Casting the Dice Page 8

  His long, bony finger quivered. “You fed that damn cat.”

  “But she’s always starving.”

  “You left her in the stockroom today.”

  Shala rubbed her tattooed arms. “I looked for her when I got ready to leave, but I couldn’t find her. I wrote you a warning.” She found a notepad near the register and showed him. “What’s the cat got to do with your leg bleeding?”

  Her gaze flicked to the pistol next to the cash register. “What are you doing with a gun, Daddy? Do you want to get arrested again?”

  “What if someone robs us?”

  “Have any of the shops on this block ever been robbed? In recent history?” She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and pulled her phone from a pocket in her flowing trousers. “You should go to the hospital.”

  Fredo jabbed his finger at Hal. “He said the same thing, but the yarrow stops the bleedin’. Just like I talk about in my book.”

  “It’s stopped the bleeding for now, but you should change the dressing often.” Hal pointed to the man’s wrapped calf. “Make sure the wound continues to heal.”

  “Thank y’all for helping. I’m Shala, by the way.” She extended a hand to him and then Annie, her multiple veils dancing. “We run the shop together. My father’s into crystals and earth objects, and of course herbs. I do tarot and astrology.”

  “Did you say tarot?” Annie showed her the card with the image of the Grim Reaper. “Is this yours by any chance?”

  “Looks like the Death card I was missing after the party. The hostess invited me to do readings.” Shala took the card and checked the reverse. “Looks like my pack, too.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and Annie gestured for her to keep it.

  “I bet it’s unlucky.” Annie twisted the strap of her bag. “That it means something bad is going to happen?”

  “Already has,” Hal muttered. “My car exploded.”

  “There could be more coming. Don’t you want to know?”

  Shala laid the card face up on the counter. “I draw cards from the deck in answer to the specific question you have. The meaning depends on your question.”

  Hal braced his feet. “Fredo says he took you to a party last week in the Garden District.”

  “Yeah, a fundraiser for a friends of the zoo group. I was asked to do readings.”

  “Do you know why Annie was at the party?”

  “No idea. Mattie, the hostess, said she came with Randy. That’s Mattie’s brother.”

  Randy Lemoyne. His fugitive. He straightened. Progress, finally. “Did they come from the casino?”

  “I have no idea.” Shala shrugged.

  Hal showed her the booking photo, but she shook her head. “I’m not good with faces, and there were so many people there. I could have seen him, but I don’t remember.”

  “What about the snakes?”

  Hal held the shop door for Annie and swept their surroundings for suspicious characters. Only a few stragglers wandered the sidewalks. At this time of day, sensible people avoided the noontime heat.

  So far today, he’d detected no one tailing them, but those guys who’d followed Annie yesterday knew where she was staying. They could reappear at any time.

  “I saw what you did, Hal Guidry.” Annie swiped at the strands that had worked loose from her braid. He could smooth the silky strand behind her ear, trace the curve of her cheek and—he trapped the temptation in a deep, dark hole and rolled a stone on top.

  She shaded her eyes. “That T-shirt we used to stop the bleeding couldn’t have cost as much as the forty dollars you left next to the register.”

  “Least I could do.” He wanted to strip off the windbreaker, but instead, moved into the shade of an adjacent balcony. He should have been more careful with the man. “Fredo never would have pulled his pistol if I hadn’t provoked him. That was my bad.”

  She raised her gaze. “Would you have paid for the ambulance?’

  “That never came up, as you well know.” But the ER had done a good job on his shoulder. “I trust doctors.” Sweat dripped down his temple. “We should get going.”

  “It’s easier to talk with you when you’re stationary.” She’d rinsed her big shirt before they left and now squeezed out more water. “Why did you ask them about snakes? I heard that right, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah.” Hal rubbed a finger under his nose. “I found some snakes with you at the house.” Don’t say anything more.

  She gasped. “W-with me?”

