Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) (27 page)

From what he could gather, they didn’t discount the possibility of a mob hit, but couldn’t seem to get past Caret’s status as an important cog in the machinery of the justice system. That meant he was above suspicion, at least to their minds. They could only imagine someone had bought the hit for more personal reasons. That being the case, back they went to the person most likely to benefit from his sudden death: the wife.

Lance had a different idea after hearing how Caret worked and his secretive nature. He figured the guy had something to hide. That was reinforced by the attempts to get to Mandy. Whoever was working with Caret thought she knew something her husband had told her, or maybe had something he’d given her.

Lance didn’t think so. He’d been watching her for the past hour, the way she glowed under the influence of the people who approved of her. She pretended to be independent, needing no one, and did a good job of it. She asked for so little, seemed to expect less. Yet she could be coaxed out of her shell with the right words, the right reward.

“You were right, Cuz,” Trey said as he came toward him with a cup of coffee in each hand. “I was wrong.”

Lance took the cup he was offered, but gave his cousin a suspicious look in return. “About what?”

“Your suspect.” Trey gestured toward Mandy with his cup. “She’s a sweet kid, once you get to know her, nothing like—”

“Yeah, nothing like Brittney,” Lance finished the sentence so Trey wouldn’t have to bad-mouth his ex.

“I mean, look at the way she’s having a heart-to-heart with Granny Chauvin now, there in the back. You’d think she’d known her all her life, that they’d baked cookies together, maybe had sleep-overs and made doll clothes. Hey, even Zeni likes her. You have any idea how rare that is?”

“I get the picture.”

Trey chuckled. “What I’m trying to say is, I get it, too. Mandy acts tough, but she’s a softy inside. It’s plain stupid to think she’d kill anybody.”

“Plenty of stupid people in the world.”

“Too right.” Trey clapped him on the shoulder and then moved off, back toward the counter where Zeni was signaling that he was needed.

Lance was still staring after him, bemused, when Beau came up behind him. “Trey trying to make amends for all the stuff he said against Mandy?”

“Something like that.”

“He lets his temper get away from him now and then, but he means well.”

“Mandy’s the one he should be apologizing to.”

“He might, if he didn’t think you’d take his head off.”

“Who, me?”

“The way you watch her, it could be dangerous to get too close.” Something more than teasing humor lay in the bright blue of his other knightly cousin’s eyes.

“I don’t—” Lance stopped as he glanced toward where Mandy had been a minute ago, when he was talking to Trey. He scanned the room, but saw no sign of her slender shape or shining hair.

“What is it?” Beau asked.

“Where did she go?”

Beau turned this way and that, craning to see. “She’s bound to be here somewhere. She can’t simply vanish.”

Lance wasn’t so sure. His belly clenched at the thought of the two men who had left the coffee shop not so long ago. They, or someone like them, had taken Mandy before. She’d escaped that time, but what if she had to do it again?

Zeni was winding her way through the tables not far away. “Hey,” he called. “Seen Mandy?”

“Sure, she was here just now. What’s up?”

“I don’t see her.” He didn’t see Granny Chauvin, either. They wouldn’t be so thoughtless as to go outside right now? Would they?

“She was headed toward the back a minute ago. Maybe she went to the restroom. Want me to check?”

He gave Zeni a look that demanded why she had to ask.

“Right. I’ll do that little thing.”

She spun on her heel and raced toward the short hallway where the restrooms were located. Slapping the door with the flat of her hand, she disappeared inside. Long seconds ticked past before she came out again. Face grim, she shook her head.

Panic beat up inside Lance. He swore under his breath.

“Call Tate,” he rapped out, meeting Beau’s eyes for a single instant before he started for the back room. “Tell him I need back up.”

Everybody seemed to think he’d been watching Mandy too close, but they were wrong. He hadn’t watched her close enough.

Granny Chauvin hovered in the doorway of the coffee shop’s back room. Her face was pale and her eyes looked huge in her lined face. Catching sight of Mandy, she put a finger to her lips then motioned for her to come. When she didn’t move at once, Granny beckoned again with a near-frantic signal.

It never occurred to her to refuse the summons. The thing might look odd, but then nothing that had happened these last few days was normal. She owed Granny Chauvin so much. If she had some small personal emergency, then Mandy was glad to go to her rescue.

“I’m so, so sorry, sweetie,” the elderly woman said, her voice quavering so it was hard to understand her. Taking Mandy’s wrist, she pulled her deeper inside the crowded back area with its head-high steel shelving stacked with goods, dim lighting and narrow corridor between the interior and exterior door. “I had to do it. If I didn’t, they said they’d walk out and start shooting, kill everybody in sight.”

“Shut up!”

Hard on that order, a heavyset khaki-clad figure stepped from behind the nearest shelf. He grabbed Granny Chauvin around the neck in a chokehold. Holding a handgun to her head, he dragged her away from the door and pushed it shut.

In that same instant, the thinner construction worker stepped from the cover of a stacked metal shelf. The gun in his hand was trained on Mandy.

The blood congealed in her veins. She stopped breathing. Shock began deep inside and radiated outward, making her hands shake and her knees feel unhinged.

Two seconds later, it dissolved into the calm of defeat. She lifted her chin, looking the shorter man straight in the eyes. The hard, determined light she saw in his face was not encouraging, but she spoke anyway.

“Granny did what you wanted. Now let her go.”

