The Trouble with Temptation (10 page)

*   *   *

“Eat.”

Hannah stared at the shrimp po’boy on her plate.

“I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”

“If anybody can talk sense into Joanie right now, it’s Neve,” Brannon said quietly.

“I tried to, I think.” Dispirited, Hannah picked up a French fry and popped it into her mouth. It was hot and salty and without thinking about it, she reached for another. “If she wouldn’t listen to me a few weeks ago…”

She stopped and just shook her head.

When Brannon remained silent, she cast him a look.

He was staring out the window.

“Neve…” He hesitated for a moment and then looked back at her. “She left home for a while. You know this—or you did. Maybe you’ll remember. Maybe you won’t. But she met this guy. He hurt her. Bad.”

Instinctively, Hannah felt her gaze wander to the windows where she’d last seen Neve, leading Joanie away, one arm wrapped around the smaller woman’s waist.

Neither of them were in sight now.

Brannon kept looking toward the street, as though he was thinking about her as well.

“What happened?” Hannah asked softly.

“It’s a long story,” Brannon said, his voice brusque. “And it’s hers. If you want to know all of it, you’d need to ask her. But she got away from him—he came after her. Came here. She knows what it’s like to have that hanging over her. You…”

He looked back at her, his eyes searching her face for a long moment. “You lived with it, I know. Your stepdad. There’s nobody in town who doesn’t know what a roach he was. But there’s a difference between living with it the way you did and living with it the way Neve and Joanie have.”

Hannah chewed on that for a moment and then nodded. “You’re probably right.” Then, because she could see the shadows in his eyes, she reached over and touched his hand. “Whoever this guy is, I bet he won’t try anything again—not with you and Ian watching over her.”

“Well.” A slow smile curled his hips. “You’re right … sort of. He won’t be trying anything again. But that’s because Neve handled him herself.”

He nudged her plate closer. “Now eat something, would you? Ella Sue keeps threatening to have my ass if I don’t look after you better.”

*   *   *

There were few things in life that equaled an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels and some peace and quiet.

Granted, Clive didn’t always get the peace and quiet he wanted at home.

Especially not since he’d hooked up with Stella.

Stella Coltrane had a mouth like a damn Hoover and he appreciated that aspect of her personality. But when she wasn’t sucking him off, she was either snoring or talking way too much.

Clive didn’t always mind the talking.

Sometimes, he even liked listening to her talk. She had a cute little lisp that he thought was kind of sexy, really.

But he’d had a long-ass day and he still needed to get into Baton Rouge and pawn off a bag of his finds. Soon, too, because he had to make rent. Having Stella there made it easier, because she was paying an extra hundred toward the rent, plus buying groceries. Still, he needed to get this shit off his hands.

He settled with his back up against a heavy chunk of stone, his bottle of Jack wedged between his thighs and his duffel bag of loot next to him. The first order of business was to make sure none of the stuff could be traced back to an owner.

If it could, he’d either see if there was a reward or just leave it here so nobody could trace it back to him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to keep anything that would land his ass in trouble with the cops. He figured he was smart enough to stay a step or two ahead, but he wasn’t going to risk it.

He kept his ear to the ground. A few times, he’d found something that had a reward attached and although the reward usually wasn’t as much as he’d like, it was easy money.

Of course, the money usually wasn’t as much as he could get by selling his goods, because people were cheap bastards, but it was worth the effort to try. Mostly because he didn’t want to get his ass arrested.

Gideon Marshall was enough of a jerk to haul him into jail, all because Clive was lucky enough to find shit people lost.

All a bunch of bullshit, really.

With the rock still carrying the sun’s heat, Clive found himself relaxing and fairly happy with the haul he’d be taking into Baton Rouge tomorrow. He might even take Stella. They could hit a club, have a drink and maybe even a steak dinner.

The watch … it was a nice one.

He didn’t know who’d lost it down at the running path but he knew it was expensive.

He’d developed an eye for the watches. He could tell what was worth five bucks and the ones that were worth fifty—and five hundred and fifty … or more.