  He cupped her shoulders. “It’s one reason I took you to the hospital. I didn’t know if you’d been bitten or whether the snakes were poisonous.”

  Her face went white, and she lifted a hand to her mouth. “W-were they?”

  “No. According to Shala, the party was a fund raiser for the zoo, and the snakes were a non-poisonous kind.” He searched her pale face. “Okay?”

  She wrapped an arm across her middle. “I wish you’d told me after we left the hospital. I’ve been going crazy trying to piece everything together.”

  “I didn’t want you to get any more upset than you were.”

  “I was upset?”

  He laughed. “You couldn’t wait to slam the door in my face when I got you home.”

  “That was because you’re a bounty hunter. I’m talking about the snakes, about keeping information from me, about not giving me a fair chance to make my own decisions.” Her jaw clenched.

  How had this conversation gone so wrong? He brushed a hand over his head. “I understand.”

  “Was it too much trouble because of my hearing problem?”

  “No. I didn’t want to upset you, but okay, I made a decision for you.”

  She gawked at him. “You admit it.”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry.” But he wanted her to stop misjudging him. “I quit the Navy and the dive company because I didn’t want bosses making decisions about what I was going to do or how I was going to accomplish it. My superiors didn’t share all the details. I did the same thing to you by choosing what to tell you.”

  “And I have a chip on my shoulder. I keep forgetting I probably couldn’t follow everything because of the migraine.” She straightened. “But please don’t hide anything important from me again.”

  “If it pertains to you, I’ll tell you.” He could do that and still hide plenty. She’d never need to know most of it because they were never going to get down and dirty.

  “Shala says I went to Mattie’s with Randy. Is that right?”

  Hal nodded. “We’ll check out the house where I found you. See if we can meet her.”

  Annie nodded. “We’ll be looking for Mattie?”

  “Or Randy. Or whoever is there. First, I need to pick up a car so we have some wheels.”

  “You want to throw that shirt in the dryer?” Hal paused on the back porch and extended his hand to the machine.

  “That would be great.” Annie gave him her dripping garment and stepped through the second door and into a big, cheerful kitchen. “I’ll wait here while you go talk bounty hunter business.”

  Her gut pinched. “We’re bail recovery agents.”

  “Whatever.” From her yarn bag, she pulled the Jane Austen novel. “I need to get started reading.”

  Her book, all her books. Hal squelched the urge to tell her there was a whole world outside of books. She wouldn’t love hearing him say that, not after what had happened since she’d landed in New Orleans. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  Hal went down the hall and stepped into the home office. His brother, Kurt, immediately lifted his head. “You here to pick up the Blazer?”

  “Right.” Hal stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Do I need to gas up?”

  “It’s still got half a tank. Please keep it clean. No eating in the car.” His brother lifted an eyebrow.

  “Gotcha.” A memory rolled in of the time he’d borrowed Kurt’s wheels, and he and his buddies had stopped at a drive-in. He’d meant to clean out the trash before returning th
e car, but he hadn’t had time.

  “I know you think I should be making better progress.” Hal stared at the swirling blues and reds in the oriental carpet.

  “The skip wasn’t home. Not your fault.” His brother opened a desk drawer. “No one is criticizing you.”

  “Jack wants results n-o-w.”

  “Don’t pay attention to Jack. He’s hyper.” Kurt tossed a key ring to him. “He tells it like it is. You know about the deadline, and I trust you to get results.”

  “It’s possible the skip’s already blown town.” Hal pocketed the key. “But my gut says he’s still here, and Annie—the woman I took to the hospital—is helping me. The car explosion might be related to the threat she’s under.”

  “Jack called from Grand Isle. He said you thought the two events might be connected. Why?”

  “Annie thought she saw my fugitive outside the aquarium, but I can’t figure out why he would have been there.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” Kurt retrieved his mug. “You need anything else?”

