Target (5 page)

H
oover stood on the backseat of the Audi with his head on Aurelie's shoulder. The dog looked straight ahead, panting loudly, and snuffling from time to time.

Nick drove back through town, passing through a typical wispy blanket of ground fog coming in the wake of a boiling day. What Delia had called rain was more mist. “When we get there, just drop everything and get to bed. I'll take Hoover out back.” He had better not give in to any more selfish urges, like trying to find a way to do more than give Aurelie a bed for the night—on her own—unless he was prepared to ruin the family Delia Board had so successfully put together.

“I'll take him,” Aurelie said. “He likes to be out for a bit.”

He had never wondered how she took care of her dog. “I'll go with you.” He knew better than to say she shouldn't be out alone at night, even with a big dog.

Aurelie scratched the dog's neck, then gently pushed him back. “Lie down,” she said and the animal surprised Nick by doing just that.

More or less forcing her to spend the night at his place had been one dumb move. Sure, she would be fine there, but it wouldn't help him.

He felt her look at him and glanced back.

She smiled.

Smiling at her was easy.

Funny how a face you'd known as well as your own for years could seem mysterious. Each time he looked at Aurelie he got a jolt. And the jolts were getting harder to brush off. For months now he'd fluctuated between longing to be around her and trying to stay away. Well, hell, maybe he would hate having her in his space. That would solve the problem.

“Tough times,” she said in a small, tight voice. “I hope the way I left hasn't upset Sarah.”

Always saying the right thing could wear on a guy. “You dealt with her fine. And she needs to be on her own to think. She's used to that.” They all were, but it could be nice to have someone around to be quiet with sometimes. Or could it?

“I'm glad I came home,” she said. “At first I thought I was being a chicken and turning the bad news into an excuse for giving up my job. Everyone else was managing just fine, or so I thought. Only they weren't—aren't. Not all of them.”

“Who are
they?
”

“All kinds of people working in New Orleans. Could be I need a break and then I'll go back, just not as a lawyer.”

He cast her another grin. “You could change your mind about that.”

“I guess. Can't imagine it, though.”

“Delia's pissed.” He chuckled, but knew it would have been kinder not to bring up the subject.

“She'll be okay,” Aurelie said. “She's an overachiever and she wouldn't understand what I'm doing or why.”

Being with her was comfortable, and like balancing on the edge of the Grand Canyon at the same time. What the hell was he going to do with his fantasies about Aurelie? What would she say right now if he told her he never went anywhere without her photo, that he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her mouth and not thought about kissing her?

They reached the middle of town and he drove slowly past familiar shops, Sadie and Sam's, Kay's Handicrafts, the butcher with the neon pig, missing a few of its pulsing bulbs. A single spotlight shone on a bouquet of giant yellow daisies in the window of Fabulous Flowers. Buzzard's Wet Bar came up on their right. Lights shone inside but the place looked sleepy. Wet droplets became heavy enough to coat the windshield and Nick turned on the wipers.

“I know I can't stay at Poke Around for long,” Aurelie said. “But it's fun and I've got to do something while I try to plan my life.”

She had never given him even a tiny hope that she had other than sisterly thoughts toward him. “You don't have to feel rushed about it,” he said. “We've all been lucky enough to have choices. Delia did that for us.”

“Uh-huh. The best thing we can do is forget we knew any other lives. Not easy at the moment, but it will be again.”

He didn't remind her that as long as he'd known them, she and Sarah had behaved as if they were born at ages thirteen and fourteen. They had never opened up about their beginnings, their parents, why they had run away from home, nothing, and whenever he had tried to press them for information they both responded with prolonged silences.

His cell rang. He picked it up to check the readout. “Private number. Maybe I won't answer it.”

“Half the people I know show up as private numbers,” Aurelie said.

Nick put the phone to his ear, “Hello?”

“You'd better get out to the lab.”

He frowned. “Who is this?”

“Sorry. It's Matt. I called your place first.”

“Matt,” Nick said. “What's wrong at the lab? Is it a break-in?”

Wherever Matt was, and Nick assumed it must be the Wilkes and Board labs, a siren sounded, growing closer.

“Just get over here,” Matt Bordeaux said. “There's been an accident.”

Nick steered to the side of the road, beneath a trailing willow, and put the car in Neutral. Branches slithered across the roof. “What kind of accident?”

Aurelia's hand on his leg startled him. She met his eyes, questioning silently. He shook his head, but he squeezed her hand.

“It's a bad accident, Nick?”

 

Twenty minutes away from downtown Pointe Judah, the land Delia had bought twelve years earlier couldn't be seen from the road. Delia had cleared as few trees as possible and the light on top of the four-story building didn't come into view until at least a quarter of a mile along the curving driveway.

