When a Man Loves a Weapon (18 page)

Well, it wasn’t going to end any better for them. He didn’t feel bad about that. He waited, because Sean said to wait. And Dox wasn’t about to question Sean. He’d seen the man beat the living hell out of a woman who crossed him, once, and that was before Sean became a twisted fuck. They’d all lived well, though. They’d lived, was mostly the point; if it weren’t for Sean, most of them wouldn’t have.

Dox simply watched the foursome as they checked the truck for explosives and drove away. Sirens blared, fire trucks on the way. A good minute or two out, but that was his cue to go. He knew Ackers would pick up the tail on the road out.

Cam had pushed the truck at top speed, the dotted white lines on the interstate whipping together, a blurred line stitching the dark road to the horizon as they headed east toward Lafayette, which was smack in the middle of Cajun country and proud of it, throwing a party for everything that had anything to do with being a Cajun at the drop of a hat. Hell, at the drop of anything. Drop a toothpick, they would throw a party.

Damned good ones, too.

If he could picture his own personal version of hell, though, this would be it: a sniper to his right, riding shotgun, and Trevor and Bobbie Faye crammed in the extended cab’s jump seat behind him. His only consolation? Trevor seemed to be in hell, too.

“I could have gone in and gotten my own damned clothes,” she griped.

“We’re trying to not draw attention here,” Cam said. “You know, pretty much the opposite of what you do.”

They’d stopped at a gas station, and Cam was still shirtless—waiting for Riles to get a replacement for Bobbie Faye from inside the convenience store. Trevor changed clothes in the tight quarters of the truck, a shirt and jeans pulled from the go-bag he’d grabbed. Yep, Cam’s definition of hell. He tried his dead level best to ignore the fact that Bobbie Faye was in the backseat with a temporarily naked fiancé.

“Riles isn’t going to know what to get,” she argued. “Besides, everyone will think I’m still at the fire. They wouldn’t recognize me.”

“Like you aren’t splattered all over every news program right now? How can you be so self-delusional?”

“Watch it, Moreau,” Trevor warned, but Cam ignored him.

Cam had turned a little so that he could see her over his
shoulder, and the undercurrent of his words bounced around inside the cab. She was the fucking
Queen
of self-delusional, what in the hell had he expected? But there had to be a point where she saw that, where she grew out of it. If it killed him, she was going to open her goddamned eyes and pay attention to her life. Her real life. The one she could have, the one right there in her grasp, if she’d just wake the hell up.

Riles returned to the truck before she answered and tossed a pair of flip-flops in the backseat to her, then handed over a t-shirt, along with bottles of water and energy bars.

Bobbie Faye unfolded the white t-shirt and said, “Oh,
fuck
no. I am
not
wearing this shirt.”

Riles grinned. “It was either that or the ‘my life is a drinking game’ one.”

“You’re lying.”

“I figured the drinking game one was too obvious. I went for
subtle
.”

It was a
BAMA RULES
t-shirt. As in
Alabama
. As in arch-rivals, game day tomorrow, and Cam was sitting there, former LSU champion quarterback. Yeah, Riles was subtle, all right. Riles grinned, exceptionally pleased with himself.

Trevor grabbed the shirt, turned it inside-out, cut off the back tag with his pocketknife, and handed it back to her, all one fluid motion, all without a word.

She
still
held it out from her body as if it would make her lift off the ground, spin around, and upchuck pea soup. She met Cam’s gaze and he knew they were thinking the same thing: wearing this was like committing some sort of unholy, unpardonable sin.

That’s my girl
, he thought, as she grimaced. To this day, she could probably recite the plays better than he could. For just that half-a-second, they were back there, the crowd screaming, people rushing the goalposts, confetti floating in the air, horns sounding, band rocking the stadium as he swooped her up and spun her around and they laughed until they nearly fell over, dizzy with exuberance.

Trevor shielded her as she pulled off Cam’s t-shirt, then he threw it at Cam, disgust and annoyance cracking his supposedly
super-agent shell. Cam slowly turned the t-shirt back right-side-out, the state police logo in the upper right pocket area. Cam didn’t let his gaze waver, just stared straight where Bobbie Faye was donning the stupid shirt, while Trevor glared back at him, threatening to throttle him.

