Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (22 page)

“I meant since yesterday.”

“Again—no death wish. She’s still ticked off at me for last month.”

“She’s still ticked off at you for trying to date the mayor’s wife when the woman came in for out-patient surgery on the day you were recuperating in the hospital, you moron. Bobbie Faye already had enough grief from the city and state as it was.”

“Since when do you care? You and Bobbie Faye haven’t talked since you got arrested.”

“Just because we’re not talking doesn’t mean I don’t care. Besides, she didn’t call here last night or this morning. She always calls.”

“I’m confused,” he said, and she could tell he was waking up a little more. “Y’all don’t talk, but she calls?”

“She calls and I say ‘hello’ and then ‘good-bye’ and then I hang up on her. It’s a thing. We have a
thing
. And we do it
every day
. Except for yesterday, when she didn’t call.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

Lori Ann knew Roy would be about as enthusiastic about finding Bobbie Faye as a mouse would be to snuggle up to a python. “I want you to start asking around and see if she’s okay.”

“No way. I might find her. I kinda owe some people some money and I think they got it from her, and I don’t have it to pay her back, yet.”

“Roy,” Lori Ann sighed, staring at the graffiti on the wall above the pay phone, “let me put it like this: I have learned everything I know about annoying the living hell out of someone from our big sister, and I’m
sober
with nothing else to do but concentrate on
you
.”

He swore, hesitated a moment, and finally said, “I’ll look for her. But it’s your fault if she kills me.”

“I can live with that.”

The ancient parquet floor creaked as they made their way into a living room which had remained firmly ensconced in the early seventies. Bobbie Faye remembered the green Naugahyde sofa and the gold starburst clock above it, though about half of the gold had flaked off since she last saw it. What she didn’t remember was the kitschy artwork adorning every wall, nook, and surface. She had seen some of Marie’s artwork in the now-demolished workshop, of course, and there were a few pieces of Marie’s work hung in corporate offices and galleries around town. Some of the pieces V’rai had were retro-modern, and Bobbie Faye found herself liking them.

“You remember your Aunt Aimee,” V’rai asked, pointing to her older sister, who was sitting with her rifle aimed out the dining room window. Aimee waved to Bobbie Faye and then went back to staring out at the cousins in the front yard.

“We’ll talk later, sweetie,” Aimee chirped. “I’ve got brownies in the kitchen if you want ’em.”

Just like when Bobbie Faye was five. Aimee had never married and had always lived at the homestead-turned-grain mill. V’rai had moved back when her husband died years ago.

“You’ll have to go say hello to Lizzie in the bedroom, and Antoine’s out guarding the back deck.” V’rai felt her way through the living room/dining room. They passed the metal-and-Formica-topped dining room table, which held a two-foot tall mound of rifle shells, handguns, bullets, magazines, and their own reloader.

Trevor looked from the table to Bobbie Faye. “It scares me to think you might be the calm one.”

“Bite me.”

He grinned and she ignored him. She was not going to be charmed back into his good graces.

V’rai turned her unseeing gaze in Trevor’s general direction. “Go ahead, son. I know you’re itching to.”

He narrowed his eyes, and glanced at Bobbie Faye for clarification. He’d been doing his best glowering, scary, menacing-presence routine.

“She means it’s okay for you to check out the place.”

“How does—” He stopped, then turned to V’rai. “I work for Emile.”

“He’s one of Emile’s hitmen,” Bobbie Faye added cheerfully, and he rolled his eyes.

“Hmph. My ass he is.” She nodded toward Trevor. “Go on.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He was a real polite menacing presence.

V’rai gave him a dismissive wave and Trevor eyed her a bit like one would a very strange alien who just might possibly lunch on his brains, though he took the opportunity to move around the living area, looking out every window.

“Your daddy wants to have a word with you,” V’rai said, and Bobbie Faye stiffened. “He’s on his way here now.”

“I don’t have a dad, V’rai.”

The old woman snorted. “Child, you don’t get a say in that one. And I believe this visitor is here for you.”

There was a knock at the door, which startled Bobbie Faye. Trevor had his gun out just as Ce Ce burst in, sweat gleaming off her dark skin. She waddled to Bobbie Faye, carting a huge satchel-purse that looked to be nearly as heavy as she was. Trevor glanced between V’rai and the door and then to Bobbie Faye, looking confused, but before she could explain how V’rai had known Ce Ce was there, Francesca had stomped toward the open door in an attempt to follow Ce Ce inside. She stopped when Aimee raised her rifle.