“And have her screech the place down. Not on your life.”

“She can’t—”

“Not happening. Come on, babe, where is it? What have you done with it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie,” the other man said with a fast, slicing gesture of his free hand. “We’re in no mood for games.”

“Honestly, I’ve no idea—”

“The account numbers, that’s what. Caret swore you have them. Considering the shape he was in at the time, I say that’s it.”

The simplicity of the hint at torture was horrifying. It suggested standard procedure that might be implemented again. Mandy moistened dry lips before she spoke.

“Bruce never gave me any numbers.”

The shorter man holding Granny Chauvin made a sound of disgust. “They are on that hair thing of yours, you idiot. Caret’s cell says it’s right here, right now. Get it for us or Granny will meet her maker earlier than expected.”

“You mean my hair clasp,” Mandy said in sudden comprehension. “But it has no numbers.”

“Caret was cute. They’re written on the gold part.”

“But it’s so tiny.”

Granny made a rasping noise, as if the arm across her throat was interfering with her breathing. “If they can engrave the Bible on the head of a pin, dear…”

She had a point. Whether she was right didn’t matter. The important thing was that the two men believed it.

“Let Granny go and I’ll get the clasp for you,” she said as firmly as she was able.

“You’ll do it no matter what. Now!”

What choice did she have? She’d stalled as long as she could in hope someone would come into the back room. It hadn’t worked. She could hold out a little longer, or she could give the men what they wanted and hope they would be satisfied. Nothing else came to mind.

“I don’t have the hair clasp on me,” she said with care.

“We figured that out from the signal. But you know where it is. Hand it over.”

The clasp was most likely still in Zeni’s apron pocket, the one she was wearing this minute. To get it, Mandy would have to entice her into this situation where she might be killed.

She couldn’t do that, not and live with herself. Yet what did that leave?

Her lips trembled a little at the corners when she opened them to speak. “I think—it may be in the pocket of the apron hanging there by the back door.”

“Get it.” The taller of the two men stepped back a pace to allow her room.

“Honey,” Granny said with a warning note in her gravely old voice.

Mandy suspected she intended to remind her it was likely she would be killed when she gave the men what they wanted. Granny didn’t realize they were both going to die, anyway, unless something happened. She also didn’t know she was still playing for time.

She took a step, and then another. She skimmed past the handgun in the thin man’s hand, watching with her lashes shielding her eyes as its black bore followed her every move. Her hand trembled as she reached for the apron on its hook. She closed her fingers around it.

Something weighted one side. Disbelief held Mandy immobile for a second. Then she dipped her hand into the pocket and pulled out the hair clasp.

“About damn time,” the hatchet-faced man said on a snort. He reached over her shoulder for the piece. Shorty released Granny Chauvin and started toward them.

Mandy let go of the tortoiseshell clasp. Its gold decoration and polished shell shimmered and gleamed as it tumbled end over end toward the floor.

Hatchet-face swore. His aim wavered as bent down, grabbing for the bauble.

Mandy shoved him with every ounce of her strength. He stumbled backward, arms flailing as he bowled into his partner. The two of them went down.

Mandy lunged toward Granny Chauvin. Snatching her around the waist, she spun with her toward the door into the coffee shop.

“Stop! Stop or you’re dead!”

It was the heavyset thug. His weapon was trained on them both as he grabbed a shelf and pulled to his feet.

Mandy skidded to a halt.

Before she stopped moving, the door ahead of her crashed open.

Lance burst through and whipped to one side. Feet set in shooting stance, both hands supporting his sidearm, he shouted in hard command. “Drop your weapon!”

“Well, well.” Hatchet-face got to his feet with the hair clasp in his hand. He slouched down the narrow aisle toward where Mandy and Granny Chauvin stood, snide satisfaction spreading over his face. “Looks like we got us a Mexican Standoff.”

Mandy had seen that situation in western movies. This was different. Mere millimeters of movement by the finger of either man could spell the difference between life and death.

The air was too thick to breathe. Not a sound broke the quiet inside the back area, though voices and music filtered in from the coffee shop.

Granny Chauvin recovered first.

Jerking around, she swiped the hair clasp from the hatchet-faced guy’s slack grasp. “That’s not yours, buddy boy!”

All hell broke loose.

The rear door slammed against the wall as Trey burst through with a double-barrel shotgun raised and ready.

Beau and Sheriff Tate poured around him on either side, weapons drawn.

A shot rang out.

Mandy grabbed Granny around the waist and hit the concrete floor. She rolled with her as Lance had with her not so long ago. They jarred to a halt underneath a steel shelf as more shots blasted the air.

Plaster exploded in every direction. Glass shattered, raining down. A man yelled. Another grunted. The smells of gun powder and dill pickles filled the room.

The commotion stopped as quickly as it began. Quiet fell like a lofted blanket settling to a mattress.

The sheriff swore. Snatching off his Stetson, he threw it on the floor with a solid plop. “Damn it all, Lance,” he said in fuming exasperation. “I guess you know you’re on administrative leave again!”

Lance didn’t give a damn about the leave, the sheriff, the perps or anything else. Jamming his weapon into his holster, he tossed his cuffs to Trey who had disarmed the thin-faced man, stepped around Beau who was checking the vital signs of the one he’d shot. Two long steps, and he was kneeling beside Mandy and Granny Chauvin.