Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) (2 page)

He'd expected a high-maintenance female, all fake boobs, fake nails, fake smile, and every inch polished to a hard gloss. Instead, the mysterious Amanda Caret had been rumpled and natural, with soft-looking, lusciously shaped lips, clear sea blue eyes shadowed with fear and defiance, and not the first sign of makeup on her creamy skin.

If he didn't know better, he'd swear she was for real.

He should have
Born Sucker
tattooed on his forehead.

The woman’s file indicated she was a gold digger who had married a rich man more than twice her age and enjoyed the good life until things went downhill. Speculation was that she’d arranged a hit on him, and then reneged on the deal. Now whoever did the deed was after her. She claimed to be innocent, but the New Orleans police wanted her kept under wraps until they could prove it one way or the other.

Lance was intimately familiar with the type. His ex-wife had been a master at wide-eyed protests while taking whatever she could get with both greedy little hands.

Okay, so he'd made a mess of the assignment. He could fix it. He had to, as it was his best chance of redemption after last night.

Against his will, the scene played out in his mind once more: the low-slung Corvette convertible streaking through the red light, the high-speed chase out past the town limits, the stop, and high school football hero, Jackson Stout, unfolding himself from behind the wheel.

Then came the moment the flashing red and blue light bar on top of his SUV picked up the weapon in Jackson’s hand. The disbelief as the hulking football player ignored repeated shouts to
halt, drop the weapon, get down on the ground
. The way he just kept on coming as if he didn’t hear a word.

Or maybe didn’t want to hear.

Lance didn't remember firing, not then, not now. The pained disbelief on Jackson’s face was clear, however, as was the spray of blood as the round hit. Also the way the big kid fell, like a downed tree.

At least he’d had the presence of mind to lower his aim for a non-fatal shot, Lance thought. It was some consolation.

Yet was there something else, anything else, he could have done to change the outcome?

Lance had asked himself that question over and over in the hours since, along with two others: Had he been in what the sheriff’s office handbook identified as imminent danger? Or had he almost obliged Jackson Stout with a police-assisted suicide as a way out of his old man’s too-high expectations?

Lance didn’t know, and might never find out the truth.

With a quick shake of his head to dislodge the doubts, Lance turned away from Amanda Caret’s safe house. What was done was done; nothing could change it now. What he could do something about was the job handed him as make-work until official word came down on the shooting incident.

He climbed into his SUV and sat with his hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield at nothing as he considered his next move. Finally, he backed out of the narrow gravel driveway and headed downtown.

Sheriff Tate was in his office when Lance arrived. The clerk at the front desk jerked a thumb in that direction, an indicator the boss man wanted to see him. Lance used his knuckles for a staccato knock on the door, then swept off his hat and stepped inside.

The sheriff looked up. A heavy-set man with ponderous habits, he laid aside the papers he held and indicated the seat across from his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he meshed sausage-like fingers over his belt buckle. “Glad you came back in, Lance. I was about to send out a call for you.”

“What’s up?”

“I hate to have to tell you, but you’re now on administrative leave.”

It wasn’t exactly unexpected, but still felt wrong. “Why?”

“You know the answer to that as well as I do.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let a kid spaced out on crystal meth and Captain Morgan take me down?”

“You ruined his chance at the NFL with your knee shot. Or so his old man claims.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

“I know that, you know it and the review committee knows it.” Sheriff Tate pursed his lips. “If Jackson’s daddy doesn’t know it, he will before it’s over.”

“Then how the hell—”

“Calm down, son. The review may be a formality, but it’s a necessary one. Think of the next week or two as a vacation.”

The sheriff wasn’t his father, far from it. Calling him son was a way to emphasize the difference in age and authority. “I don't want a vacation, not like this.”

“Too bad. You’ve got the time coming and you’ll take it. It’s not like I can’t run the office without you.”

“I know that.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” the sheriff muttered.

Lance let that pass. Turning to check the closed office door, he spoke in low inquiry. “What about Amanda Caret?”

“What about her?”

“She still a priority?”