  “I have to grab some stuff from upstairs.” He needed more clothes for tomorrow, too. Though there hadn’t been any more threats, his instincts told him there could be at any time.

  Annie rubbed a finger over the fuzzy leaf of the African violet in the window next to her. Camellia bushes and towering magnolia trees dotted the yard. Hal said he lived with his elderly aunt and his two older brothers. Somehow, having so much family didn’t fit the image she had of him. He seemed too self-contained. Too much a loner. Too bounty hunter-ish.

  She shouldn’t have mentioned that because every time she did, a dull ache throbbed in her chest. She needed Hal Guidry, and she hated needing him, too.

  He didn’t like taking orders when his life depended on them, and now he used his diving skills to entertain children. Think of him that way and forget about the bounty hunter part.

  And the way too sexy part. Warmth swirled inside at the mere thought of brushing her fingers over his scruff.

  She jotted the taxi fare in her expense notebook then opened the novel. By three pages in, she’d immersed herself in Jane Austen’s nineteenth century world.

  A tall lean man in black jeans and a tucked black tee walked into the kitchen. This must be Kurt. He bore a definite resemblance to Hal, except that gray speckled his dark-as-night sideburns.

  He set his mug on the counter beside the coffee machine and spoke.

  Too far away for her to understand. She closed her book and walked over. “I’m Annie Swanson, a friend of Hal’s.”

  Not completely true. Friends didn’t tiptoe around each other the way she felt compelled to do with Hal. “I didn’t catch what you said. I wear hearing aids and need to be closer.”

  “So do I. Getting used to the one, anyway.” He tapped his ear and extended a hand. “I’m Kurt Guidry.”

  “So many people refuse to wear them. I’m lucky they can help me. I always had poor hearing as a kid, but in my teens I got sick and lost even more.”

  “I feel for you.” He discarded coffee grounds and set a new pot to drip. “I used to work for the government as a U.S. Marshal, but now I’m stuck at home with a telephone and a computer.”

  He sounded as if he hadn’t yet reconciled himself to his loss. Maybe talking about her own would help. “I try not to feel restricted, but my aids have made it possible for me to work as a school librarian instead of doing research, or really, I guess, washing dishes for a living.”

  He laughed. “I hope I don’t sink that low, not that there’s anything wrong with washing dishes. It’s a good skill to have.”

  She laughed, too. “You never know when it will come in handy.”

  He pushed away from the counter. “I’m going to fix a sandwich for lunch. Would you like one?”

  Hal reappeared in the doorway hefting a scuba tank and a large sheet of foam. “Thanks, bro, but we need to pursue a lead.”

  His brown eyes landed on her. “You want to check out Mattie now, right?”

  “Definitely.” She waved to Kurt, grabbed her shirt from the dryer, and held the door for Hal.

  He cradled the tank on a piece of foam inside a black sport utility, and she stared at it until he closed the gate. He’d talked about her being truthful, but was he being upfront with her now? Or had she misunderstood. “Are you going back to the aquarium?”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I doubt the aquarium’s reopened, but we need to concentrate on getting over to the Lemoyne mansion to see if you left your stuff there. That’s a priority.”

  “Then what’s with the tank?” She crossed her arms.

  “A friend is borrowing my extra. We can drop it off on the way to get something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I burned all the energy in that one graham cracker a long time ago.” He gave her shoulder a little squeeze and opened the passenger door.

  “Okay.” She rubbed the shoulder. “What if Mattie tells us something we need to investigate immediately?”

  “We’ll do it.”

  We. They were working together now, and the heat in his gaze suggested he wouldn’t mind taking that togetherness to its logical extension. She tore her eyes from his face and climbed into the car.

  “What’s this?” A clear plastic barrier blocked off the rear seats like the enclosures duck hunters used for their retrievers. She hadn’t seen an animal in the house, but that didn’t mean anything. “Does Kurt have a dog?”

  “No.” Hal stuck the key in the ignition. “That’s to keep fugitives safe on their way to jail.”

