Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (12 page)

He stared at her for what seemed like forever. She wasn’t entirely sure he breathed, so intent was that look.

“What?” she asked finally.

“I’m trying to figure out how to get someone to shoot at you every day.”

“Somehow, I’m beginning to think that’s not going to be a problem.”

Which reminded him of the shooter, dammit. He rolled off her and knelt, trying to peer above the sill to see where the sniper was located. Two more pings hit the window above his head.

Benoit rocked back on his heels at the sight of the video; it was absolutely the last thing he’d expected. The little haberdashery tucked into the far corner of the refurbished-and-now-flourishing downtown shopping center had all of the latest high-tech security equipment, which seemed completely incongruent with the dapper, old-fashioned, little Cajun Mr. Beaureagard, who owned the place. Mr. Beau had been in business forty years, and in spite of the
radical changes in clothing styles, as well as the hardhitting economic times the city had suffered—especially after Hurricane Rita—he had managed a successful shop. His good business acumen and foresight had led him to rent nice prom tuxes to kids of the affluent executives of the surrounding chemical plants. The downside to the high school business was that every once in a while, there was graffiti or break-ins, one of which had recently made the papers. The boy had gotten off because the old video was too fuzzy to convict him. After that incident, Mr. Beau had installed extra security cameras.

“Rewind it and let me see it again,” Benoit said, and the old man adjusted his bifocals on his acorn nose, squinting at the console, confused over the array of buttons. Finally the selection was made, the recordable DVD jumped back to the beginning of the pertinent section, and Benoit leaned in closer to get a careful look.

“For true,” the old man said, his Cajun accent rolling thick up and over and down again with a singsong inflection. “I don’t like to call against her, she’s a good girl,
cher
. And Sal? He’s a little on the shady side, so I figure,
mais no
, he’s been doing something against her. So if she has a good reason, no way I like to get her in trouble, no.”

Benoit watched the footage in silence. He’d have to get a drink or two into Cam before he let his friend see it. Benoit hit the button to slow the speed of the images.

Sal—Salavadore Frenetti, the jeweler who’d been murdered four days ago—had a shop diagonally opposite of Mr. Beau’s place. The jewelry store catered to upscale clients in much the same way as Mr. Beau did their teenagers. The police—and then the FBI—had canvassed every single shop owner and only two had a camera pointed anywhere in the direction of the jewelry store or alley next to it. Oddly, one camera had not been “functioning” the night of the murder and the other surveillance tape had “accidentally” been erased. Benoit and Cam had suspected a mob hit, given the perfect symmetry of the shot pattern, and thought maybe someone in the syndicate had leaned
heavily—but quietly—on the shop owners to conveniently manage a collective amnesia. Now Benoit wondered if the amnesia was more a result of protecting the Contraband Days Queen. As a Cajun, Benoit knew his people tended to close ranks and shield their own.

Benoit certainly hadn’t expected to see that Queen on this footage—especially as she pulled a Glock on Sal and loaded him with five rounds.

The camera hadn’t caught her image directly; instead, the camera had been aimed down the sidewalk (the common escape route for graffiti artists) and at the end of that sidewalk, the antique storefront jutted out, its entire front bay window full of antique armoires. The largest armoire had a mirrored front, and it was set at an angle in the store that caught a reflection of the alley, in much the same way security mirrors could see “around” corners in stores.

A woman who was the same build as Bobbie Faye met up with Sal in the alley. He seemed surprised to see her. They argued and for a brief moment, she stepped forward and the streetlight illuminated her face fully. She looked so much like Bobbie Faye, Benoit felt dread thrum through to his soul. The woman pulled the Glock. Sal looked at first as if he was going to laugh, and then he peered over into the shadows. Benoit thought he saw movement there, someone else . . . maybe two people? When Sal faced the woman again, his demeanor had changed from dismissal to blatant fear. He appeared to be begging, and then the woman planted the five shots straight into his chest. Sal fell, slow-motion, to his knees, then half-rolled, half-fell to his back. He seemed to be talking for a minute; she leaned over him and listened, then appeared even more agitated. The woman hunted around on the ground in the gravel alley. Bobbie Faye—the suspect, he amended his thoughts—picked up all of the casings, checked the man for a pulse, and wiped her hands on her shirt. She stood there for a second, looked back at someone in the shadows, and casually walked off.

