Authors: Liz Talley
“Sure,” Annie said, knowing Tawny would rather hang out with a leper than with the nanny.
“I’m so bored out here,” Jane said with a shrug, as if that explained why she was so hard up for company. “All the other girls on the film are twentysomethings who spend their time banging the crew. Although there is this one gaffer who’s to die for, but he’s such a baby. Okay, TMI. I’m heading back. I’ll call the house later.”
Jane set off back toward the motel, which sat right outside the city limits of Bayou Bridge. Annie had studied the map of the area, noting the bayous, tributaries and low marshland surrounding the small town. She needed to do some snooping around the production site, and Jane had given her a perfect reason for dropping by the motel if she could get some time off. Several members of the film crew worked directly for Carter’s production company and she’d told Ace she’d try to get a feel for how they regarded the Keene family. This tentative friendship with Jane would be her ticket into that world. So drinks would work.
She headed back to Beau Soleil, sucking wind and praying she wouldn’t crumple on the highway. The occasional car passed her, along with plenty of huge pickup trucks with dual exhausts and mud-splattered flaps. One passerby gave her a wolf whistle. She refrained from flipping him off.
By the time she made the gate to the mansion, she was done. She gulped air as she crunched down the long, winding drive at a slow walk. The cemetery appeared as she rounded the corner and she shivered despite herself. Her grandmother had claimed to have second sight and the ability to commune with the dead. The sudden prickly feeling had to be a leftover freakazoid gene rearing its ugly head.
The sound of a car behind her had her scooting off the road and checking over her shoulder. Gray government car.
Nate Dufrene.
Her heart took a gallop that had nothing to do with the run she’d just completed.
He slowed beside her.
She stopped.
“Wanna ride?”
“I’m almost there. And I’m pretty sweaty. Wouldn’t want to get your seats wet.”
His gaze traveled down her body and up again before meeting her eyes. The look was leisurely, not perfunctory, and his checking-out of her sweaty body made her throat tighten and awareness ignite in her blood. “I don’t mind.”
Her mind screamed get your butt back to the house and leave sexy Nate Dufrene the hell alone. Her libido, however, told her to take the candy the man offered and climb into his car like a naughty little girl. Damn, it was hard to ignore candy like Nate.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, walking around the car and pulling open the passenger door. She sank inside and angled one of the vents onto her face. Nate turned the AC on high and shifted into gear, rolling slowly toward the historic home where he’d been raised.
The car smelled like plastic, mingled with the slight scent of citrus cologne that suited the man sitting next to her. She inhaled, sucking in cool air and Nate Dufrene. Both were good.
“You run often?” he asked, casting an inquisitive look her way.
“Three or four times a week,” she said.
“You look like you could run circles around me.” He drove really slowly. On purpose? Or did he hide pawpaw tendencies behind his gorgeous brown eyes and lumberjack body? Maybe he wanted more time with her?
“You look fit enough,” she said, glancing out the window. No sense in trying to sound flirty. That had never been her game.
Besides, she shouldn’t have climbed in the car with him, shouldn’t have gotten close enough to drink in his clean smell and seductive voice.
“Oh, yeah? Maybe we can go for a run together,” he said, as the house came into view.
Her body tightened unwillingly as thoughts of other things they could do together flitted through her mind. She glanced at him, unable to help herself and shrugged as though his presence wasn’t affecting her at all. Which it so was. Lord, what was wrong with her? Goal: prove to Ace she could do a phenomenal job as an investigator so she could make more money and get better assignments. Barrier: hunky detective.
“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘maybe’?” Nate asked, swinging into the gravel parking area out front. “Because I’ll be around. I think keeping an eye on the Keene family might be something our department needs to consider in light of the threats they’ve received.”
“Really? Figured we left danger back in L.A., so I doubt it’s something the local authorities need to worry about. I’m sure you have much more exciting things to pursue.” She reached for the door handle, but his big hand on her arm stopped her. His touch was warm, even on her heated flesh.
“Just a second,” he said.
She glanced at him, not able to read his expression or his eyes. “Yeah?”
“What did you say you did before becoming a nanny?”
