Thigh High (8 page)

“I doubt that,” Chief Cutter snapped back.

Mac picked up a sheet of paper covered with scribbles going in all directions. “What's this?”

“Whenever something occurs to me about the Mardi Gras robberies, I write it down.”

“Interesting stuff.” Mac turned the paper back and forth as he read.

“It seems as if I'm one step away from figuring it all out, but I can't make that leap.” Chief Cutter leaned back in his chair and sounded truly frustrated. “For the first couple of years, I was sure it was a couple of tourists. Then came the Baton Rouge robbery. Now I think they have to be Louisiana people.”

“Because…?” Mac lifted his eyebrows.

“Did you know that Baton Rouge has a Mardi Gras, Mr. Mac?” Chief Cutter asked.

“Call me Jeremiah,” Mac said. “And no, until I started studying the case, I didn't know that Baton Rouge had a Mardi Gras.”

“For most of the country, Jeremiah, Mardi Gras
is
New Orleans. Not Baton Rouge, not Galveston, Texas, sure as hell not Biloxi, Mississippi.” Chief Cutter stood up and paced back and forth behind his desk. “So I called in a linguistics specialist from Tulane, and put up with an hour listening to the most pompous bore in the entire world while he expounded on the number of foreign flags that have flown over the city and how the different languages formed the unique patois that is our accent today. Or some such horse pucky—pardon my French, Miss Nessa.”

“What did you find out?” Nessa asked.

“That when I isolated the voices, he definitely, positively, almost completely believed they were native New Orleans speakers.” The chief ran his hand through his thick blond hair, ruffling it in a way Mac thought both pretentious and potentially attractive to Nessa.

“Let
me
hear them,” Nessa said.

“You bet, darlin'.” Chief Cutter smiled at her and hustled over to the table. He located an iPod and earbuds.

“Can I make a copy of these?” Mac indicated the scribbled sheets of paper.

“Over there.” Chief Cutter waved a distracted hand toward the printer/copy machine. “Nessa, darlin', my headphones would be better, but that scoundrel daughter of mine took them to school and left them in her locker. Or so she said. I hope she's telling the truth.” He tried to help Nessa put the earbuds in.

Nessa briskly removed them from his hands. “If you come near me, not only would your wife shoot you, but if she missed, that daughter of yours would finish the job.”

“You're a hard woman, Ionessa Dahl,” the chief said sorrowfully.

Mac listened as Nessa handled Cutter. Everyone in the damned police station either loved her as a niece or a girlfriend. To Mac's surprise, that irritated the crap out of him. “Assuming the thieves are New Orleans natives—what good does that do us?” he asked.

“It narrows down the number of people who could be the perps to, oh, one-point-two million.” Chief Cutter peered over Mac's shoulder as he made the copies.

“They have to be oddballs to study the layouts at the bank so thoroughly and then steal such quirky amounts every year.” The copies were light but serviceable.

Both Nessa and the chief laughed with varying degrees of attitude, and Cutter said, “We in New Orleans
pride
ourselves on our oddballs and eccentrics.”

“I'm related to a couple of them.” Nessa smiled fondly as she popped the earbuds in and started the iPod.

Mac thought of his mother and her dedication to maintaining her hard-won middle-class image, of his grandparents and their stiff-necked horror at scandal—specifically the scandal his birth had brought on them—and he tried to decide how he felt about this casual tolerance for peculiar conduct. He was not seduced; these madmen were making a fool of him. On the other hand, if he gave in to his wholehearted disapproval, was he not just like the rest of his miserable, narrow-minded family?

When he turned back to the room, Nessa sat listening to the iPod, a slight smile on her face. “What do you think?” he asked. “Are the thieves from New Orleans?”

“I think Jeannine did not get Chief Cutter's propensity for harmless curse words,” she answered.

“What do you mean?” The chief snatched the iPod.

Nessa offered the earbuds. “Your daughter appears to have recorded over the thieves.”

He pushed one in his ear, listened, and groaned. “Drat the girl! Where was she when she attended a party like this?”

“Probably your house.” Nessa stood up.

Cutter's eyes widened. “You don't suppose that while I took Dorothy to the Bahamas to, you know, smooth things over, she had a party?”

“I don't know, Chief. She's your daughter. At that age, what would you have done?” At Cutter's stricken expression, Nessa burst into laughter. Her dancing eyes met Mac's, expecting him to share the joke.

