DutyBoundARe (37 page)

She blew out a breath. “Whatever, if I make it I make it. I’d just like to do something besides patrol, and I think I’d do well in SWAT, even if it’s harder.”

He nodded. She couldn’t take out a man his size in a straight-on fight, but Odalia was tricky. She had street smarts and a scrappy backbone. He didn’t doubt she could hold her own if she made SWAT, but it didn’t mean he wanted to see her in that much danger.

“Enough about me. What about you? What do you have going on this week?”

He shrugged. “Nothing besides grabbing a few bail jumpers.”

“Were you going to go out to your grandmother’s?”

“Possibly.” He made trips up the bayou to the backwater community his family had once lived in. Whenever he went, he packed a case of his remedies and made some rounds. The people out there were too poor for insurance or a real doctor. They couldn’t even pay him, unless it was to give him food or more herbs. It was a shame he couldn’t make a living as a traiteur. The people needed another option, but it just wasn’t viable.

“If you do, I’d like to go with you.” Odalia drew patterns in the condensation on her glass.

“Alright. Oh, I might go take photos at this street fair that’s happening down on Royal.” Anything that happened down in that area was sure to be entertaining.

Their food was delivered, cutting off any interest in conversation. They tucked into their meal, devouring it. He’d never seen a woman eat as much as Odalia, but then again, most women he knew weren’t the adrenaline junky variety.

Jacques became aware that Odalia had stopped eating and was staring intently out of the windows toward the gas station. He glanced up, taking in the creased brow, the pursed lips.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Maybe. I’ll be right back.” She slid out of the booth.

“You done?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.” He glanced over his shoulder, but couldn’t see much beyond an ice cream truck that had stopped at an air pumping station that sat at the curb between the two establishments.

Why did he have a feeling Odalia was about to get into trouble?

Oh, right. Because it was her job to ferret it out.

chapter Two

Pursuit

Odalia stepped out into the dim morning light. The sun had begun to paint the horizon a beautiful golden hue, with shots of pink and orange shooting through the clouds. She glanced at her watch and groaned when she saw the time. She needed to get home and crawl into bed.

She should turn around and get in the Jeep.

Except she kept putting one foot in front of the other.

She’d noticed a man and a woman, white, probably in their late thirties or forties, airing up the tires of their ice cream truck. It was one of those large, white vans that had the sliding glass doors on the side, a door at the back and the cab doors. The exterior was covered in time-worn stickers of all the kinds of ice cream they carried.

As for why she was going out there, Odalia couldn’t say. Sometimes she just got these hunches and had to follow them through. Or maybe she just wanted to help them out. She was too tired to really think it through.

The man noticed her first. He stood from where he was trying to attach the hose to the tires. He had the kind of weather beaten face that led Odalia to think he was younger than he appeared. He was thin, maybe a drug user or just fallen on hard times. He wore dirty overalls and a rolled up plaid shirt underneath with a plain, red baseball cap over his shaggy hair.

“Hey, do you guys need a hand?” Odalia threw a smile in for good measure.

“No, ma’am, we’re doing just fine,” the man said.

The woman leaned out of the back door, her eyes wide. Her hair was a wild rats nest of tangles. “Get rid of her, John. We don’t need no help.”

People like this could pass the health code to drive an ice cream truck? No. No they couldn’t.

“That’s what I was saying, Clair,” John snapped.

“Don’t you talk back to me.” Clair descended the three stairs, her hands balled into fists.

“Alright, alright.” Odalia held up her hands. The two continued to snipe at each other, ignoring her presence. The last thing she wanted to deal with was a domestic dispute when she was off duty. “I just wanted to offer. I’m a police officer. If...”

The man and woman gasped as one and turned toward her the same moment the back door swung open so hard it banged off the back of the truck. Odalia got a glimpse of a black teen, eyes wide and a bright red bandana over her mouth.

Brown hair.

Teen between thirteen and fifteen.

Bound and gagged.

