Night Game (11 page)

“It hurts though, doesn’t it?” Ian’s voice was pitched even lower to prevent Wyatt from hearing. “I’ve seen your face when you’re working with sound and it hurts like hell.”

“It’s difficult to filter everything out. I can hear a great distance, but I have to concentrate on separating and identifying all the sounds. It’s a lot of work and you know, when we open ourselves up for assault, we get slammed pretty hard.” He drew in a breath as he looked at the club. “I’ve trained for this. Lily’s exercises really helped. I noticed a difference right away, but I’ll come away with a whopper of a headache.”

“Lily’s exercises are to raise shields, not bring them down like you have to for something like this,” Ian pointed out. “The trail is cold on this girl. I don’t know that putting yourself in harm’s way is very smart, Gator. I know you want to do this for your family but…”

“I want to do this because there’s no one else looking out for that girl. She didn’t leave for the big city. She loves her family and she wouldn’t cause them worry. Something happened to her—something bad and some one has to care about her.”

Ian nodded. “I’m with you then, Gator. You pick up the information, any at all, and we’ll be all over it.”

Shades of blue cast eerie shadows over the long strands of moss sweeping the water below the trees. The moon shed light across the bayou and the sound of authentic Cajun music traveled for miles. Flame stepped out onto the deck of the houseboat and flashed the old man sitting there a quick grin as she did a small pirouette. “What do you think,
Monsieur le Capitaine
?” She held out her arms. The faded blue eyes took in her form-fitting sheath of green with its kerchief hem, exposing one shapely thigh and hiding the other coyly. The dress clung to every curve, emphasizing her lush figure. The wide black velvet choker around her throat drew attention to her neck and the straight fall of silky red hair. Her eyes were enormous, a vivid green surrounded by long thick lashes. Most of all it was difficult to miss her sexy, pouting mouth.

The old man removed his pipe and cap, giving her a j bow. “
Cher
, you are too beautiful for words.”

She gave him a small curtsey. “
Bien merci!”
She did a small two-step across the deck to lean down and kiss his temple. “I brought you a surprise.” She handed him a white pillowcase.

Burrell Gaudet glanced at her face and then pulled n the bag slowly. His eyes widened as he took in the cash. “What is this?”

You know very well what it is. Kurt Saunders stole your money. You had a legitimate business deal with the slimeball and he sent his men here to take your last payment so he could foreclose on your land.”

Flame had returned to the houseboat a week earlier, just after the place had been robbed. The captain was sitting with his head in his hands, his furniture smashed and mattress torn apart. He’d blurted the truth out to her, that Kurt Saunders had sent his men over to steal the last of his payments for his land. Saunders was going to foreclose and he’d lose everything. “I’m just returning what belongs to you.”

“Where did you get this?” he repeated, dazed, eyeing the bundles of cash.

She shrugged. “I suggest you go to the bank and put it in an account immediately and get a cashier’s check for Mr. Saunders. Otherwise, that money will be stolen just like your last payment.”

The captain sucked in his breath and peered around them, lowering his voice because sound traveled on the waterway. “I told you to stay away from Saunders, Flame. He hurts people on the river. I told you before, I would find a better way to get the money.”

She winked at him. “There is no better way. I’m good at what I do,
Capitaine
. He’s been ripping you and your friends off for years. It was time someone taught him how it feels. Don’t worry. No one saw me.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she couldn’t see Gator ratting her out. Whatever his agenda was, he would carry it out himself, not bring in Saunders. “I didn’t get caught and he’d never suspect me even if he sees us together eventually. I look too sweet and innocent.”

Burrell Gaudet shook his head. Flame looked anything but sweet and innocent. She looked a seductress, sultry and sinful, all curves and satin skin. Her mouth alone could provide a lifetime of fantasies. More than anything—the way she looked, the way she moved—it was her voice that turned heads. Sultry and velvet, pouring over a man’s body until he remembered nothing else but that he was all man. Even at his age he wasn’t entirely immune to her charm.

He closed his eyes briefly on the thought. He was an old man, but she had a way of moving, of talking, even smiling that was sheer come-on. The strange part was, now that he’d gotten to know her, she wasn’t that way at all. She looked pure temptation, wild and untamed, made for the long slow nights on the bayou, but he hadn’t seen her take up with anyone. He didn’t know what was wrong with the boys in the parish, but if they didn’t stand up when they saw her, he rated them fools.

