When a Man Loves a Weapon (35 page)

“Or he could want to ransack your company,” Cam pointed out, and Trevor glared at him a moment. “You have to admit, it’s where he could strike at you and make money at the same time. And it’s clear he wants you to hurt.”

The muscle in Trevor’s jaw worked overtime as he kept perfectly still, his gaze meeting Cam’s as Bobbie Faye started to interject that Cam wasn’t just being belligerent this time. Instead, Bobbie Faye gritted her teeth and saw that Trevor realized Cam had a valid point. “Yes, if I gave a damn about the business,” he said. “If MacGreggor’s done his homework—and he has—he’ll know I resigned from the board the day I signed my commission.”

“Concrete bunker,” her dad said suddenly, interrupting everyone, and then he glanced around, startled, as if he’d just realized where he was. “The biggest bomb’s in a bunker
of some sort. Lots of concrete above it. Doesn’t make sense. There’s one moving—I can’t tell you where it is.”

“You can’t seriously be going to listen to this man?” the mayor said, waving hands as big as sails, sweeping aggravation toward Landry.

“But the third and fourth,” her dad continued, ignoring the mayor, “I got a place. It’s in Poly-Ferosia. Look for rental equipment.”

“Concrete bunker?” she asked. “Describe it.”

The old man looked at her then. First time he’d looked at her since they’d left the scene of the carjacking.

“You need to get your butt out of here,
chère
,” he said. “Go check on your aunts.”

“Describe the fucking bunker.”

“I gave you what I know to be true,” he said to Cam. “That’s all I got. If you had any sense at all, you’d make her go home.”

“Yeah, because bossing me around has been so effective for you in the past,” she said to Cam before he had a chance to open his mouth and make things worse. “Don’t even try it.”

In Cajun, Old Man Landry said to Cam,
“You need to make her go—she hasn’t got a speck of sense.”

“She’s tired, she’s hurt, and she’s not thinking clearly.”

“So make her think clearly, you
couyon,
she’s got to go.”

“Cut it out,” she warned them both. “English. Or shut up.”

“She’s going to come to her senses when this is over,”
Cam said, watching her steady, aware she was picking up most of the Cajun.

“Not another fucking
word
.” She bristled and practically vibrated in place with fury.

“Watch your mouth,” Landry snapped, “or I’ll wash it out with soap.”

Bigfoot could sidle up to her right now, dressed in a tutu and asking to valet park the reindeer, and she wouldn’t have been more floored. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You gave up that right when I was five and you stopped being my dad.”

“Baby.” Cam tried to intervene and she put her hand up and stepped back from him as he reached for her.

“Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”

Trevor watched them as he conferred with ASAC Brennan and SWAT.

Riles appeared at Trevor’s side—he’d been working the phones on the other side of the room and she hadn’t had a chance to fully appreciate his absence. The Universe so fucking owed her.

“LT,” he said, “I think we have a problem.” He nodded toward her. “Her crazy family.”

Everyone in the room stopped to listen and they stared at her and the old man and she said, “Seriously, Riles, your firm grasp of the obvious is just impressing the hell out of me. My family’s been crazy since birds had wings.”

“Not
just
crazy. They’re at LSU. At the game.”

“No way. Lori Ann would never go to—”

“She’s there,” he said, turning to Trevor. “With her fiancé. And so’s her boss, Ce Ce, and her friend, Monique. Add in her brother—who we haven’t found yet, but rumor has it he’s already slept with two women and gotten into three fights while tailgating—and that puts all of her main core group, except us, at the game.”

“How the hell?” she asked just as Trevor asked, “Why the fuck didn’t the detail report on this sooner?”

Oh. The
security
detail Riles had mentioned earlier. People Trevor had hired to watch her family.

“LT, the detail was supposed to make sure they were safe. They
were
safe—they’re just in the same place, and none of the guys realized it ’til just now, at check-in.”

“No way could MacGreggor get a bomb into LSU,” SWAT said. “Not with the extra security around that place before a game. Not with the two hundred-plus cops we have, and the cameras. Not possible.”