“You mean to ask who’ll take over the surveillance.”

“It has to be a seasoned hand, one who won’t be distracted.” Lance wasn’t too pleased at the thought of someone else watching the woman. Funny, since he’d resented the job when he was handed the paperwork earlier.

The sheriff lifted bushy brows. “Distracted?”

“By boredom on one hand, and the complications of the case on the other.” He wasn’t about to let the sheriff know he considered the subject’s looks to be the main problem.

“Like you, you mean?”

“Along the same lines, anyway.”

“Thought your visit this morning didn’t go over so well.” The sheriff’s office chair creaked as he rocked back and forth a couple of times.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the lady calling to complain?”

Lance gave a short laugh. “She doesn’t much care for cops. At least, that was my impression.”

“You didn’t improve her opinion any.”

“No chance. She never let me inside the door.”

“Guess you’ll have to try harder next time,” the sheriff said with a wolfish smile.

“Meaning?”

“You’re still on that job.”

His cousin Tate had been sheriff since Lance was a teenager. He was a little gray at the temples as well as thick in the waist, but far from senile. “But you just said I was on leave.”

“That you are. You'll turn in your badge, gear and weapon, then make yourself scarce around here until you're okayed to return to work.”

“But I don't—”

“Surveillance of Amanda Caret was always off the record. It’ll just be a tad further off now.”

“Watching her will be my full-time assignment?” Lance did his best to sound reluctant. If his pulse took on a faster beat, that was his business.

“Your only assignment. While you’re at it, I want you to find out what she knows about why and how her husband disappeared, and what Caret was up to before it happened. If you can figure out what she’s hiding, we’ll be points ahead.”

The file on Amanda Caret hadn’t mentioned any investigation of her husband. “I thought Bruce Caret was supposed to be a hot shot lawyer who married the wrong woman.”

“That’s the story, yeah. But lawyers don’t drop out of sight for nothing, especially not leaving their car with the engine running, the driver’s side door open, and blood on the seat. I’ve had my ear to the ground since this woman showed up here. Word is Caret got himself in a bind.”

“What kind? Courthouse politics? Gambling debts? Drugs?” Amanda Caret’s white face and hollow eyes flashed across the screen of Lance’s memory with uncomfortable precision. Could be she had reason to be wary.

“Who knows? But I don’t like it when problems are dumped in my lap. I’ve got a strong hunch there's more to this deal than we've been told. You’re to find out how much more.”

The case was getting more interesting by the minute, but that didn’t keep him from seeing problems. “And I’m supposed to do that with nothing to back me up, no way to persuade the Caret woman to let me get close, much less inside her house. Got any idea how I’m to go about it?”

His cousin’s smile held grim amusement and no sympathy whatever. “Beats the hell out of me. But you’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.”

Lance’s jaws still ached from holding onto his temper when he stepped inside the coffee shop and beer joint known as the Watering Hole a short time later. The humid atmosphere and eternal sameness was like balm to his spirts, exactly what he needed. He could feel the knots of tension begin to leave the back of his neck after his first deep breath.

The name came from the big watering trough, carved from a single cypress tree, that had been installed when the spot was occupied by a livery stable—and was still there. That the customers poured a lot more coffee and beer down their throats than they did water had no bearing. The place was a town institution.

The familiar, sugary smell of doughnuts fought it out with the sour tang of onions left over from yesterday’s hamburgers and hot dogs. Hot grease, frying fish, grilling meat and the yeasty scent of beer added their grace notes. But the main event was the full-bodied aroma of the coffee the owner blended and brewed from his own secret recipe. Hot as the pits of hell and strong enough to grow hair on a cue ball, it was what kept the geriatric crowd and young sprouts alike coming back. It certainly wasn’t the décor, which was your typical ancient coffee shop staple of gritty wood floors, scarred wooden tables and chairs, and booths with red fake leather seats.

A long counter ran down one wall with a few stools in front of it. It was a popular area as it was manned, off and on, by the coffee shop’s manager, a brown-eyed, wise-cracking termagant who was surly on her good days and downright insulting on the rest.