“Back up,
chère
,” Aimee said. “I don’t think that crap you’re wearing could look any worse, but I’d hate to find out.”

“That is so not fair!” Francesca complained. “Y’all always
liked Bobbie Faye better. I’m just as much your niece as she is, and it’s
my
mom we’re trying to help. I should get to come in.”

“If you want to help, then go home,” V’rai said, and she shut the door in Francesca’s face.

From:
JT

To:
Simone

Rumor of surveillance footage—BF killed the jeweler. Locals have it—not logged in yet.

From:
Simone

To:
JT

Do we bring her in?

From:
JT

To:
Simone

After she finds the stones, yes.

Bobbie Faye turned back to Ce Ce, who was still sucking air and sweating, her braids tangled as if she’d been running hard.

“ ’Scuse me, baby girl.” Ce Ce put her big palm on Bobbie Faye’s arm to balance herself while she caught her breath. “But I gotta do this spell quick-like before the timing’s all wrong. This one’s going to work.” Then she looked around as if she’d just noticed the tension in the room and saw Trevor. Bobbie Faye knew it was Ce Ce’s first time to
meet the man, and while Bobbie Faye had described him as accurately as possible, Ce Ce’s grip tightened on Bobbie Faye’s arm as if she just might slide to the floor in a puddle of goo. “Oh,
my
.” She leaned in and whispered a little too loudly in Bobbie Faye’s ear. “Honey, ‘sex on a stick’ doesn’t even
begin
to cover it.”

Trevor turned from the window, decidedly amused and possibly even a little smug.

“Geez, Ceece. Thanks. I was running a couple of quarts low on humiliation today.”

“Young man,” V’rai said, “come on in this kitchen and help me make some coffee. And while you’re at it, you and I are going to have a talk.”

Bobbie Faye blanched as Trevor said, “Talk? That isn’t a Southern euphemism for ‘I’m going to take you out back and shoot you,’ is it?”

“Not today,” V’rai said. “Are you coming?” She held out an arm for him to guide, which Bobbie Faye knew was a complete ruse, because V’rai had bat sonar and had been negotiating that room for more than thirty years. She probably just wanted an excuse to feel Trevor’s biceps for herself; he slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and the old woman smiled back at Bobbie Faye. She wasn’t entirely sure what her favorite part was—her aunt getting a cheap thrill or Trevor having to meet her crazy family and his big bad agenty self looking just a little bit . . . awkward.

Okay, the second one was definitely her favorite.

“So . . . how is it?” Ce Ce asked, nodding Trevor’s direction as she unpacked containers of a clear gel from her big satchel.

“What? No.
No
. Not happening. I’ve come to my senses.”

“Are those the ‘I’m Stupid’ senses? Because girlfriend, you are in serious need of a U-turn if you’re headed that way.”

“I second that,” Aimee said from where she held the rifle out the dining room window. “Besides, V’rai told me yesterday that he was hotter than—”

“Aimee!” V’rai interrupted all the way from the kitchen. “You are not supposed to gossip.”

“Damned bat ears,” Aimee grumbled, but she clammed up and went back to watching the activity on the front lawn.

“How did V’rai already tell you that when we just got here—oh.” She saw Aimee’s look of asperity. “Right.” V’rai’s “sight” was a royal pain in the ass to the family. She’d known things about everyone, could see things no one ought to be able to see, and could predict things, though she generally refused to tell anyone unless it suited some purpose she had, which had been damned inconvenient at times when Bobbie Faye was a little girl. Her own mom had been very intimidated by V’rai’s talent. Emile had pretty much avoided interacting with his sister-in-law. (Bobbie Faye suspected he didn’t want to know what V’rai saw for him, on the off chance she saw he was going to die a terribly painful death . . . because that was one case where V’rai probably would have been happy to disclose the vision.)

“Then it’s unanimous,” Ce Ce said, smearing some of the gel on Bobbie Faye’s left shoulder. “If V’rai says he’s hot, then you just need to—”

“Wait—how do you know V’rai? I’ve been working for you since I was sixteen and you’ve never mentioned knowing my aunt and she’s never been in the store.”