And he had to admit, he liked the idea that the official Casanova of New Orleans had problems with his daughter.

“Do you have everything you came for, Mac?” Nessa asked.

“For the moment.” He rattled the papers in his hand. “I'd like to study all Chief Cutter's thoughts and discuss them with him later.”

“Sure. Anytime,” Chief Cutter said. “We can do it tonight if you want.”

“Tonight?” Mac asked…as if he hadn't already figured it out.

“At the Dahl House for the annual—” The chief stopped suddenly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mac saw Nessa shake her head.

“Take the weekend, Jeremiah,” Chief Cutter said.

“Good. I'll spend the weekend in my hotel room. Alone. Studying your notes. Chief, I'll see you…Monday. Have a wonderful weekend.” Mac took possession of Nessa's arm. As he led her toward the door, he reflected that if all went as he planned—and things always went as he planned—before this Mardi Gras was over, he would have proved the guilt of his primary suspect.

And he would personally oversee Chief Cutter as he arrested Ionessa Dahl for the crime of organizing and directing the annual robberies of the Premier Central Banks. Then this weird obsession of his would be cured, and he could go back to being Mac MacNaught, the meanest bastard in banking.

The warm scent of Nessa's vanilla perfume rose to encircle him.

He only hoped that the arrest didn't come too soon.

Nessa and Jeremiah stepped out of the police station into the late afternoon, heavy with humidity and unseasonable heat. Only a few blocks down, Bourbon Street was in full swing, with music and screams of laughter.

“I'll get a cab.” Nessa pulled out her cell phone.

“How far is it?” Jeremiah asked.

“Fifteen blocks.”

“It would be faster to walk.”

In one short day, he'd discovered the truths about travel within New Orleans; during Mardi Gras, cabs were hard to hail, they had to take the long way around to get anywhere, and they frequently got stuck in traffic. “You're right—the parades start at six. But we have to cross Bourbon Street to get back to the bank.”

“Great.” As they walked, Jeremiah loosened his tie. “How do you stand this day after day?”

Nessa didn't like his tone. She didn't like it at all. Typical Northerner. Judgmental, convinced his way was superior, and rude. So rude. At the police station, he'd bothered to smile only when she prompted him.

But as the aunts always said, “Honey, you have to make allowances. Yankees are barbarians and don't know any better.”

So Nessa said pleasantly, “Stand what? The weather or the celebration?”

He glanced at the sky. Clouds were clabbering toward the west; the heat would break soon. “You can't do anything about the weather.”

“Well, bless your heart.”
Damn you and your shriveled, nasty-minded little self,
she meant.

But he didn't understand. Yankees never did. “How do you stand the noise? The smells? The parades blocking the streets? The constant celebration?” He observed the steady stream of policemen who led men who staggered and women draped in beads.

“It doesn't happen day after day. This is Mardi Gras.”

“The weeks between Epiphany and Lent.”

“The tourists come from everywhere to drink, dance, listen to the music, and, frankly, after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans needs the revenue.” The crowds got thicker, rowdier. “But my family has been here since long before the War Between the States, and we live the tradition.”

“I see.”

She didn't believe he did. Everything about him declared he understood nothing of celebration, or joy. She'd never seen a man so stern, so at odds with the spirit of the Big Easy.

The increasing crowds and the raucous noise made it impossible to carry on a conversation, and she was glad. Glad, because no matter how hard she justified her reluctance to invite him to the Dahl House party, a shred of guilt tugged at her conscience. Leaving a stranger to fend for himself during Mardi Gras was the antithesis of everything she'd been taught. Yet if she invited him to the Dahl party, he would cast a damper on the festivities. She'd be the one responsible for trying to make him part of the celebration, and this year, she didn't have the spirit. When she remembered how this morning she had foolishly hoped her promotion had come through at last, she knew she would need to concentrate merely to maintain a happy facade.

Taking his hand, she led him across Bourbon Street.

He seemed the sort of man who would take direction badly, but he clasped her fingers and let her forge a path.

She smiled into the crowd, touched shoulders, and said, “Excuse me.” She steered clear of the gangs of obnoxious young men, dodged a spilled drink, winced when an extremely drunk woman flashed them. Scantily clad transvestites carried signs advertising their nightclub acts. Brock's Famous Dancing Monks performed their routine on the teeming sidewalks.