“Why didn't you ask Matt who had the accident?” Aurelie asked, knowing she was repeating herself.

Nick shook his head and drove faster than he should.

He had tried to drop her off at his condo before coming out here but she'd insisted on coming.

“You shouldn't be here,” he said, also repeating himself. “Please stay in the car while I deal with things.”

Sometimes it was best not to argue.

They broke out of the trees and Nick slowed to a crawl. “Jeez, they must have called in every available emergency respondent from miles around.”

That meant a big white van with no windows, two fire trucks, an ambulance and three police cars. Another car, this one unmarked, passed the Audi and went ahead to park next to the cop cars. The shapes of men and women moved purposefully among the raised beds of mist-wreathed roses in front of the building.

Aurelia noticed a green van, this one small, its rear pulled up to the front doors. Lights shone on each floor of the building. And, as a shock of white light had suddenly flooded the top of the building, she noticed people on the roof.

“Don't call Delia or Sarah,” Nick said. He braked and turned off the engine without pulling all the way into a parking space. “Give me enough time to check this out. When I get back we'll call them if we have to.”

He leaped from the car and slammed the door hard enough to make Aurelia flinch. “The damsel will cower until your return,” she said under her breath.

 

True to his suspicious nature, Nick hadn't gone twenty yards before he checked his stride to take a look back at the Audi. He leaned forward to stare at the windshield and Aurelia laughed. He couldn't possibly see her so she rolled down the window, stuck out a hand and wiggled her fingers at him. “I'm still here,” she murmured.

Immediately he jogged away among the roses.

“Hoover, stay.” She slithered from the car and flattened herself against its damp side. When she set off, taking a wider angle to get to the same place Nick was going, her heart thumped hard enough to shorten her breath.

She heard another car behind her and pulled back to make sure she didn't get caught in its headlights.

Delia took an interest in the roses, so the grass that edged up to the stone retaining walls around the raised beds was kept manicured.

More lights were trained on one area and Aurelie knew she was about to discover who the accident victim was. Did she knew the person?

Matt Bordeaux, a big, rangy Cajun who looked as if he'd been born to wear his dark blue uniform, stood with one booted foot braced on what looked like a toolbox. He spoke into a collar mike but Aurelie couldn't hear a word.

Nick approached from the opposite side and his sudden exclamation startled her. He wasn't looking at Aurelie but at a twisted female figure lying mostly on her face amid smashed rosebushes.

Nick's shocked expression unnerved Aurelie. She made herself move closer until she could see the victim.

She opened her mouth and swallowed air, gasped to steady her breathing.

A scream rose, unbidden, into her throat and blasted loud enough to grab the attention of everyone present. She ran forward but Matt caught her around the waist and her feet left the ground.

“You don't need to see this,” Matt said. “How about you go back to your car and wait? I'll send someone to sit with you.”

“Put me down,” she whispered. “Or I'll kick where it'll hurt.”

“Aurelie,” he said, dividing her name as he frequently did. “Let the professionals do their job. Stirrin'up a ruckus isn't what we need.”

“Put her down, Matt.” Nick's voice roared through the silence that had fallen in the wake of Aurelia's arrival.

Her feet touched the ground again, she watched Nick move in and crouch beside the body. He shook his head slowly and made to touch the woman.

“Don't touch the body,” a female officer said sharply.

Aurelia wrenched free of Matt and joined Nick. They knelt side by side, looking down at a face marred by multiple contusions. Trickles of blood from the nose and ear had dried on her skin. More blood turned the whites of her eyes purple and her neck should never have been able to twist as it had. One foot was bare and again, turned at a sickening angle. Bone projected through the skin just above the ankle. A considerable quantity of blood caked the leg.

“My God,” Nick muttered.

Aurelia squeezed his arm. “Baily,” she said. “She never was happy. I feel awful, but I'm relieved.”

“Because you thought it was Sarah?” Nick asked very quietly. “That's why you screamed. There was no way she could have got here but I thought the same thing. I'm so used to the two of them, I forget how alike they are.”

“Only the coloring and height,” Aurelia said. She turned her face up to the roof of the building. “Did she jump?”

“Looks like it,” Nick said.

“I hope she did.” Her eyes never left his.

D
elia walked into Matt Boudreaux's dreary office at the station. She surveyed the scene, gave long, cold stares to Matt, Nick and Aurelie, in turn. “What
incident?
” she asked, returning her attention to young Boudreaux. “What could possibly make you have someone I don't even know call and say I had to come here? Now? And don't repeat any nonsense about Nick and Aurelie being involved in some invented
incident.
”

He sighed and gave her a pleading look with deceptively sleepy-looking eyes that were so dark they seemed black. “Miz Board—”

“Did you two do something?” The idea had to be unthinkable.