Alarm uncurled in her belly, choking out the weird sexual energy that had been humming for the past few minutes. “A real-estate agent.”
“With what company?”
“Why? You looking for a house in the Valley?” she asked, jerking her arm away. “I worked as a real-estate agent for several years in Nevada. What’s it to you?”
“You lived in Nevada?”
No. “Yeah. Are you checking up on me or something?”
“Why so touchy?”
She gave him a dead stare. “I don’t like people implying I’m a liar.” Even if she was one. This undercover gig was hard to keep up around a guy like Nate. He seemed to smell bullshit from a mile away. She’d have to be extra careful to not let her guard down around him. Or anything else.
“I didn’t imply you were a liar.”
She arched an eyebrow and climbed from the car. “I’m not an idiot. You implied all over the place.”
She didn’t wait for him to say anything more. She needed to get away from him. Get a shower before she had to pour Spencer’s cereal and play happy nanny for the day. Hopefully, Ace or his best hound, Jimmy, would break the case by finding the weirdo who threatened five-year-olds back in California so she could go home and pick up another assignment, preferably something that didn’t involve watching SpongeBob twelve times a day. But until then, she’d do what needed to be done, even if it meant lying her ass off.
Nate stared at her as she gave herself a mental pep talk. He didn’t turn off the engine and he didn’t follow her, which was probably a good thing. She felt way too vulnerable around that man. What was he doing here anyway? Didn’t he have a job to do?
Something more important than skulking around Beau Soleil implying she was something other than she was?
Her thoughts tripped over each other as she walked around the flowered path toward the kitchen door. She’d grab a yogurt smoothie before she went up to her bedroom.
Nate’s mother met her on the path.
“Did I see Nate pull up?” The woman looked worried.
“Yeah, he actually gave me a ride.”
“Good. He needs to see this.”
For the third time that morning, apprehension flooded her. “What?”
“Someone left a present on the back doormat.”
NATE STARED AT THE dead bird lying on the sisal mat. A folded piece of paper lay beneath the fanned wings framing the missive with grotesque flourish.
“Who would do such a thing?” Picou asked, staring down at the poor creature. The mockingbird’s soft gray head was flung back with beak open, giving a tragic appearance.
“Did you touch it?” Nate asked his mother, glancing to where she stood with lips pressed together, arms crossed as if warding off a chill, which was ironic since the day felt smothering already.
“Of course not.” Picou sniffed. “I watch Law and Order.”
He nearly smiled. “Good, Mom, good. I’m going to go back to the car to grab my kit and call this in. Stay here and don’t touch anything. Where did the nanny go?”
Picou shrugged. “Inside? Maybe to check on the boy?”
Made sense. Yesterday had proven the boy’s mother wasn’t exactly the most responsible person on the face of the earth, so Annie’s instinct to find and secure the child was good.
His mother looked a little spooked, but that was to be expected. Dead birds and presumably threatening notes brought back bad memories—memories that were about to be waded through regardless of the movie people and their harassment problem. He’d read the file on Sally Cheramie early that morning when sleep escaped him—the results had left a wake of acid churning in his stomach.
Part of him wanted to toss the file aside, smother the query into his sister’s disappearance, but facts didn’t lie. The woman might be more than a desperate charlatan looking to get rich quick. This inquiry might bite.
He went around to his car, grabbed a kit from the trunk and pulled out his phone to call in the threat. This time it would be official.
He hung up with dispatch and shifted his mind back to the task at hand just as Annie appeared at his elbow. He stopped.
“Spencer?”
“Safe with his mother. Both are unaware anything is amiss. In fact, Spencer is modeling his mother’s shoe collection while she’s getting a facial. The makeup artist arrived twenty minutes ago. Might want to question her and see if she saw anything.”
He looked at her. “Oh, so you watch Law and Order, too?”
“You don’t have to watch police shows on TV to use common sense. If someone put the bird on the mat, then Linda, or whatever her name is, might have seen him.”
“Or her.”
Annie glanced sharply at him. “Or her. That reminds me. I did see someone on the highway—Jane McEvoy.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“She’s Tawny’s former roommate and BFF. She might not be involved in this threat thing, but you never know. Could be anyone with a grudge. Or a loose screw.”