Benoit froze the screen at the one moment she glanced
over her shoulder, and even in the harsh shadows cast by the streetlight, there was Bobbie Faye’s angular face, the same-shaped eyes and nose . . . everything.
Sacre merde
. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure that it was Bobbie Faye, but the fact that he could even think in percentages shocked him and set him rocking on his heels again, trying to reel in the thoughts. There was the odd angle of the mirror to contend with and the fact that the faces couldn’t be seen clearly on the tape. A couple of times, there was a weird double-image, probably caused by the shape of the mirror or a reflection in the antique store’s bay window. The footage was relatively dark in spite of the streetlight, and he wasn’t sure if there was a man in those shadows or not. Still.

He stared at that frozen image, at that slight hint of a smile. He knew Bobbie Faye. He’d grown up with her. He knew her character, inside and out, and he knew she’d never kill a man. He’d have bet his life on it. And yet, that was her face staring out of that frozen image. Her smile. Benoit couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. There was
no way
he could believe what he was seeing, and if the video had been presented to him by anyone other than Mr. Beau, a man so honorable he’d driven all the way back to Baton Rouge once to return an overpayment that the IRS had given him—a whopping five dollars—Benoit would have immediately assumed the footage had been altered. But there stood Mr. Beau, clearly heartbroken for having to turn in someone he liked, anguished over this in a way that all Benoit’s years as a detective told him was sincere. Benoit had to believe that the footage was legit.

Just how in the hell was he supposed to tell Cam that the woman he loved—and up until ten minutes ago, the woman Benoit had been certain Cam should have married—might be a murderer?

The clean-up in Ce Ce’s store had begun, now that the police released the crime scene and left. While the store was slowly put back in order and the contractor measured for
new windows (she’d been through this enough times to have a great contractor on a hefty retainer), Ce Ce worked in her office. She pored over spell books, incantations, and old translations she’d gathered in her private voodoo library. And she fretted. Somehow, her protection spells hadn’t worked. The sniper should have been compelled not to shoot; the cousins should never have been able to talk Bobbie Faye into leaving with them. Ce Ce had failed, and she was going to rectify that.

Ce Ce’s insurance agent, Neil, an incredibly tall, reedy man whose bland complexion blended perfectly with his light gray suit, gray tie, and gray shoes, hovered in her doorway. The only thing of color on Neil was the stain on his shirt; he’d apparently had pizza for lunch. He scratched his head, worry deepening his permanent frown.

“They’re going to want to write a clause excluding ‘events’ by Bobbie Faye,” he sighed, ruffling through his thin gray hair.

“They’re not going to get it, hon,” she said, flipping to another page in the spell book she was investigating. “Don’t make me call my attorney again.”

The poor agent mopped his forehead with his tie. The last time Ce Ce had turned in a claim, his agency had tried to cancel her. The company had intended on excluding any expenses pertaining to Bobbie Faye’s existence, and they reamed poor Neil out when he’d signed a renewal policy with Ce Ce without that exclusion. But when the company balked at paying, Ce Ce’s attorney had made a simple and brief phone call, which had convinced them to keep the policy intact. (Ce Ce had given the attorney a love spell which he’d used on his drop-dead gorgeous wife. He wanted refills for life. Ce Ce wasn’t about to explain to him that the potion really only worked once, and would wear off if the two people weren’t really meant for each other; as long as the attorney was convinced he needed it, Ce Ce was happy to supply it.)

“I’m going to get fired, Ce Ce!”

He was starting to look ruddy in the heat, and for Neil,
actual color in his face was probably a sign that he was nearly apoplectic. Poor thing was, Ce Ce realized, a victim of the Bobbie Faye event, too, and she patted his hand as she passed by him on her way to her storage room. “You wait right here, hon. I’ve got just the thing for you.”

Ce Ce had to squeeze her pudgy, made-for-lovin’ body through the narrow aisles of her crammed floor-to-the-ceiling storeroom. There she rooted around among the hundreds of vials she’d stocked, some so old, the dust lay thick as soot. None were labeled. She’d discovered a long time ago that unlabeled potions were safe from theft, because no one wanted to accidentally use a shrink-a-penis potion or a make-him-think-he’s-a-lizard potion instead of a get-rich potion or a love potion.

