Charmed and Dangerous (8 page)

“I’m working on it!”

“Work faster,” he said, “or I’ll start sending you pieces of your brother.” He hung up.

“Wait!” But there was no “wait” and she sank back against the seat, thoroughly frustrated.

“What’s going on?” Trevor asked. Not an unreasonable question, she knew, but she couldn’t risk explaining anything to him. He was in it for the reward. The last thing she needed right now was for him to have second thoughts and bail on her.

“Nothing but my life disintegrating rather spectacularly,” she said, watching the car ahead of them.

“So these guys took something important?” he asked, and she rolled her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as sharp as he’d seemed at first.

“And you’re sure it wasn’t someone else, right? We’re chasing the right guys?”

“You think I don’t know who the hell stole the thing I need?”

He swerved to the curb, parked, reached across her, ignoring the gun, opened her door, and pointed. “First floor, chocolate to your left, electroshock to your right, watch your step and next time, call a cab.”

“But . . . but . . . what about the reward?”

“Accessories to armed robbery don’t usually have free time to ride a motorcycle. Out.”

He kept looking behind him, and Bobbie Faye followed his glance, wondering if the police were sneaking up on her.

“I don’t have any money for a cab,” she said.

“Lady, you
robbed
the bank.”

“I did
not
rob the bank, will you please quit saying that? I mean, for crying out loud, do I
look
like the kind of person who . . .” She stopped when she saw his glance and she followed it down to her
SHUCK ME, SUCK ME
T-shirt and the gun in her hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Here’s the deal: I’ve got to get something back. If I don’t—”

“Yeah, sure, it’s life or death, right?” he asked, interrupting her before she could turn on the patented Sumrall charm. He
tapped the GPS box on his truck as if it was far more interesting than she was and Bobbie Faye gritted her teeth behind her best “charming” smile, fighting the urge to shoot the damned GPS box just for kicks.

“Not buying it, lady,” he continued. “You’re a magnet for disaster and you’re costing me every single minute you stay in this truck. While you’re cute and all—”

“I’ll pay you,” she said. “To help,” she added when he smiled. She did not like that smile. That was a very dangerous smile; he could convince someone it was okay to jump off a cliff when he smiled like that. She also did not like that brown curly hair or the scar next to his eye, or how blue his eyes were against his tan. Brown eyes were way the hell more trustworthy. Somehow she had to get the upper hand here, and obviously the gun wasn’t really going to do the trick unless she actually wanted to shoot him, and while that wasn’t totally out of the question, she was already in enough trouble.

Bobbie Faye eyed the Saab, which had stayed on the same street, getting caught by heavy cross traffic at each red light, clearly afraid to risk running the lights. She tried batting her eyelashes at Trevor, hoping to God she had maybe possibly at some point brushed her hair, and hopefully there was nothing in her teeth when she tried the patented “you-want-to-help-me” smile.

He shook his head. “How are you going to pay me? You can’t afford a cab, remember? I don’t need this. Get out. Tell the cops you were having a nervous breakdown in the bank because of your . . . was it your brother you mentioned? And they’ll go easy on you.”

“I am
not
having a nervous breakdown, and if you shove me out, I’m going to tell them the robbery was all your idea. And no one—not you, God, or anyone else in between—is going to stand in my way of helping my brother. Now
drive
.”

The expression on his face shifted from “no” to “hell, no.” Never try to con a man who was so well-practiced in the art of “no” he had a repertoire of expressions. She had to do something, find some way to crack that armor, because she
didn’t know if there was a way to catch up with the boys once they turned off this street into the busy grid of the city proper.

She gave up the pretense, itching to just shoot him and get it over with. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Are you planning on kidnapping them, too?”

“If it would help, yes. Do you?”

“Three bratty sisters from hell.”

“No wonder, with a brother like you.”

“Please tell me there’s a jar somewhere with your picture on it, collecting for therapy.”

He glanced back in his rearview mirror and frowned.

“I’ve got to get that thing they took from me, or the people who want it are going to hurt my brother.”

