seemed as confused as she was. “Easier for whom?”

He shrugged. “You, I guess.”

“Right,” she said, then snorted. “Because you weren’t the one who nearly snapped my wrist dragging me into your cave. I’m surprised you didn’t grab me by the hair.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She wanted to ask him if he was talking about her tender wrist specifically, or if that included her ac
hing bones and the raw and swoll
en flesh between her legs. Then again, maybe he was tossing it out there to cover anything she might later find broken or bruised.

Like her heart.

“Are you kidding? I’ll be as good as new in no time, walking like I’ve never spread my legs for more than my annual exam.”

“Micky. That’s not what I meant.”

“So you don’t care if I can walk straight?”

“Of course I care. I—”

She cut him off with a wave of one hand. “You might have actually done me a favor. Papi sees me waddling like a stuffed goose, he’ll be too mortified to foist me off on an un-suspecting groom.”

“That’s not funny. Micky—”

“You know, it’s probably a good idea if you do put me on the next flight home since I’m not needed here. I’ll hire my P.I., he can work with your man and Terril , and maybe someone will actually find Lisa before it’s too late.” There. She’d given him an easy out. A way to get rid of her without having to worry about hurting her feelings. He didn’t take it. Instead, he opened up and unloaded. “What Terrill is going through waiting for word on his wife? I don’t have that in me. Putting on a good front, remaining civilized and human. I’d be ripping into anyone who crossed my path. And Terrill is only a deputy sheriff in a sparsely populated Louisiana parish.

“I work around the world and come up against people who would gut a woman I loved in front of me for fun. Not to get me to talk. Just to prove that they can, and that they can get away with it. That they could flay me open without ever touching me at all. That’s why I told you the truth of what I do. I want you to know who I am.”

He took a deep breath, stared for a moment out through the windshield before looking back at her, his face still taut but his voice softer. “That’s why as much as I wish things were different, it’s a hell of a lot safer for both of us if I keep getting drunk and jacking off to your billboard instead of fal
l
ing in love with you.”

“That billboard’s not going to stay up forever, you know,” she told him after a long tense minute of being unable to breathe, of doing nothing but listening to the crumbling of her heart, which ached for the life he’d just told her he led as much as for the one she was losing.

“I know.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Move.”

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She had met the most amazing man, and what she’d shared with him was already over. Just like that. The blink of an eye. “There will always be a hot new face in that spot.”

“Last time it wasn’t a face.”

“Lucky you.”

“And it wasn’t a woman.”

“Oops, sorry.”

“Having another dude’s package in his boxer briefs staring me in the face every morning isn’t my idea of a good way to wake up.”

Again she wanted to laugh, again felt herself fighting tears. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to go home without him. “I dunno. I could get off to it, er, used to seeing that every day.”

Simon shook his head. “You’re a hell of a woman, Michelina Ferrer.”

When he leaned toward her, she held up one hand. “Don’t give me a kiss-off, Simon. Just take me to New Orleans and let me catch my flight.”

He nodded, faced front again, and started to shift into gear. He was stopped from doing anything by a Vermilion Parish Sheriff ’s Department patrol car sliding across the road to cut them off.

Before Simon could do more than get his window halfway down, Terrill Landry was gesturing and shouting at him over the roof of his car. “Follow me! Now!”

Thirty-one

Simon never considered defying the deputy sheriff. Terrill had extended no greeting or explanation for the stop. He hadn’t verified Simon’s identity. And though Simon knew who the other man was, neither had Terrill offered his own name or credentials. Any of those could have, should have, given Simon pause, but it was the expression on the deputy sheriff ’s face that made up Simon’s mind to follow.

Whatever Terrill wanted with him, it was no small thing. The deputy had appeared nearly manic, shouting, gesturing. The only thing that came to Simon’s mind was that something had happened to King.

But when they turned off the state highway and into Bayou Allain, instead of heading for the hospital or the jail, Simon decided that was enough. He needed answers. And his need grew to mammoth proportions when Terrill drove past the business district and into the residential section of town.

“What the hell?” Simon murmured under his breath.

“This is the street where I came looking for Lisa,” Micky offered as they pulled to a stop in front of a small cottage with a wraparound porch and the biggest azalea bushes Simon had ever seen. “But this isn’t his house.”

“Say what?”

She pointed across the street. “He lives over there.”

Simon’s need to know had reached a boiling point. And the temperature rose even higher when he climbed from behind the wheel and realized his cousin’s truck was parked in front of Terril ’s car in the drive.

Where the hell were they going?

“You don’t know who lives here?”

“No clue,” Micky said, rounding the front of the vehicle.

“It’s Paschelle Sonnier’s place,” Terrill responded after slamming the cruiser’s door and coming over to where they stood.

Lorna’s secretary. That didn’t tell Simon much. “What’s King doing here?” he asked, his gut tightening until Terrill said, “He dates her. Paschelle.”