“Sir, ma’am, I need you to step away from the vehicle.” Odalia’s body flooded with adrenaline. She was acutely aware of the scent of tar, the aroma of something rotten and the shift of the two suspects feet.

Odalia took a step toward the back of the truck. She was unarmed. Her gun was in the console of the Jeep.

John threw the air hose at her. The nozzle hit her in the face and she took a step back. The couple dove into the truck, one into the cab, the other into the back. They accelerated out of the gas station in a peal of rubber and smoke.

She turned and bolted for the Jeep as Jacques stepped out of the restaurant, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.

Fuck it all, she’d just run into the kidnappers.

Jacques jerked the Jeep door open
. Odalia was on her cell phone, and all he could gather so far was that she’d called 9-1-1.

She pulled the phone away from her face and tapped the dashboard. “Follow that truck. Now.”

He didn’t ask any more questions. In their line of work, you had to trust your partner and sometimes a split second was all it took for something really awful to happen. He shifted into reverse and whipped the Jeep around. They flew out of the parking lot and onto the two-lane road bordered by the bayou on both sides. The ice cream truck was a speck ahead on the road headed out of the city.

“Go faster,” Odalia urged.

They were already topping the speed limit by fifteen miles. The roads were mostly empty, but he still had to pass a few despite the double yellow line down the middle of the road.

“I can’t. We’re gaining, I promise.” He kept his gaze trained on the white speck that was the ice cream truck.

Out this way there wasn’t much. A lot of homes that had been destroyed by Katrina and the areas never recovered. There were forests of rubble nature was laying claim to since man would not.

They sped over a stretch of road suspended over the water, the morning sun glinting off the choppy surface and hitting him in the eyes.

“They’re turning off the road,” Odalia said into the phone.

“What exactly are we doing?” he finally asked.

“I think I just tried to help the kidnappers air up their tire,” Odalia said with the phone pulled away from her face. “Where did they go?”

She leaned forward and they both squinted at the signs. There were a few roads for turn offs into what had once been a tree-sheltered neighborhood.

“This one, I think,” she said, and rattled off the street name into the phone.

He turned and they both glanced either way. Some houses stood in partial memory of the homes they’d once been while others were nothing but a heap of rubble on their former foundation.

They rolled down one street, turned and tried another, but there wasn’t a single living thing in sight.

“Maybe try that other street?” she suggested.

“No, I think they’re here, we just haven’t seen them yet.” Odalia had her hunches, he had his. She might know when something was wrong, but he knew when the lowlifes had gone to ground.

They went down another nameless street and another with no sign of their prey.

He turned onto a road with a No Outlet sign propped up on some crates and popped open the glove compartment. His gun and badge lay on top with Odalia’s personal handgun. She took them out, handing him the strap so he could pull them on while he drove. At some point she’d dug out her badge and had it clipped to her pocket.

On their left the ground rose, and sitting on the swell of the little hill was an older, weather beaten two-story wooden house. The paint had peeled mostly off and he could clearly see the green line where the water had risen to flood the first floor, but no further. The hill had probably both sheltered and saved the house, unlike the others.

Sitting in the crumbling concrete and packed dirt driveway was the ice cream truck, the back door hung open and there wasn’t a sign of anyone.

Odalia rattled off
the license plate number on the truck once more. She’d been almost certain she’d gotten it right, but it never hurt to be positive.

“Don’t block the drive or the street,” she said to Jacques. If these really were the kidnappers, which she expected, everyone was about to descend on this place.

“Officer Foucheaux?” The 9-1-1 dispatcher had to sound out her last name slowly.

“Yes, I’m here. I’ve got you on headset. We are parking on the street. I don’t see anyone except the truck, and that appears to be empty.” She could see straight through the truck with the back door hanging open like that. Not a soul moved.

“Who is
we
?”

“Jacques Savoy, he is a licensed bounty hunter with Bayou Hunters and my boyfriend. Can you tell me your name again? We’re getting awfully personal here.” Odalia pulled her Glock from her holster and got out of the Jeep.