“No way should he have been able to get bombs into the plants he got them into, either,” Trevor reminded him. “Not with all of the security hoops everyone with a backhoe or
rake has to go through to get into a plant. He’s found a loophole somewhere.”

“Or had serious inside help,” Cam suggested.

And then Trevor’s phone rang, and as he grabbed it, she angled to see the watch of an FBI agent standing near her: 7:00.

“No, MacGreggor,” Trevor said. “You are not going to talk to her. You can talk to me.”

We
Bobbie Faye

Southern Contractors Association

—bumper sticker

The LSU drum cadence magnified and echoed back from the field to the mouth of the bay where they waited in Marcel’s truck. They were at the student end of the stadium, parked facing the field, and Lori Ann gawked through the windshield, in complete wonder. She’d never been inside Tiger Stadium before, but she had thought she understood the enormity from what she had seen on TV.

It wasn’t even close. The TV version was like looking at a copy of a copy of a copy. It was absolutely
nothing
in comparison to the sharp colors of purple and gold (and one section of Bama red), of bodies painted with purple lettering, of the frantic, manic
movement
of the fans, all arms and foam fingers and tiger stripes.

The cheering jarred her bones, and she was sitting
inside
the monster 4 × 4 truck, with the deep, glossy, gleaming Eye of the Tiger on the hood reflecting the enormous lights banked against the night sky. Word had come in that there was a record-breaking crowd, and the event coordinator who’d been running everything smooth as glass signaled Marcel that it was time to pull the big cat in the cage behind them out onto the field and circle once. As soon as the truck nosed out of the bay at barely five miles an hour, the crowd went
insane
.

Lori Ann gazed back at her daughter, strapped in a car seat in the extended cab, expecting to see those pom-poms
going ninety-to-nothing, but instead, Stacey’s jaw dropped, and she gaped, mouth open. Then turned to her mom and smiled the biggest, happiest smile Lori Ann had ever seen.

As Marcel eased the truck the rest of the way out of the bay, TV cameras dollied alongside them and the big pacing cat.

The roars were deafening. God, no wonder it was called “Death Valley.” The noise alone could kill you.

She reached back and squeezed her daughter’s hand, hoping this was going to be one of those moments as a mom that made up a little for the times she’d been drinking and gone. Emotionally gone. This was going to be one of the best nights of their lives.

“Fuck you, Cormier,” Sean said, “you’ll let her talk to me, unless you wan’ t’ be known as the agent who got thousands of people killed.”

Trevor gripped his cell hard enough to hear the plastic casing crack. The last fucking thing he should have done is tell a hostage-taker “no” and he could see the SWAT leader was already furious. But Trevor knew the way to drag out the call and to possibly get a triangulation on Sean’s cell phone location was to deny him the one thing he wanted: to talk to Bobbie Faye. He’d known Sean was going to ask for her. Two of his agents were at the computers running the signal.

“Bad move, Cormier,” MacGreggor said. “You’ll be on a call right about . . . now . . . and there’s the fourth bomb. I have three more.”

Old Man Landry held up two fingers to Trevor and whispered, low, “That was Poly-Ferosia—he’s got another one there.”

Shit.
MacGreggor was trying to lure first responders in there to kill them. Several cell phones rang in the room: the SWAT CO answered his and scowled, scratching a note to Trevor:
Poly-Ferosia
.
Geismer.

Sonofabitch.
Geismer was on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. MacGreggor was circling in toward the city, a long, slow spiral of bombs.

Trevor glanced over at Yazzy and the other agents working on the signal. They shook their heads, motioning that the call signal was scrambled.
Goddammit
. Izzy’s technology was supposed to be able to piggyback signals, and punch through the scrambling effort. MacGreggor could be fucking
anywhere
.

Trevor had taken a gamble. And lost. Which, he knew, was what MacGreggor wanted.

“The next one kills dozens, Cormier,” MacGreggor’s Irish accent purred, unhurried and unperturbed. “Thought I’d give you a fightin’ chance, ya see. But I’ll blow it now, if you don’t put her on the line.”