As he strode toward the counter, Lance nodded at folks he knew here and there, waved and spoke to the table of retired guys seeking refuge from the soap operas at home, and tipped his hat to a couple of older women with shopping bags at their feet. He could feel eyes burning into his back, following his progress, and knew with disgusted certainty that his stint on administrative leave was already common knowledge.

“Lance, old buddy!  What are you doing here? I thought you spent your days cruising around, taking potshots at law abiding citizens. Oh, wait. Guess you hit one every now and then, huh?”

Only two people in the known world would even whisper such a thing, much less yell it across the room. One was his cousin Beau Benedict, who had far better manners than to actually do it. The other was also a cousin, Trey Benedict, the Watering Hole’s owner who also laid claim to a truck stop and several convenience stores. No need to wonder why Trey put up with the rudeness of his female manager. He could hardly complain, since he always said exactly what he thought himself. Insults, sometimes teasing, sometimes not, were his stock in trade.

“I could try for two out of two,” Lance said as he changed directions. Snatching off his hat, he spun it across the table toward where Trey sat.

“Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine. Missing your shiny badge? Or would it be your big old pistol?”

“Handgun, firearm, or Glock,” Lance corrected for the thousandth time.

“All the same to me.”

Trey’s shrug was designed to drive him crazy, Lance knew. So was his laidback position, the tilt of his dark head and the humorous challenge in his gray eyes. “Yeah. Until it’s a weapon of yours.”

“Well, sure. But I have to say you look naked without your equipment. Being on leave must suck, you not being able to swagger around with it hanging off you.”

Lance gave him a jaundiced look as he slid into the booth. He did feel too light. He’d never admit it, however, not even under torture. “Do I still get free cop coffee, or do I have to pay?”

“You can have whatever Zeni will bring you. Just don’t expect too much.”

“This not a good day?”

“I asked her to make me a hot dog a few minutes ago, and she told me I already was one. Do you think she meant I’m ‘hawt’ or what?”

“Doubt she thinks anything about you.”

Trey gave a deep sigh. “I licked her hand like a good doggie, but it got me nowhere.”

“Imagine that.”

“Don’t encourage him, Lancelot,” Zeni said as she appeared at the booth to set a cup in front of him and then fill it from the steaming carafe on the tray she carried. “I only have two bottles of hand sanitizer left.”

“I’ll buy you a case if you’ll let me lick your face.” Trey did his best to look soulful.

“Eww. Pass.” She set off a doughnut and napkin-wrapped stainless utensils, centered them in front of Lance, and turned to walk away.

“Hey, where’s mine?” her boss asked.

“You don’t get any until you figure out the difference between rude and romantic.”

“I can lick romantically if you’ll tell me how!” Trey called as she kept walking.

“Can’t do it, but I’ll know it if I feel it,” she said over her shoulder.

“Fine. Maybe I can practice on a doughnut!”

She snorted. “You want it, you can come get it.”

“Does that work with you?”

She gave him an index finger over her shoulder. It might not have been her middle one, but there wasn’t a grinning fool in the place who didn’t know what she meant by it.

That folks laughed instead of being put off, even the older ones, was a minor miracle in Chamelot, but that was Zeni. She was one of a kind with her rainbow-colored hair, small, gold nose ring and tattoo on her back so large parts of it were always visible. No one knew where she came from or if Zeni was her real name, yet everyone liked her sassy attitude, not to mention her ultra-curvaceous shape usually shown off by a constantly changing array of tank tops over the same short blue jean skirt topped by an apron exactly the same length.

Trey was forever threatening to fire her. It was all talk; Zeni was too good at what she did and had too much entertainment value. Besides, doing his best to rile and beguile her while constantly getting shot down was the spice of his life at the moment.

A group of teens over in a corner seemed to be getting extra fun out of the exchange. They elbowed each other, rolling around in the booth as they giggled and guffawed. It was only as Lance caught the waving, sword-wielding motion of their arms, heard the half-smothered chortles of “Lancelot! Oh my God! It’s killing me!” that he realized he was the butt of their horseplay.