“I told you not to be getting into trouble on my account, Flame. I won’t have it.”

“I did it for the fun of it,
Monsieur le Capitaine
, no other reason. I like to stir the pot every now and then and see what floats to the surface.”

“Sometime,
cher
, it be best to leave the sludge on the bottom of the river.” Burrell looked down at his gnarled hands. There wasn’t much left to him in the way of pleasure. He sat on the houseboat and listened to the music of the bayou, smoked his pipe, and played
boure
with his friends while telling old stories. The days of taking a ship up and down the Mississippi were long gone.

Flame had brought joy back into his life. Their meeting had been accidental. A young thief had stolen his wallet and his old knees wouldn’t hold up to chasing the punk down. She had come out of nowhere, slamming a booted foot into the stomach of the fleeing pickpocket, taking the thief down in seconds and returning his property. They’d gone to the
Café Du Monde
and over beignets and cafe au lait he’d offered her a place to stay on his houseboat. He owned a small island, no more than swamp, mostly unusable, but it was his and it was going to stay that way. Unfortunately he’d purchased the land from Kurt Saunders and the man was determined to get the island back.

“Kurt Saunders has made a good living out of selling property and then taking it back when the balloon payment mysteriously disappears. We all know he steals the money, we just don’ know how to catch him at it. I was warned not to buy from him, but I wanted my own land
cher
, and I couldn’t resist. He isn’t going to take kindly to havin’ the tables turned on him.”

“I saw the money, Burrell, you had the entire payment. And I followed them straight back to Saunders’s private mansion in the Garden District. No wonder he lives like a king. He steals from everyone.”

“Should have kept the money in a bank. Thas why he sells to the river rats. He knows we don’ trust the banks. I’m not the first he’s swindled. ‘Course none of us knew for certain it was him doin’ the stealin’. We suspected, but none of us could prove it.”

“I told you before not to keep your money in the mattress with all that moss.” Flame rubbed his head affectionately. “Some modern technology is really a good thing. And you don’t fool me, Burrell. You had to be an educated man to captain a ship all those years on the Mississippi.”

“I was born and raised here, little missy, and I choose to fit in with my neighbors. It’s the life I love, the one I want to finish out my days living.”

She grinned at him, unrepentant and pressing her point. “If you’re going to keep large amounts of money on your houseboat and you deal with sleazebags like Saunders, you should at least have some security on board. I can figure something out for you if you’d like.”

“No security system on my houseboat is going to keep the likes of Saunders and his men from takin’ what they want here on the river. You know that, girl.”

Her smile widened until she was smirking. “Maybe not. But then he just got a good dose of his own medicine, now didn’t he? He’d never suspect you, not in a million years. He’ll just think his men missed one of your stashes and he’ll be mad as hell at them, but he won’t be able to do a thing about it.”

He took a long slow draw of his pipe, regarding her laughing face. The laughter never quite reached her eyes. There was something there, a hint of sorrow, a splash of wariness, whatever it was, that look was as addicting as the sultry heat of her voice. “Kurt Saunders is a mean man, Flame. If he ever comes to suspect that you stole his money—”

“
Your
money,” she emphasized. “I stole your money back.” A faint grin crept over her face. “Of course, I grabbed everything in the safe and there might be a bit more than he took from you. Quite a bit more, but I have a few expenses of my own. And he had several disks in one of the briefcases, but no papers, nothing that should make him too upset. It was mostly cash and a lot of cash at that.”

“Loss of money will make him upset,” he pointed out. “I should have known when you said you were thinking about taking the money back, that you’d do it. You shouldn’t have,
cher
, but I’m going to take it to the bank and explain I’ve been holding it in my mattress all these years. Now that you’ve retrieved it, I might as well use it.”

“I thought you’d see it my way.”

“You can never tell anyone, Flame. Not ever. He’ll come after you,” the captain cautioned.

She shrugged. “Who would I tell? I’m not into bragging,
Capitaine
, just getting a little justice once in a while. Throw a bit of moss in the bag and mix it up a bit so it looks and smells authentic.” She glanced at her watch. “I told Thibodeaux I’d be at his club tonight to do a little singing.”