“I’ll put her on speakerphone, MacGreggor. That’s the best you’re going to get.”

He slapped the speaker on before MacGreggor could make another demand and Bobbie Faye stepped up to the table where the cell phone now sat. She regarded it with the same wariness he’d seen her apply to snakes and certain members of her own family.

“Well, hell, Sean, I’m here,” she said, and Trevor looked up at her, hearing a solid determination in her voice he hadn’t heard in a while. “You’ve been busy.”

The man chuckled. “Sure, lass, I have. I’m noticin’ you’re frettin’ a wee bit about your friend, here.”

“Sean, I’m ‘frettin’ a wee bit’ about the ozone layer, so that doesn’t quite fucking cover how I feel about my best friend, and you know it. So let’s just cut to the point here, because first and foremost, you’re a businessman.”

Holy fuck, she was taking charge of the call.

This could not be good.

“That I am,” MacGreggor said.

“And you’re pissed off at Trevor here, and you want revenge.”

“You’re runnin’ out of time. The next bombs’re on a timer, so you’ll be wantin’ to speed up?”

Trevor tapped his watch, and she followed up with, “How much time, Sean?”

“Your point first, lass.”

“I want my friend back, alive, and unhurt. And I’m pretty pissed off, too, but I figure you can handle that, right?”

“You’ve kept me amused,
àlainn
. What’s your point?”

She leaned down to the phone and pitched her voice with mischievousness. “Trade ya.”

Trevor froze. She could not possibly be considering—

She wouldn’t meet Trevor’s gaze, standing across the gulf of the table, with the cell phone between them like poison.

“I want Nina and for you to tell us the locations and defuse the next three bombs.”

Oh, dear God, she was—

“And I’ll give you two things you can’t get anywhere else.”

“Fine,
àlainn,
now you have me intrigued. What would you be offerin’?”

“Gold.” Everyone in the room froze, confused. Trevor frowned at her as she continued. “You want to make a buttload of money and make the state suffer, too. Fine. I get that. I can give you something worth your while that’ll more than make it up to you for you to not explode the last of those bombs. I know where the old pirate treasure is buried. Lafitte’s treasure. Gold, jewels, and a huge historic significance. The state would have a cow if it fell into your hands. I know how to find it—but I can’t do it alone, and Trevor here won’t because legally, he can’t. He’s kinda a straight arrow like that. But you’re not.”

There was a heartbeat as MacGreggor listened. He’d obviously done his homework and knew her tiara—her mother’s old iron tiara that had been made by Lafitte himself—was a map to the pirate’s treasure. A treasure worth hundreds of millions by now.

It was how Trevor had met her, when a black market art dealer funding arms went after the tiara to get to that treasure. A tiara that was now lost in the Mississippi River.

But Trevor knew she didn’t know where it was, and when he furrowed his brow at her, she nodded to her dad.

“Hell, no,” her dad said.

She turned to the old man. “Hell, yeah, you will. You’ll
do it,” she said, “because that tiara belonged to me. And you owe me, old man.”

Of course, if the old man had the sight, if he
really
could find anything, he could find that damned tiara. And she’d known this all along. Trevor wasn’t sure who was unhappier about this: him, Moreau, or the old man.

“Sure, and you said two things,” MacGreggor said. “What’ll be the second?”

“
Me
.”

“Oh
fuck
no!” exploded from Trevor at the same time she heard several epithets (frankly, more than she knew existed) . . . amid Sean’s chuckling.

“I take it this isn’t an ‘officially’ sanctioned idea.”

“Like hell,” Cam snapped, stepping forward, his hand on her arm as he reached for cuffs from one of the other state cops.

“Get your fucking hands off her, Moreau,” Trevor shouted, vaulting the table, blocking the cuff from her wrist as Riles and two other men she did not know helped form a wall between Cam and a couple of state cops and
every freaking one of them were armed
and yelling. Trevor’s gaze locked with hers. And then to her, he ordered, no room for doubt, “
No
. You’re
not
doing this. MacGreggor,” he snapped toward the phone, “forget it.”