He didn’t comment. She was right. If the threats were connected, it could be anyone who’d made the trek from California. He’d start with the production crew and work his way to those closest to the boy, including Annie.
He started walking again, noticing Annie’s steps matched his stride for stride as they approached his mother, who wore a bright caftan along with flip-flops with sparkly doodads on them. She looked a little like a circus fortune-teller, but her purple-blue eyes were grave.
“You can go inside now, Mom. Just use the side or front door so we don’t contaminate evidence out here.” Nate studied the
“crime” scene before placing his case on an out-of-the-way table. He opened the kit, aware he carried more than the average detective. His time in med school studying pathology had taught him some tricks that gave him an edge. Or at least he thought they did. He knew his success rate came from good old-fashioned research with a side helping of gut instinct.
“That’s a lot of stuff in there. Do all detectives carry—” she picked up a spray bottle of luminal “—stuff like this?”
He took the luminal out of her hand and placed it back in the kit. “I was an Eagle Scout. I’m always prepared.”
“What’s this for?” she asked, picking up a vial containing fingerprinting powder and holding it up to the sunlight streaking through the overhanging trees.
“Something I may need. Put it back, please.” He pulled out the high-resolution camera and caught a gleam in her eyes. He couldn’t get a handle on this woman at all. She didn’t look disturbed by the dead bird like most women would. He turned and caught his mother crouching beside the note and bird. “Don’t touch.”
“I’m not. Just making sure it’s dead.”
Annie walked over. “Oh, it’s dead, Mrs. Dufrene. Birds don’t lie that still if they’re living.”
Picou rose and took a step back toward Annie as Nate snapped photographs of the bird at several angles. After photographing the entire patio, he pulled on gloves and placed the dead bird in an evidence bag.
“You’re not going to throw it away?” Annie asked.
“You’d be surprised what a lab can do with ‘evidence’ like this. We can learn if the person who did this killed the bird or found one that had died of natural causes. And sometimes we can lift prints or find fibers that might give us a clue to help solve the crime.”
“Oh,” she said. He didn’t miss the fact Annie acted out of character. Since he’d met her, everything had been deliberate, careful and no-nonsense. Now she asked him questions she must know the answer to. Hell, half of America watched CSI. He sealed the bag.
She shifted, pushing back her hair. “So what about security cameras? Don’t you have them?”
“Why would we?” he asked.
“Well, with the disappearance of—I mean, Tawny said—” She stopped herself, looking for the words. “Some families who have suffered tragedies are more protective and plan against other—”
“We’re not paranoid,” Picou interrupted, her tone marginally defensive. “Our daughter was taken and it didn’t matter whether we had dogs, fences or guards on every corner of the property. Bad things happen despite our best efforts.”
His mother’s response didn’t surprise him. Even now, she tried to tell him she was sorry—that Della’s disappearance had nothing to do with him. But it couldn’t erase his mother’s accusations the day Della disappeared. Couldn’t wipe away the way she’d shrieked at him, accusing him of not watching out for his sister, labeling the kidnapping his fault. To a ten-year-old boy, it had been devastating. Picou had spent years trying to apologize.
At times, he felt the emptiness in her words. Felt the unreasonable blame. His mother didn’t want to feel the way she felt. She couldn’t help herself.
“I didn’t mean to offend, Mrs. Dufrene. Just trying to help.”
Nate looked at Annie. “Since you’re in the mood to help, give me your opinion. You think this is related to the threats in California or just a simple prank?” He watched her gaze hit the bag dangling in his hand.
“I’m not sure. Most of the staff and crew know Tawny calls Spencer ‘birdie.’ The whole thing could be a sick joke. No one has tried to hurt him, so it could be someone wanting to get the Keenes’ goat. Someone who wants to use fear against them.”
“Nice thinking, Watson,” he quipped.
“What? You asked,” she snapped, her happy-camper vibe gone. He liked her better serious with her feathers ruffled. Felt right.
“I thought it sounded good.” Picou nodded, her eyes earnest.