He’d really like to see the man try.

Cam put the truck in gear and they got back on the interstate. He glanced in his rearview mirror, catching Trevor’s expression.

Under any other circumstances, he’d have probably liked Trevor. He’d have probably even considered him a friend. Now? He was a very dangerous enemy, one he had to work with, one he would beat. The man was a stone-cold killer. Licensed to do it, sure. FBI, sure. Former Spec Ops. Bobbie Faye had enough trouble, all on her very own. Hell, she couldn’t walk across the street without causing trouble. He knew two libraries which had banned her—one still hadn’t rebuilt the shelving she’d inadvertently broke and sent domino-fashion across the floor. But the very positively
last
thing she needed? This guy. Because Trevor thrived on trouble; he didn’t grasp that he needed to get Bobbie Faye out of this mess instead of letting her wade deeper into it. And Cam knew she’d keep wading, and he knew he’d always go in after her.

If the sonofabitch didn’t get her killed.

Ce Ce packed thermoses. Soup, in case there was a cold snap—unlikely, but it could happen. Everything they needed for grilling—hot dogs, burgers, buns, the works. The tool company—Mac Tools, Inc.—was giving away the tickets and doing a big promotional gig right there in the parking lot—complete with photographers snapping their pictures. Monique was going to bring all of the drinks.

They were tailgating.

Never in a million years did she think she was going to be tailgating at an LSU game, but it occurred to her that she could bring a couple thousand business cards for her voodoo sideline business. This could turn into fun.

Her cell phone rang. She glanced at the late hour, surprised, and snatched it up.

“Ceece, it’s Nina. Where is she?”

“Oh, hey, girl, she’s at home.”

“Nope, Ceece, her house just blew up.”

“What!” Ce Ce clicked on the TV. “When on earth?” And she watched the live footage showing the burning house and the crowds of police and firemen and reporters and onlookers.

“A little while ago,” Nina said. “I’m on my way in. The police radio traffic says she’s alive and that she’s there, but they’re not letting me talk to her.”

“I don’t see her on the footage, hon,” Ce Ce said, bending close to the screen and scrutinizing the crowds. “They usually do close-ups, but maybe she’s answering questions? Or maybe Trevor’s got her safe somewhere?” Ce Ce scrutinized the data scrolling along the bottom of the screen—it said no casualties. She checked the matching bracelet: orange. Bobbie Faye’s house blew up and it was orange? “And the chicken foot isn’t black,” she said aloud to Nina.

“The cuckoo clucks at twelve?”

“Oh, sorry, hon. It’s a protection spell. The chicken foot is supposed to turn black if she’s in danger, and it didn’t. She might’ve already worn out its power. I’m going to have to super-boost it. She’s wearing its twin.”

“I am not even going to pretend to understand that—but is there a downside to this thing?”

“Well . . .” Ce Ce hated to talk about the downsides of voodoo. People could get so fixated on negatives, and that bad attitude could sometimes undo a spell. Or create the very problem she’d been trying to prevent. “A few.”

“Will she turn blue again? Because I am so bringing my camera if she is.”

“No, no colors. If she takes it off too soon, it could magnify the trouble. Or it could turn into an aphrodisiac.”

“You can make something people can wear that becomes an aphrodisiac?”

“Well, sure.”

“Ceece. We have so got to talk about franchising.”

Nina hung up before Ce Ce could ask any more questions. Meanwhile, there was no way she was leaving Bobbie Faye unprotected. That left boosting the current spell.

Not a problem.

“Do you ever feel like Bobbie Faye is from another planet?”

“Man . . . they must really hate us.”

—Gamblers Kathy Boswell and Barb Kyweriga as they watch the casino burn

“Oh, shit,” she said, gazing down.

“What’s wrong?” Trevor’s long frame didn’t fit in the jump seat, so he was sitting at an angle, which allowed her to lean into him. She felt his heartbeat ramp up as she snuggled against him. She was as close as she could get without climbing in his lap. He followed her gaze down.

“The chicken foot juju turned black.”

There was a moment of total silence in the truck cab. The first real grin of the night quirked at his lips. “I’m not sure I speak ‘chicken foot juju’—I think you’re going to have to translate that one, Sundance.”