“Karen.” She chuckled in Odalia’s ear.

“Nice to meet you, Karen. I’m pulling Jacques in on this call so we can use our headsets as comms.”

Jacques had parked them behind a hedge, which provided her a little cover while she dialed him in on their call. He stepped around the back of the Jeep, fiddling with his headset looped over his ear as it connected.

“There we go, now it’s almost like poker night. Karen, we’re going to approach the house, see what we can.”

“Should we wait for back-up?” Jacques asked.

“Back-up is on their way, but you’re in a remote area. It’s going to take them time to get there,” Karen replied.

“We’ll just get a closer look.” Odalia had lain awake at night, her gut churning over the fate of these kids. One look at that couple and she’d gotten a hinky feeling. What if they were doing something to that poor kid while they just sat out here doing nothing? She couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Jacques nodded and she led the way around the hedge and onto the broken driveway. Though she’d drawn her pistol, she kept it at her side in as non-threatening way as possible. If a drawn gun could ever be considered non-threatening.

The property, at a glance, appeared like every other run-down house in the neighborhood. On closer inspection, the junk heaps and cars sitting on cinderblocks in the front yard might have pre-dated Katrina.

“Movement, first floor second window from the left,” Jacques said, his words clipped and fast.

“I see—”

Jacques grabbed her, diving to their right as gunfire cracked through the still, calm morning, shattering it. They hit the ground and rolled as another shot sent up dust where they’d landed. Odalia crouched behind a rubble heap, sucking down oxygen in deep breaths.

“Officer Fou-cheese? Officer?”

“You know, it would probably be a lot easier if you just called me Odalia. We’ve got a shooter on the first floor. I can’t see if it’s the man or the woman. Jacques?”

He lay on his back at her side, half propped up by the rubble. “I’m good. Damn rock hit me in the head.”

“Shit, you’re bleeding.” Odalia grabbed Jacques’ chin and forced him to look at her. He had a small gash above his left eye on his brow. It didn’t look deep, but head wounds were a bitch and bleed like crazy.

“Are you injured? Is Jacques in need of the paramedics?” Karen’s voice never rose. She never got flustered. She was really good at this.

“He’s scratched. We’re okay. Damn, this is not good.” Odalia glanced around. Now more than ever she wanted to get that kid out. She didn’t let herself think about the other teens that had disappeared or their fate. One thing at a time.

Jacques crouched next to her, glancing this way and that. Their position was fairly well covered. If they needed to, they could stay behind the pile until back-up got there.

He licked his lips and glanced at her. There was something awfully sexy about Jacques in the field. Working together. It was a shame they couldn’t do this more often. “I’m going to circle the house. I can keep low and get behind that car, then that pile of branches. I bet I can get around back. This place backs up onto the swamp. There ain’t nothing behind this place but trees and water. I don’t think we want these people taken off that way.”

“Okay.” She didn’t like being separated, but they were just two people.

“Jacques is going to circle the house. Where are you, Odalia?” Karen asked.

“I’m going to remain at the front of the house. Back-up will have a clear shot of my position.” She couldn’t help but watch Jacques peer around the edge of their hiding place.

She had to tear her gaze away from him and go back to watching the house. The curtains fluttered in the open window and she had a clear view of a man in coveralls, crouched over with a rifle.

If Jacques moved, they would see him.

“Jacques, get ready to move,” she said.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Odalia didn’t answer. She took a deep breath and stood straight up, exposing herself. She aimed and squeezed off three shots as fast as she could. There was too much of a risk that she might hit someone innocent inside the house, so she aimed at a stump a few yards in front of the house. The dry wood splintered and shattered, sending up a cloud of wood chips and dust.

She didn’t wait for the man, John, to return fire. She dropped to the ground and glanced sideways to see Jacques already at the brush pile that was just about near the side of the house.

“Odalia?” Karen’s voice wavered.

Odalia flinched as a rifle round blasted through the air and chips of cinderblock went flying over her head. She threw one arm over herself and tucked her knees in tight.