“Whatcha doin’?” Monique slurred, startling the crap out of Ce Ce, and she nearly knocked over an entire shelf.

Ce Ce eyed her friend, who grinned that goofy on-her-way-through-flask-number-one-for-the-day smile. “Just finding something to help Neil.” She held up a vial that barely glowed amber in the light.

“That looks kinda like water. Only dirty. Ooohhhh, are we gonna make Neil a dirty old man?”

“No.” Since her friend had a problem with keeping secrets, she wasn’t about to tell Monique that she was giving an insurance man the power of “yes.” It was a weak potion—Neil probably couldn’t handle anything too strong. “It’s just a protection spell, honey.” Better to avoid the direct truth here. Ce Ce wouldn’t want Neil to abuse the power she was temporarily giving him to survive his boss’s wrath.

“Maybe you need to freshen those up a bit,” Monique said, all wide-eyed, innocently observing the overcrowded, dusty shelves.

Ce Ce frowned, assessing her stock. Maybe the vials were a little old . . . a little . . . expired. Maybe that’s why the protection spells hadn’t worked as well for Bobbie Faye. She traded the barely amber vial for one twice as dark.

“See!” Monique exclaimed as she followed Ce Ce out of the storage room. “I can be a big help! You gotta teach me stuff, like what these are.” Monique held up delicately dried curlicues of iguana entrails, which were hard to come by, because the lizards had to die naturally. Ce Ce removed them from Monique’s hand carefully.

“Maybe later. I think you need to start on something simpler that won’t kill our customers if your ingredient measurements are off by a milliliter.” Ce Ce turned and handed the vial to Neil, catching him in the act of leafing through her spell book. He jumped back, having the decency to look guilty. “Here, hon. This is all you can handle right now.”

“It’s a protection spell!” Monique blabbed. “A really strong one. Double strength.”

“There’s that discretion I know and love,” Ce Ce said dryly. To Neil, she said, “Just drink it after your evening meal. Be sure not to eat anything yellow, though. It tends to give you indigestion if you do.”

Neil thanked her, took the vial, and loped out of the room looking a little more afraid than when he came in, which was a shame, Ce Ce thought. She’d meant to help.

Which reminded her: find a spell for Bobbie Faye. Ce Ce needed something that was all-purpose, portable, and definitely powerful. She turned back to her open spell book and started to flip back to the incantation she’d been contemplating, when the one displayed on the pages Neil had opened to caught her eye.

The spell was
wonderful
. Except for the part where Bobbie Faye would probably kill her for doing it, but other than that? It was
perfect
.

As Bobbie Faye rolled to a sitting position near where Trevor knelt beside Marie’s workshop window window, a vibration rumbled through the house. Items on the desk quaked with the increasing shaking of the floor and the walls, several photos crashed on the hardwood planks, and a weird sculptural art piece fell next. Boxes danced off the top of other boxes, spilling plastic pellets and beads and buttons and God knows what else.

Trevor and Bobbie Faye slid across the floor to the window on the corner of the house and peeked above that sill to see a bulldozer heading their way from the construction site.
Without a driver
.

“How?” she asked.

“Bulldozers can keep going, once the gear’s engaged.”

Construction workers on the far end of the development site saw it cross the street and they ran, but they had acres to cover before they’d reach Marie’s house.

But this wasn’t just any bulldozer. No little Tinkertoy version for her life, yippeefuckingskip. This was a big Cat daddy of all bulldozers with a giant blade that came to a “V” in the front, the kind they used to shear huge trees when clearing land. It climbed over the curb, knocking off a fire hydrant, which spewed water against the window. And without a driver, it plowed straight ahead, cleaving through the back deck and
into
Marie’s house.

The blade ate through the back porch and then kept going,
splitting the flooring, wedging open the pier-type foundation. The entire house canted forward, its underpinnings crumbling as the machine continued to push. Tables slid, slamming against one another as supplies and papers tumbled directly toward Bobbie Faye and Trevor. They scrambled, climbing up the now-sloping floor to get to the staircase. Beads rolled underfoot out of overturned boxes, killing their traction.