Nessa wanted to explain that Bourbon Street wasn't really Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras was the parties, the parades, the family time. But what was the point? Jeremiah wouldn't believe her, anyway.

She glanced back once, and found him intently observing her.

He was a very odd man. He sent a prickle down her spine and up the back of her neck, and she was
glad
she hadn't invited him to the Dahl party.

On the other side of Bourbon Street, they broke through the worst of the mob. The crowd thinned enough to hear the lone wail of an unseen musician playing sad, bluesy notes on the saxophone.

She raised her voice to be heard above the music. “Okay, Jeremiah, the bank's probably twelve blocks from here. Are you sure you don't want me to try and get a cab?”

“I can walk it if you can,” he said.

The saxophone wailed a sour note. The music died, then stumbled to a start again.

“The musicians have to learn somewhere,” she said, and kept walking.

The music and the noise was fading behind them, all except for the rumble of a street cleaner or…the sun went out, and she glanced at the sky. “Oh, no.”

The rumble was thunder. The cloud was tall and black. The heat was about to break in a spectacular collision of Northern cold front and warm Gulf air. And she was stuck here with Mr. Sourpuss, who would undoubtedly be as snotty about the storm as he was about the heat and about Mardi Gras. She needed to get rid of him as rapidly as possible, and that meant cutting through a few alleys. Not the best part of New Orleans to show a tourist, but Jeremiah Mac had formed his opinion before he got off the plane.

She tried to free her hand, but he didn't let go.

Interesting. He seemed tough, not like the kind of guy who would want to hold hands. In fact, not like an insurance investigator at all. More like a bodyguard. Or a hitman.

Amused at herself, she glanced back at him.

His gaze flicked around them, observing the thinning crowds, inspecting one brawny beggar who squatted on the street corner. His gaze found her. Rather sternly, he asked, “How often do you use this route? The area seems risky for a woman alone.”

“But I have you with me.” And she never told her aunts or Georgia when she walked this route, because he was right. It paid to stay alert.

She increased her pace.

He moved up beside her.

The first fat drops fell, hitting the sidewalk hard and steaming from the heat. “Bad timing,” she said. “We're in for a soaking.”

Faintly she heard cries of dismay from the Mardi Gras crowd. People here glanced up, grimaced, pulled out umbrellas, and hurried on their ways. The street suddenly became lonely.

All day, she'd been with Jeremiah Mac, but not alone with him. Now she glanced at him, and he was watching her.

Eric and Mr. Broussard were right; Jeremiah wasn't really handsome, but he looked like a man who always won, always succeeded, always got what he wanted. He would keep a woman safe from any threat, and demand his payment in bed. And it would be payment, with no obligations on his part. He would want no talk of love or future. He would tell no pretty lies. He'd want good sex, he'd give good sex, and he'd be gone. The man was cold as ice, and if she was going to break her long, very long, too long, almost fatal case of virtue, she wasn't going to do it with a Popsicle.

Abruptly, the rain increased. The streets grew dark. The temperature dropped.

“Let's run for it.” She started forward.

Catching her arm, he used her momentum to swing her into an alley. “Or not.” He shoved her onto a back step, against a door covered in peeling paint with a sign that said,
CLAUDE'S AUTO PARTS—DELIVERIES RING BELL
.

Instant panic set in. She felt threatened. Threatened and…smothered. She put out a hand to hold him off. “What? Hey, mister…”

“Listen.” He looked out toward the street.

She heard it. Hail. Sweeping toward them, slamming into the asphalt, the tile roofs, the garbage cans. The wave of the black rain changed, became a sheet of white as chunks of ice fell from the sky, exploding on the streets.

She felt stupid. How could she have not heard that? She blinked, trying to see, but the storm was at its height, black, raging, and frothing. The freezing air nipped at the edges of her flesh, but Mac stood between her and the worst of the storm, protecting her with his shoulders, his body, his legs.

Why did she feel breathless and feminine? He wasn't her type. She'd spent the whole day not inviting him to the aunts' party. Yes, he was tall and broad shouldered, but that was no reason to suddenly feel dainty and clumsy.

She strained to see his face, but all she could see was two glittering eyes, examining her….

Lightning flashed right overhead. Simultaneously, the thunder shook the ground. In the white blaze, she saw Jeremiah Mac. His features looked carved from bleak rock and stark desolation.

The light vanished.

Dark enveloped them.