“I don’ like you going to the Huracan. That Thibodeaux, he runs a mean place. They’re good people but they like to drink, dance, and fight. Or fight, drink, and dance, depending on how the day went. Looking like you do, Flame, you could be in big trouble with those boys.”

“I’m just going to do a little singing, Burrell, nothing else. There’s no need for worry. I had a talk with Thibodeaux and he said he’d watch out for me.”

Burrell shook his head. “This has something to do with Vivienne Chiasson telling you about her daughter’s disappearance, doesn’t it? I was watching your face when she told you about Joy and I didn’t like what I saw.”

Flame sank into one of the tattered chairs beside him. “Here’s the thing, Burrell. I heard talk of a girl disappearing in another parish a couple of years ago. A couple of the men at one of the clubs mentioned it when they were talking about Joy. The cops said she left to find a better life, but her family and friends said she wouldn’t do that. Isn’t that what they said about Joy too? You told me yourself you didn’t think she ran off.”

Burrell held up his hand. “Everyone in the bayou, up and down the river, knows the story. The police don’t believe the two disappearances are connected. Even most the families don’ believe it. Joy was seeing a boy from the city. He was real sweet on her. His family has money and they think Joy isn’t good enough. She broke it off, but he keep comin’ around. I think he got mad when she say no to him one too many times.”

“A lot of the families around here think the same thing, but what if they’re wrong? What if Joy’s disappearance and the other girl from a couple of years ago are related?”

“Why would you think so? They didn’t know each other. They didn’t look the same. There’s no connection between them at all.”

“Yes there is.” She leaned closer to him, giving him a faint whiff of the fresh scent of peaches. “They both had really distinctive voices. Like warm butter. Sexy. Sultry. Velvet. Smoky. Those words were all words used to describe their voices. All a sleazebag needs is a trigger to set him off, Burrell. Maybe these girls share that trigger.” She sat up straight and gripped the armrest of the chair tightly enough that her knuckles turned white. “And maybe I have that same voice.”

“No! I forbid you doing this, Flame.” Burrell nearly dropped his pipe in his agitation. “Those girls are gone. Some say dead, some say they ran, but I’m not going to let you risk your life to find out which it is.”

She shrugged. “You’re a dear to worry,
Capitaine
, but truthfully, I have a tiny problem with orders. I’ve never been good at following them.”

“You could get yourself into a bad situation,” he cautioned.

“Joy doesn’t have anyone looking out for her. The cops buried the case and that means, wherever she is, whatever happened to her—she’s alone. I have to find out for myself that this girl is off somewhere safe in a city, not dead… or being caged like a rat by some monster.”

He glanced at her sharply when her voice cracked. The boat creaked and rocked a bit with the lazy movement of the water. She held herself too still, her face without expression, and her eyes defied him to ask. He didn’t. Whatever had happened to her went too deep, was there in the dark places of her mind and swirling for just a moment in her eyes. There was horror there—and knowledge of things he had never experienced and never wanted to. He reached out and patted her hand. “Be careful.”

Flame forced a smile. “I’m always careful. It’s my middle name.” She turned her head to stare out over the water. The gentle waves lapped at the sides of the houseboat, creating a motion she found soothing. She was inexplicably tired lately. Instead of singing in a club with the crush of a crowd surrounding her, she wanted to lie in her bunk and pretend she had a home. Or maybe, even better, she’d go back to Gator’s home and have tea with his grandmother.

“Why are you looking so sad, Flame?” Burrell asked.

“Was I?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. Why the hell was she so melancholy? Raoul Fontenot didn’t matter. Nothing he said or did mattered.

“You never told me why a beautiful girl like you is all alone in this place,” the captain said, choosing his words arefu1ly. “Where’s your family?”

“I don’t have any family.” She was horrified to hear the words slip out aloud. She was gifted at making up stories, making them believable, and she never forgot her own lies. She could come up with a line of bullshit faster than anyone she knew, but she hadn’t done that. She couldn’t look at the captain. She didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. Worse, in some ways, she’d compromised her own safety by telling the truth. She was a ghost, a chameleon, blending in with the local populace briefly and then simply vanishing. It was one of her greatest and most useful talents—and it was what kept her safe. She rubbed her temples to relieve a sudden ache.