They looked at her as if she were the one with a problem. “Did you call Sam? You know better than to say anything in a place like this without a lawyer.”

“With respect, ma'am,” Matt said. “Your cart is runnin' away with your horse.”

“I should have squelched that rumor years ago,” she said. People liked to suggest she jumped to conclusions, which was ridiculous.

“Ma'am,” Matt said. “Why don't you take a seat.” A tall, strong-looking Cajun, he had those lovely manners such men tended to have. It was past time some energetic woman snapped him up.

Delia kept her voice even and said, “Nick Board, how long are you going to sit there and say nothing?”

He had the grace to shift in his scratched-up folding chair.

“Sit here,” Aurelie said. She hopped up and beckoned to Delia. “I think Nick's brain has disengaged.”

Nick snorted. “Nick's brain is very busy, thanks. When everyone settles down, we'll get to what happened tonight.”

“Yo, people,” Matt said. “Can we keep on track here? Kindly take a seat, Miz Board.”

“When did I stop being Delia?”

“Delia,” Matt amended. “There's been an incident at the lab. Nick didn't want us to contact you—he took care of as much as he could.”

Delia breathed through her nose. She still felt threatened by the new bombshell in their lives. “You should have come straight to me with anything to do with Wilkes and Board.” At least this wasn't anything to do with the California mess.

“I asked him not to,” Nick said. “You and I have an agreement that I help shoulder the weight of the company locally. At least with things like this. You agreed that Matt or Billy could always contact me for security issues.”

She didn't recall arrangements exactly like the ones he mentioned. Her black warm-ups were suddenly too hot and she sat in the chair Aurelie had vacated. “I'm waiting,” she said. The flip in her stomach was becoming familiar and she resented it.

“It was a shock,” Aurelie said. “When I saw—”

“You were told to stay in the car,” Nick said.

Aurelie drew herself up. “You are not my father. What I do is up to me…dammit.”

Delia was well aware of Aurelia's spirit but didn't recall seeing her get quite so mad at Nick.

“Delia,” Matt said. He took a bottle of pills from a drawer, shook four on the top of his metal desk and swallowed them, one at a time, with coffee that looked cold. His grimace affirmed the suspicion.

“You were saying?” Delia prompted him.

“We have a sticky problem and it's attracted more attention than I like to see. The word got out too wide and we got help from all over, whether we wanted it or not. I reckon they think the law in little places like this is still wet behind the ears. Makes it hard for us folks if we get tromped on by the big boys—they think they're big, anyways—so I want to get to the bottom of all this right here, in this department.”

He spoke slowly and Delia took a moment to gather everything he'd said together. “
All
this?” she asked faintly.

“Yes, ma'am. We've got a dead woman and it looks like a suicide.”

“Oh, God,” Delia said. She held the neck of her jacket.

Nick rested his chin on his chest. “It was Baily Morris. I know she didn't always fire on all cylinders, but she had a lot of good in her and I sure never expected her to do this.”

Delia sat sideways on her chair. She looked at a wall where notices tacked to a board flapped faintly in the current from a fan. “Silly girl. Excellent chemist, too. She never seemed happy.” She glanced at Nick but didn't add that the one time Baily had obviously been happy was during the weeks when she and Nick had dated. Heavy sadness pressed in on Delia.

“We've still got a lot of work to do,” Matt said. “At the scene and…elsewhere.”

Delia didn't press for any expansion on “elsewhere.” “Where's Billy Meche? In his warm bed, I suppose.”

“He isn't in town, and—” Matt said, apparently stopping himself from saying more on the subject of his boss. “You'll have to make do with me.”

“Sounds like a fine idea,” Delia said. “Now, let's quit the fluff and get down to business. How did Baily…do it?”

“Jumped off the roof,” Matt said promptly.

Delia's skin contracted. She turned cold, inside and out. “Selfish,” she murmured.

“Excuse me?” Nick said.

“You heard me.
Selfish
. Meant to make as much of a mess as possible and upset a whole lot of people.”

Silence met her announcement but she wasn't about to retract her comment.

“Baily always works—worked—at night,” she said, more for her own benefit than anyone else present. “She liked it that way. Got a lot done while it was quiet. I shouldn't have agreed to it. She was out there alone—except for the occasional nights when Sarah worked, too.”

“Nick?” Aurelie said. “Sarah did—”

“Sarah has nothing to do with any of this,” Nick said, but Delia thought he spoke uncertainly.

Aurelie didn't take her eyes off him. “Who knew Baily was suicidal?” she said. “She only talked about looking forward to the day when she had her own lab—her own company.”