“Well, I know a lot of people we don’t talk about.” She dabbed some of the gel on Bobbie Faye’s left cheek just as Trevor laughed in the kitchen. Not just chuckling, but a deep, gorgeous laugh, and Bobbie Faye wondered what he and V’rai were talking about to make him laugh like that.

“I do special delivery for all of these Landrys. V’rai don’t drive anymore—”

“She drove? I thought she’d been blind since birth.”

“Not since birth, but she had a system worked out with Aimee.” Aimee was the oldest sister among several siblings. “Aimee’s got that foot thing.”

“The prosthetic?” All Bobbie Faye knew was that Aimee
had been in some sort of car wreck when she was little and had lost a foot.

“Yeah,” Aimee added, “I can’t feel the pedals, but she can’t see. We have a system worked out—she works the pedals and I navigate.”

“So much for hoping the crazy wasn’t genetic.”

“—until that time V’rai ran smack into the courthouse,” Aimee said. “That’s when the sheriff made her quit driving.”

“Yeah, that was quick thinking.”

Ce Ce smeared more gel on Bobbie Faye’s left arm and Bobbie Faye asked Aimee, “Has Marie been here lately?”

“Can’t say.” Aimee glanced at the kitchen and then hunkered down over the rifle.

“Who’s hiding her?”

“I could really do for some coffee,” Aimee said. “Here.” She set the rifle down. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bobbie Faye resisted the urge to shout
chicken
. As Aimee ambled toward the kitchen, Bobbie Faye looked down at her arm, expecting to see clear gel smeared everywhere in preparation for whatever weird spell Ce Ce was about to do, and when she saw what Ce Ce had done, she damn near had a heart attack.

“Ceece! What the hell are you doing?” Bobbie Faye stared at her left arm—it was royal blue. Down to her fingertips.

“A spell, honey. A really strong protection spell. I think I figured out what wasn’t working with the other ones.”

“I somehow wasn’t scary enough?”

“Oh, no, you were plenty scary.”

“Now
there’s
an endorsement everyone wants to hear from their employer. I would really like to get through this disaster without looking like a recruitment poster for Blueberry: Fruit of the Month Club.”

“It’s not bad. It’s just a
little
blue,” Ce Ce said, not really looking Bobbie Faye directly in the eye when she said it, and she started packing up the empty containers, putting a lid on the one with leftover gel. “Maybe it was the prayer that turned it a little darker.”

“Prayer?”

“Maimee and her bunch. They were in the store. Lots of praying might have made this a lot bluer than I remembered.”

“Might? If this was prayed over by Maimee, I’m probably lucky I didn’t just burst into flames. So what’s the chant thing we need to do?”

The incantation. Ce Ce still didn’t meet her gaze. “There’s no chant thing for this one—the spell’s already in the gel.”

“I’m done? I can go wash this off now?”

“No,” Ce Ce said, moving toward the front door.

“I really do not want to walk around looking like a Smurf exploded on me.”

“Honey, it worked for Mel in
Braveheart
.”

“Ceece—that side
lost
. The main character was drawn and quartered by the end of that movie.”

“He probably tried to wash it off. Just don’t do that. Especially in the next couple of hours, because I’m not entirely sure about the exploding quality.”

“Exploding?” Bobbie Faye felt her insides go squiggly.

“You won’t explode, dear. I don’t think. But the protection spell has to have something to work on or it can go a little haywire. Which is why I have to get the rest of this back to a safe place,” she said, tapping her big purse where she’d stored the other containers. “Oh, and I think I may have accidentally solved that insurance quote problem you had. You be sure to live so I can tell you, okay? Bye now!”

Ce Ce toddled out V’rai’s front door as Bobbie Faye looked in the living room mirror and stifled a yelp.

John and the men he’d hired got into position at the mill; he watched through his binoculars as the crazy-assed voodoo priestess came barreling out the front door of the house, practically plowing over the idiots hovering between the door and their Hummer. He’d known that following Ce Ce was the way to pick up the trail—eventually, in just about any disaster, Bobbie Faye’s boss showed up to try to help the insane ditz. It was poetic justice that the same woman who’d hexed him years ago (and it took two fucking years for all of the warts to go away) should be the source of his finding Bobbie Faye and putting an end to her.