Charmed and Dangerous (36 page)

“Sorry, I’m going to need a little more to go on to understand,” his voice rumbled in her ear, “because I don’t think you’re asking for a quickie in the middle of this room.”

“I think this is a treasure map.”

His eyebrows shot up. “A what?”

“Nap. Gold,” she said, pointing to the TV, where they were rehashing everything which had been said, who’d said it, and what everyone thought about everything that had been said. “I think the bank robber was trying to say
Napoleon’s
gold
. He was definitely in that bank to get something more than money, and he definitely waited around to get the tiara, and now he’s babbling about Napoleon’s gold and it sounds like someone tried to kill him. I think he was saying ‘nap’ as in Napoleon. And gold.”

The anchorwoman broke in again. This time there was a current photo of the Professor in the right-hand corner of the TV screen. He was dressed much nicer in a business suit, posed in front of a well-appointed desk, with expensive bookshelves filled with heavy tomes behind him.

“We’ve now confirmed the identity of the alleged bank robber, though this seems to have taken his colleagues by complete surprise. The man seen here in this footage—”

There was a new graphic placed under the Professor’s photo, which contained the surveillance footage from the bank showing the Professor with his gun and “dynamite.”

“—shows the same man now known to us as Professor Bartholomew Fred, Professor of Antiquities at LSU. He has had an esteemed record of discoveries, particularly with old manuscripts and journals, and had been quite excited over the last few days, according to his secretary, who didn’t know the Professor’s whereabouts today until she saw our footage earlier this afternoon.”

The anchor continued with a background of the Professor, all his colleagues either “no commenting” or giving glowing speeches, but Bobbie Faye tuned out and stared at Trevor, who looked oddly back at her.

“Professor of Antiquities,” she whispered, and then she looked down at the tiara again.

Holy freaking bouncing Buddhas. She had to be right. Napoleon’s gold. She’d been wearing the map to
Napoleon’s gold
on her head. For years. When she was too broke to pay her taxes, too broke to pay her electric bill, too broke to buy lunch meat for Stacey for her school lunches and had made do with peanut butter and jelly for the zillionth time.

No wonder the kidnapper wanted the damned thing.

Trevor stiffened, and Bobbie Faye dragged her focus back
to their present. And realized: she could hear the dogs baying. A helluva lot louder.

“They got through the stairwell door,” he said. “We have to go straight to that elevator. Just pretend you belong here, and we should be able to get there without someone stopping us.”

“Right, because two muddy, filthy people who reek of swamp and sweat won’t be noticeable.”

“Unless you plan on taking everyone in the room hostage, too, I think that’s our only choice.”

Bobbie Faye looked at the elevator, a good thirty yards away, with secretaries and workers between them and it. Behind her: the banging and clamoring of the dogs slinging through the corridors, and the heavy tromping of boots as the men followed.

Which got the attention of every single person in the room.

And they all turned to see what the commotion was about.

Which meant that there was not going to be any “walking casually to the elevator” plan put into action.

Especially when Bobbie Faye heard Cam as he ran through that corridor, a few steps ahead of the rest of the men (damn him to hell for staying in shape), and she could hear him shouting, “Bobbie Faye! Stay right the hell where you are.”

She turned and realized that the nook they were standing in was easily seen from the hallway, and she and Trevor were in Cam’s direct line of sight.

Cam was holding his gun, ready to raise it if need be. He was giving her a look, half fury, half . . . what? Fear?

She had her own gun, ready.

She didn’t have time to decide.

Trevor shot his gun, aiming it up, into the ceiling, and everyone in the place screamed. Most ran. Several crossed between Cam and where she and Trevor hid, and Trevor yanked her hard toward the elevator.

Our best sales? During a big storm or a Bobbie Faye event. People are trapped and they need to cope.

—J.P. Paul, beer deliveryman

Cam saw her. Cornered. Trevor standing behind her, one arm around her waist. Cam couldn’t tell if she wanted his arm there, or if Cormier was forcing her, controlling her. The fact that she had a gun registered only after the personal space the two escapees seemed to be sharing did. And with that gun in her hand, he knew Cormier couldn’t be forcing her; she didn’t mind his arm around her. Maybe even wanted it to be there.

Sonofabitch.

The way her eyes darted, measuring the space from where she stood to his location at the hallway opening, told him what was racing through her mind: could she take out the SWAT team before they slowed her down?

He’d never seen such a desperate expression in her eyes, not even the time she’d asked him to let Lori Ann go. There was a wave of absolute primal fear vibrating off her, and he knew she was calculating her shot odds as soon as she’d heard the SWAT running toward her.

Yeah, she might try to take out the SWAT team. Which still left the FBI, who would kill her to get to Cormier.

“Bobbie Faye! Stay right the hell where you are!”

He had his gun ready, but not aimed at her. He saw her think about raising her own, and he gave her a look.
If you do, you’d better kill me.

He understood, then, he’d let her fire first. He couldn’t draw down on her, couldn’t put her seriously in the eyesight of the barrel of his gun, not even to wound her.

What in the hell was wrong with him?

He didn’t have time to think; Cormier fired upwards, sending everyone screaming and running. Massive chaos put the civvies between Cam and Bobbie Faye as Cormier yanked her toward the elevator, and she stumbled, crashing into a pole, then spun, and as she got her footing, she shot Cam a look that challenged him to shoot her to stop her.

Goddamn her all to hell and back again.

And then she ran.

My God, she thinks she’s going to make it to the elevator.

Shooting exploded around him, and Cam knew the time was up. The FBI were in the room, shouting, “Get down, get down,” and “Freeze, Cormier,” and yelling Bobbie Faye’s name. All three of the FBI team had taken up protected positions behind machinery and were firing in the general direction of Trevor and Bobbie Faye.