“This is why random murder was invented,” he muttered as he watched something in his rearview mirror.

“Don’t give me ideas. C’mon. We’re losing the car.”

She leveled her gun at him, watching him stare at that rearview mirror, frowning way more than he had when she’d first held the gun on him. She stole a fast glance out the back window and saw a silver Taurus parked at the curb a few car lengths behind them. A yuppie guy whose suit fit nicely across his broad shoulders climbed out of the driver’s seat and went to stand in front of a storefront. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place why. She squinted and realized that the storefront was empty, and the guy seemed to be staring a little too intently, his body half-turned away from where she and Trevor were parked at the curb.

“Hey,” she asked, “is that guy . . . watching us? Through the reflection in the glass?”

“Did that guy have anything to do with the other guys who stole your stuff?”

“No . . . well, not that I know of, why?”

A helicopter roared into view above them all, and Bobbie Faye met Trevor’s grim expression.

“Goddammit, lady, you owe me. Big.”

He floored the truck, and Bobbie Faye bounced against the dash, slamming her wrist into it, and accidentally fired
the gun, blowing a hole in the floorboard. Instantly, before she had fully righted herself, bullets ripped into the tailgate, coming from somewhere behind them.

“Not the
truck
! Sonofabitch. This is getting personal.”

And then he did the thing that made her realize barging into his truck might not have been such a clever idea after all: he started shooting back at the yuppie guy running after them.

“Stop doing that! You could hurt someone!”

“
You
shot at
me,
” he reminded her.

“Did not. I shot your
truck
.”

She ignored his glare. He probably would have followed through on the threat to throw her out, except he was flying down side streets in the same general direction the Saab had taken. Contraband Days Festival banners were strung across the street from lamppost to lamppost. People had already turned out by the dozens, dressed up in pirate costumes with fake swords, beers and soft drinks in hand. Bobbie Faye yelped as Trevor wheeled around a curve and almost plowed into a batch of schoolkids crossing the street.

Trevor spun the truck in a sharp right turn and she slammed up against him. (And damn, guys aren’t supposed to smell good in the middle of running for your life, are they?) Before she could sit up to see just where they were, his bicep tensed against her cheek. He nearly elbowed her to death as he spun the wheel, avoiding something she couldn’t see as he punched the gas. She gawked at the view out of the windshield as the truck suddenly angled up, going airborne, Trevor laying on the horn to scatter pedestrians.

The truck landed. Hard. Inside something red. It was one of the parked parade floats waiting in the prep area.

“We just landed in a crawfish,” she said helpfully.

“Thank you. I noticed that.” He didn’t sound particularly appreciative.

Two cop cars sped past, and she considered the red pincers around them and appreciated that they were camouflaged. But only briefly, because a helluva lot of pissed off Cajuns started emerging from various floats in the prep area,
including the float they were straddling, searching around for someone’s ass to kick. Bobbie Faye scanned past the chaos, the cops, and the crazed pirate wannabes running around, past the roadblock created by the logjam of the first floats which had already begun traveling down the parade route.

And then she saw it: the Saab, trying to extricate itself from the same unholy mess, just a few blocks away.

“Hot
damn,
there they are. We’ve gotta hurry.”

Trevor gaped at her as if she couldn’t be serious, and when he made no move to hurry, she hit the low-wheel-drive gear and stomped on Trevor’s accelerator.

The truck dug down into the bed of the float, grabbing traction, and Trevor had to manhandle the steering wheel to keep control, all while blowing the horn to warn bystanders on the sidewalk to get the hell out of the way. The truck climbed off the float fast, dragging a good portion of the rest of the crawfish with them for a couple of blocks, causing everyone to stampede.

Everyone except the cops, who tried to U-turn and get back to them, but who were slowed by the floats lumbering out of the giant crawfish-truck’s way. Bobbie Faye grabbed for the steering wheel when Trevor started turning away from the Saab. He wrestled it back, pointing to the passenger side.

“You,” he seethed. “Stay over there.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

From the fury radiating from him, she decided maybe sitting in the passenger seat wasn’t so bad an idea after all.