Granted, he had to be careful about where he tried to sell them, but in his line of work, it was worth it to have contacts.

This one would bring him a few hundred easy. If he could sell it on the level, it would probably bring him a couple of thousand, but he’d take what he could get.

He carefully examined it but there was no inscription or anything else. The guys he usually worked with avoided stuff that was inscribed. Too easy to get in trouble that way.

He should be good with this one.

Putting it down, he picked up the next good find.

It was a ring.

He doubted it would bring him more than a hundred or so. He might be good at gauging watches and electronics, but he sucked when it came to rocks. He thought this one was real and it was a nice size, but it wasn’t anything to write home about.

The next few things weren’t going to get him much more than thirty or forty bucks a piece—a few lost phones, a silver money clip.

Then the camera.

He went to turn it on, but stopped when he heard voices.

“—tell me there’s nothing to worry about!”

Clive hurriedly scrabbled to get all of his loot back into the bag, shooting a look around the bulk of the rock. He couldn’t see much of anything, though. The sun had finally dipped down below the horizon and the piss-poor street lamp wasn’t doing much to light his bit of landscape.

“Toya, baby…”

“Don’t you
baby
me!”

Clive slapped the lid on his bottle of Jack and jammed it into his tote, zipping it shut as silently as he could.

Toya.

It had to be LaToya and Teddy Billings. Teddy—Dudley DoGooder. Clive practically hugged the rock to keep them from seeing him. Just his fucking luck, getting trapped here with a cop and his nosy bitch of a wife.

“You got any
idea
what this will do to us if people find out about us, Teddy?” LaToya said, her voice rising. “I swear, boy, if I didn’t love you so much…”

Clive shifted uncomfortably as her voice broke, although he breathed a little easier. They were so caught up in each other, they probably wouldn’t notice him.

“Toya, I’m sorry. That’s why I was paying her…”

“You should have
told
me what she was doing! I would have snatched that stupid bitch bald, I’ll tell you that.” LaToya sobbed then and her voice grew muffled.

Curious, Clive craned his head around the stone, peering out into the darkness.

Teddy patted the back of his wife’s head with a hand the size of a plate and Clive shrank back as the big man looked around. “Come on, Toya, let’s sit down, okay? And don’t go letting people hear you talking like that, okay?”

“Why
not
? It was evil, what she did!”

“I know, I know.”

A few mutters passed, things Clive couldn’t hear.

Then he tensed.

“Why the hell did Shayla have to go meddling like that? It’s no wonder she got herself dead,” LaToya said.

“Toya, now you gotta stop it.”

“I didn’t say she
deserved
it,” LaToya snapped.

Clive kept still, but he could see, just barely, the way LaToya started to pace. “Blackmailing people, Teddy! Taking videos…” She stopped then and Clive didn’t dare move, because she was staring toward the river. “How many did she have of us, do you know? How did she find out? Man, it makes me
sick
to think of her spying on us like that.”

“I know, baby, I know.” Teddy sighed, the sound big and hard as the man himself. “Hell, if I’d known…”

“Shh, now.” LaToya’s voice went soft. “It’s not your fault that she went and did what she did. Oh, it’s your fault for
paying
her—you shouldn’t have done that and don’t think I don’t want to thump you for it.”

“I know. I knew even when I was—”

“Hey, guys!”

A bright, happy voice interrupted them and Clive winced, jerking back into his space, back against the stone as the newcomer interrupted what had to be the best damn shit Clive had heard in a long, long time.

He thought it might be Morgan Wade, but he wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter anyway.

A few moments later, the voices were gone, and he found himself rooting through his bag and pulling out the camera.

Curious, he rubbed a finger across the surface of it.

It was scratched up some and the battery was dead.

But now, he had to wonder.

He’d found it out at the park, the same place where he’d found the watch.

Scratching at his chin, he shot another look back where he’d seen Teddy and LaToya.

Then he got up.

He was going to play around with that camera some.