She held up her right wrist with the ugly chicken foot bracelet.

“Um . . .” he said, looking it over, “I’d been trying to ignore that.”

“Ce Ce said if there was really bad juju around, it would turn black. And see?” She waggled her arm and the chicken foot bands clinked together. “Black.” All three men were silent. Pointedly silent. “After the casino sank, it was only orangey brown. Not black.” Still. Silent. Even Cam, who respected the voodoo, looked back at her in the rearview mirror as if she were three bricks shy of a load. Trevor’s lips quirked again, and she felt a chuckle roll through his abs to his chest, though he suppressed it. “Fine.
Mock
the bad-juju
indicator. I put on this shirt, the chicken foot turned black. We’re in trouble.”

“Because sinking a boat and having your house blow up were too subtle for you?” Riles asked.

She smacked him in the shoulder. “Thank you, Obi-Wan. I am so encouraged now.” She turned to Trevor. “You don’t think we just had a conscientious bomber, do you?” If she could mainline Denial right now, she would. She still had the shakes over the fact that Trevor had run to the kitchen after the noise, seen an intruder leaving out a window, a bomb sitting in the middle of the stupid island, and a message in ketchup, of all things, spelling “GET OUT.” Of course, he could’ve waited five more minutes and then she would’ve ended up
fully
nekkid in front of Cam
and
Riles. (She could practically hear the Universe laugh evilly and start planning.)

Trevor squeezed her a little. “You’re thinking too hard,” he murmured in her ear. “You should rest.”

“You believe in the bad-juju indicator, right?” Because if she was going crazy? He was going with her. That was
the deal.

“Of course I do,” he said, hugging her to him, keeping his chin on the top of her head. She knew it was so he could laugh at her, but fine fine fine fine
fine
.

She sighed, settling into his chest (and her Hormones, which had practically been bludgeoned to death by the night’s events, managed a weak
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
as she felt his abs beneath her arms). It was much easier to think about that than the fact that someone really wanted to toy with them—how someone made sure Nick gave her just the right information to set her Wig-Out Meter on overdrive and send her smack into the middle of Trevor’s sting operation—that took some serious insider knowledge. That someone, she was pretty sure, wasn’t Nick—but Nick would know who it was—and this time, she was going to make sure the slimy bastard told the truth.

Someone clearly wanted her—or them—off balance, wary,
off their game. If it had been the matter of a simple desire to have her dead, any number of ways would have done the job a lot better, a lot faster, and a lot cheaper. So why would they go to the trouble of warning her and Trevor so they could get out?

It made no sense.

She could feel Trevor spinning through the same scenarios. Of course, he probably knew classified information, and for a brief moment, she thought wistfully about how nice it would be to have access to multiple sources of knowledge, because she hated not knowing crap, but she damned near snorted at the idea. She’d have to be an agent to have that kind of access, and Bobbie Faye being an FBI agent was about as likely as Nina suddenly going to work for Homeland Security.

She tucked her face against Trevor’s shoulder, grateful to have him back in his normal t-shirt and jeans, grateful to have the equilibrium just tucking into him brought her. “I’m sorry,” she said, for his ears only.

He kissed her temple, holding her with one hand, running his fingers through her hair. He murmured low into her ear, “It’s not your fault, Sundance. It’s not.”

For the first time that evening, she let herself feel the reality of the moment. She’d just lost
every
single memento. Every one she’d kept from her trailer. He’d lost photos and military medals and a few things that he held dear. There weren’t many, but they’d been important.

They were gone.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and he held her, his head bent to hers, and her need of him seemed to ease his tension, knocking the corners off his fury over Cam. “We’ll have our own place, Sundance. We’ll have our home and our family. I promise you that. I did not come to play, remember?”

She remembered.

She needed that right now.

Because that damned chicken foot was black. She wanted to take it off and fling it outside the truck, but Ce Ce had given her dire dire warnings, very explicit that she not take
it off until Ce Ce did the unbinding spell, that taking it off could be even more disastrous than Bobbie Faye could imagine. But the damned thing hadn’t turned black when she’d sunk a huge luxury casino boat and her house had blown up. So what, in God’s name, was it that made it turn black
now
?