“She talked about that?” Nick asked. “Not to me.”

“It was her favorite topic around Sarah. I didn't have much to do with Baily but she told me the same thing.”

Delia noted how Matt and Nick stared at each other.

“What is it?” she asked. “What are you two cooking up?”

Matt looked innocent and Nick said, “What d'you mean, cooking up? All I'm doing is trying to think of a reason for this. She must have been working when she decided to go up on the roof. She locked the lab door behind her and used the elevator to the fourth floor, then the stairs to the roof, or that's how it looks.”

“Was it quick?” Delia asked. The thought of Baily being dead tormented Delia.

“We'll know that for sure after the autopsy,” Matt said.

Aurelie walked to a wall and leaned there with her fists on her hips. “I think she broke her neck.”

The intercom buzzed and Matt picked up his phone. Within seconds he excused himself and left the room.

Nick got up quickly and closed the door. “I want to keep this between us,” he said, returning to prop himself against Matt's desk. “Baily was working on something that had nothing to do with her job for us. I think that's why she's dead.”

“How do you know?” Delia asked.

“From stuff she had on her bench. Or I think that's what I'm going to find when I get a look at it all. Either she got frightened or disgusted with herself, so she ended it all.”

Pointing a finger at him, Delia said, “Don't keep things from the police.”

“Why throw mud on her name if what she was doing doesn't hurt anyone?” Nick shot back. “It's going away now anyway.”

Aurelie crossed her arms tightly. “What are you talking about? Matt's going to be back any second. Quit talking in circles.”

“I can't give facts until I've had time with what she was working on,” Nick said. “I don't know how long that'll take but I can do it quietly.”

“You removed things from the lab?” Aurelie said, her eyebrows rising. “Potential evidence about Baily? Nick—”

“I'm being honest with you,” Nick said, his voice barely controlled. He stood up, which meant he looked a long way down into Aurelie's face. “So back off and credit me with enough sense not to step over the line.”

“You already have,” Aurelie said. Her pointed chin rose. “And you know it. Why would you try to cover up for someone who's already dead?”

“Dammit, you can be cold,” Nick told her.

They glared at each other.

“What is it?” Aurelie said. “Guilt. Did you treat her so badly you feel responsible for her jumping off that roof?”

“What a rotten thing to say.” He held his ground and Aurelie held hers.

Delia clenched her hands on the arms of her chair. Watching the two of them she felt another, much deeper pang of uncertainty. Without warning, she'd become a surrogate parent and from that day on she considered herself the luckiest woman around. But in the past couple of years she'd had a few premonitions and fears. These moments of passion flared between Nick, Sarah and Aurelie, they flared more often than ever. If deep rifts formed between them, they would all lose too much.

“Let's stay calm,” she said. “Just be careful, Nick.”

“Aren't I always?”

Aurelie's short laugh joined Delia's.

Matt strode into the room once more, closed the door firmly and went behind his desk. He threw down a folder. “We've got a couple of people in reception asking questions and makin'a nuisance of themselves. They're lookin' for a story.”

“Rusty Barnes, you mean?” Delia said. Rusty put out the
Pointe Judah News,
the town's small paper. “How would he know about Baily yet?”

“Not Rusty Barnes,” Matt said. “But he won't be far behind once he does know about Baily. This pair must think we're the local information bureau. A man and a woman looking for you.” His gesture took them all in. “Before I could stop him, Sampson said something about you being here and the woman tried to cut me off from comin' back here. They've left,” he finished flatly.

Delia let her head hang back. “Now what?” she said. “They're here to write a story and they're looking for us? Why—did they say?”

“I didn't let them. You'll probably hear from them, so let me know if they're a problem. First things first. When was the last time you were out at the lab? Nick and Delia—that question's for both of you.”

“I don't go there much,” Delia said. “About a week ago, I think.”

“I was there most of the morning today.” This was Nick.

“I didn't see Baily, of course.”

“We're going to need to question anyone who was there today, including tonight,” Matt said. “It's too bad you don't have round-the-clock physical security.”

“Oddly enough, Baily helped persuade me we didn't need it,” Delia said. “We don't keep money or drugs out there and we're not dealing with formulas that could have any sinister applications. And the building isn't close to anything.”

“Spit it out,” Nick said, facing Matt. “Say whatever's on your mind.”

“I can't get into details,” Matt said. His gaze slid away. “The building will be dealt with as a crime scene until you're told it's been released.”

“You just got some new information?” Nick asked.

“I'd feel good if I knew all of you were being careful—at least until we have more facts than we do now.”

“A crime scene?” Aurelie said. “You think Baily was murdered.”

Matt didn't argue.