He stood close, almost touching but not quite. His body radiated heat; the fine hairs on her skin lifted as if he sent an electrical current through her. She felt him flinch as hail bounced off the street and hit him. Yet he didn't move; he was like a wall, protecting her from the elements.

Chivalry. From a Yankee.

She wanted to say something, but for once her gift for meaningless Southern courtesies had deserted her. His silence was so heavy, so thick, enveloping her like a living blanket, smothering her.

Except that it wasn't really his silence that enveloped her.

It was his desire.

He wanted her and she…oh,
no.
She wanted him.

What was she thinking?

Okay, she wasn't thinking. She was…feeling. Feeling the tension rising from deep inside, taking control of her heart, her mind, her nerves. She trembled from the dampness that seeped through her jacket to her skin, from the cool air that broke the heat like a sledgehammer.

She took a long breath, trying to get control. She could smell the rain, but she could also smell him—soap and a faint scent of, um, well…he made her think of sex.

He must be throwing off pheromones. That was the only explanation for the way her lids fluttered and drooped, the way the blood in her veins slowed and heated, the way she bit at her lip to stop a flirtatious smile.

As if it mattered. He couldn't see her, not unless he had a cat's vision. The darkness grew blacker. The storm shattered the air, hail denting plastic garbage cans, lightning striking hard and white, thunder cracking over their heads.

He was a stranger. He was everything a Yankee could be—blunt, impatient, rude, large, bold, rough…all domineering male. And he made her aware, for the first time in too long, that she was a female ripe for mating.

My God, if she didn't seize control of herself, she'd soon be fluttering her fan and drawling endearments to him.

Yet her body didn't care. Her hands lifted. She was going to put her palms on his chest, see if the promises he made with his still body and his unexpected chivalry were as solid as they felt.

Then, as roughly as it started, the hail stopped. The thunder still rolled, but farther to the east. The rain continued, but after the cacophony of the hail, that seemed like silence.

She dropped her wayward hands to the clasp of her purse, hoping he hadn't noticed their journey toward his chest.

With a blast, the Southern sunlight hit the streets.

She blinked and found herself staring into a set of dark eyes.

He
scrutinized
her, stripping her down to her bare emotions. Stripped her naked—and he didn't like what he saw.

With a jolt, she realized he didn't like her. She didn't know why, but clearly he didn't.

So he was a fool, for she knew very well her own worth.

“We can go now.” She stepped out from behind him.

He moved aside easily, without hesitation, and the thick sexual tension dissipated in the cool air.

It hadn't really existed. It had been the imagination of a woman who'd deprived herself of a relationship for far too long. Maybe the aunts had a point. Maybe it was time for her to get out a little. After all, dedicating herself to the bank wasn't giving her any satisfaction.

The sun went back behind the clouds. Blazed out again. Went behind the clouds. Steam rose from the street.

“We need to get back to the…the bank.” So she could go home and get ready for the party. “The weather's not usually like this. So unsettled.” In the alley, she bent down and picked up a hailstone in each hand. They were uneven, jagged, both about the size of a golf ball. She balanced them, marveled at them. “I've never seen them so big before.” That sounds sexual. “I mean—” She caught herself before she could say another word.

What was it about him that made her lose her glib good sense? She had to get him back to the bank
now.
Taking one step, she slipped on the hail-covered street.

He caught her arm, held her up when she would have done an ignominious case of the splits.

She glanced up at him and he looked dangerous, like a mugger far too familiar with the streets, like a man who took what he wanted.

Then, slowly, his head turned. He looked right at the rusting Dumpster.

A man with a hat pushed low over his eyes and a scarf wrapped over his mouth stepped out. He pointed a handgun at them. At Mac. “Gimme your wallet.”

Frustration hit her first.

New Orleans was really showing off her tricks.

Then rage rose in her, caught at her throat.

Her wallet?
Not even.

Without thought, she flung the hailstones at their mugger.

He ducked.

One struck his shoulder. The other glanced off his head with satisfying thunk.

Before the mugger had recovered, Mac launched himself into the air, kicking out right at the guy.

The pistol fired.

Mac booted it out of the mugger's hand.

The mugger hit the wall behind him, hard enough to knock the air out of him.

Mac landed on his feet. Started toward him. Slipped on the hail and ended up on his butt.

He didn't curse. He got up, but the mugger wasn't waiting around to see if Mac could get in a second kick. He ran, his legs rolling out from underneath like a marionette.

Mac collapsed back onto the ground and took a deep breath.