  Jail. Fugitives. Her throat squeezed, cutting off air. “Is Kurt a bounty hunter, too?”

  “Yeah. All of us brothers are.”

  9

  Hal turned to face the tsunami of shock rolling across the front seat. Annie being Annie, he didn’t have to wait long.

  “You could have told me all your brothers go out arresting people.” She stared at him, her eyes wide.

  “You don’t mind hanging out with me and that’s my job.” She also didn’t seem to miss a chance to point that out. “It’s an important part of a working justice system, too.”

  “It seems strange, is all.” She waved her hand, icicles dripping off her words. “Forget I asked.”

  He rapped the see-through barrier. “I had one of these in my ride.”

  “I didn’t notice because I was in a daze, as you know. We already agreed I couldn’t wait to get away from you. That sounds awful, but it’s true.” She crossed her arms with finality.

  It was what it was, but that meant he had to work harder. Without her trust, the next few days would be hell.

  She folded and unfolded the bag strap. “I was scared before.”

  Man, she really knew how to stroke a guy’s ego.

  He hit the automatic gate opener and drove the block to Esplanade Avenue. He didn’t want ego-stroking. Not really. He and Annie would work together to keep her safe then she’d leave. With luck, he might also have his fugitive in hand. “I’m glad Kurt had a chance to meet you.”

  “Why on earth?”

  “You’re so confident.” He turned left and glanced across the seat. Sunlight through the windshield sparked gold threads in the braid hanging over her shoulder. So pretty. So soft. The fresh meadow scent of her shampoo brought him back to that moment they’d been pressed together on the table in Fredo’s shop.

  “You don’t know me.”

  He wanted to get to know her a whole lot better. No, you don’t.

  “Kurt has always supported me, and I owe him a lot.” Hal said, ignoring her comment.

  “He told me about his hearing loss.”

  “Really?” Hal flashed her a look. His brother must finally be accepting his problem.

  “That’s why he quit and came home. When our widowed aunt needed help driving and running errands—and feeling safe—she asked him and my second older brother to headquarter the business from her house so someone would always be around.”

  Annie said n
othing, the only sound in the car, the whoosh of cold air from the A/C vents. The tension crackling in the air earlier dissipated, too. He needed her to listen to him because she could mess up his chance to learn something important.

  He parked at the curb across from the Lemoyne mansion. “Don’t get out yet.”

  “I can’t.” A little smile played at her mouth. “You haven’t unlocked my door.”

  “Oh, did I forget again?” He feigned surprise.

  “You know you did.” She released her seat belt and clasped her hands in her lap, the prim and proper librarian. “What do you need to tell me?”

  “Wait here while I check the driveway. Fugitives can be violent. I need to see if he’s here because I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  She absorbed his meaning and gave him the sweetest smile. “Ah, you really do care. It’s not just my money.”

  “I thought you were hanging with me for my money.” He suppressed the urge to smile back.

  She must feel better if she could joke with him. He got out and checked the drive. After opening her door, he helped her over the tangle of gnarly live oak roots to the sidewalk. “The drive was empty. I don’t know if anyone is here, but we might as well try. Go ahead and ring the bell.”

  An answering buzz came back. He pushed the gate open. A middle-aged woman in a black dress and white apron opened the front door and arched her eyebrows. “Yes?”

  He inched his boot over the jamb and introduced himself. “I’m looking for Randolph Lemoyne.”

  “He’s not here.” The woman rested her hand on the knob.

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  Annie cleared her throat, and he lifted a hand. They would ask about her belongings in a minute. Finding Lemoyne took priority.

  “No.” The housekeeper shook her head and backed inside.

  “What about Mattie?” Annie leaned into the doorway.

  “Mattie?” The woman went bug-eyed. “Who is that?”

  “Matilda Lemoyne.” He let his arms hang at his side in the most non-threatening posture he could imagine. “Is she here?”