They weren’t even trying to aim. The asswipes. They were peppering the area, not caring what they hit. They had such a hard-on for Cormier, they had forgotten the civilians. And they clearly couldn’t care less about Bobbie Faye.

He had to do something. People were going to get killed like this.

There was the elevator, ten feet away.

She zigged through machinery. Ducking. Hearing pings and metallic clanks as bullets whizzed by or embedded in something too close for comfort.

Eight feet.

She lost track of Trevor, and dodged around two desks, rolling down behind one as bullets skipped across the top
like rocks on a calm lake, sending paperwork snowing to the floor.

Five feet.

The elevator doors were shut.

She couldn’t exactly stand there and wait for them to open. She scanned around the floor, found a stapler which had fallen in the melee, and threw it at the button.

Missed. Sonofabitch.

She crawled to a paperweight, snagged it as another bullet bounced between the desks where she’d just been. Was it Cam who was shooting at her? The other guys?

Her stomach iced over as she thought about how much he must hate her to be shooting at her, to not care if she was dead. She tried not to think about the last time she was lying next to him, listening to him breathing, thinking then that he was, finally,
home
. Her home. Not the house, not a place, but a who.

And now that person was trying to kill her.

She tried to ignore the gnawing, gaping hole she felt in her heart and threw the paperweight.

Bang. Nailed the elevator button.

Watched the numbers trail downwards.

Everyone was going to know she’d thrown that paperweight. All eyes were undoubtedly focused on those doors. She was going to be a sitting duck in that car until those doors closed. She was going to have to shoot back into the room to force them all down. To buy time.

Where the hell was Trevor?

Then she saw him. Several feet away, behind another piece of machinery. Holding something . . . oh, holy freaking geez, he had the tiara. She looked down, and the rope that had held it to her front belt loop had been severed.

She looked back up at him just as the elevator dinged its arrival. She motioned to him, and as soon as she moved toward the elevator, a new carpeting of bullets scattered in her direction. Between them.

He shook his head.

And started to back away, taking the tiara with him.

She had a crisp flash of telling him it was a map. And that look in his eye . . . it had been that look she’d seen in the gunrunner’s shed. The one where she knew he was way more than just the “helpful” guy he seemed at the time. The look that said he knew way the hell too much about guns.

Had that look been greed surfacing? Had it always been there? Did he decide somewhere along the way that whatever a kidnapper might go to that much trouble for would be worth a lot, and so he’d play along, pretending to help her to get it?

She knew she shouldn’t have trusted anyone. She’d always known; she’d grown up knowing.

The elevator doors slid open, agonizingly slow.

“You go,” he shouted. “You’ve got to get there.”

“I’ve got to have the tiara,” she shouted back. “They’ll kill him if I don’t have the tiara!”

Bullets blanketed the aisles between them.

“I’ll meet you.”

“Like
hell
. Throw it!”

More bullets slammed around her, then, and she could tell the shooters were getting closer. The antiquated elevator doors were starting to slide closed. She only had seconds.

Then,
pop. Pop pop pop,
the lights shattered above her. Shards of glass exploded and there were more screams and scurrying and running as the place went darker and darker. Men shouted.

Bobbie Faye looked back at Trevor.

He was gone.

The elevator door inched closer to closed.

More lights popped out.

She rolled, then. Somersaulted, actually, and flopped into the elevator car, the doors clipping her and bouncing open a little, then sliding closed again. Bullets embedded in the back of the car, just above her head.

As the doors slid shut, she saw the shooter of the lights, his gun still pointed up.

Cam.

Cam
? Shooting out the lights?

Helping
? Motioning her to get down.
Cam
.

And Trevor . . . who’d been helping . . . now gone? With the tiara?

Absolutely nothing made sense.

The elevator crawled its way upwards as the inconsistencies swirled through her overwhelmed mind, her thoughts jumbled, hodgepodge, broken in waves of astonishment.

She had to find purchase somewhere. Some raft of rational thought. Some plan. She was drowning in confusion as the elevator doors opened. Another guard did a double-take from his desk as she stormed out of the car into his lobby. He started to stand, and she drew her gun on him.

“Does it look like I’m having a good day here?”

The guard, mid-forties, took in her rough appearance, with her torn, filthy shirt, stained jeans, scratches, bloodstains. “Can I just lie down on the floor instead of answering?”

“You are a smart man,” she said, and read his name tag, “Bertrand. A very smart man.”

He flattened himself on the floor and she removed his gun.

“I’m just gonna throw this outside. Wouldn’t want you to get into trouble for it completely disappearing.”

She turned to go.

“Wait!” he pleaded, and when she looked back at him, “Could you autograph my lunch pail? My wife will never forgive me if I didn’t ask.”

“On one condition. You tell them I knocked you out and you’re not sure where I went when I went out the door. I promise you, it’s for a good reason.”

“Aw, hell, you’re the Contraband Days Queen. I’d be real happy to help.”

She didn’t have time to marvel at that; she grabbed a Sharpie off his desk and scribbled her name across the closed lunch box set on the corner of his desk, then ran toward the front door when she heard the helicopter blades whirring closer.

With bright yellow call letters emblazoned on the side, WFKD, Channel 2, the media helicopter set down on the outer edge of the large parking lot. She jogged over to it, her gun in the back waistband of her jeans. She beamed the high-wattage Contraband Days Queen smile she’d learned from her mom. The cameraman grinned back.

“Are you for real?”

“As real as it gets.”

“We actually get an exclusive?”