See what he could see on it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gideon wasn’t a perfect man.

He knew this.

He could be an asshole when he wanted.

He was stubborn and he had an ornery streak and although he hid it, he had a splash of mean in him that he just hadn’t been able to completely expunge, no matter what he’d done.

But he liked to think he was a decent man. He liked to think he’d made up for some of the wrongs his own father had done. Thomas Marshall, Jr. had been the town drunk and an abuser. He’d come from a long line of abusers, thieves, and criminals. His dad’s brother was serving time over in federal lockup for multiple murders.

The best thing to ever happen to Gideon had probably been his father’s death … at the hands of his brother. The two of them had gone joyriding, leaving a trail a mile wide behind them.

Theft was only the start of it.

They’d stolen money, drugs, guns. A couple of guys had gotten in their way and they’d stolen two human lives as well. Then a woman hadn’t opened up a door and they’d busted down the door and busted her up. The more time that passed without them being caught, the crazier they got.

By the time they wound down at the end of a ten-day crime spree, Tommy and Billy Marshall had stolen well over eighty-five thousand dollars, had caused nearly double that in property damage, and they’d killed three people and put two more in the hospital—one of them had been the woman who’d dared to say no.

Holed up in a hotel room, they’d been counting up their spoils when they’d started fighting. Billy never did say why. He’d pulled his gun and killed Tommy when the other man turned to go into the bathroom. That had driven somebody in another room to call the police.

Billy had been sitting on the bed with the gun in his hands when the cops came.

Gideon heard about it two days later, while he collected cans out of the garbage to sell to help his mother out. He’d read the news in a paper somebody had thrown out. His mother had to have known, but she’d kept it from him.

As he had stood there reading about his father’s death, two uniformed cops came strolling out of the café. The topic of the hour had been the downfall of Billy and Tommy Marshall.

At least we’re free of them.

Good riddance … although you know that boy of his is going to be just as bad. His poor mama. She didn’t do nothing to deserve that kind of shit.

A bright, glittering ball of hate had lodged in Gideon’s heart that day.

He hadn’t done anything to deserve it, either.

It had taken the town a long time, but they finally looked at him and saw
Gideon Marshall
, not Tommy Marshall’s kid.

He’d done some decent things in the service and here he was, wearing a badge of all things.

Yeah, he liked to think he wasn’t a bad sort of guy.

Sometimes, though, he thought God was out to break him. Either that, or the man upstairs had one twisted sense of humor.

Dragging his hands down his face, he studied his detective in the dim light of the bullpen and saw the same weariness he felt.

The past week had been nothing but endless, meandering circles. They’d questioned more than forty people—and
those
were just people from Shayla’s little blackmail ring.

Word was getting out, too.

Earlier that day, Gideon had gone to the diner to grab a burger and Patricia Mouton—and her ever-present, pudgy little pug of a dog—had stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk. This time, Mrs. Mouton hadn’t bent his ear about a ticket she’d received because her sweet little Samwise had been crapping all up and down the sidewalk—no, sir. Mrs. Mouton had been pale and tight-lipped and she’d asked him to take a walk with her and Samwise.

While Samwise panted and puffed his way up and down Main, Mrs. Mouton had talked about a time when her and Mr. Mouton hadn’t gotten along so well, a time when Mr. Mouton had actually gotten along better with Karen White—the lady who owned Bygone Treasure—you know, the B&B just down the way from the museum?

She’d danced around the subject while Samwise danced around their feet before she’d finally leaned in to whisper in his ear, “I heard there was a
tape
.”

A tape.

He’d just stared at her blankly.

“A tape … of Mr. Mouton with Mrs. White
.”

He could have ripped out his hair.

He’d wasted more than a little time telling her that no such tape had been found. Now he had to worry about maybe one turning up. He sure as hell didn’t want to watch Mr. Mouton and Mrs. White going at it. But now he’d have to talk to them both. All because Patricia Mouton found something else to obsess over besides her dog’s right to shit on the sidewalk.