King was almost forty. Like Simon. The girl he’d seen in Lorna’s office wasn’t even thirty yet. But he had seen her, and he knew his cousin, and he had more than a strong feeling that there wasn’t a whole lot of dating going on.

“Is something wrong with King?” Simon asked.

King had left Le Hasard carrying more than a six-pack after their earlier encounter. Simon glanced over at his cousin’s truck, looking for evidence that he’d been in an accident, found none, felt…relieved.

“Nothing more wrong than usual,” Terril said, taking the four porch steps in two strides. “He’s surly and miserable and mean. Oh, and not quite sober.”

Simon followed, hearing Micky behind him, his irritation mounting, his patience growing thin. If there was nothing wrong with his cousin, then what the hell—

“I really hate bringing you here like this,” Terrill began, “the neighbors being as prone as they are to minding everyone’s business but their own, but I didn’t want to move all the boxes to my house, since they were already here—”

“Boxes?” Micky asked before Simon managed to make sense of what Terrill had said.

“I’m Michelina, by the way. Micky Ferrer. Lisa’s friend from college?”

Terrill stopped in front of the door, his hand halfway to the knob, and judging by his blank expression, apparently having trouble putting her into context. “I’m sorry. I don’t get it. You’re Micky and you’re here?”

“Didn’t your father te
l
l you?” she asked as Simon moved close and took hold of her elbow. “I talked to him Wednesday night at Red’s.”

“Wednesday night? I was there Wednesday night,” he told her, looking even more confused.

“I wasn’t there long. King pointed out your father so I could ask him about Lisa.”

Terrill scrubbed one hand over his jaw. “I don’t get it. How did you know she was missing?”

“I didn’t. Not until your father told me.”

He looked from Micky to Simon and back. “Did you two come down here together?”

Simon shook his head. “If you’ve got snoops for neighbors, the story can wait until we’re behind closed doors.”

Terrill sti
l
l seemed lost, but he rapped sharply on the door before pushing it open. Simon ushered Micky in front of him, bringing up the rear as the three of them entered a small living room hardly meant for five adults and a dozen boxes that smelled like dirt and old bread.

“I think all of you know each other, unless Micky and Paschelle haven’t met,” Terril said, playing host.

Sitting on the floor, her back to the sofa, where King sat sprawled, Paschelle raised a hand in greeting.

“They were both at Lorna’s office this morning,” Simon said, turning to Terrill. “Now, are you going to fill us in on what we’re all doing here?”

“It’s a party, cuz.” King slapped a hand to his knee. “A mystery dinner theater. Isn’t that what they call it when the host gives his guests the clues they need to solve a crime?

Except there’s no dinner with this one. Chelle only made enough for two.”

“We were actually on our way to New Orleans,” Simon told Terrill, ignoring King. “We were going to grab a bite, and then Micky’s catching a plane. If this is some kind of game, you go ahead without us.”

“Wait a minute,” Micky said, stepping closer to Terrill and giving Simon her back before he could stop her from asking, “Does the crime have to do with figuring out who ran me off the bridge over the Allain bayou?”

Paschelle gasped. Behind her, King moved his hand to her shoulder and sat forward. Terrill’s expression darkened. “Ran you off? What’re you talking about? The car that went off the bridge was leased to a Jane Mitchell from New York.”

“I know. I use that name when I travel on personal business.” She rattled off Jane’s address, cell phone and social security numbers. “I was the one in the car when it went into the water.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Terril said, pacing, shaking his head. “As soon as we got the accident call Thursday morning, we started searching. We were all over that place. How did you get out without us seeing you?”

“Because I went in twelve hours before.”

“And because it wasn’t an accident,” Simon added. “She got out and made certain she wasn’t seen by you or the thugs who ran her off the road.”

“What are you saying? Why would anyone want to run you off the road?” Terrill asked, disbelief sharpening his features and his tone of voice.

Micky shrugged. “You tell me.”

Simon made sure he had the deputy’s full attention. “She obviously made someone at Red’s uncomfortable with her questions about Lisa’s whereabouts. The accident was less than an hour after she left the bar.”

“The only people she talked to at Red’s,” King offered, “were me…and Bear.”

“You think my father did this? Wait, wait.” Terrill collapsed onto the edge of a folding chair set in front of the boxes. It nearly buckled beneath him. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it makes so much sense. Especially with everything else.”

“What everything else?” Simon asked, having realized this was real and not any kind of game.

“The mystery dinner theater, boo,” King said. “The one without the food.”

Simon scrubbed both hands down his face, wondering what the last few days would have been like if he’d stayed in New York, spent the time off holed up in his apartment, heading to Katz’s when his stomach couldn’t deal with his empty fridge any longer. Then he realized that if he hadn’t driven up to his house on Le Hasard the moment he had, Micky might not be standing beside him. He wouldn’t have spent two hours with her lush and wet body a
l
l over his. Bear Landry and his goons might have gotten away with her murder if Simon hadn’t come to face the man who’d been a thorn in his side for too long. It was time he and King put the past behind them.