He glared at her, muttering, “One quick shot to the head, no one would have been the wiser.”

She pretended not to hear him, peered out the back window, and almost seizured when she saw just how many cops were trying to cut through the jammed streets to follow them.

Not only
no,
but
hell no
! We already had the Alamo. We sure as hell are not taking Bobbie Faye.

—the governor of Texas to the governor of Louisiana

In the lead cop car, State Police Detective Cameron Moreau blared his sirens at the idiots in the red truck, relying on his quarterback reflexes to outmaneuver the other cars in his way and watch downfield in case the red truck made a break for an opening. For one second, he had a clear view of the truck and a woman in the passenger seat. When she glanced back, his heart sunk to his size eleven shoes.

He grabbed his microphone and keyed for dispatch.

“Jason,” he said, “get me backup. Bobbie Faye’s in that damned truck ripping through the parade.”

“Our Bobbie Faye?”

“I sure as hell ain’t claimin’ her.”

“Shoot, Cam,” Jason said, barely hiding the laughter. “You just been pissed at her since fifth grade, when she sold lemonade she made out of holy water and told the priest it was your idea.”

Sonofabitch. Why’d he have to live here where everybody knew every damned fart anyone had ever taken in their life? And why in the hell did it have to be Bobbie Faye in that
damned truck? He could feel Jason laughing without even being in the same room.

He keyed his mic again. “Just shut the hell up,” he said. “I need me some backup.”

“You’re gonna need the army, is what you’re gonna need.” This time, Jason didn’t even bother to hide the laughter, and Cam slammed his mic down, breaking the hook. He accelerated, trying to keep the truck in sight without mowing down curious onlookers in the process.

His radio crackled again; this time Jason sounded more worried than amused.

“Cam? You still following Bobbie Faye?”

“No, I thought I’d have a tea party out here. What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“Well, she robbed the bank.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, they got her on surveillance tape. It looks like she’s robbed Moss Point First National, her and some college kids or something.”

“I didn’t even know Moss Point had graduated to surveillance tape.”

“I guess they figured Harold was going to sleep through the end of the world, so they might as well. And what makes them think they ought to call the bank ‘First National,’ huh? Doesn’t that seem a little—”

Cam interrupted him. “Jason. Philosophize later. Just tell me who-all is after her and where they’re coming from.”

“I’ll get back to you on that.” The radio went silent again.

Great. Just great. It had to be Bobbie Faye. Sonofabitch.

Cam shoved all thoughts aside, particularly the ones where he understood he wasn’t even surprised that there was something as bad as a bank robbery involved with Bobbie Faye, or that he knew he’d be happy if she was in cuffs. Instead, he focused on not running down anyone while he zigzagged through the crowd, staying hot behind the truck. He peered up and saw the news helicopter and realized they were tracking the truck as well. He grabbed his microphone again.

“Jason? Contact Channel Two news and patch me through to their helicopter.”

“Copy that,” Jason answered, abrupt and official, which told Cam all he needed to know: the Captain and God-knew-who-else were listening in to see exactly what happened next.
Just great.
Given that it was Bobbie Faye they were dealing with, he could kiss his promotion good-bye.

Bobbie Faye saw the car hang a left ahead. When Trevor didn’t seem to be about to turn, she snapped and pounded her fist on the dash, shouting, “Left! Left! Is it against your religion to turn left or
what
?”

“Do you want out? Because if you keep hitting my dash, you’re getting out.”

“What is the deal with you? It’s just a truck.”

He screeched to a stop, turning to face her full-on.

“It. Is. Never,” he said, his words measured, “
just
a truck.” He turned back to the steering wheel, took a breath, then floored it, his truck practically leaping forward with the sudden acceleration, and momentum pushed her hard against the back rest.

“All righty, then,” she said, shaking. “That’s more like it.”

She gaped behind them at a metric buttload of cops with blaring sirens and lights. Shit. Was that Cam driving that lead car? Noooooo, no no no no no. Please, God, anyone but her ex.